HARVARD COLLEGE
LIBRARY
VE n R I
GIFT OF THE
GOVERNMENT
OF THE UNITED STATES
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
IN ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY— REPORT OF THE
FUND FOR THE REPUBLIC, INC.— PART 2
HEARINGS
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON UN-AMEEICM ACTIVITIES
HOUSE OF REPEESENTATIVES
EIGHTY-FOUKTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
JULY 12 AND 13, 1956
Printed for the use of the Committee on Un-American Activities
(INDEX IN PART 3 OF THIS SERIES)
UNITED STATES
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 1956
HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY
DEPOSITED DY THE
UNITED STATES RflVFRWMFMT
COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES
United States House of Representatives
FRANCIS E. WALTER, Pennsylvania, Chairman
MORGAN M. MOULDER, Missouri HAROLD H. VELDE, Illinois
CLYDE DOYLE, California BERNARD W. KEARNEY, New York
JAMES B. FRAZIER, Jr., Tennessee DONALD L. JACKSON, California
EDWIN B. WILLIS, Louisiana GORDON H. SCHERER, Ohio
Richard Arens, Director
II
CONTENTS
PART 1
Page
July 10, 1956: Testimony of—
John Cogley 5175
Afternoon session:
John Cogley (resumed) 5208
July 11, 1956: Testimony of —
Arnold Forster 5227
Frederick E. Woltman 5240
Afternoon session:
James F. O'Neil 5256
George E. Sokolsky (statement) 5287
PART 2
July 12, 1956: Testimony of—
Vincent W, Hartnett 5291
Afternoon session: Testimony of —
Rov M. Brewer 5312
Paiil R. Milton 5327
July 13, 1956: Testimony of—
Paul R. Milton (resumed) 5329
Godfrey P. Schmidt 5353
Afternoon session:
Victor Riesel (statement) 5367
"rancis J. McNamara 5368
PART 3
July 17, 1956: Testimony of—
Afternoon session:
Gale Sondergaard (Mrs, Herbert Biberman) 6390
July 18, 1956: Testimony of—
Jack Gilford 5401
m
Public Law 601, 79th Congress
The legislation under which the House Committee on Un-American
Activities operates is Public Law 601, 79th Congress (1946), chapter
753, 2d session, which provides :
Be it enacted hy the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States
of America in Congress assembled, * * *
PART 2— RULES OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Rule X
SEC. 121. STANDING COMMITTEES
17. Committee on Un-American Activities, to consist of nine members.
Rule XI
POWEES AND DUTIES OF COMMITTEES
• ****••
(q) (1) Committee on Un-American Activities.
(A) Un-American Activities.
(2) The Committee on Un-American Activities, as a whole or by subcommit-
tee, is authorized to make from time to time, investigations of (i) the extent,
character, and objects of un-American propaganda activities in the United States,
(ii) the diffusion within the United States of subversive and un-American propa-
ganda that is instigated from foreign countries or of a domestic origin and attacks
the principle of the form of government as guaranteed by our Constitution, and
(iii) all other questions in relation thereto that would aid Congress in any neces-
sary remedial legislation.
The Committee on Un-American Activities shall report to the House (or to the
Clerk of the House if the House is not in session) the results of any such investi-
gation, together with such recommendations as it deems advisable.
For the purpose of any such investigation, the Committee on Un-American
Activities, or any subcommittee thereof, is authorized to sit and act at such
times and places within the United States, whether or not the House is sitting,
has recessed, or has adjourned, to hold such hearings, to require the attendance
of such witnesses and the production of such books, papers, and documents, and
to take such testimony, as it deems necessary. Subpenas may be issued under
the signature of the chairman of the committee or any subcommittee, or by any
member designated by any such chairman, and may be served by any person
designated by any such chairman or member.
▼
Rules Adopted by the 84th Congress
House Resolution 5, January 5, 1955
Rule X
STANDING COMMITTEE
1. There shall be elected by the House, at the commencement of each Congress ;
If: iH 4c « 4: H: 4i
(q) Committee on Un-American Activities, to consist of nine members.
* * * sa nn rti m
RtTLfi XI
POWERS AND DUTIES OF COMMltTfifeS
17. Committee on Un-American Activities.
(a) Un-American Activities.
(b) The Committee on Un-American Activities, as a whole or by subcommittee,
is authorized to make from time to time, investigations, of (1) the extent,
character, and objects of un-American propaganda activities in the United States,
(2) the diffusion within the United States of subversive and un-American propa-
ganda that is instigated from foreign countries or of a domestic origin and
attacks the principle of the form of government as guaranteed by our Constitu-
tion and (3) all other questions in relation thereto that would aid Congress In
any necessary remedial legislation.
The Committee on Un-American Activities shall report to the House (or to the
Clerk of the House if the House is not in session) the results of any such investi-
gation, togethet- with such recommendations as it deems advisable.
For the purpose of any such investigation, the Committee on Un-American
Activities, or any subcommittee thereof, is authorized to sit and act at such times
and places within the United States, whether or not the House is sitting, has
recessed, or has adjourned, to hold such hearings, to require the attendance of
such witnesses and the production of such books, papers, and documents, and to
take such testimony, as it deems necessary. Subpenas may be issued under the
signature of the chairman of the committee or any subcommittee, or by any
member designated by any such chairman, and may be served by any person
designated by any such chairman or member.
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" IN
ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY— REPORT OF THE
FUND FOR THE REPUBLIC, INC.— PART 2
THURSDAY, JULY 12, 1956
United States House of Representatives,
Committee on Un-American Activities,
Washington^ D. C.
PUBLIC HEARING
The Committee on Un-American Activities convened, pursuant to
adjournment, at 10 a. m., in the caucus room. Old House Office Build-
ing, Hon. Francis E. Walter (chairman) presiding.
Committee members present: Representatives Francis E. Walter,
of Pennsylvania; Clyde Boyle, of California; Harold H. Velde, of
Illinois ; and Gordon H. Scherer, of Ohio.
Committee staff present : Richard Arens, director, and K. Baarslag.
The Chairman. The committee will come to order.
I understand that some of the members are on their way, so that we
will get started.
Mr. Arens. Will Mr. Vincent Hartnett please come forward?
Would you remain standing while the chairman administers an oath
to you ?
The Chairman. Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are
about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth, so help you God ?
Mr. Hartnett. I do.
TESTIMONY OF VINCENT W. HARTNETT
Mr. Arens. Kindly identify yourself by name, residence, and oc-
cupation.
Mr. Hartnett. My name is Vincent W. Hartnett. I am 40 years
of age. I presently reside in New York City, and by occupation I am
a talent consultant especially to the radio and TV industry.
Mr. Arens. Would you give us, if you please, Mr. Hartnett, a
characterization or description of your functions as a talent consult-
ant?
Mr. Hartnett. Yes. In the course of my occupation or profes-
sion, I compile research material on actors, producers, directors,
writers, and so forth, in the entertainment industry, not only as to
their general talent background but also with special reference to
any Communist Party or Communist-front affiliations.
Mr. Arens. How long have you been engaged in this profession, Mr.
Hartnett?
Mr. Hartnett. Professionally engaged, sir, in any regular sense
since September 1952.
5291
6292 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
Mr. Arens. Give us, if you please, a brief summary of your back-
ground, your education, and any professions or occupations in which
you have engaged prior to your present occupation.
Mr. Hartnett. Yes. I was a graduate B. A. and also M. A.,
maxima cum laude, both from the University of Notre Dame ; and I
think I should add that I did special postgraduate studies in the
Theory and Practice of Bolshevism under the late Dr. Waldemar
Gurian.
I began to compile files on the Communist movement prior to World
War II. During the war I served on the highest levels as an officer
in intelligence posts in the Navy. I was separated from the naval
service finally with the rank of lieutenant commander.
After the war I was a free-lance writer and also engaged in public
relations and fund-raising work, and in 1948 I went into radio. My
first job was as assistant to the executive producer of a leading radio
independent producer, Phillips H. Lord, Inc., and I became super-
visor of the Gangbusters radio program. I left the Gangbusters pro-
gram at the end of June 1949, directly as a result of a Communist
issue, and I began to compile extensive files on the subject and then
became a consultant.
Mr. Arens. Mr. Hartnett, I should like at the outset here in your
testimony to read you an excerpt from Report on Blacklisting, page 93,
volume II, Radio-Television, by John Cogley of the Fund for the
Republic. This report, in alluding to you, makes the following state-
ment among other things :
Hartnett may be the most widely criticized man in the radio-TV industry,
because he is frankly in the business of exposing people with "front records" and
then later of "clearing" them — or as the Times writer delicately put it, "advising
them on how to counter pro-Communist allegations."
Are you conversant with the fact that this language does appear in
the report ?
Mr. Hartnett. Yes ; I am, sir.
Mr. Arens. Is this a truthful characterization of yourself ?
Mr. Hartnett. No, sir. It is a falsehood.
Mr. Arens. Wliat is the truth ?
Mr. Hartnett. The truth is that I have never been in the business
of acting as a clearance man, so-called, for any performers. I have
never solicited, have never received, and would never accept any com-
pensation of any kind from any individual who sought my help or
to whom I offered my free services to help rehabilitate himself. This
is an enormous falsification.
Mr. Arens. By "this," what do you mean ?
Mr. Hartnett. This statement. It is hardly an innuendo. It is
almost a direct statement that I am in the business of extorting from
people.
Mr. ScHERER. Do you mean the statement from the Fund for the
Republic report on blacklisting ?
Mr. Hartnett. Yes, sir. It accuses me of threat and ransom ac-
tivities. It is an outrageous falsification.
Mr. Arens. What are your fees for your services ?
Mr. Hartnett. I am employed directly by several leading sponsors
in radio and TV. I have been employed by a motion-picture studio, by
a couple of law firms, by a network on a regular basis, a couple of
advertising agencies.
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5293
My fees to my clients as I have enumerated are ordinarily $5 for a
first research check. I am not an investigator. I am a researcher.
Two dollars if a name is repeated to see if any new information has
come upon the record; if the report is extensive, $20. I could name
the cases on one hand where there has been an extremely tedious
amount of research. For example, I was asked by a client a month
ago about Arthur Miller. That report was more than 33 pages and
I charged more than $20 for it. It took about 2 weeks.
Mr. Arens. What are the sources of your information ?
Mr. Hartnett. First, of course, the reports of State and congres-
sional investigating committees. They are the backbone of any con-
sultant's library ; secondly, an original collection of literature issued
by the Communist Party and many, many Communist-front groups.
Third, a large collection, one of the best in the country, of theater
literature, literature pertaining to productions in the theater. Fourth,
of course, newspapers and magazines and periodicals. Fifth, to a
lesser extent, actual eyewitness reports of Communist-front meetings,
rallies and parades.
Mr. Arens. Have you ever in the course of your professional life,
solicited any one with a Communist or Communist- front record to
employ you to quote "clear" that individual?
Mr. Hartnett. Sir, this question was raised in the pre-trial exam-
ination in my $200,000 lawsuit against John Crosby and the New
York Herald Tribune. It had such currency that I began to look at
myself a second time. I have gone over my records and files and
searched my memory and will say flatly under oath I have never done
that.
The Chairman. If you pick up some of the newspapers tomorrow
you may find that your enormous falsification will be not enormous
falsification, but that you have confirmed the findings of the report.
Mr. Arens. Have you ever, Mr. Hartnett, accepted compensation
of any kind from the individual whom you have helped to rehabilitate
himself ?
Mr. Hartnett. Sir, because I am under oath, let me be precise.
My services were once sought by a good friend of mine, a good anti-
Communist newspaper writer, Victor Lasky, who felt that Yul
Brynner, the famous director and actor, had been unfairly treated.
I met at Longchamps, 49th Street and Madison Avenue, New York,
with Mr. Lasky and Mr. Brynner, and, over my protests, Yul Brynner
paid the luncheon check. That is about the only case of that kind.
In the case of an executive of Decca Records, he felt that he had
been unjustly labeled. I met him, assisted him, and he sent me one
phonograph record. That was compensation. I didn't want to be
sent it.
Mr. Arens. Before we proceed further, may I ask you 1 or 2
general questions. Do you feel, Mr. Hartnett, that there is a legitimate
place for private individuals and private organizations in the process
of routing Communists and pro-Communists from the entertainment
industry ?
Mr. Hartnett. If I didn't feel that, sir, I wouldn't be doing what
I am doing, because this was forced on me. My present profession
was not of my choice.
5294 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
I was in a situation originally as a radio producer where I became
conversant with the operations of what we call the Communist ap-
paratus. I began to acquire information and I began to be deluged
with phone calls and requests for information from many sources.
They became so great in the period 1950 to 1952 that I finally had to,
for self-protection, charge very modest fees.
Let me say this : that in spite of the tremendous information un-
covered by this committee, which is, of course, an object of opprobrium
to the Communists — they dread investigations, especially by this com-
mittee— in spite of that, in spite of all the investigations conducted by
both State and congressional committees, I would say that not more
than 5 percent, not more than 5 percent of the past and present Com-
munists in the entertainment industry have been uncovered.
Mr. Arens. Mr. Hartnett, may I quote to you some language ap-
pearing on page 97 of volume II ?
Mr. ScHERER. You say that, with all of the investigations conducted
by this committee and similar committees, that we have uncovered only
5 percent of the Communists in the entertainment field ?
Mr. Hartnett. I would think that is correct, Mr. Scherer. I have
made a tabular analysis of records, and I would think it is no more
than 5 percent of past and present Communists.
Mr. Scherer. And we have been accused time and time again, as you
know, of exaggerating the menace.
Mr. Hartnett. Let me put it this way, if I may, Mr. Congressman.
In the New York local of the American Federation of Television and
Radio Artists approximately 30 members have been so far identified
before this committee by sworn testimony as Communist Party mem-
bers; no more than 30. Yet the minimum voting strength of the
progressive, so-called caucus in AFTRA is about 400. They have a
steady, reliable vote, election after election, of 400. Not all of those
are party members. Some are sympathizers.
That means that at present, people who will consistently go along
with the party, number 400 in-lhe New York Local of AFTRA.
They are not all Communists. Probably the actual Communist
Party members number 150.
Then you have a Communist bloc in Equity. You have a Commu-
nist bloc in the American Guild of Variety Artists. The vast ma-
jority of these have never been named before any congressional
committee.
Mr. Arens. I have often made the observation that there is no ex-
pert on communism, that there are experts on various phases of the
Communist conspiracy.
On the basis of your background and your specialized experience in
this one facet of the Communist operation, would you express to this
committee your opinion, your judgment, and your appraisal as to the
degree to which the Communist Party is, at this instant, in penetra-
tion in the entertainment industry? How serious is the menace of
Communist penetration right now in the entertainment industry?
That is your specialty.
Mr. Hartnett. Among the older established performers, producers,
and directors, of course there is no progressive infiltration. Those
people have chosen sides long ago. The extreme danger is with the
young people coming up, especially those in their late teens and early
twenties, particularly boys and girls from out of town who come to
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5295
New York and avIio work in a few off-Broadway theaters. They find
that it is advantaj^eous to tlieir careers, if not to become party mem-
bers, to at least be "progressive" and vote along with the Communist
fraction and sign petitions and the like.
Mr. SciiERER. You mean they are afraid they might be blacklisted
if they do not do it ?
Mr. IIartnett. Well, it hasn't come to that yet. They are afraid
that, if they don't go along with this, they won't get the job oppor-
tunities.
Mr. ScHERER. "We had some testimony in Los Angeles that that did
happen in Los Angeles a few years back, namely, that there were
many in the JjOS Angeles area who went along with the Communists
out there because, if they did not, they felt that their careers would be
stymied.
Mr. Hartnett. That is correct, Mr. Scherer. That is a very difficult
problem that I will have to say Mr. Cogley did not treat of in his
report.
Mr, Sciierer. That is what I was going to say. The report of the
Fund for the Republic says nothing about that; nor does it say any-
thing in that report of the blacklisting of Herbert Fuchs, who was
mentioned by the chairman the other day. There is a man who, when
he refused to cooperate with this committee, the university said they
would stand behind, because he was a good professor and a good
teacher. The minute he cooperated with this committee and gave us
some of the most valuable testimony that this committee has ever had
on infiltration into Government, they fired him.
Yet this report of the Fund for the Republic says not one word about
that type of blacklisting.
Mr. Hartnett. Congressman, I saw a couple of sad cases of that.
For example, one individual whom I listed in Red Channels, which was
published and edited by the Counterattack people, was the then well-
known radio-TV writer, Allan Sloane. Sloane initially filed a lawsuit
against my book for libel, claiming he had been libeled by mention of
a couple of Communist affiliations. Subsequently he came before your
connnittee and admitted he had been a hard-core Communist Party
member. Since that time Allan Sloane has not, to my knowledge —
and I am supposed to be an expert, I keep casting figures — to m.y
knowledge, Allan Sloane has not worked for the firms for which he
used to work. He has done the Navy Log Program on television in the
last season, the Navy Log Program, and Allan Sloane, by the way, is
a dedicated liberal anti-Comniunist ; but, as far as my information
extends, he did not obtain emplo5rment from the people who had given
him employment before he testified.
Mr. Scherer. Have you an explanation as to why the report of the
Fund for the Republic did not cover that type of blacklisting?
Mr. Hartnett. There are some allusions, more in the first volume
on motion pictures, of blacklisting on an unorganized or disorganized
scale of anti-Communists by Communists, and "Progi^essives." I
know it is not played up in this volume on radio and television. I must
say in general that there is, as George Sokolsky put it, an inadequacy
of research in the book. The book betrays an amateurish grasp of the
radio and television industry. This is not remarkable because, after
all, it is a difficult field.
5296 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
As General Twining said when lie came back from Moscow, there
is no great knowledge of the Communist conspiracy. There are vary-
ing degrees of ignorance. Some of us are less ignorant than others,
and Mr. Cogley, I am afraid, is quite ignorant.
The Chairman. I think that the review of this in the Brooklyn
Tablet is the best description I have seen, that it is dull and amateurish.
