| Birth Name: | Carl Alfred Lanning Binger |
| Birth Date: | 1889 |
| Death Date: | 1976 (age 87) |
| Nationality: | American |
| Occupation: | Psychiatrist |
| Parents: | Frances Newgass Binger Gustav Binger |
| Family: | Elsie Naumburg (sister) Walter D. Binger (brother) |
Carl Binger (1889–1976), AKA Carl A. L. Binger, was a 20th-century American psychiatrist. He wrote books and articles on a wide range of topics, including medicine and psychiatry, and testified in the trial of Alger Hiss.[1]
Carl Alfred Lanning Binger was born in 1889, the son of Frances (née Newgass) and Gustav Binger.[2] He had three siblings: Elsie Naumburg, Robert Binger, and Walter D. Binger.[3] He graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1914.[4]
In 1943, E. B. White consulted Binger, a pioneer in the field of psychosomatic medicine, during a nervous breakdown in the spring of that year.[5]
In 1946, Binger was certified as a psychiatrist after deferral for insufficient training.
In the summer of 1951 he resigned his position of directing the two-million-dollar-endowed Mary Conover Mellon Foundation out of concern for the "sexual development of undergraduates in an atmosphere of supervision by matriarchy."[6]
Binger's wife was a college classmate of Alger Hiss's future wife Priscilla at Bryn Mawr College.[7] [8] Binger himself was a friend of Louis Weiss, brother of Carol Weiss King. King was a member of the International Juridical Association, of which Hiss (and several others in the Ware group had been a member.[9]
On August 17, 1948, The New York Times interviewed Binger during a conference on mental health and reported: In the 1949 Alger Hiss trials, Binger served as a defense witness by analyzing Whittaker Chambers's activities, writings, and behavior during trial but without ever meeting or interviewing him.[10] [11] [12]
In his testimony with Hiss's lead attorney Claude Cross, the following exchange occurred: In his testimony with Prosecutor Thomas Francis Murphy, the following exchange occurred regarding the Pumpkin Papers: Summing up Binger's input to the case, John V. Fleming wrote:
Binger was one of the oldest friends of American journalist Walter Lippman.[13]
In 1959, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[14]