Jesse Lemisch :
In addition there is utter incromprehension, indeed a knd of a a frenzy of confusion of legal standards with historical standards. Aside from the skewing of the legal system against the female complainant, speaking as historian I want to assure you that historians come to reasonable conclusions about causality etc. with less than perfect information. The standards being invoked here would eliminate historical judgement about just about everthing.
^^^^^ CB: I lean to your side in believing Bettina Aptheker because of the legal evidentiary principle that it seems to be a statement against her own interests. (And I have a fundamental bias to wish what B. Apthker says is not true in that Herbert Aptheker is one of my heroes, penpals.)
I don't know Bettina Aptheker. But of what I know of her, I think she is still a respecter of much of her father's work and life. So, it would be a very difficult thing for her to "bust" him , not only because he was her father, but exactly because she probably still considers him a great man whose work and life is still important to causes she fights for. For example, she's had it with the CP, but from a wikipedia item she seems to still be a Marxist ( have to read her book to see if that is accurate). My point is this all tends to support the veracity of her claim, because it is a statement against her own interests in many ways (not _all_ ways; I know it is _in_ her personal psychological interest to be able to say it out loud, "get it out" so to speak; it's contradictory). Statements against a witness' interest have an indicia of veracity for the reason, "why would this person say something against their own interest if it were false ?"
Evidently, the only potential motive she might have to make this up is in her battles as a feminist with Marxists over whether class or gender is "the primary contradiction" , as the woman commenter on Portside indicated. But that's a rather heavy accusation against Bettina Aptheker, that she would stoop to lie for that reason. I'm _not_ accusing her of that, but it was mildly implied by a woman feminist as I say, so...
To use a legal framework further, we might say we have probable cause to believe B. Aptheker, but we don't have proof beyond a reasonable doubt. We have enough evidence with Bettina Apthekers testimony to "go to trial "( but , of course, we won't ever go to trial).
( I think you were a little hard on the Committees of Correspondence/Portside in that that organization is in a semi-family relationship to the principles. It's like demanding that the "family" come out immediately with a statement on an incest report; I thought you were a bit hard on the woman on Portside who said the above, since she claimed extensive experience with Bettina Aptheker in this context)