That is what The Tablet calls it.
Mr. Hartnett. Congressman Walter, Mr. Cogley never seems to get
to what I think is the base of the whole issue : Is there a Communist
apparatus, conspiracy, or movement in radio and TV? Is it evil?
Should we do something about it? How should we do something
about it? He didn't seem to start from that.
The Chairman. He would not call it evil. He would call it a
political party the same as the Democratic and the Republican Parties.
Mr. Arens. Will you answer those questions now, Mr. Hartnett?
Is there a Communist apparatus in the entertainment industry ?
Mr. Hartnett. No one has to take my word for it. There has been
sworn testimony before this and other committees to the existence of
such an apparatus and, when the members of this committee inter-
rogated witnesses in the Foley Square hearings in August 1955 one
witness after another took the fifth amendment when asked if he had
knowledge of such a Communist caucus.
Mr. Arens. How serious is the Communist penetration of the enter-
tainment industry? What is your appraisal?
Mr. Hartnett. That is a very broad question.
(At this point Representative Harold H. Velde entered the hearing
room. )
Mr. Hartnett. Could I break it down ?
Mr. Arens. How much of a menace is the Communist penetration
of the entertainment industry ?
Mr, Hartnett. I would like to start with, for example, the Ameri-
ican Federation of Television and Radio Artists. That is the per-
formers' union in radio and television.
As I said before, numerically, party members do not impress one.
Let us say that in round figures there are about 150 actors, members
of AFTRA, under party discipline in the New York local, but there
are 5,000 members of the local.
Out in Los Angeles this problem is well under control. In Chicago
there is not much of a problem in the midwestern AFTRA, but the
difficult thing is some of the Communist Party members, as always,
insinuate themselves into positions of great influence where they are
able to
Mr. Arens. How great is the influence of Communists in the enter-
tainment industry ? Is it negligible ? Is it appreciable ? Is it signifi-
cant? Is it a menace or is it not a menace?
Mr. Hartnett. It is a significant thing. I wouldn't want to over-
estimate the menace because I think that there are forces in the in-
dustry itself which recognize it. The situation, however, is compli-
cated by the presence in such as the New York local of AFTRA of
individuals who are anti-Communist in the abstract. They are op-
posed to sin but, when it comes down to opposing individual Com-
munists or those under Communist discipline, they won't do it. In-
stead they tend to run guard for the Communists. In other words,
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5297
while the Communists will carry the ball, you have 5 or 6 alleged
liberals who will knock out the opposition.
Mr. Arens. On page 97 of volume II of this report appears the
following :
Hartnett's position on blacklisting is clear : he is for it. Like many others,
he balks at the word but accepts the fact. Not long ago he stated his belief
that "no provable Communist Party member or provable collaborator of the Com-
munist Party should work on radio or television."
Do you care to comment upon that statement ?
Mr. ILvRTNETT. Yes, that is my statement. Like everyone else, I
resent having a dirty term, an epithet, improperly attached to a prac-
tice which in itself is laudable.
Mr. Arens. What are you speaking about ?
(At this point, Representative Clyde Doyle left the hearing room.)
Mr. Hartnett. The word "blacklisting," Blacklisting is a nasty
term. You might just as well, for example, say that the newspaper
which prints records of court cases, like the New York Law Journal,
is blacklisting. It says that such and such a man is remanded to
jail. You might say that the Better Business Bureau is blacklisting
if it turns in truthful and accurate records on phony businessmen.
You might say that Dun & Bradstreet is blacklisting when it gives a
bad credit report.
The term "blacklisting" originally had a hard and fast meaning
in labor circles, and to attach that to honest, intelligent, reasonable,
and fair patriotic efforts to keep subversives out of radio and television,
I think is a dangerous slanting.
Mr. Arexs. Let us come right to the heart of the matter, please,
Mr. Hartnett. On the basis of your background and extensive ex-
perience, are people being unjustly accused of Communist activities
in the industry and thereby being deprived of employment oppor-
tunities ? Is there a practice of that going on ?
Mr. Hartnett. There have been a few isolated instances which
have come to my attention of confusion of identity, and I will men-
tion one case. It won't harm the man to mention the case. It might
hurt him.
Mr. Arens. You mean it might help him.
Mr. Hartnett. Right. It may help him. In the New York run
of Silk Stockings, there was an actor by the name of Philip Sterling,
S-t-e-r-1-i-n-g. I have kno^^^l Phil Sterling from radio circles for a
half dozen years. Unfortunately, as it happens there was a writer
for the Communist press who used the pseudonym Phil Sterling ; and
Phil Sterling called me up one day and said he knew he was in trouble,
he was able to work on Broadway but not in television. I asked.
"Could you drop around to my office on 42d Street?" He said,
"Sure."
Some of my clients had asked me about Phil Sterling, the actor, and
I knew he was not Phil Sterling who worked for the Communist press.
I tried to figure out what to do about it. The obvious thing was to put
out a report.
I am criticized for interviewing actors or trying to elicit their com-
ments, but how else could this man get the word around that he was
not the Phil Sterling of Communist literature ? I put out a report to
my clients pointing out that he was not the other individual of the
5298 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
same name. Phil Sterling, the actor, is fine. It so happened there
was one minor thing that I wouldn't even discuss. He was a splendid
fellow to my knowledge. There have been other such cases.
Mr. Arens. Is this a general or isolated instance?
Mr. Hartnett. An isolated instance. The same thing might happen
in business. They might confuse Joe Jones, the haberdasher, with Joe
Jones, who operates a stationery store.
Mr. Arens. This industrial epithet "blacklisting" then embraces the
efforts of people like yourself and of patriotic organizations to preclude
Communists and those in the Communist apparatus from being in the
entertainment industry.
Mr. Hartnett. It is being used as a blanket term for both the good
and evil.
Mr. Arens. How effective is the process of disassociating Commu-
nists and those in the Communist web from the entertainment industry ?
Mr. Hartnett. Sir, that gets to the heart of your whole problem
and it is something that Mr. Cogley again didn't seem to grasp.
Patronage is of the essence of Communist success in the entertainment
industry. In the entertainment industry you have always more quali-
fied people for jobs than you have jobs. Therefore, the Commies,
beginning in the middle thirties, began to operate a patronage mecha-
nism. They were able to take Communists and sympathizers, for ex-
ample, from the Group Theater in New York and give them the "magic
carpet" to the west coast and Hollywood, and build them up in jobs.
You didn't have to be a party member. That helped. They were able
to build up people. They were able to insinuate themselves in positions
of authority as casting directors and directors and producers, so that
those who would go along with the Commies without necessarily join-
ing the party, just signing petitions, being as they say "progressive,"
these people would get preferential treatment. This is commonly
known in show business.
Mr. Scherer. We had ample testimony on the west coast from many
people that that was the practice.
Mr. Hartnett. So that the secret, in my opinion, of defeating com-
munism, and it is not the only means of doing it — there are many
things — exposure and so forth, possibly some legislation, I am not
sure ; that is not my field. But to my mind the dagger thrust to the
heart of the enemy here, the Communist movement in the entertain-
ment industry, is to cut this patronage apparatus. Once 98 percent of
the people in show business, 95 to 98 percent of the people, are con-
vinced that it is no longer profitable or popular to go along with the
Communists, they won't do it. You always had some few — I don't
know the exact percentage, I have never worked it out — people who
would go along, as they say, with the Communists because it paid off.
You have to stop that. This, to my opinion, is the most significant
thing about the security procedures in the entertainment industry.
They are not aimed at an individual as such. Oh, yes, it is true
that a performer who is a party member is able to make money and
contribute to the Communist cause. He can make speeches. I am
not minimizing that.
But the main thing is that communism is all an integrated appara-
tus. The security procedure is not aimed at hurting the individual.
It is aimed, in my opinion, in an overall strategic point of view, it is
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5299
aimed at breaking up the patronage apparatus that the Coinniiuiists
have created.
The Chairman. The thing that has been so serious, as I see it, after
thinking over the west-coast revelations, is the large sums of money
raised from these performers, all of which goes into Commmiist or-
ganization work. That is the very serious situation, of course.
Mr. ScHERER. Along that line that the chairman mentioned, who
was it, what actor in New York, testified that he contributed $40,000
to the cause ?
Mr. Hartnett, Robert Rossen, the producer.
Mr.ScHERER. $40,000.
The Chairman. Many of these people were assessed a percentage
of their incomes, and, strangely enough, it went to the Communist
Party in New York and the Communist Party diverted it to Com-
munist-dominated labor unions.
Mr. Hartnett. Y^es, sir.
Mr. Arens. Aside from the question of filling the coffers of the
Communist Party, do you, as one who has specialized in this field,
have any appraisal to make as to the seriousness of Communist pene-
tration of the entertainment industry for other reasons?
Mr. Hartnett. Yes, sir. There has been testimony, most of it
correct but some of it lacking in depth, as to the "inability of the Com-
munists to put propaganda on the air," and I say that is not entirely
correct because it is a too-simpliiied formulation of propaganda.
Certainly the Communists do not try to extol Marxism-Leninism
over the air, but we did have instances, for example in 1947, when
Norman Corwin made his One World Flight, of pro-Soviet propa-
ganda.
The Communist tactic is the use of parallelism. Let me give you
an illustration, if I may, of what I mean by parallelism.
Mr. ScHERER. We had some testimony.
The Chairman. No; you go ahead.
Mr. Hartnett. Let us take a motion picture, for example, which is
being shown on television now. It is not a Communist movie. The
Ox Bow Incident. In the Ox Bow Incident, I think some innocent
men are lynched. Lynching of innocent people by vigilante groups,
misidentification, this can be used by the Communists to insinuate
over a period of time by repetition that in most cases the wrong indi-
viduals, innocents, have been identified, or, as they say, "persecuted,"
by congressional committees.
Another way of insinuating the same idea was used on a television
show February 18 or 19, 1956, directed by a director who is mentioned
in this book by Mr. Cogley and who has worked for the Ford Founda-
tion. This was called Tragedy in a Temporary Town. Tragedy in
a Temporary Town was a story of the brutal beating of a young
Puerto Rican by an intemperate, fanatic group of vigilantes who
wrongfully identified him as an individual who had tried to assault a
teen-age girl. Let me give you a couple of quotes from that program.
They talked about "the committee," just "the committee." It was
a committee of three engineering workers. Then they said : "No one
has a right to do what they are doing. There is the police and there
are the law courts."
5300 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
Then they talked about "the committee of three stupid men." Then
there was a dialectical extension, to my mind. I am admittedly hyper-
sensitive to this because I am in contact with it all the time; I am
sure it would sail right over the heads of a lot of people ; maybe I am
wrong. They talked about this : "When some other pigs come for you
some time."
That line was delivered by Lloyd Bridges who admitted before this
committee he had been a party member at one time but said it was
brief and he was out.
Mr. ScHERER. Who directed this ?
Mr. Hartnett, This was directed by Sidney Lmnet. He was one of
those innocently, wrongfully accused, according to Cogley. But
the insinuation — it is a matter of opinion, I want to state in all fair-
ness— the insinuation was that if private groups or committees try
to apprehend people or administer justice, it is going to become unfair
and innocents are going to be caught. I mention this because it is
now a theme repeated on television again and again and, if you have
time, but you probably don't in your duties, to watch television, you
will find script after script in which the policeman shoots an innocent
teen-ager, not the bad teen-ager. It is always the innocent. The
wrong man is identified and sent to jail. An honest official abroad
is susi^ected of being a Communist agent and the man who points
the finger at him is always a fanatic, disgruntled.
In other words, if you could believe television, our courts are in-
capable of convicting the right man, our witnesses are incapable of
making a positive identification, our juries are incapable of coming
in with the right finding, private citizens are incapable of making a
right evaluation. We are being brainwashed.
Mr. Arens. I invite your attention to volume II, pages 92 and 93,
in which the case of a Miss X is recited. Miss X being, according to this
report, some actress who engaged you to assist her in some of her
difficulties in the industry.
Do you have a recollection of that particular case of Miss X?
Mr. Hartnett. Very clearly, sir, and again you have an outrageous
falsification, a distortion, a suppression of some of the evidence ?
Mr. Arens. By whom ?
Mr. PIartnett. By Mr. Cogley. He crops evidence like some un-
scrupulous politicians crop photographs.
The Chairman. In other words, you call that McCarthy ism in
reverse ?
Mr. Hartneit. It is termed McCarthyism in reverse. It is out-
rageous. It is as if, for example, you were to take a photograph of a
criminal in a court being sentenced by the judge and crop away from
the photograph all the background and make it appear as if the judge
is shaking hands with the man. It is outrageous.
Mr. Arens. The language in the report on pages 92 and 93 speaks
for itself, and the apparent intent is evident to any reader. In your
own way tell this committee the facts.
Mr. Harnett. Eight, sir. Under date of May 12, 1953, one of the
top public relations men in the motion-picture colony, Arthur P.
Jacobs, of Beverly Hills, Calif. — well respected, and represents
Humphrey Bogart, Santayana Productions — wrote me and said :
Dear Mb. Hartnett : At the suggestion of Roy Brewer and Howard Costigan I
am writing this note to see if you would be kind enough to help me with some
information about one of the clients of this office, Kim Hunter.
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5301
Miss Hunter has been with this office since she appeared in the Arthur Koestler
play, Darkness at Noon, and only recently I have been informed that it is pos-
sible she was connected with some leftwing organizations earlier in her career,
which, if true, should be cleared up at this time.
I am sure Miss Hunter is not sympathetic to the left cause as her many talks
with me have convinced me of this — as well as the fact that she has appeared in
the violently anti-Communist play. Darkness at Noon.
Could you let me know if it would be possible to get any information on her
previous activities— which I am sure Miss Hunter will be most anxious to clear
up. Also, I would be interested in knowing if there would be any costs involved
in obtaining this information.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Mr. Arens. Mr, Chairman, I respectfully suggest that the ])hoto-
static copy of the letter M'hich Mr. Hartnett just read be marked "Hart-
nett Exhibit No. 1" and incorporated by reference in this record, since
it has been read into the record.
The Ciix\iRMAN. So oixlered.
(The document referred to was marked "Hartnett Exhibit No. 1"
and filed for the record. )
Mr. Hartnett. Under date of May 15, 1953, 1 replied to that letter :
May 15, 1953.
Dear Mk. Jacobs : This will answer your letter of May 12.
A quick look through my files reveals that the name of Kim Hunter (Emmett)
has indeed been linked with a number of activities officially cited as Communist
front.
It reflects also that Miss Hunter's name has been used in connection with a
dubious activity as recently as March 1953.
Further research by me would be necessary in order to insure a complete
report, and to authenticate information. The fee for such a complete report
would be $200.
This is one of the cases that I said I could count on the fingers of one
hand. That amount of research would take me 3 days to prepare.
This includes a thorough analysis of Miss Hunter's leftwing connections in the
theater, as well as her listed affiliations with activities cited as Communist front.
It also includes photographic copies of key exhibits. If she really wishes to cor-
rect her past mistakes, she will have to review her entire record — whether obtained
from me or from whatever source she wishes. There are a few other experts in
this field, in addition to me, who would be able to make such an analysis. I
imagine their fees would be the same as mine, and in some cases a bit higher.
I am sure you and Mi.ss Hunter, who is a talented young woman, realize that
no individual and no agency or committee can "clear" her. That is a job she
alone can do — not merely l)y a statement acknowledging and repudiating past
mistakes, but by concrete pro-American acts. For her country's sake, for her
own sake, and for her admiring public's sake, I hope she will do so.
Sincerely,
Vincent W. Haktnett.
Let me explain that Mr. Jacobs is a highly paid public-relations man.
He doesn't work for free. Had Miss Hunter come to me directly, I
would have been glad to sit down and talk with her and advise her.
Here is not Miss Plunter but a public-relations man from the west
coast who probably makes 5 G's a year on this account. On some
accounts, his probable retainer is 50 G's a year. I said I could make a
report for him, and I think I would be a complete ass if I did it for
nothing.
(The above letter was marked "Hartnett Exhibit No. 2" and filed for
the record.)
Mr. Hartnett. Then I got a phone call from George Sokolsky.
Sokolsky told me that he had heard a rumor third-hand that I had
82833— 5&—pt. 2 2
5302 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
offered to sell Miss Hunter for $200 copies of letters which he had
written to her or she had written to him. Luckily he checked with
me. Also the report went to Victor Riesel. I am not suggesting here
what Mr. Forster apparently was understood mistakenly to suggest,
that there was a ring. The fact is that somehow or other the w^ord
was spread around, apparently from a talent agent in New York, that
I was trying to blackmail Miss Hunter. Sokolsky was decent enough
to check with me and I assured him I didn't even know of such letters,
it was entirely not the truth, and I sent him photostatic copies of the
correspondence.
I then called on Jacobs.
I wrote Art Jacobs on May 25, 1953, and I said that I had heard about
this and I wanted to know if he had started this smear on me that I was
trying to shakedown Miss Hunter, and he phoned me back and said he
certainly had not, that he realized my position was entirely reasonable
but that Kim Hunter having consulted with her agent in New York
was told that she didn't have to do anything about it, that it would all
blow over.
I wrote back to Mr. Jacobs, on May 29, 1953, thanked him for his
kindness in setting this smear against me to rest, and I thought that
ended the matter.
You will notice that Mr. Cogley, reporting this at the end of para-
graph 1 on page 93, has four dots. The four dots, Mr. Arens, indicate
omission of the vitally important part of my letter in which I said
that I couldn't possibly clear Miss Hunter, that she could only clear
herself, and that I hoped she would do so by concrete anti-Communist
actions. That appeared in the Cogley book as 4 dots and it wasn't 4
dots. Cogley further says her attorney had written me. Her attor-
ney never wrote me. It was a high-priced public relations man.
(The letters referred to by Mr. Hartnett were marked "Hartnett
Exhibits Nos. 3 and 4" and filed for the record.)
Mr. Arens. Are you one of these men who brings the damning in-
dictment against the person and then exercises your power to heal the
wound ?
Mr. Hartnett. This, sir, could mean anything or nothing. I have
written a number of articles for various magazines — I think five
articles in particular for the Sign magazine, for the American Legion
magazine, and for American Mercury — and in these I have gone into
some detail about Communist operations in the entertainment indus-
try. I have named names. I have given records.
This is one on Broadway that I did for the American Mercury. I
was also the coauthor of Red Channels. I wrote File 13, volume I, re-
ferred to in the Cogley book, which gave records of individuals. That
was a highly specialized book. This is the second volume of File 13.
There will be about 10 volumes in all.
If that is to create records — I don't know what he means.
Even Mr. Cogley admits I am a thoroughgoing researcher. I am
honest. I have a master of arts degree, maxima cum laude, in this field.
And certainly I do compile records.
He then talks about "healing the wounds." My door is always open
to any person who is involved in the Communist movement who wants
to come to me. I will give an example.
I
IN^'ESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5303
About 3 years ago, one of my clients proposed the name of George
Hall, II-a-1-1, to me, for a television show. On the record, George
Hall had only a couple of very insignificant Communist-front affilia.-
tions, very slight. However, I knew tliat George Hall had been a
member of the Midtown branch, Midtown Club, of the Communist
Party about 1946-47. I wrote a letter to George or called him on the
phone and I said, "Can we meet? It is very important I talk with
you."
So I took him to lunch and I said, "Look, I want to assure myself.
I think you are out. I don't think you have been a member of the
CP, the Communist Party, for a couple of years but I have got to be
sure of it in justice to my clients and because I have a double duty. I
have a duty first of all as a citizen, and as a former naval intelli-
gence officer I have a sworn duty to uphold the Constitution. They
may take me as a zealot or fanatic, but I try to do it. I have a duty
to protect my client from any unfounded protests. If the protests
a.re founded and I make a mistake, let people protest."
In this case I said to George, "I want to protect my client and I also
want to be sure from an Americanism point of view you are all right."
We had a long talk. He said he had written to this committee,
which he had, offering his services.
If that is called healing the wounds, I accept it. I healed the wound.
I helped the guy. He got rehabilitated.
After he appeared before the committee as a friendly witness, the
only friendly witness in August of last year, the party tried to have
him hounded out of his job as a standby in the Broadway show, The
Boy Friend. Luckily the management stood up for him and would
not blacklist him for testifying. George is now in California on the
road tour of The Boy Friend. He is fine. He got rehabilitated. He
is acceptable on TV as far as my clients are concerned.
Mr. Arens. I would like to get these questions answered as pre-
cisely as you can as an expert in this field.
Question No. 1 is: In your judgment, using the phrase blacklisting
as used in the report, how many people have been blacklisted wrongly
in the entertainment industry ; and, secondly, how many people have
slipped through the net and are still in the entertainment industry
who are Communists or in the Communist apparatus ? Could you give
us your judgment?
Mr. Hartnett. This wotild be, again, a lesser degree of ignorance.
I am constantly accumulating new research material, constantly ac-
quiring new information so that I am able to identify as party mem-
bers people who previously were not known to me or not found in the
public record as party members. As to the wrongfully accused, I have
issued one invitation after another to newspaper reporters in New
York, to people in the entertainment industry, and I have said, "Name
me two people wrongfully accused." So they come up with two people
from Red Channels, Jean Muir and Ireene Wicker. I say, "How is
Jean Muir wrongfully accused?"
"Well, Red Channels made allegations against her which she de-
nied."
I say, "Wait .a minute. Do you know that Jean Muir voluntarily
appeared before the House Committee on Un-American Activities,
that she was interrogated about seven of the affiliations listed in Red
5304 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
Channels? Two were not covered. She admitted every one. Sh&
denied having attended the Communist Party study group, or rather,
she admitted she attended it but said it was not willful and with
knowledge on her part. She admitted she had loaned her car to Lionel
Stander and a couple of other Communists but said she did not know
them as Communists at the time. She denied ever having contributed
funds to the Communist Party as it had been testified she did. In
other words, she admitted, in effect, more than charged."
Jean Muir has been away from the Communist movement for several
years now. Her last activity of any kind was in 1947 when a fund-
raising party for the Hollywood Ten was held at her apartment. I
think she thought again they were wrongfully accused.
They were all Commvmists and she thought they were wrongfully
accused. She is a fine woman and if it were not for the fact that she
is a very sick woman she could be working in television.
Cogley said she was cleared and can't work. Cogley is such an ass.
She can't work because she is a sick woman. It is a condition where
water accumulates in her system. The woman can hardly get up and
cannot stand the strain of a rehearsal. She is not blacklisted.
Her husband, Henry Jaffe, the attorney, could open door after door
for her.
Mr. Arens. Is there another case of a person whom it is alleged
had been wrongfully blacklisted ?
Mr. Hartnett. Yes, Ireene Wicker, the Singing Lady. How this
man, Cogley, can get his facts crooked. Pardon me. I will calm
myself.
This account is a classic example of how to not tell a story.
Red Channels, the book I coauthored, carried one citation only on
Miss Ireene Wicker and that was, "Reported as a sponsor of the Com-
mittee for the Reelection of Benjamin J. Davis to the New York City
Council." That was in September 1945.
I knew when I set that down in the book that Ireene Wicker was
married, her second marriage, to Victor Hammer, his second marriage.
Victor Hammer was a son of one of the founding members of the
Communist Party. Old Doctor Hammer was such a big wheel in the
party that he used to pay the rent on the party headquarters in the old
days. I have a memory on these things — I am older than I look —
whether by direct or indirect knowledge.
Miss Wicker had married into what had been the aristocracy of the
Communist movement. I knew that.
I also knew that Miss Wicker in June of 1946 had lent her apart-
ment for a fund-raising gambling party for the Joint Anti-Fascist
Refugee Committee, one of the top fund-raising arms of the Com-
munist Party. JAFRC must have raised $500,000 for the Communist
Party.
I knew also that in September 1946, she and her husband had taken
a whole table at $100 a plate at the Waldorf for a fund-raising luncheon
for the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee. I knew this from wit-
nesses and I had photostatic copies of checks from the gambling party.
I could not use that in Red Channels because it was not a matter
of public record. The publisher might be sued because it was not a
matter of public record.
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5305
In October of 1949, I had written an article for the Sign maga-
zine— it was published in October 1949 — in which it was merely
stated that Ireene Wicker had sponsored various leftist causes.
Following the publication of that article in October of 1949, Miss
Wicker, that is to say, Mrs. Victor Hammer, through her brother-
in-law, Armand Hammer, A-r-m-a-n-d, protested to the Sign magazine
that she had not been affiliated with leftist causes. The editor asked
me to prove what I said.
I said, "Here is the citation from the Daily Worker about the
Benjamin Davis campaign. Here is the information about the gam-
bling party and about the $100 a plate fund-raising luncheon at the
Waldorf."
She said about the committee for Benjamin Davis in 1945, "I have
never seen it before."
I said, "All right. You go to the Daily Worker and have them pub-
lish a correction and I will be happy to circulate it."
Initially she said that she wasn't at the Waldorf, had never been
there. I said, "Miss Wicker" — this was going through channels — "I
have two witnesses who were there as your guests at the table."
Finally she admitted she had b-een there but pleaded good faith. I
knew this, I had information. Then she did not secure any correction
from the Daily Worker and, frankly, I believed that she had lent her
name knowingly to the Benjamin J. Davis campaign. I believed the
public record was correct because she made no effort to secure any cor-
rection from the Daily Worker. Therefore, it was put in Ked Chan-
nels, only the one citation. There was other information, but only the
one public citation was used.
Red Channels was published on June 22, 1950, that is to say 7 months
after the initial incident with Ireene Wicker. She then stated, if
quoted correctly by the New York Post, that this was the first time
she had heard about the Benjamin J. Davis committee, whereas in a
letter 6 months previously we discussed it.
Here is how Mr. Cogley gets into the act with his "trained seal"
routine. He makes it appear that Red Channels had stated that
Ireene Wicker had signed the Communist Party nominating petition
for Benjamin Davis. Red Channels never stated she had signed a
nominating petition. Red Channels said that reportedly she had been
on a committee for his nomination. This is the old tactic of setting
up a strawman and knocking it down.
Ireene Wicker's husband went to the records of the city of New York
and had a check made and said, "She is not on the nominating peti-
tions. She is unjustly accused."
We never accused her of signing a nominating petition. It was the
old tactic of setting up a strawman and knocking it down.
Mr. Arens. Answer question No. 2 : How many, in your judgment,
are in the entertainment industry today who ought to be, even using
the term of Cogley, "blacklisted" because of Communist activities?
Mr. Hartnett. I would hate to go out on a limb on that one, Mr.
Arens. I would hate to try to make an approximation. That is
something I could prepare.
Mr. Arens. Is it a substantial number ?
Mr. Hartnett. Of actual people under Communist discipline?
Mr. Arens. Yes, sir.
(At this point. Representative Doyle returned to the hearing room.)
5306 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
Mr. Hartnett. Yes, sir; it is, in the entertainment industry as a
whole who are still working.
Mr. Arens. Yes, sir.
Mr. Hartnett. Let us go into cases.
Mr. Arens. I do not want to take time to go into each individual
case. I want your judgment and appraisal as an expert in this field.
Is there a substantial number of people through the mesh right now ?
Mr. Hartnett. Yes. They get through the mesh because they have
no known records of affiliation with any organization on the Attorney
General's list or the House committee's list, the Guide to Subversive
Organizations and Publications. They are getting smart. Since the
passage in 1950 of what is known as the Internal Security Act not
many people will affiliate or remain affiliated with an organization on
the Attorney General's list. You have off-Broadway groups. You
have informal groupings with no name at all, or they will affiliate
with a group which you have not cited. Let's take the Emergency
Civil Liberties Committee, one of the most subversive groups in the
United States.
Mr. Arens. Is that the organization of which a man named Clark
Foreman is president?
Mr. Hartnett. Yes. This organization does have some affiliates
from the entertainment industry.
I won't pick up the book but, if one reads the Cogley report — the
"white paper on communism," that is what I would like to call it, the
"white paper on communism" — you read this, and you will see the name
of J. Eaymond Walsh, a commentator. From the Cogley "white paper
on communism" it would appear that Mr. Walsh is wrongfully ac-
cused and deprived of his job. I want to make sure of my facts. I
must get the citations. Here is a commentator with a very significant
Communist-front record and who even recently has been affiliated
with the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee. This is a man who,
as I say, recently, that is to say after the Korean war, still was active
in the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee. Yet, according to
Mr. Cogley, he was wrongfully accused. There is no mention in the
Cogley report that Walsh has had a record since the outbreak of the
Korean war.
Mr. Arens. On page 96 of volume II, the report makes reference
to a letter which you are alleged to have written to an actor by the
name of Leslie Barrett. Would you kindly recite to the committee
the circumstances of that letter and compare what you regard as the
facts in comparison to the recitation of the situation in the Cogley
report ?
Mr. Hartnett. Yes, sir.
As one means of acquiring information, I tried to make it a point
to photograph the May Day Parade in New York each year because,
as you Congressmen have said, it is an annual mobilization of Com-
munist strength.
One of the photographs of the 1952 New York May Day Parade
showed a group of individuals who were obviously in the entertain-
ment industry and presumably in radio because one of the placards
being carried in the contingent said, "Stop the Blacklist in Kadio."
I did not know, when I first looked at the positive, and I could not
identify any of the people in the photograph.
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5307
At a meeting one night, happening to meet with some actors who
are well informed on the subject and have been in show business for
some years, I handed around the photographs and said, "Could any
one make au}^ positive idents on any of the people in the photographs?"
Two of the people gave as their opinion that it looked like Leslie
Barrett in one photo, but they weren't sure. I then wrote Mr. Bar-
rett, and I would like to give you for your files a complete copy of
the correspondence.
Mr. Arexs. AVould you hesitate for just a moment there? You say
that in this parade one of the hues and cries of the celebration was
to stop blacklisting?
Mr. Hartnei-t. Yes, sir.
Mr. Arens. What do the Communists mean bv the term "black-
listing" ?
Mr. Hartnett. Denial of employment to Communist Party mem-
bers and "progressives" ; no question about it.
Mr. Arens. Is that part of the Communist Party line at the present
time to identify with the odious term "blacklisting" the deprivation of
employment of Communists and those in the Communist conspiracy ?
Mr.'HARTXETT. Yes. They have no exclusive on the word "black-
listing" but, as spelled out in party literature, Political Affairs, Masses
and Mainstream magazine, and so forth, "blacklisting" is a term used
by the Communists as well as possibly others to describe denial of
employment to known, unrepudiated party members, and "progres-
sives" who are not actual party members.
I want to make the point, though Cogley seems not to get the point,
that at no time in the history of the Communist movement have all
activists been party members. I am sure Congressman Velde, from
his experience, knows that most of the people in espionage nets had not
been party members. If they were, they dropped out. Some had
not been. They were safer that way.
Mr. Arens. They were in the party discipline but not technical
members, as you and I might join the Rotary Club.
Mr. Hartnett. Correct. Cogley seems not to know that the cadre
of Communist strength consists of more than Communist Party mem-
bers. It also includes those under discipline.
Mr. Arens. Would you kindly revert to the letter that is described
here on pages 95, 96 of the Cogley report which you are alleged to have
written to an actor by the name of Leslie Barrett, Tell us the cir-
cumstances surrounding that incident.
Mr. Hartnett. Barrett's name had previously been proposed to me
by a number of clients and I had said that I had no derogatory infor-
mation against him prior to December of 1954 when, as I say, two of
my friends thought that this looked like Barrett, might be Barrett,
they thought it was Barrett, words to that effect, but they weren't sure.
I had been criticized, following the publication of Red Channels, by
the so-called liberals for not first checking with people and giving
them a hearing, so I have been trying to give people a hearing and
m}' head has been beaten in.
On December 9, 1954, I wrote Mr. Leslie Barrett, 56 West 71st
Street, New York, as follows :
Dear Mr. Barrett : In preparing a book on the Left Theater, I came across
certain information regarding you.
5308 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
A photograph of the 1952 New York May Day parade shows you marching
just to the right of (name deleted).
It is always possible that people who have in good faith supported certain
causes come to realize that their support was misplaced.
Therefore, I am writing you to ascertain if there has been any change in
your position. You are, of course, under no obligation to reply to this letter.
As a matter of fact, I am under no obligation to write you. However, my aim
is to be scrupulously fair and to establish the facts. If I do not hear from
you, I must conclude that your marching in the 1952 May Day parade is still
an accurate index of your position and sympathies.
I am enclosing a 3-cent stamp, and would appreciate the courtesy of your reply.
Sincerely.
I sent this first-class mail in a sealed envelope with scotch tape
so that no one else would open it, and marked it "Personal and
Confidential."
Mr. Arens. This was pursuant to inquiries you had received from
some of your clients as to whether or not Barrett should be employed
by them ?
Mr. Hartnett. It was two things : first of all, because I wanted to
ascertain whether this was he; secondly, because I am preparing a
book on the Left Theater and I wanted to have my facts straight. Here
it is. [Shows book.] It is true that I stated that the photograph
showed him marching in the parade. I did not know that it was
he. Those of you with experience as interrogators know that it is
the standard operating procedure to say to someone, "Wliy did you
doit?"
If you say to a person, "Were you in Joe's delicatessen, and did you
take a bologna sandwich?", he will say, "I have never been near the
place."
If you have reason to think he has, you say, "Why did you take the
sandwich?"
It is a trick. My experience is if you come up flat to someone who
is a suspected party member and say, "Were you ever in the party?"
he will say "No."
Following the publication of Red Channels I was asked to talk to
Abe Burrows as a favor, no money involved. He denied that he had
ever been a Communist, or ever attended Communist meetings. Sub-
sequent testimony indicated that he had been a Communist and he
testified before this committee in equivocal terms. That is a standard
experience we have all had.
As the former counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union in
New York said, "They all lie to you" so the thing you try to do is put
it as a fact and ask for an affirmation or denial. It is an interro-
gating technique. I wrote him and wanted an answer. Again I said :
"If I do not hear from you, I must conclude that your marching "
Of course, I couldn't conclude it morally or legally. I shouldn't have
said it in the letter. Again, it is a technique. I was trying to help
the fellow. I wanted to be fair and wanted an answer because many
times I will write to these people and they will never answer the
letter.
We had a long correspondence. I was convinced that it was not
he, and, as a matter of fact, he subsequently worked for some of my
clients.
Mr. Arens. How do these facts, as you have just recounted, square
up with the recitation of those facts in the Cogley report?
Mr. Hartnett. He omits most of it.
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5309
Mr. Arens. Now, I invite your attention to the section of the publi-
cation beginning at page 173 of vohnne II, in which tlie Fund for the
Republic report tells of a series of blacklisting experiences, and ask
you whether or not you can identify the facts and the individuals, in
any of these cases of serious blacklisting experiences recounted here?
Mr. Haktnett. The hrst case, tlie leading actress, Miss H., by con-
text can'only be one person, Uta Plagen. I would say offhand that she
was connected with around 25 to 30 Communist-front groups. She
is a former confidante of Paul Robeson. She was married to Jose
Ferrer and that broke up the marriage.
(The letter dated December 9, 1954, to Mr. Barrett, read by Mr.
Hartnett, together with attached copies of related correspondence was
marked "Hartnett Exhibit No. 5" and filed for the records of the
committee.)
( Present in the hearing room : Messrs. Walter, Scherer, Velde, and
Doyle.)
Mr. Arens. Are there any other in the anonymous cases.
Mr. Hartnett. Yes. The radio actor K. L., mentioned on page 175,
volume II, I would make an educated guess that is Mr. Alan Hewitt.
All the facts aren't given. There is no bill of particulars.
Mr. Arens. We do not want speculation.
Mr. Hartnett. I am sure it is Alan Hewett. Since there are no
particulars in Cogley's account to defend against, I cannot comment
on it.
The next one, radio-TV director, MP, I can't identify. The context
is too vague.
Mr. Arens. Is there any conspiracy or collusion between yourself
and Fred Woltman, or among yourself and Fred Woltman and Victor
Riesel and George Sokolsky and James O'Neil, of the American
Legion, in which you wield a power and influence in concert in depriv-
ing people of employment and then healing the wounds ?
Mr. Hartnett. First, I will take Fred Woltman. I will say this
much : that Fred Woltman struck a great blow for the patriotic cause
in July of 1949. He did a marvelous article for the World-Telegram
of July 18, 1949, in which he discussed the case of William M. Sweets,
who had been my director on the Gangbuster show, who was very active
in Communist causes.
Mr. Woltman did interview me about the Bill Sweets case. I gave
him what facts and documents I had. He wrote a magnificent article
called Reds Colonizing in TV and Radio.
Possibly since that time I have met him at social functions and
meetings, or called him on the phone, five times since 1949.
In other words, if I had what I thought was a good item about a
Communist maneuver, I would call him or Nelson Frank, or Victor
Riesel because these people are columnists who know the score. They
are anti-Communists and they have a wide following.
As far as any collusion in any sinister sense goes ; no. That is the
context.
Mr. Arens. Would the same apply with reference to George Sokol-
sky and with reference to James O'Neil, of the Legion ?
Mr. Hartnett. I have met George Sokolsky at social functions.
I talked to him on the phone a couple of times. I think I have been
at his office once, possibly, to tell him about something, again some
5310 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
maneuver by the Communists, something I thought was important
that would be of interest to his readers.
But as far as any colhision of conspiracy for a clearance apparatus;
No. Sokolsky used to forward to Jim O'Neil — I forget the sequence,
but originally they, I think George Sokolsky — used to forward to
supposed leading anti-Communists letters from people in Hollywood
in which they "explained" their past Communist or past Communist-
front affiliations.
I received possibly 30 such letters. r-
Subsequently James O'Neil, I think, would just pass these along.
You could take them or leave them.
Mr. Arens. Mr. Hartnett, have you read the Cogley report?
Mr, Hartnett. Yes ; volume II.
Mr. Arens. I ask you now on the basis of your background and
experience in this field of Communist penetration of the entertain-
ment industry, to give this committee your appraisal of whether or
not the Cogley report is objective, fair, and honest in its presentation
of the facts ?
Mr. Hartnett. Omitting any references to myself, let me say that
the man is either woefully ignorant or he is a rogue. I know Mr.
Cogley would say this is being black and white, polarizing things;
it is too simplified ; I lack philosophical penetration ; I can't see the
ramifications.
But there it is — ^he suppresses, consistently suppresses, evidence,
and he crops the evidence which would be against his case, that is
to say, that people are being wrongfully accused and we ought to let
the poor Conununists alone. He suppresses facts and puts forward
distorted versions of evidence in favor of his thesis.
For example, on page 179, volume II, he talks about a director,
David Pressman. He talks about a director, J. R.
Mr. Arens. Wlio does?
Mr. Hartnett. Cogley in his "white paper on communism." He
says:
Before Red Channels, J. R. had built up a considerable reputation in tele-
vision. * * * J. R.'s first task was to prepare a pilot kinescope for a new show.
He did this using two actors who had been listed in Red Channels.
This is more than an educated guess. That director is David
Pressman.
Wliy doesn't he name David Pressman? Because David Press-
man is one of the top directors in the Communist movement in the
cultural field. Don't take my word for it. [Picks up documents.]
For example, here, "Signed Communist Party nominating petition.
On the social staff of Communist Camp Unity."
Mr. Arens. Does the report or reference of this case point out an
illustration of a person who has been unjustly blacklisted?
Mr. Hartnett. Yes; he (Cogley) talks about the trouble he (Press-
man) had with these two people. Just because they were in Red
Channels, he could not use them on the show. Who were they ?
Mr. Arens. You tell us what are the facts with reference to the
case of J. R. who the report indicates has been so wrongfully abused,
this sad case of J. R. Tell us what are the facts of J. R.
Mr. Hartnett. I think J. R. could only be one man, David Press-
man, who has a strong Communist record. In January 1947, he
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5311
directed the cultural portion of the Lenin memorial meeting in INIadi-
son Square Garden.
Cogley says that he (Pressman) used two actors who were listed
in Red Channels. Who were the actors ? J. Edward Bromberg and
Sam Wanamaker.
Bromberg tried to kid your committee. He pleaded a heart attack
and then went out to Ann Arbor to work.
Sam Wanamaker had a record of about 40, at least, Communist-
front affiliations. If he is not a Communist Party member, he ought
to take the sign down. Wanamaker jumped the United States when
another committee of Congress had a subpena out for him.
These are the two men. Wliy should a sponsor use them in his tele-
vision show? Pressman consistently used, tried to use, some of the
most notorious Communists in the business on the show "Treasury
Men in Action." He finally got the heave-ho from the show.
Now he has been directing this summer down in Playhouse in the
park in Philadelphia. This is a man with a very strong record.
As Cogley says in the "white paper," he is a fake because he still
masquerades on television. He comes in and another man will front
for him.
Mr. Arens. Mr. Chairman, that will conclude the staff interroga-
tion of this witness.
The Chairman. What is on the program for this afternoon? We
have a rollcall.
Mr. Arens. We have three witnesses en route to Washington. Al-
though we anticipated they would be here by 2 o'clock to testify, we
have just been advised this morning that because of plane and train
connections they will not arrive in time to testify before 3 o'clock.
So I suggest that with the approval of the committee and chair-
man, that the committee reconvene at 3 o'clock.
The Chairman. Have you any more witnesses at this time?
Mr. Arens. No more witnesses this morning.
The Chairman. Then the committee will stand in recess until 3
o'clock this afternoon.
(Present in the hearing room at the conclusion of the morning ses-
sion Messrs. Scherer, Velde, Walter and Doyle.)
(The committee recessed at 11 : 25, July 12, 1956, to reconvene at
3 p. m., same day.)
AFTERNOON SESSION, THURSDAY, JULY 12, 1956
(Committee members present : Representatives Frazier, Scherer, and
Doyle.)
Mr. Doyle (presiding). The committee will please come to order.
By virtue of the power and authority vested in him as chairman
of the full committee under Public Law 601, Chairman Francis E.
Walter has constituted a subcommittee for this afternoon's work, con-
sisting of Mr. Frazier of Tennessee, Mr. Scherer of Ohio, and myself,
Mr. Doyle of California, acting temporarily as subcommittee chair-
man.
Call your first witness, please.
Mr. Arens. Mr. Chairman, if you please, Mr. Roy Brewer has as-
sumed the witness seat here and I respectfully suggest that you ad-
minister the oath.
5312 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
Mr. Doyle. Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth
and nothing but the truth, so help you God ?
Mr. Brewer. I do.
TESTIMONY OP ROY M. BREWER
Mr. Arens. Kindly identify yourself by name, residence, and oc-
cupation.
Mr. Brewer. My name is Roy M. Brewer, and I am now residing
in Stamford, Conn., and I am employed as the manager of the branch
operation for Allied Artists Pictures Corp., with offices at 1560 Broad-
way, New York City.
Mr. Arens. Mr. Brewer, give us, if you please, a thumbnail sketch
of your personal background, with particular reference to any activity
in which you may have been engaged, touching on the problem of com-
munism and its attempts to penetrate into the entertainment industry.
I suggest you may proceed in chronological order if it is agreeable
to you.
Mr. Brewer. I was born in the State of Nebraska, Hall County, in
1909. I was raised in Nebraska and started early as an employee in.
the motion-picture theaters, wliich was my first association with the
motion-picture industry.
I also became active in the labor movement and served for a time as
president of the Nebraska State Federation of Labor, 8 years, as a
matter of fact. My work in labor ultimately took me into the national
scene, where I became an appointed officer of the International Alli-
ance of Theatrical Stage Employees. This was in 1945.
On March 12 of 1945 I was assigned to a temporary assignment in
Hollywood, Calif. That was the day that the first of the so-called
Hollywood jurisdictional strikes broke out, and for a period of 8 yeara
thereafter I remained as an officer, international representative in
charge of the west coast office of the lATSE.
It was in this capacity that I came into contact with the problem
of communism in Hollywood, and my contact came almost on the date
of my arrival, and, I might add, is still going on.
Mr. Arens. May I ask you, in preliminary fashion, is there or haa
there been in Hollywood "blacklisting"?
Mr. Brewer. Well, I would say that blacklisting in the term of an
illegal, improper, sinister activity, as has been applied, does not exist,
Mr. Arens. Plas it existed in general ?
Mr. Brewer. No.
Mr. Arens. What has been the practice and what is the practice,
the employment practice, insofar as it bears upon the problem of Com-
munist and pro-Communist penetration of the motion-picture
industry ?
Mr, Brewer. Well, after the hearings in 1947
Mr. Arens. Do you mean the hearings of the House Committee on
Un-American Activities on the Hollywood Ten ?
Mr. Brewer. Right.
After those hearings, the motion-picture industry, in what has come
to be known as the Waldorf-Astoria Resolution, enunciated a policy
to the effect that they would not hire known Communists in the
motion-picture industry. This was the first basis of an industry
position.
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5313
Since that time. I think that position has been changed somewhat.
There is no overall policy that is rigidly adhered to by each of the
companies but, by and large, as a result of the expose of those hear-
ings and subsequent hearings which disclosed a rather serious Com-
munist penetration in the motion-picture industry, the industry took
the position that those persons who had become publicly identified
with Communist activities would not be employed unless and until
they made it clear that such associations as they had with the Com-
munists no longer existed.
Mr. Arens. Is that in your phraseology within the frame of the
reference you have in mind, "blacklisting" ?
Mr. Brewer. No.
Mr. Arens. In the course of your experience in the work which you
have described, have you had occasion to formulate an opinion as to
whether or not there have been any sweeping instances or general
instances, significant instances, of blacklisting of innocent persons
from employment on false charges of communism or Communist
activity ?
Mr. Brewer. I would say that, within the basic policy which I
have enunciated, every effort has been made on the part of everyone
comiected with the industry to make it as easy as possible for those
persons who had gotten involved innocently or unintentionally to
make their position known and, as I say, there has been no person
that I know of who wanted to make their position clear who was not
only given a chance to, but aided in every way that they could do so,
and, having done so, there was no further question about their em-
ployment.
Mr. Arens. Have you, in the course of your career, been engaged
as a "clearance" man ?
Mr. Brewer. Well, I have been charged particularly in the re-
port of the Fund for the Republic of having done so.
Mr. Arens. Have you done so ?
Mr. Brewer. No.
Mr. Arens. Do you have a copy of the report before you ?
Mr. Brewer. I do.
Mr. Arens. I invite your attention, if you please, sir, to not only the
references to yourself and to your activities, which appear scattered
in various places throughout Volume I of the report, but to a con-
centration of reference to yourself beginning on pages 66 and 67.
I should like to have you, at your own pace and in your own way,
allude to the references in this volume to yourself and make such state-
ments as you feel obliged to make to this committee.
Mr. Brewer. This has to do with the 1945 Hollywood strikes, and
■of course it is impossible to intelligently understand the issues and
the problems revolving out of the strike without understanding a
great deal of the background that led up to the strikes, because these
were very strange circumstances under which these strikes were called ;
very few people could understand them because they did not under-
stand that, basically, the strikes of 1945 and 1946 were strikes called
by persons who were involved in trade-union organizations that were
identified in one way or another with the Communist Party position
to win jurisdiction and power in the motion-picture industry, as
^against those unions that were resisting the Communist Party.
5314 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
Mr. Arens. What is this relation between the Communist pene-
tration of your union and so-called blacklisting?
Mr. Brewer. The Communuist movement in Hollywood was a
single overall movement and the efforts of the Communists to get
control of the unions was a part of their effort to get control of the
motion-picture industry itself. It was the effort of the industry to
shake off the control of the Communists that had reached a pretty
substantial stage in 1945 that has brought about the charges of so
called blacklisting.
Mr. Arens. On page 15, Volume I of this report, there is a reference
to "Salt of the Earth," a motion picture ?
Mr. Brewer. Yes.
Mr. Arens. A footnote here reads, among other things :
Roy M. Brewer, then international representative of the Theatrical Stage
Employees' Union, and Chairman of the Hollywood A. F. of L. Film Council,
offered the services of the council in helping to suppress the film. The distribu-
tion of Salt of the Earth was halted after motion-picture projectionists (mem-
bers of Brewer's union), and theater owners across the country refused to show
it.
Do you have any comments or suggestions to make ?
Mr. Brewer. The term "offered the services of the council" is
obviously the language of the person who prepared that report. It
was no secret in Hollywood that the Hollywood AFL Film Council,
myself, and most everyone who knew the circumstances, considered
the picture Salt of the Earth as an effort made by persons who had
been publicly identified for the most part as Communists to produce
a picture that would prejudice the interests of the United States, par-
ticularly in the Latin American countries.
We felt that the making and the showing of this film was a part
of the effort to discredit the position of the United States in the
world struggle that was going on, and as such, we were against it.
There was no secret about that.
Mr. Arens. Mr. Brewer, on page 17 Volume II of this report, refer-
ence is made to yourself and your union activities and reference is
made to George E. Browne and a man by the name of Willie Bioff.
Without undertaking to read all the language, I would summarize
the reference by saying that the paragraph here and the page points
to the fact that Mr. Bioff and I believe also, yes, Mr. Browne, were
sentenced to jail sentences?
Mr. Brewer. Right.
Mr. Arens. Did you as an individual have any connection with
either Mr. Browne or Mr. Bioff in any of the events which contributed
to their jail sentences?
Mr. Brewer. I held no position as a national officer in this organi-
zation during the period when Mr. Browne or Mr. Bioff were in
power. As a niatter of fact, they were convicted in 1941 and my first
official association with the national officers of the organization was in
1945.
I had seen Mr. Browne during the time when he was president merely
as a member of the union, but Mr. Bioff I had never even met. The
only time I saw him was from a distance at a convention in 1938. I
had absolutely nothing to do with him, I had absolutely nothing to do
with the so called administration of that group.
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5315
^AHien I went with the lATSE as a national officer, I considered
them and I consider now that their influence had been completely
dissipated so far as the direction of the national organization was
concerned.
Mr. Arens. Were you ever interviewed by a representative of the
Fund for the Republic in connection with the preparation of the
report of that organization in blacklisting <■
Mr. Brewer. Yes.
Mr. Arens. Tell us in your own words what transpired in that
interview.
Mr. Brewer. I was interviewed at quite great length by Mr. Paul
Jacobs. He asked me a great many questions, which I answered as
best I could. I tried to make him see that there really was no basis
for the report whatsoever, in my judgment, and that I considered the
efforts to write the report as an effort not to defend civil liberties as
they said but, rather, to discredit those persons who had devoted them-
selves to the effort of preventing the Communist Party from taking
control and domination of the motion-picture industry.
I tried to point out to him that with respect to the matter of clear-
ance, that the only person that could clear an individual was that
individual himself ; that the vast majority of persons who got involved
with the Communists were persons who either didn't understand what
the Communist Party was or didn't understand that they were really
involved with the Communist Party.
There was a great deal of confusion and this is the thing that the
Communists thrived on.
First, they created confusion and then they generated hatred and
bitterness, and that out of this had come a most chaotic situation for
a long period of time, and that the only hope of cleaning up the situa-
tion and restoring it on some sort of basic standards which were ac-
ceptable to Americans was to eliminate and isolate the Communist
Party influence.
Now, most of the persons, as I say, who found themselves involved,
were not persons who basically sympathized with what the Communist
Party was trying to do. As I say, they either didn't know that the
Communists were there — some knew they were there but were deluded
in the idea that they were not subversive — others thought that they
might be a little subversive but they were not important; that the
cause they purported to stand for was more important and so they
went along.
So what I tried to make him see was that when these persons found
themselves in disrepute as a result of disclosures which had taken
place, what those of us who were working in Plollywood were trying
to do were actually trying to help those persons who wanted to make
their position clear to make it clear. But if a person didn't want to
make their position clear, there was nothing anybody could do for
them. They had made their record and it was up to them to clarify
that record.
As I say, we were willing to help them, to try to make them see
where they had made their mistake and how they could make their
position clear, but so far as the clearance was concerned, those indi-
viduals that were cleared, cleared themselves by their actions and their
statements and by convincing the American people basically that they
5316 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
had no subversive intentions and that whatever associations they had
with the Communist Party had been severed.
Mr. Arens. On the basis of your background and experience, Mr.
Brewer, are you in a position to appraise before this committee the
phraseology which was used by the Communist Party itself to de-
scribe the efforts of the patriots to weed out the Communists from
Hollywood? What phraseology did the Communists use?
Mr. Brewer. Against those persons, you mean ?
Mr. Arens. Yes.
Mr. Brewer. Well, of course they used any phrase that they could
to discredit them. If the people to whom they were trying to appeal
were prolabor, they would try to create the impression that they were
antilabor. If the people were interested in race relations, they would
attempt to make them appear anti-Semitic or in favor of segregation.
Mr. Arens. Did the Communists use the term "blacklisting" to apply
to the efforts of patriotic people and organizations and the industry
trying to rid themselves of Communist penetration ?
Mr. Brewer. They have used the term "blacklisting," I think, in
an effort to try to frighten the motion-picture industry as a whole
from its efforts to eliminate Communist influences and Communist
persons.
Mr. Akens. Do you know whether or not the Communist Party to
this day in its publications uses the term "blacklisting" to undertake
to describe the efforts of the House Committee on Un-American Ac-
tivities, the agencies of Government, or the patriotic organizations
to weed out the Communists from the entertainment and other
industries ?
Mr. Brewer. I have rather concrete evidence of that in the Daily
Worker of June 26, which has a headline "Uncover Trio as Blacklist
High Court," and, incidentally, they brushed me off in this and they
are giving Mr. Sokolsky and Mr. Victor Riesel and Fred Woltman
the term "the high court."
The Fund seems to give me the credit but the Daily Worker doesn't
seem to want to.
Mr. Scherer. Mr. Chairman, I have before me two Daily Workers
of more recent date, namely, July 11 and July 12, in which the Daily
Worker with great glee welcomes the report of the Fund for the
Republic which we are discussing here today. It uses practically the
same language in the Daily Workers as is used in the report of the
Fund for the Republic, and follows the same line.
Mr. Arens. On the basis of your background and experience, I
should like to ask you if you are conversant with the report itself?
Have you read that part of the report pertaining to the motion-picture
industry ?
Mr. Brewer. Yes ; I have.
Mr. Arens. Wliat is your appraisal of that report from the stand-
point of an objective, factual, truthful appraisal of the situation within
the industry ?
Mr. Brewer. In the first place the report ignores the basic premise,
the basic problem, that confronted the motion-picture industry and
the basis of all the problems which the Fund purports to consider is
the problem of Communist infiltration into the motion-picture indus-
try which the Fund seems to feel is of no importance.
nsrV'ESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5317
Based upon a readiiif^ of the report, you first get the condusion
that the evil is bhicklisting, not communism. This is the first basis
on which I sharply disagree with the report. I think that had the
Fund been interested in the matter of civil rights that they would have
attempted to evaluate the entire problem, not just an oll'shoot of the
problem which blacklisting was or so-called blacklisting.
As I say, had anyone lived through the days when the Communists
dominated the scene, as I did, and seen the way that persons' characters
were destroyed overnight by a very effective program of character
assassination
Mr, Arens. By whom ?
Mr. Brewer. By the Communists. And it was a very effective
■effort that they did.
For example, they had a small secret group and they would take
a grain of truth and they would distort this truth in such a way as to
reflect, to exaggerate it, and enlarge it, and then they would start
planting these stories all around the industry.
Now, the average person, when he w^ent to work on one of the studio
lots and he heard a makeup artist make reference to this fact, and I
will give you a specfic example of one of the stories that they spread
during the height of the strike. They spread the story that Richard
Walsh, president of the lATSE, was a brother-in-law of George
Browne, the former president, which, of course, was not true. But
they spread that story all over Hollywood and a great many people
came to believe it.
Mr. Arens. T\niat difference would it make whether he had been
the brother-in-law ?
Mr. Brewer. Perhaps it wouldn't, but because of the fact that he
was in great disrepute and they were attempting to prejudice the
case
Mr. Arens. That was not guilt by association, was it ?
Mr. Brewer. It could have been. I guess it might have been.
This was exactly what they were trying to do, because he was in
disrepute. They were trying to establish the fact that his alleged
relationship to Browne made him unreliable and therefore would cause
them to take the position which they w^anted the people to take, rather
than the one Mr. Walsh wanted them to take.
Mr. Scherer. Mr. Brewer, am I correct in my recollection that you
attended some of the hearings of this committee on the west coast ?
Mr. Brewer. I have attended most of the hearings of the committee.
Mr. Scherer. That is where I first met you ?
Mr. Brewer. From time to time since 1947.
Mr. Scherer. Were you not present even as late as 1952 when there
was volumes of testimony of so-called blacklisting by the Communists
of non-Communists in the entertainment field ?
Mr. Brewer. Yes ; there definitely was.
Mr. Scherer. You know that there is considerable testimony avail-
able in the records of this committee, sworn testimony ; is there not ?
Mr. Brewer. Yes ; there is.
Mr. Scherer. Let nie ask you now, does the report of the Fund for
the Republic deal in any respect with that type of blacklisting?
82833— 56— pt. 2 3
5318 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
Mr. Brewer. Yes ; it does touch on that but, in typical fashion, it
brushes this off in that it says :
Well, whatever there was was more or less informal and therefore not im-
portant—
whereas the actions of the industry were more formal and, therefore,
more diabolical, or whatever word you want to use.
I think it's important also to know that the apparatus which existed
in Hollywood was unbelievably effective in the way that they would
destroy a person, and this is the way that they accomplished their
blacklisting.
Mr. Arens. Wlio is "they" ?
Mr. Brewer. The Comnnmist Party. They would have a secret
meeting and they would agree upon a story that they were going to
spread and, as I say, the next day that story would spring up on the
sets, it would spring up in the shops and a person hearing it for the
first time from a makeup artist or from some other person wouldn't
think anything about it, but if he went down to the shop and heard
the identical story in the shop, and then went into one of the offices
and found it in exactly the same fashion from one of the girls in the
office, they began to believe it. This is the way it worked and, as I
say, this type of activity was rampant in the industry in 1945 and 1946.
Mr. SciiERER. As I say, there is sworn testimony in the records of
this committee giving incidents of blacklisting by the Communists ag
you have just described, is there not?
Mr. Brewer. Yes.
Mr. Scherer. Now, in the Fund for the Republic's report, it goes
into great detail of giving and outlining individual cases of alleged
blacklisting by industry and of these various individuals who were
anti-Communist, does it not ?
Mr. Brewer. Yes.
Mr. Scherer. I have not read it, I have only scanned through it, but
does the Fund report list in any detail or does it give specific instances,
the names, of individuals who were blacklisted by the Communists?
Mr. Brewer. Yes ; it does. It does give some reference to that. It
names several persons and does discuss in some detail the efforts of the
Communists to set up their own blacklist, and does admit that it was
effective to some extent.
But, as I say, the summary of it and the conclusions were that it
was of an informal nature and, therefore, appears not to be so im-
portant as what the industry had done.
Mr. Arens. May I read you some language appearing on pages 166
and 167 of volume I of the Fund for the Republic ?
So, though Brewer remained the top evaluator, Ward Bond, Borden Chase, an^
Martin Berkeley, all active members of MPA, were also called upon to sit m
judgment.
The MPA, that is the Motion Picture Alliance.
That put them in the position of determining the "employability" of people
who were competing for the same kind of jobs they themselves held.
What is your observation with respect to that statement ?
Mr. Brewer. I want to say this : that there is absolutely no evidence
that can be produced by anyone that any of the efforts on the part of
any person with whom I was associated in any way was on a personal
nature. As a matter of fact, the objective, we considered the enemy
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5319
to be the Communist apparatus and the minute that a person had indi-
cated their disassociation with the Communist apparatus and that they
were no longer serving the Communist apparatus, then everyone that
I was connected with were ready and willing to assist them in any
way possible.
Now, a very specific example of that was the case of Mr. Ward
Bond, who is mentioned, and Mr. Jose Ferrer.
I think it was in about 1051 or thereabouts there was a very bitter
exchange between Mr. Bond and Mr. Ferrer in the trade paper. It
was front page of Daily Variety and there was a running quarrel
going on for a long period of time, but in 1953, the early part of 1958,
when Mr. Ferrer made it clear that he no longer had any desire to have
any asociations with these peo])le, and also made it clear that those
associations that he had had, had been by carelessness on his part
or failure to analyze the entire situation, Mr. Ward Bond was one
of the first ones to come to hir defense.
So that there is absolutely no evidence that can be produced any-
where to substantiate the charge that any of the people with whom
I was in any way associated used their position in this fight or what
influence they had to injure anyone professionally. It was all the
other way.
Mr. Arens. Mr. Brewer, what is your observation with respect to
the Fund for the Republic report on identifying data ?
Mr. Brewer. Would you be a little more specific as to just what
you mean by that ?
Mr. Arexs. Does this report objectively, in your judgment as a
professional in this field of fighting Communists, does it supply suffi-
cient identifying data as the basis for its conclusions ?
Mr. Brewer. The conclusions of the report, as I say, are running
through it, all through it, and one of the rather significant things I
think that I noticed about the report is that in summarizing the posi-
tion of the anti-Communists, they use the language of the writer.
In other words, my position is not what I said it was but what
the writer concluded that it was, whereas, in the case of Mr. Sorrell,
in one particular instance they quote him verbatim quite at length.
So that in every instance where they are presenting the position of
the anti -Communist, that position is stated on the basis of what they
foimd the position to be rather than what it is. I won't say that this
is the case in every instance but there are many instances of it and
there are also instajices of where there haA^e been additions made that
are not based upon fact also.
So, as I say, there is some material to substantiate it.
I noticed that in describing the strike situation, they go in quite
detail quoting bulletins and so forth, but there are very, very many
instances of where they have just drawn a conclusion and left it at
that without any real statement of facts as they existed, which would
permit a reader to draw his own conclusions.
Mr. Arens. Are there any other items of information which you
would like to supply the committee with reference to the subject
matter ?
Mr. Brewer. There are a number of points that I think ought to be
called.
Mr. Arens. Then at your own pace make those points.
5320 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
Mr. Brewer. For example, in discussing the question of labor in
Hollywood, they make quite an effort to make it appear that these
events were all leading up to a situation where I would become the
dominant person in Hollywood. They fail completely to evaluate the
position of a man by the name of Jeff Kibre in the development of the
trade-union problem in Hollywood.
There is a great deal of data available regarding Mr. Kibre and
the part that he played and this report brushes that over completely.
Mr. Kibre has been identified as a Communist in a number of instances.
There is available a series of public reports which he made in 1939
to known Communist officials and it was, a.s a matter of fact, the expose
of Mr. Kibre's associations that caused their first effort in 1939 to fail
and then the report goes on to set up the existence of the Conference
of Studio Unions, the development of the Conference of Studio Unions,
despite the fact that the president of the Conference of Studio Unions,
Herbert Sorrell, has been identified I think by three different persons
in sworn public testimon}'^ that he was a Communist.
A copy of his Communist Party membership receipts was presented
before a congressional committee in 1948, and the FBI issued a, report
that the signature on there was his handwriting; all of these things
have been brushed off' and the report in such a way as to create a
doubt in the mind of the reader as to whether or not the efforts of the
Conference of Studio Unions was really a Communist effort, when I
think that any real student who is as proficient as the investigators
for the Fund professed to be would know that this w'as very definitely
a Communist effort continuing from 1934 on until 1947 or 1948 when
it was finally disposed of.
But, as I say, through the entire description of this background,
despite the existence of very valuable and important material, as I
say, including a verbatim report from Kibre to Mr. Roy Hudson in
New York as to what their program was for Hollywood, which was
published and is available, this was completely ignored.
Now, another factor that is erroneous in the report is the implication
that the Motion Picture Alliance was antilabor. As a matter of fact,
the report says specifically that when I Joined the Motion Picture
Alliance I jeopardized my reputation as a labor leader because the
Motion Picture Alliance was supposed to be an antilabor organi-
zation.
Well, as a matter of fact, at the time I joined the Motion Picture
Alliance, the president was a labor man. The president was Mr.
Walter Redmond, who was then the vice president of the plasterers
international union, who later became the secretary-treasurer of the
plasterers union, and from its inception the Motion Picture Alliance
had the support of the anti- Communist labor groups, including the
teamsters, under the able leadership first of Mr. Joe Touliy and
later under the leadership of Mr. Ralph Clair and the plasterers union
under the leadership of Mr. Redmond, as I pointed out, and Mr.
Bennie Martinez, who is still a member of the board and who is now
a vice president of the plasterers union.
There were a substantial number of labor members in the Motion
Picture Alliance from its inception. So that the implication that it
was antilabor is not true and it should be corrected.
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5321
Now, there are any number of smaller incidents which are only
incidentally important.
For example, in describing the question of the trial of Mr. Sorrell
before the Central Labor Council in Los Angeles, the report makes the
statement that the affiliations of the attorneys for the Conference of
Studio Unions were questioned.
Well, as a matter of fact, the attorneys for the Conference of Studio
Unions were the firm of Pestana and Esterman, and both of these
individuals have been identified in public testimony as having been
members of the Communist Party.
One of the other firms tliat represented the Conference of Studio
Unions was the firm of Katz, Gallagher and Margolis, and this firm
has been pretty well established as having some associations with the
Communist Party.
Mr. ScHERER. That is an understatement.
Mr. Brewer. And despite the fact that when they describe the
lATSE, they never fail to inject into the report the fact that this was
the union of the notorious Browne and Bioff, and they failed in
instance after instance to set forth the facts with respect to these
matters.
In other words, they say that the affiliations were questioned so as
to raise a doubt as to whether they were questioned properly or not,
but as I say, in the case of our situation, it was a positive statement
that this was the notorious situation. So that this is the tenor in
which the entire report is written.
Mr. Arens. Mr. Brewer, do you know Elizabeth Poe, one of the
contributors to the report?
Mr. Brewer. I know who she is.
Mr. Arens. Do you have any information respecting her activity?
Mr. Brewer. "\A^at I know about Elizabeth Poe primarily is that
she wrote an attack on me in a magazine called Frontier, which is
edited by her husband, a magazine that is published as a so-called
liberal paper on the west coast but which, so far as I am concerned, is
a completely Communist Party line publication.
Mr. Arens. Was that attack prior to the time that Miss Poe worked
on the Fund for the Kepublic report ?
Mr. Brewer. Yes. I might say that in this report she did not dis-
tinguish at all between Communists and innocents or fellow travelers
or anything else. She took the position that my efforts against the
Communists were just as reprehensible as my efforts against anyone
else. She did not, as I say, draw any line between them. She felt
that an}' efl'ort on the part of anyone to prevent Communists from
working in the motion-picture industry was wrong.
Mr. ScHERER. A little bit of that philosophy is carried over into the
report ?
Mr. Brewer. A great deal of it, but not quite so much.
Mr. ScHERER. I said a little bit.
Mr. Brewer. There are a couple of points that I wanted to make.
For example, there is a reference in the report on page 70, volume I,
to the strike situation, in which it says, I think, in exact quotes :
Roy Brewer attended most of the producers' meetings.
Now this is a complete falsification. The producers met hundreds
and hundreds of times, and during the crucial stage of this strike,
5322 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
when the Conference of Studio Unions was calling a strike in these
studios to try to force the producers to allocate work, and this was the
only issue, to allocate work favorable to their union and disfavorable
to ourselves. There were some meetings Vvhich I attended, but to say
that I attended most of the producers' meetings is a complete dis-
tortion of fact.
My relationship with the producers was just as it should be. I was
the head of an organization which was involved in this situation with
them. There were certain mutual areas of interest and I met with
them to discuss them, and that is all. This is a distortion.
Now there is another situation with respect to the famous Zsa Zsa
Gabor incident which I want to point out.
Mr. Arens. First of all, for the purpose of this record and the en-
lightenment of the committee, tell us who is Zsa Zsa Gabor.
Mr. Brewer. Zsa Zsa Gabor? She is a motion-picture actress.
On page 158, volume I, he describes this incident to prove that my
influence has become worldwide in this situation, and he says, and the
incident took place, oh, she was offered a part in a picture to be made
in France. Some American in France had cautioned her about this
because they had heard that the director of this picture had been
identified as a Communist and was what was termed in the parlance
of the industry as a refugee from the committee.
He had to go to France, apparently, to avoid the service of a
subpena.
Mr. ScHERER. There were a number of those.
. Mr. Brewer. There was some question in their minds about whether
or not this was a fact, and this person told her that if she wanted to
find out for sure she should call me in Hollywood, which she did.
I merely advised her that it was true; that he had been identified.
It was true also that it has been the policy of the committee to sub-
pena persons who had so been identified, but that he had not been
in this country so that he could be subpenaed. The quote says :
I made it clear I wasn't telling her whether she should go into the picture
or not, Brewer said, but I did answer her question —
which is the fact. Now the report goes on :
The next day Brewer got a wire from Irving Brown, European AFL repre-
sentative, asking again about Dassin's politics. Brewer made his objections
stronger and Dassin was dropped.
This is untrue. As a matter of fact, I had received prior to her call
the same inquiry, to which I gave the same answer that I did to Mr.
Brown, which was to do nothing except to tell them the truth. This
is a distortion in the report, which I resent and which I think is
wrong.
Now with respect to the whole matter of this effort to make me the
supreme satanic majesty in this evil operation that was taking place
in Hollywood, I want to say that I became interested in the Communist
problem as a result of my determination not to let the Communists
run the union which I represented out of the motion-picture indus-
try. It had been a part of the motion-picture industry since its incep-
tion and it was obvious to me that the Communists had determined
that they would never be able to control that union, and, therefore,
they were bound to destroy it.
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5323
I recognized that you cannot fight the symptoms of a disease. You
have to fight the cause, and the cause of it was the hard core of the
Communist Party which was operating in 2 groups, 1 in the trade
unions and 1 in the creative crafts, and that whenever it served their
purpose they joined together for the purpose of destroying their
mutual enemies, and I happened to be on their list of mutual enemies.
So that I realized that, first of all, you could not defeat them in the
trade unions if they continued to flourish in the creative fields, and
therefore I recognized it as one fight and I tried to associate myself
•with the people who felt like I did, that they were a menace to the
industry, they were a menace to the country, they were a menace to
the freedom for which our country stands.
I did not want, I did not seek, I do not want now, any power over
anyone. As I said, any influence that I had came from the fact that
I was willing to work at the job of countermanding the influence of
what I consider to be a very evil force.
Secondly, that I was willing to spend my time to help those persons
who had been innocently involved and who had been tricked into
going along with something which was sinister and which they really
had no intention and desire of being a part of. This was the sole basis
of my interest and, as I say, I did not want power, I do not want it
now, and this is a complete distortion of my interest and my influence
and my efforts in the matter.
Mr. Arens. Mr. Brewer, we thank you for your testimony.
That would conclude the staff interrogation of this witness, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Doyle. Thank you.
Mr. Frazier?
Mr. Frazier. No questions.
]Mr. DoYLE. Mr. Scherer?
Mr. SciiERER. No ; only, Mr. Brewer, I know of the work you have
^one, particularly on the west coast, and you have rendered a valuable
service not only to the industry and the union which you represent,
but I believe to this country.
Mr. Brewer. Thank you.
Mr. SciiERER. Do not feel badly about the position in which the
report of the Fund for the Republic places you.
Mr. Brewer. Congressman, I don't.
Mr. Scherer. Because whenever you join an anti-Communist cru-
sade, whether in the Legion or a group such as you are identified with
or this committee, you can expect, as you know, the type of attack that
you have faced.
Mr. Brewer. I don't worry about it.
Mr. Doyle. May I be privileged to say, Mr. Brewer, that it is a
pleasure for me to appear on this committee today and have you ap-
pear before it ?
I remember with pleasure my frequent contacts with you on the
west coast and the very important and fine work you did out there.
"We miss you out there.
Mr. Brewt.r. Thank you. I miss being there, too.
Mr. DoYi.E. I do wish to ask a very few questions.
Mr. Brewer. Surely.
Mr. Doyle. Not, however, on the subject of the report, but I feel
I would like to take advantage of your expert knowledge in the field
5324 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
of communism and subversive activities as long as you are here to
submit to a couple of questions.
Mr. Brewer. I would be glad to try to answer them.
Mr. Doyle. If you have an opinion based on your experience and
knowledge in the field of entertainment in Hollywood, primarily, first,
what is your opinion as to the present condition of the Communist
infiltration of Hollywood entertainment?
Mr. Brewer. Well, I think that, so far as the present situation is
concerned, that the line of conmiunication between the hard core of
the Communist Party and the persons who used to do the bulk of their
work for them has been effectively severed. Wliile there are some
remnants of the period during which they substantially influenced
the minds of the creative people of the industry, I do think that the
situation is improving daily, and I think that, by and large, it is in
reasonably good shape and I think that a very effective job has been
done there to break off thait influence with a minimum amount of
injury to the persons who were their victims.
Mr. Doyle. To be more specific, I think we have testimony that
the Communist influence still continues quite substantial in Holly-
wood, and I am wondering if that is your opinion.
Mr. Brewer. My opinion, as I said, was that, so far as I know, there
is no effective effort being carried on by the party in the sense that
they are able to use the industry or that they are able to influence sub-
stantially the people who make up the bulk of the industry.
I think that the influence is pretty substantially reduced. I think
it is at a minimum.
Mr. Doyle. In addition, let me ask you this, bearing in mind your
statement :
Would you say that there are still active leaders in the Communist
Party, who are still active in Hollywood, affecting the activity of the
subversive influence in Hollywood?
Mr. Brewer. I know of none and I would say that the persons
who were the spearhead of influencing the Communist authority are
persona non grata with practically the entire makeup of the industry
today. Now there may be persons who have gone back in from other
areas that we have not been able to identify.
We know that persons who are identified Communists are still work-
ing in the New York theater and we Imow that there is in intercourse
between them, and there may be some influence through that end but,
as I say, so far as being able to pinpoint any persons who appear to
be a part of the Communist apparatus as we used to know it, I know
of none today.
But I must point out to you that I have been away for a year.
Mr. Scherer. Are you speaking of Hollywood or New York?
Mr. Brewer. Hollywood.
Mr. Scherer. You are not talking about New York?
Mr. Brewer. I am not talking about New York. There is no
doubt but what there is a substantial infiltration in New York.
Mr. Scherer. Particularly in the lower echelons?
Mr. Brewer. Not only on the lower echelons, there are Broadway
producers who are identified members of the party, there are many
members of casts on Broadway shows where the record of this com-
mittee shows they have been identified as party members, and they
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5325
51 re playing in Broadway plays in New York City, and these are not
second-rate plays, they are the top ones.
Mr. ScHERER. You were talking in regard to Hollywood in re-
sponse to Mr. Doyle's question and not necessarily the radio and tele-
vision?
Mr. Brewher. I was talking only of Hollywood.
Mr. Doyle. Now, do I understand then that even though your
statement is that there is substantial Communist membership or ac-
tivity in the entertainment field in New York, that that does not ex-
tend by connections to Hollywood?
I have always understood from you and others in years past that
there was a pretty definite chain of activity between Communists in
one part of the country and Communists in the other.
Do 1 understand that Hollywood now is free from that connection
with New York?
Mr. Brew^er. Well, due to the position of the industry and its
awareness of this problem, the Communists are finding it very hard
to maneuver in Hollywood today. As I say, the type of maneuvering
and the type of influence which gives them influence and effective-
ness has been pretty substantially curtailed in the Hollywood area,
and it is the type of thing which the Fund report is complaining about
that has made it impossible for them.
For example, there have been no motion-picture people of any
consequence in any fronts of any consequence of any kind in the last
2 years, that I know of. The most recent situation was in respect to
the musicians union.
Now the disclosures there did indicate that there was some activity
within the musicians union but, as I say, I was not there during that
time and I am not fully familiar with it, but the apparatus that used
to function and that used to get Hollywood to do the work that they
wanted to do behind the positions that they wanted to take, to gener-
ally create an atmosphere that was favorable to their operation, has
been pretty well dissipated.
I think the fact that they have been able to get very little, if any,
support for the Fund report is indicative of that fact. There have
been no guilds rising up in Hollywood proclaiming the injustice of
blacklisting in the motion-picture industry. There have been no
guilds coming to the defense of the Fund for the Republic and saying
that this is a great and noble project which they have instituted here
in preserving the rights of freedom.
Mr. ScHERER. But the Daily Worker has?
Mr. Brewer. The Daily Worker has, but the point is that they can
no longer get the people they used to get to do this job for them.
Mr. DoYLE. May I ask this on the question of rehabilitation, because
the other witnesses have all spoken of that, and just briefly you have
mentioned it.
To what extent do you feel that your efforts have resulted in rehabil-
itation, which I think has been designated in your testimony, and that
of others as "clearance" ? I am only using that because I have not read
the report of the Fund for the Republic, but it is a word that has been
used and I am interested in the question of rehabilitation.
Apparently the report refers to you in that connection. In what
way have you rehabilitated? How many people, how many Com-
5326 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
munists or former Communists would you say have been rehabilitated
in the sense that they are now back in the industry because they cleared
themselves ?
Mr. Brewer. Well, I would say that there must be a hundred
at least, and some of the most important names in the industry today
are in that group.
The first man, whose name is well known to this committee, whom
we helped to reestablish in the industry was Edward Dmytryk. As
you know, Dmytryk was one of the original 10 and was cited and
convicted and served a term for contempt of this committee.
A strange thing came out in the subsequent study of Edward Dmy-
tryk's case, which was that he was actually not a member of the
Com.munist Party at the time he was taking this position ; that he had
actually resigned from the party and that he had been influenced, and
in some instances tricked, into taking a position before this committee
which led to his citation for contempt.
Now I say that Edward Dmytryk today has been reestablished. He
is a top director ; he is directing one of the most important pictures in
production in Hollywood today, which reputedly has one of the largest
budgets in history. He is recognized as a great creative artist. He is
accepted by the industry, and the industry for the most part has for-
gotten the episode, and I have every confidence that Edward Dmytryk
has never believed in the Communist movement but he was tricked and
deceived into becoming a part of it, because he was at heart a humani-
tarian and thought during this period that he was helping a humani-
tarian cause.
Mr. Doyle. He was identified as a member of the Communist Party
before this committee.
Mr. Brewer. He was. He was one of the original 10. There are
many others.
Mr. Doyle. What is your thought about the activities, the extent to
which the Communist members in New York are underground, or
what we would say are getting smart? Are they concealing their
membership ? Are they joining ?
The reason I ask you that, to be perfectly frank with you, a witness
this morning said that in New York they are getting smart. By that
term I know you will know what it means.
Mr. Brewer. I would agree with that, that they are. Persons who
have appeared in certain activities which certainly indicate that they
are oriented in the Communist position, have no open records at all.
Mr. Doyle. How can this committee and other similar governmental
bodies uncover the fact that they are under Communist discipline, even
though they may not be members of the Communist Party ?
Mr. Brewer. My belief is that if the opposition to them is intelli-
gent, that they will have to expose themselves or they lose their use-
fulness in the work which they really want them to do. It's not the
best way, but I think it's the only way.
Mr. Doyle. I want to take advantage, I have not discussed this with
you, but I want to take advantage of your presence here. I know that
you know the history of this committee over a term of years.
Will you give us out of your experience over a term of years your
appraisal in general terms at least of the extent of the usefulness of
this committee, say, in this field of exposing and defeating, meeting
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACBXlSTrN'G" 5327
the problem of subversive activities in the field of entertainment, either
in Hollywood or any place that you have in mind ?
I do not know what your answer is going to be, but you have ap-
peared here as an expert and I would like to have your opinion as an
expert.
Mr. Brewer. Well, I have appeared before this committee at various
times since 1947 and as the knowledge of the Communist conspiracy
grew, I think that this committee has done a very effective work.
First of all, let me say that it was the hearings of 1047 that first
alerted the American people to the danger of the Communist pene-
tration of the entertamment field, and particularly the Hollywood
motion-picture industry. Up until that time, I think that the average
American thought that all the charges of communism were so much
hogwash : that it was just the imagination of persons who were politi-
cally opposed to certain activities and were using this, to use an ex-
pression, a red herring.
But the exposures before this committee in 1947 here in Washington
I think alerted the people that there was a real danger. Then, of course,
subsequent hearings have made it possible, I think, to focus the
activity on the real culprit in the case, and tliis was always the charge,
and, of course, this is the way the Communists played it, which was to
get us fighting amongst ourselves while they went oil scot-free.
But I think the careful efforts of this committee over a long period
of time, and as I say, as the knowledge of the Communist movement
grew their techniques improved, and I think they have done a very
effective work and certainly I have been a champion of what the com-
mittee has done and have defended it and would do so today.
;Mr. DoTLE. Thank you very much.
Any questions, ^Ir. Scherer^
!Mr. ScHERER. Xo questions.
Mr. DoYXE. Mr. Frazier <
Mr. Fr-\zifjl Xo questions.
Mr. DoTT.E. Unless you have something. Counsel, the witness is
excused with the thanks of the committee.
Mr. Bre%ver. Thank you.
Mr. Doyle. Call your next witness.
Mr. Arexs. PaurPi. Milton.
Kindly remain standing, ^Ir. ililton, while the chairman adminis-
ters the oath to you.
Mr. D(JTLE. Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth, so help you God ?
^Ir. ;Milt(jx. I do.
TESTIMONY OF PAUL E. MILTON
'Mr. Arexs. Kindly identify yourself by name, residence, and
occupation.
Mr. MiLTox. My name is Paul R. Milton. I live in Xew York City
and have been a radio writer since 1942.
I had my first brush with what I think was the Communist Party in
1936. I was then editing a small magazine concerned with part of the
theatrical industry and including the schools.
At tliat time the city of Xew York proposed a license measure to
license all professional schools from chiropodists through teachers of
5328 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
art, music, and dancing. The teachers of the arts got together and
didn't want to be classified with certain other groups they didn't
regard on their same cultural level, we will say, with no disrespect to
chiropodists, and felt that a license measure of that kind would not
serve any useful purposes.
So some 25 organizations came together, including one representing
a group in the theater project, an unofficial one, at that time widely
regarded as a Communist-dominated group. That one group insisted
that the objections to the license measure that were going to be pre-
sented to the mayor be couched in its way and in its language and in
no other terms would go along.
I have often admired the commonsense of those groups who were not
political sophisticates but who listened to this man for a while and
then said, "We are sorry. We have compromised and you won't.
The only thing you can do is withdraw."
That taught me something about Communists. The name of that
lawyer was Martin Popper, not then very well known but since known
as the sponsor of the Peace Conference, an eminent lawyer of the ,.
Lawyers Guild and the International Juridical Association, and so on. ■
So their suspicions were well founded. ^
My next contact with what I regard the Communist Party came
with the Radio Writers Guild, beginning in 1950 and lasting through
1952. In that connection I had occasion to testify as an anti-Com-
munist witness.
Mr. Doyle. Because of the signals indicating there may be a roll-
call on the report of a bill before the House of Representatives, the com-
mittee will stand in recess for at least 15 minutes.
Members of the committee will respond and then return.
( Committee members present : Representatives Doyle, Frazier, and
Scherer. )
(A short recess was taken.)
(Representative Doyle returned to the hearing room.)
Mr. DoYLE. Because of the necessity for the committee members to
be on the floor of the House for the rest of the afternoon, this commit-
tee will stand in recess until tomorrow morning. The hearing will be
held tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock in 1301, New House Office
Building.
(Wliereupon, at 5 p. m. Thursday, July 12, the subcomittee re- ;
cessed, to reconvene at 10 a. m., Friday, July 13, in room 1301, New j
House Office Building.)
INVESTIGATION OF SO CALLED "BLACKLISTING" IN
ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY— REPORT OF THE
FUND FOR THE REPUBLIC, INC.— PART 2
FRIDAY, JULY 13, 1956
United States House of Representatives,
Committee on Un-American Activities,
Washington^ D. C.
public hearing
The Committee on Un-American xlctivities convened, pursuant to
recess, at 10 a. m., in room 1301 of the House Office Building, Hon.
Francis E. Waher (chairman) presiding.
Committee members present : Representatives Francis E. Walter, of
Pennsylvania, ]\Iorgan M. Moulder, of Missouri, Clyde Doyle, of
California, Edwin E. Willis, of Louisiana, Harold H. Velde, of Illi-
nois, Bernard W. Kearney, of New York, Donald L. Jackson, of Cali-
fornia, and Gordon H. Scherer, of Ohio.
Staff members present: Richard Arens, director; and K. Baarslag.
The Chairman. The committee will come to order.
Who is your lirst witness, Mr. Arens?
Mr. Arens. The witness who presently occupies the witness chair
was in the process of testifying yesterday afternoon, and he has already
been sworn. The gentleman is Paul R. Milton.
The Chairman. You may proceed.
TESTIMONY OF PAUL E. MILTON— Eesumed
Mr. Arens. Mr. Milton, when the committee recessed yesterday, you
were in the process of giving us a little of your own personal back-
ground. Do you have other material that you wish to add with refer-
ence to your own personal background before we get into the general
subject matter?
Mr. Milton. I would simply finish what I think I was saying, that in
1951, 1 was an anti-Communist witness in front of the Senate Internal
Security Subcommittee in connection with the Communist issue in
tlie Radio Writers Guild, which is now defunct. Thereafter, I have
been concerned with the foundation of iVWARE, Inc., an anti-Commu-
nist oi'ganization in the entertainment-communications field, and I am
a member of the board of directors of it, and I am tlie chairman of its
information committee. I am here today in that capacity.
Mr. Arens. Mr. Milton, are you personally referred to in the report
of the Fund for the Republic on so-called "blacklisting"?
Mr. Milton. I am several times, sir, and the references to me per-
sonally in connection witli the Radio Writers Guild controversy and
5329
5330 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
elsewhere I \vould say are both fair and accurate. But I cannot say
the same about two anti-Communist groups I have been connected
with, the Anti-Communist Caucus, and Radio Writers Guild, which
was called We the Undersigned, and there are several misrepresenta-
tions of it in the report, and in connection with AWARE, Inc.
Mr. Arens. Are you appearing today on behalf of AWARE, Inc.,
or representing AWARE, Inc. ?
Mr. Milton. Yes, sir.
Mr. Arens. Do you have a prepared statement which you would like
to submit for the record on behalf or for AWARE, Inc. ?
Mr. Milton. I do, sir, and it deals with factual misrepresentations,
what I consider significant omissions of fact, and particular with
reference to AWARE and several of the controversies it has been in
since 1953 when it was formed and made up.
Mr. Arens. Mr. Milton, I see that your statement is rather lengthy
and I am going to suggest to the chairman that the statement itself
be incorporated in the body of the record and that you now proceed
to summarize the essence of the statement orally for the committee.
The Chairman. Let it be so incorporated.
I am just wondering whether the statement will be sufficient for
the purpose of the report. We will determine that later.
(The statement referred to above appears on pp. 5344—5353.)
Mr. Arens. What are the main observations by AWARE on the
report ?
Mr. Milton. They come down to three, sir. One is the overall
murkiness of language.
Mr. Doyle. May I have that answer again ?
Mr. Milton. The overall murkiness of language, the cloudy use of
undefined terms.
The Chairman. May I interrupt ? I think that I best described it
the moment I read the report by calling it gobbledegook. Is not that
a pretty good technical description of it ?
Mr. Milton. That is somewhat an insult to gobbledegook, sir.
The Chairman. Then you would say it is an understatement ?
Mr. Milton. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. All right.
Mr. Milton. To give specifics in support of that observation, it
uses the terms, "rightwing" and "leftwing" throughout the report
and I am speaking specifically of volume II of the report dealing with
radio and television in the East. "Rightwing" and "leftwing" are
used again and again without any definitions as to what they may
mean. The word "liberal" is likewise used without any definition.
Some 40 times the word "political" is used as a substitute for or
euphemism for communism.
That is, for instance, it talks again and again about "political screen-
ing." Tlie report uses that term in connection with AWARE. We do
not screen or suggest screening anybody with a purpose of finding
out whether they belong to Republican or Democratic or Liberal or
Farmer-Labor Party or any legitimate political organization.
AWARE believes, and agrees with the President of the United States
and the Supreme Court and every other official body of the Govern-
ment, and with Communist writings that the Communist Party is a
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5331
conspiracy, and has nothing whatsoever to do with ordinary politics
as the American people understand the material.
So to use "political," instead of "Communist" in this report throws
a cloud of vagueness over every passage in which it is used. It must
be misleading to any reader who is uninitiated in the jargon of the
Communist Party, and uninitiated in the anatomy of the controversy
as it has been on for several years in the entertainment-communica-
tions field.
Mr. Kearney. In other words, you go along with the theory of
the majority of the American people that this is not a political party,
but it is a Communist conspiracy ?
Mr. Milton.- We do, indeed, sir.
Mr. ScHEitER. Hiding under the name of a political party?
Mr. Milton. Yes, sir. There is no question about it, in our minds,
that it is a conspiratorial effort which is composed in part of, delib-
erate and knowing conspirators, and in part, of people who go along
with it without realizing that they are giving it assistance.
Mr. Arens. What is the position of AWARE, Mr. Milton, with ref-
erence to so-called clearances dealt with in the Fund's report ?
Mr. jNIiltgn. We would not agree with the report at all, that any
such efforts have been sinister. On the contrary, as Mr. Brewer tes-
tified yesterday, the voluntary efforts of people in the entertainment-
communications field to help Communists, ex-Communists, and Com-
munist fronters and ex-Communist fronters to "rehabilitate" them-
selves as the word has been used — those efforts are admirable. Many
allegations are made that money has been paid. The report alleges
in several cases that so-called clearance men have hired themselves
out to write speeches for people trying to rehabilitate themselves or
in some other way unspecified in the report, requesting money 0!it of
the desire of people to reestablish themselves as employable citizens.
If the report can name any names in that connection, it should
have done so. It alleges vaguely in many places, hints at possibilities
of extortion in such situations. If the Fund for the Republic and the
report know of any instances of such extortion, they should ha^•e
gone to the district attorney of whatever county they think the
events took place, and AWARE, for one, would join in any effort to
expose such incidents if they happened.
It is AWARE's conviction that if any such events like that did
take place, they were so few as to be the criminal exception rather than
the decent normal nature of events.
Mr. Arens. What is the position of AWARE with reference to this
term "blacklisting" which is used throughout the report?
Mr. Milton. The report gives one definition of "blacklisting,"
which I shall try to paraphrase: "Simply the denial of employment
to people deemed worthy of censure or condemnation." In that sense,
we know that blacklisting is practiced very widely. The Federal
Housing Administration, for instance, issues occasional lists of buiid-
ei's deemed to have gypped homeowners and blacklists them.
They are not to be dealt with by persons obtaining FHA loans. The
Water Front Commission of New York City by State law blacklists
men from working on the waterfront who have criminal i-ecords.
Every union blacklists employers who are deemed to have treated
their members unfairly, such as not paying wages, not meeting con-
5332 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
ditions of collective bargaining agreements, and so on. The question
is, if anybody is blacklisted in that sense, are they or are they not
worthy of condemnation and censure?
AWARE believes that a Communist, a fifth- amendment witness, and
persons with significant and unrepudiated records of association with
Communist-front organizations should not be employed for a variety
of reasons which I will state in a moment. But, I would say that
the judgment of whether or not they should be employed should rest
with the individual employer. The Government may clear employees
for itself. Each individual employer should make up his own mind
on the basis of what information he may have or obtain and seek such
advice as he feels necessary as he may do in a legal matter, in an
accounting matter, or in a tax matter.
He will stand on his own judgment and take the praise or blame
as it may eventuate. Now, the reasons why Communists and fifth-
amendment witnesses and persistent fronters should not be employed
in entertainment-communications are fairly obvious to us, but not
obvious in the report, for instance.
On the premise that communism is a conspiracy, we know that there
are Communist caucuses in several of the unions, and this committee
has stated its belief and its conviction that there is such in the Ameri-
can Federation of Eadio and Television Artists, and we knoAv there
was one in the Radio Writers Guild.
Mr. Akens. How about Actors' Equity Association ?
Mr. Milton. And of Actors' Equity Association. I might comment
parenthetically, sir, that tliis morning the Associated Press apropos
of yesterday's testimony by Mr. Hartnett, quotes an official of Equity,
as follows :
Over a period of 30 years allegations of this kind have been advanced with
varying degrees of responsibility. Every member of Actors' Equity Association
who has been identified in any w^ay in this connection has denied under oath
that he is a Communist, and no evidence has been presented whether those
charges are true.
Mr. Kearney. That is not exactly so.
The Chairman. Of course, it is not so.
Mr. Milton. I was coming to that, sir. To link this to the report,
it is a comment on testimony about the report, but it is a kind of
misinformation that does nothing whatsoever to clarify the issue of
blacklisting.
Mr. Arens. What are the facts on Actors' Equity ?
Mr. Milton, Without even going to the records, we can say that in
Actors' Equity Association a number of persons have been charged
with Communist Party membership before this or some other com-
mittee, and have taken the 5th, 1st, and 10th amendments or none
whatsoever, and from just a casual reference we know there is Lionel
Stander, Gale Sondergaard — who is to appear next week in Phila-
delphia and there has been a big public storm there over her appearance
in a tax-supported theater. There is Morris Carnovsky, John Ran-
dolph, George Tyne, Jack Gilford, Lou Polan, Elliott Sullivan, Stan-
ley Prager, and there are as many more again who do not come to
my mind.
The Chairman. And it is significant to note that each of those
people were confronted with sworn testimony of witnesses who said
that they were members of the Communist Party, and instead of deny-
IN\'ESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5333
ing the accusations hid — and I use the word "hid" advisedly — ^behind
the Constitution of the United States.
Mr. Milton. Yes, sir, and I believe there was one exception who
took no refuge in no amendment and who just flatly refused to answer,
and I believe that was Lou Polan. But the point is, it does not square
at all with the statement from Actor's Equity. Certainly the Equity
statement does nothing to clarify the situation with respect to Com-
munists in unions.
ISIr. Jackson. May I ask a question there? Do I understand the
individuals whom you have named and who have appeared and taken
recourse in the provisions of the Constitution, with the exception of
the one noted, are presently members in good standing of Equity i
]Mr. Milton. We were speaking, I think, of blacklisting and why
AWARE, for one, believes that such persons are rendering themselves
unemployable. Reason No. 2 is that wages paid to Communists go
in part to the Communist Party, that the use of their names by Com-
munist Party groups and by Communist action groups and fronts, acts
to aid those organizations in persuading the public that they are re-
spectable. We know that actors, personalities, and important pro-
ducers, directors and writers — their opinions carry a good deal of
weight with the public. Furthermore, we know from union elections
that prominent actors are always more famous within their unions
than actors who are not prominent.
In other words, continual and preferred employment to such per-
sons give them prestige not only in public view but inside the industry.
Therefore, we regard such persons as worthy of condemnation and
censure, pursuing the definition, the one definition of blacklisting given
by the report. We know of no instance in which a person has been
blacklisted in the industry for union activity as blacklisting is defined
in the Federal and various State labor laws.
Mr. Arens. Has anyone, to your knowledge, been precluded from
employment in the entertainment industry because of his political
beliefs or political associations?
Mr. Milton. No, sir. I know specifically of no one denied employ-
ment because he is a Republican, Democrat, Socialist, Liberal, Farmer-
Labor, or any other name of a legitimate political organization. But
I do know of people as they claim denied employment because they are
associated with the Communist conspiracy.
There are other definitions of blacklisting and when we get into those
Ave find that the Fund, frequently without a proper definition of it,
beyond that one, leads us into a swamp of murkiness.
The way to end it, and to end both blacklisting by whatever term
you may wish to call it, is not to destroy the careers of individuals, and
that is not AWARE's purpose, and we do not think that that should
be the direct purpose of any organization, public or private, concerned
with the Communist issue. The way to end the Communist menace is
for those persons to change by honest conviction within themselves.
For that reason, last year after this committee's hearings in New
York, the president of AWARE, Mr. Godfrey Schmidt, appealed over
television to the 22 recalcitrant witnesses of last August to return
before the connnittee and tell the truth. We would reiterate that
appeal, that they return before this committee at the earliest moment
and rehabilitate themselves by an action growing out of their own
82833— 56— pt. 2 4
5334 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
convictions that what they have been doing is wrong, morally wrong,
and wrong from the point of view of national security, bad for their
own careers, and bad for their unions and bad for the industry that
they claim to love.
We think, further, that were this committee to direct an inquiry
precisely at what the Fund calls blacklisting, not very clearly, and at
the entire process of job denial for Communist affiliation, they would
provide an opportunity to all people who believe they have been
blacklisted to come before this committee and tell the truth.
The Chairman. You might be interested in knowing that we will
presently call some of the people this report charges have been black-
listed, and ask them where and when they have been blacklisted.
Mr. Milton. I am delighted to hear it, sir.
The Chairman. And I think subpenas are out for some of them now.
Mr. Milton. We would hope, and AWARE would hope, that that
inquiry would include not only persons who have been named in sworn
testimony as Communists, and not only those who have appeared before
the committee and taken a constitutional immunity, but also those with
substantial and significant front records.
Mr. Arens. On the basis of your extensive background and experi-
ence in fighting the Communist penetration in the entertainment in-
dustry, and your keen observations of this subject matter, I would like
to ask you now whether or not in your judgment as a representative of
the great organization, AWARE, you and your organization feel that
the Committee on Un-American Activities presently engages in book
burning, in censorship, or in thought control in going into this subject
of so-called blacklisting ?
Mr. MiLTON. I think certainly not. This committee provides a won-
derful forum in which people may explain themselves. There is no
form of pressure that I am aware of. Thought control of which the
committee has been accused, is a Communist jargon term intended to
discredit any expression of opinion about communism. The same
goes for calling it censorship. It is not an attempt at censorship to
investigate the origins or the nature of any element in a controversy
over communism.
AWARE believes and urges and hopes and does everything it can to
increase the amount of public discussion of the issue before govern-
mental committees, and there is no better forum for this issue, because
while a private organization may produce such evidence and such
views as will throw light where there ought to be light, it remains that
it cannot by nature be as convincing as that which is done under oath
before the Congress of the United States, representing the people of
the United States.
The Chairman. It is very significant to note that the work of this
committee, of course, is under the close observation of the entire Con-
gress of the United States. In the last action taken on the appropria-
tion bill for this committee, there was one vote against it. The year
before there were no votes against it. So those persons who make the
charges that they do, are overlooking the fact that a pretty tough board
of censors has been covering the work of this committee.
Mr. MiLTON. Yes, sir, we have noted that many times, with great
gratification.
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5335
Mr. Jackson. I hope that remark does not appear in print that the
opposition in Congress to the committee is increasing 100 percent year
by year.
Mr. Arens. Mr. Milton, do you have any observations to make with
reference to that part of the report which is the study appearing in
volume II by Dr. Marie Jahoda ?
Mr. Milton. Yes, sir, Mr. Arens, I have, and in general nature they
parallel the comments in our prepared statement which bear on the
Cogley part of the report, to wit, the use of the faceless informer, the
unidentified contributor, and of course, we all know what the faceless
informer is and they may too, in the Fund for the Republic, and yet
as our statement shows, 10 percent of the book is devoted to faceless
informers.
Now, specifically in the Jahoda part of the report, page 240, a TV
actor on a top level, not otherwise identified, is quoted as saying, "If
you pay, you can get cleared." An unidentified speaker and beliind the
cover of anonymity makes a charge which sounds like extortion. I
think in that case the Fund should have gone, or that actor should
certainly have gone to the district attorney and made it clear what he
means by paying for clearance, and whom he paid, and when and how
much, and what was the result.
I think it is apropos to ask whether or not the report investigated
the truth of that statement before it printed it. That raises a question
which comes up again and again in the report as to whether or not a
researcher has a responsibility as to quoting from ignorance. Again
and again persons are quoted, obviously who do not know what they
are talking about.
That does not seem to us to be scholarly research by any standard to
pick up off-the-cuff remarks from unidentified persons which are slurs
on otherwise decent citizens and put them down on paper and print
them and disseminate them as if they were to be taken seriously. There
is a question of simply scholarly responsibility. We can see how bad
a job this report is, as a piece of scholarly research if you compare it
with just any good research work on communism that you can find in
any library on communism.
Two come to mind. One is A Century of Conflict, by Stefan Pos-
sony, and another example is Communism Versus the Negro, by Wil-
liam A. Nolan. Those are good research jobs and there are many like
it, and unfortunately, the Fund report cannot be put on the same book-
shelf with those.
Now, further, with reference to the Jahoda study, she says on page
^48, volume II, quoting one man, and not otherwise identified :
Many were thus labelled — -
meaning as Communists —
even thoush they had been cleared by the FBI.
Here, again, it was quoting from ignorance. Mr. J. Edgar Hoover
has said over and over and over again on television and during the
Harry Dexter White controversy that the FBI does not have the
power to clear anybody, not even for tlie Government.
It provides the information for other persons to evaluate. 'Wliy
quote this kind of nonsense, then? On page 251, Miss Jahoda quotes
in the first paragraph :
They—
5336 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
referring to the persons that they interviewed —
were all aware of the watertight system of control over content before it goes
on the air, which excludes possibilities of direct subversion.
That same statement appears also in the earlier portion of the re-
port. What it tries to say is that it is impossible for subversive ma-
terial or slander material to get on the air, because every network and
every script editor and every broadcasting employer reads and edits
scripts very carefully. It is true they do. I have been writing radio
since 1942, and I have dealt with these script editors of virtually all of
the networks and with many other employees in broadcasting.
I have a lot of respect for their knowledge and their ability and their
conscientiousness and their integrity, but it takes a trained propa-
gandist to spot, not only openly subversive material which the Commu-
nists are hardly stupid enough to try, but the slanted material, the
presentation in a script of social comment of a hinted-at Communist
solution of the problem. There have been examples of that which em-
ployers themselves have caught after protest, but there is no sense
setting up a general statement that script-content editing is a bulwark
against slanted material.
I do not mean to question the integrity or patriotism of the script
editors. It is simply a matter of training.
On pages 260, 261, and 262, the Jahoda report comments on several
plans which have come up within the industry in attempted solutions
of so-called blacklisting. One was by a professor, I believe, at Cor-
nell University named Robert Cushman, who suggested a sort of pri-
vate court and outlined the entire machinery. It was to be operated
largely by the unions. There was another proposal at one time that
three clergymen, a Catholic, a Jew, and a Protestant be set up as a
hearing court, and there have been other plans discussed, all of which
have not come to anything for a variety of perfectly good reasons.
Employers will not get together on such things for fear of running
afoul of the conspiracy laws, and it was generally felt that they do not
get to the root of the matter, and they cannot, by their nature. The
Jahoda portion comments on the fact that perhaps this diversity of
approach to this problem which results from the absence of any insti-
tutionalization of that kind and that all employers approach it each
in their own way is a good thing, and with this, AWARE agrees.
We believe on the one side that a person who associates himself
with the Communist movement is responsible for his own acts, and
most particularly in this country, under our Constitution.
By the same reasoning, an employer should be responsible for his
own judgments and to take praise or blame as they may come out.
So, it is just as well that we have no fixed machinery to which every-
one is attached by agreement, sort of a greased chute down which the
little pigs would go on the way to slaughter, or on the way to rescue
as it might be.
Mr. Arens. Mr. Milton, may we clear the record here on 1 or 2
points so that there will be no possible misunderstanding? Is there
in your judgment a Communist fraction within the Actors' Equity
Association ?
My. Milton. On the basis of the names I read off, and on the basis
of the evidence before this committee last August 1955, I would say
yes.
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5337
Mr. Arens. How extensive, in your judgment, is the Communist
operation in the entertainment industry and television and in radio,
in which you have a specialty ?
Mr. Milton. In number of Communists, the actual number of Com-
munists was estimated before this committee yesterday, and I cannot
improve on that estimate. I would only point out that actual number
of Communists in any given industry has always been small by choice
of the Communists.
Mr. Arens. How about the influence or the impact?
Mr. Milton. I am coming to that. The number of fellow travelers
has been estimated by Mr. J. Edgar Hoover at 10 per Communist, as
it were, but the influence shows itself chiefly in that the Communists
have been able to exert leverage on those who describe themselves as
liberals. I mean no derogation of those who describe themselves as
liberals whatsoever, but the fact remains that this is a gi'eat leverage
against efforts of so-called hard anti-Communists.
Hard anticommunism in any field has always aroused the opposi-
tion of the liberal element or what in the report is described as the
great middle mass which he says is anti-Communist and I think we
need not quarrel with that definition except to point out that it is anti-
communism which is most often manifested by acting against anti-
Communists.
Mr. Arens. How effective has this so-called blacklisting been in
the radio and television industry in precluding Communists and those
in Communist activities from employment in the industry ?
Mr. Milton. I would say that on the record as most recently ob-
servable in broadcasting, that the identified Communist does not
appear, the fifth-amendment witness finds employment almost im-
possible to obtain, and I am speaking now of the actor, but some Com-
munist writers and fifth-amendment witnesses have been able to go
on writing behind frontm.en as recounted in the report. That is
quite true and once the Kadio Writers Guild in one of its membership
bulletins stated that was going on about 3 years ago.
That could not proceed very far without the connivance of some-
body in the employer's office. The person with a substantial front rec-
ord may obtain employment some places and not others. The persons
with lesser front records fall in the same sort of gray area. As the
public discussions of this issue continue, more and more of the fronters
are having attention directed to them which we believe is a healthy
situation in that it may bring them to realize that knowingly or un-
knowingly, they got caught on the wrong side of the street.
We would hope that that public discussion would induce them to
take action to repudiate what they have done.
Mr. Arens. Thank you very much, Mr. Milton. That would con-
clude the staff interrogation of this witness.
The Chairman. Are there any questions?
Mr. Doyle. I have a few questions.
In your judgment, is the Communist menace increasing or decreas-
ing in the entertainment field with which you claim to be familiar?
Mr. Milton. I would say it is substantially the same as it has been,
although its emphasis may have shifted.
Mr. Doyle. Do I understand then that the work of this committee
and the Senate committee and all of the private agencies of which
you are representative of one, has been of no substantial effect?
5338 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
Mr. Milton. By no means. The open manifestations of the Com-
munist Party have been decreased, I would say, in many places, and
that could only have been brought about by the work of bodies such
as this committee. The party has elsewhere gone underground.
Mr. Doyle. I notice that you use the word "open," and my question
which I asked a minute ago was directed to whether or not the total
Communist conspiracy had been increased or decreased and I under-
stood you to say it was about the same.
Mr. Milton. With the qualification that the emphasis has shifted
from the open activities. There are fewer fronts, for instance, be-
cause people are learning that it is dangerous to associate themselves
with fronts, but very often the same influences are exerted.
Mr. DoYLE. I made this note here and I am just seeking informa-
tion and I am not going to get into the area of these books because I
have not read them. You stated a minute ago that "persons with sub-
stantial front records can get some employment." I wrote that down.
Mr. Milton. Yes, sir.
Mr. Doyle. I think that was your exact wording?
Mr. Milton. Yes, sir.
Mr. Doyle. Does that mean that in the entertainment field, the
employers knowing of their substantial Communist-front records are
now employing people with substantial Communist-front records?
Mr. Milton. Yes, sir. In the New York Times of Thursday, July
12, there was a report from Albany that the court of appeals had
upheld the dismissal of a libel action by an a.ctor, Joe Julian, against
Red Channels. Now, Joe Julian was cited in the book Red Channels
in 1950 with the record of his Communist Party affiliations, although
he was not identified as a Communist.
He sued for libel in New York City Supreme Court and after he
put in his case, further trial was ended and the case was dismissed
and the defendant did not even have to be heard in the opinion of
Supreme Court Justice Irving Saypol. That verdict was appealed
by Julian, and yesterday the court of appeals upheld the dismissal,
I was going to prove my point that here is Mr. Julian who has not
repudiated the front record as given 6 years ago, and only 2 weeks
ago I believe he appeared on one of the major television shows.
Mr. Doyle. May I ask you this question, again looking for infor-
mation, because I am frank to say it is quite shocking to me that you
as a claimed expert give the opinion that the load of Communists
and Communist activity, while it is not as open as it was, is sub-
stantially the same as it was a few years ago.
Mr. Milton. With the shift in emphasis that I said.
Mr. Doyle. With the shift not being so open about it.
Mr. Milton. This would not be possible in my opinion without
the leverage that is exerted among those who take the "liberal posi-
tion" as they use the term, which is to say that they prefer broad
methods of education to end the Communist conspiracy rather than
the name, date, and place exposure of the individual Communist or
f ronter as the case may be.
Mr. Doyle. By the term "leverage on the liberals," do I understand
that the liberals, however you refer to by that term are using a lever-
age against communism?
Mr. Milton. No; I mean that the Communists are able to arouse
or raise the issue of an invasion of civil rights, and many people take
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5339
this claim seriously, and that by exposing a Communist or a Commu-
nist fronter you are invading that person's civil riglits. There are
many persons Avho believe that claim. I do not. But they do.
Mr. Doyle. May I ask this then : I am not sure that I understood
your answer. I understood you to say that AWARE believes, that is
your organization, that a person with a Communist record should not
be employed?
Mr. Milton. Yes, sir.
Mr. Doyle. What about the Communists who claim or are claimed
by some of the witnesses who appeared before us in the last 2 or
3 days, that there have been about 100 Conununists rehabilitated?
Should not they be employed?
Mr. Milton. Oh, certainly, and I only speak of the persons with
significant and unrepudiated records of association.
]\lr. Doyle. Then you would go along with the other witnesses
that a Communist who claims to be a rehabilitated one, and to all
intents and purposes has rehabilitated, should be again employed
in the entertainment field ?
JNIr. Milton. Absolutely, and I believe I said earlier, sir, that we
think the best solution is not the destruction of the careers of these
persons, but that they themselves cut off connections with the Commu-
nist apparatus, and thus rehabilitate themselves.
Mr. Kearney. You mean if the rehabilitation on the part of the
individual is a sincere one?
Mr. Milton. That is assumed ; yes.
Mr. Doyle. May I ask one more question ? I do not know that you
heard it yesterday, and I was not here all of the time due to another
committee meeting, but there has been testimony that at least there
were phone messages, and so forth, back and forth between individuals
interested in rehabilitating Communists.
Have you been called by any person to cooperate in the rehabilita-
tion of Communists ? Does your area of activity enter into that field ?
Mr. Milton. No, sir ; AWARE does not participate in that activity.
The Chairman. Are there any questions, Mr. Velde ?
Mr. Velde. I have just one quastion and probably it is outside the
realm of this particular investigation. I have enjoyed listening to
you testify and I have noted the logic you have used, and I know that
you are a very well informed man. My question is this : Would you
care to make any comments on the so-called "everything is made for
love" polic}^ of the Soviet Government at the present time? Do you
think it represents their honest policy or is it just a change in the
Communist Party line ?
Mr. Milton. I do not qualify myself as an expert on foreign policy
or on the particular policies of the Kremlin, but I would take the
position that until there are deeds evidencing a change, there has been
no change. I see no deeds evidencing a change.
May I, ]Mr. Arens, add one or two words dealing with the nature
of AWARE, that may put some of my remarks in a proper perspective
here ?
AWARE, Inc., is an organization of persons both in and outside of
the field of entertainment-communications and the fine arts. We con-
fine ourselves to that area. We perform no services, paid or unpaid,
direct or indirect, for any union or employer. We issue membership
5340 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
bulletins and occasionally we issue one beyond the membership, com-
menting on evidences of Communist influence in the entertainment
field.
I would just at the end, repeat our hope to the committee that it will
provide an opportunity for persons who believe themselves to have
been blacklisted, to appear before the committee and AWAKE is ready
to help them by forwarding their names, if it learns of any, to the
conmiittee. And, also, reiterate the appeal to those who have at any
time in the entertainment-communications field, taken any constitu-
tional refuge before this committee to return before this committee of
their own accord and tell the truth.
The Chairman. I would like to say that we have extended an open
invitation over a period of years to persons who feel that they have
been injured in anywise by testimony adduced before this committee.
We have actually invited 41 people to come to this committee, because
of the serious accusations made against them and not one single person
has availed himself of the opportunity to set the record straight.
Mr. ScHERER. Because the record is straight.
The CiiAiRiMAN. Because the record is straight, I might add.
Are there any questions ?
Mr. Jackson. How long has AWARE been publishing?
Mr. Milton. We are an organization and not a publication. It was
in December of 1953, when we had our initial press conference in New
York City in the Hotel Groton.
Mr. Jackson. Could you tell me in round figures how many people
during the course of publications had their alleged Communist or pur-
ported Communist- front activities documented in AWARE ?
Mr. Milton. By AWARE, you mean?
Mr. Jackson. Yes.
Mr. MiLTON. Let me make a rough guess, sir. Roughly, 33.
Mr. Jackson. Did any legal action grow out of any of those ?
Mr. Milton. Yes, sir, one suit for libel has been filed against us by
John Henry Faulk, a CBS disk jockey, and a second vice president of
New York local, AFTRA. We cited in our publication 16, which
was issued February 10, 1956 — two months after his election as second
vice president — we cited seven reported occasions of his association
with Communist fronts or caucuses. We did not call him a Com-
munist and in fact, specifically stated in the bulletin that we were not
calling that group a Communist group. Thereafter, Mr. Faulk sued
for libel and we have replied and we believe that we have the docu-
mentary evidence supporting our allegations, and he is not a Com-
munist, but a person with Communist- front affiliations, and that we
have put on the public record.
Mr. Jackson. I think in any discussion of so-called blacklisting, we
can break this down into three general categories. I asked this for
your affirmation or any suggestion you may have. First of all, we
have those persons in the entertainment field who, for one reason or
another, have been brought before various agencies or committees of
Government and have cooperated to the extent that they have told of
their own activities and of the activities of others.
Secondly, we have those who have been subpenaed and who have
refused to cooperate and refused to discuss any of the allegations.
Then, we have the third group, and I think this is the group prob-
ably which is more in the spotlight in this report and that is a group
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5341
against whom certain charges have been made, but who have not, to
this time, been siibpenaed or been given any opportunity to appear
in any phice except the FBI perhaps, of which we would have no
knowledge because of the nature of the FBI's operations.
However, we have those three groups, the cooperative, the noncoop-
erative, and those about whom there is this gray area because they
have not appeared.
That third group is the group about which I am more concerned
that the otlier two. The other two are fairly clear cut.
What would your suggestion be as to what should be done in the area
of the third group in order to clarify the atmosphere with respect to
their charges that they have been blacklisted?
Mr. Milton. That was directed to that group, that I made the
statement before, that if this committee would provide a forum to
hear those persons even in the absence of any evidence that they are
or were members of the Communist Party.
Mr. Jackson". That bears out a suggestion I made the other day,
and the chairman has just said, and it is very true, that when testimony
is developed in an open session of this committee, the person or the
individuals who are there named for the first time are notified by
the committee of the fact, and the time and place of the hearing and
the allegations made and they are invited to come forward and
make any statement they care to make.
They have not seen fit to do so. However, to this time, this invita-
tion has not been extended beyond those who were here named, and
I would suggest again that if we can get the identities of many of these
anonymous people who have made claims to the investigators or com-
pilers of this report to have them come before the committee and I
would say with a process of subpena, rather than invitation, in order
to assure their presence here, to determine in what manner and by
whom and under what circumstances they were blacklisted.
I think that we should certainly do that.
The Chairman. I would think in that connection it would be much
more convenient for us to ask the authors of this report to extend the
invitation on our behalf. They know who they are and they can say
that we are perfectly willing and anxious to be of assistance in re-
moving whatever injustice has been done, and we authorize Mr. Cogley
to extend an invitation to each of these persons and we will be very
happy to hear them.
Mr. Milton. The point I would just touch on once again is that
many persons claim to be blacklisted who have not been charged with
Communist Party membership. That is here or anywhere else, but
have the records, public records of association with the Communist-
front apparatus.
Now, it may turn out after the most exhaustive investigation that
they are or were not members of the party, and yet encounter resist-
ance to employment because of their front record.
Mr. Jackson. We have a very practical problem in that connection.
If the committee undertakes to call before it and subpena before it
everyone who has a record of 10 or more Communist- front affiliations,
the committee can do nothing else for the next 50 years than to hear
that group. Quite rightfully, I think the committee has confined its
operations in recent years to calling those who have been identified as
members of the Communist Party.
5342 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
That is the reason why we have not been able to go into the extensive
and often provocative records of many hundreds of individuals.
Mr. Milton. Of course, I think that is widely understood, sir, and
the point is now that this general line of inquiry, because of the Fund's
report, has taken a slightly different turn.
Mr. Jackson. I think this puts an entirely different aspect on it and
for my part, I would like to bring in some of these people and find
out whether or not they have any grounds for their statement that
they were blacklisted.
The Chairman. How can we bring them in ? We do not know who
they are. The man who makes the allegation knows, and we do not.
Mr. Jackson. I would certainly require him to lift the cloak of
anonymity on them. I would not have him extend any invitation on
behalf of the committee. I think that is a function of the committee.
Mr. Kearney. Your idea is to bring the individual before this com-
mittee and let him point them out ?
Mr. Jackson. If Mr. X says he has been blacklisted let us find
out who Mr. X is and what his record is and whether he has been a
member of the Communist Party, and find those things out and put
them on the record. So that these statements which are made, and
we do not know whether they may be one of these composite things
pulled out of thin air, and let us find out from the individual con-
cerned if he has been blacklisted and if he has been blacklisted as
blacklisting is interpreted in this book, find out why he was black-
listed.
Mr. Doyle. May I suggest this, right along that line, that if there
is a Mr. X, using that for the purpose of this observation
The Chairman. No; quoting from the book.
Mr. Doyle. If Mr. X claims in the book, or if it is related in the
book that Mr. X claims he was blacklisted, assiuning that we may not
be able to get the information otherwise, let us give Mr. X an invitation
to come to this committee.
The Chairman. All right, then, I will designate you as a subcom-
mittee of one to serve him with a subpena.
Mr. Jackson. I dare say, Mr. X is probably not very much inter-
ested in sitting down in that chair and discussing the record which
brought about his blacklisting.
Mr. ScHERER. That is obvious from the questions asked by our
counsel yesterday of some of the witnesses. He pointed out that the
Fund for the Republic in this report did not disclose the fact that
many of the individuals mentioned in that report had been identified
before this, and other other committees, as Communists. The publica-
tion is silent.
The Chairman. You are overlooking one thing more. Mr. Cogley,
under oath, refused to tell us who Mr. X was.
Mr. Scherer. That is true. I had passed but I just have one ques-
tion, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Milton, do you have any opinion as to why
the Fund for the Republic made the so-called investigation into the
subject of blacklisting?
Mr. Milton. I have to characterize my opinion as pure speculation.
Mr. Scherer. I first asked you if you had such an opinion, and if
you have no opinion, you can say "No." You are an expert. My
colleague said, a so-called expert. I think you are an expert.
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5343
Mr, INIiLTON. Thank you.
Mr. SciiKRER. I want to know first, whether you have an opinion
as to why the Fund for the Republic engaged in this investigation
into blacklisting. I have an idea, and I wanted to see whether or
no yours confirmed mine.
Mr. Doyle. Is not that so highly speculative? Assuming that he
is an expert, unless he knows why the Fund or why Mr. Cogley made
this report, I do not think it is adding anything to the substantial
value of this hearing.
Mr. ScHEEER. Committees always ask experts for their opinions.
Even in court we ask an expert's opinion.
Mr. DoTLE. He has stated it will be speculative. We want sub-
stantial stuff, and not that kind of thing.
The Chairmax. Let us have your opinion.
Mr. Milton. The Fund for the liepublic has dedicated itself on its
own statements to investigating the influences of communism and
possible invasions and infringements of civil rights, so-called. Part
of that area of inquiry is the operation of those principles in the field
of entertainment-communications. Certainly, by the first, by the cries
of the Communists in the entertainment-communications, and later by
non- Communists who echo the cry, the Fund deemed that civil rights
or civil liberties had been and were being invaded in the entertainment-
communications.
Unfortunately for this purpose, for the service of truth, this report,
I think, gives no clear picture whatsoever, whether it is favorable to
the hard anti-Communist or favorable to the non-Communist, or favor-
able to the Connnunists. It is simply not accurate at all. But that,
I believe, as I said, was the purpose, to investigate an area in which
the Fund believed that civil rights were endangered, infringed, or at
least quarreled over.
Mr. Doyle. I think, Mr. Chairman, in view of that answer, that
we are bound to give the Fund representative, whoever it might be,
the opportunity to come forward in their behalf.
The CiiAiRMAX. I would like to tell you that the representatives
have been told in writing and orally that they will be given an oppor-
tunity if they see fit to present testimony. I personally told one of the
directors of the Fund, I personally told their lawyer, and Mr. Arens
told their lawyer and we wrote them a letter, so that there can be no
question but what that opportunity will be given. By repeatedly
suggesting that they be given the oj^portunity, the very clear intima-
tion is being made that they will not have the opportunity. I repeat
with all of the force of my command, that if it ever becomes material
to the issue, they will be extended an invitation to present testimony.
Mr. Kearney. I was going to ask Mr. Milton if he agrees with me
that following your thought you expressed just a few minutes ago,
that as far as some of the writers on that report are concerned, their
feelings also might be indicated by their intense dislike of this
committee?
Mr. Milton. I could not speak on that of my own knowledge. I met
two of the report investigators and we did not discuss the House
Committee on Un-American Activities.
May I revert for a moment to our previous subject of why the
report was done, and it says on page roman numeral vn of the volume
5344 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
II: "At the time this study was launched, such blacklisting was a
subject of vigorous public controversy, involving civil liberties issues
of a serious kind." So they have said why they did it, and I tried to-
give a fair restatement of that reason.
Mr. Moulder. Mr. Cogley was asked that question and he testified
on that question for several minutes the day before yesterday, as I
recall.
Mr. ScHERER. Of course, it is possible that they may state one
reason, and actually have another objective. I think from the evidence
that has been developed during these hearings, that their objective
may be somewhat different than their stated purpose. I may have
something to say about that at the conclusion of the testimony and
after we hear the Fund for the Kepublic representatives.
The Chairman. We are not investigating the Fund for the Re-
public at all. We are investigating alleged blacklisting, and it just
happens that in the course of our inquiries there cropped up — what
do you describe that as being ?
Mr. Milton. A report.
Mr. ScHERER. I might call it a white paper.
The Chairman. Is there anything further ?
Mr. Arens. No further interrogation of this witness, and we have
two other witnesses, who are ready to appear this morning.
The Chairman. The committee will stand in recess for 5 minutes.
(Brief recess.)
(Statement submitted for AWARE, Inc., by Paul R. Milton, chair-
man, information committee :)
AWARE, Inc.
(An organization to combat the Communist conspiracy in entertainment-
communications, and the fine arts)
New York City, 7 July 1956.
To the House Committee on Un-American Activities:
(About Report on Blacklisting, Part 2, Radio-Television, Fund for the Re-
public, by John Cogley and Marie Jahoda)
AWARE, Inc., is an interreligious, interracial, politically nonpartisan organi-
zation of professionals and nonprofessionals, incorporated under the laws of
New York State.
In commenting on the Report on Blacklisting, it is proposed to limit our re-
marks to matters of fact as much as we can. Also included are comments on
definitions, on omissions, etc.
We begin by drawing attention to a failure to define. The terms "rightwing"
and "leftwing" are often used in the report without definition and hence have
only such meaning as the report attached to them in the secrecy of its writers'
minds. The same absence of scholarly responsibility is to be seen in other
passages. For instance, on page 46 :
The report, while freely identifying anti-Communists throughout, often re-
treats into anonymity when referring to others. For example : "More than
one anti-Communist producer has said that he would not hire him because of
this fact" (that actor Vinton Hay worth had allegedly become "controversial"
because of his connection with AWARE, Inc.) .
It seems fair to ask : what "faceless-informer" producers made this irrespon-
sible, bv^cause not attributed, statement and to whom? On what evidence are
they characterized as "anti-Communist"?
Page 47 : "In February, the show used Lois .Tacoby, a writer who was later
to follow [Irve] Tunick out of Television Authority when a West Coast function-
ary of that organization invoked the Fifth Amendment."
The foregoing paragraph suffers from the omission of detail necessary to a
properly researched study of the Communist issue in unions.
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5345
The facts, briefly, were as follows, all fully reported in the trade and general
press : Fr<»ni VXA) onward, radio, television, screen, and dramatic writers
fought among themselves over television jurisdiction : Should it lie with an
existing union or some new oneV One attempt to organize a new jurisdiction
originated in Hollywood, the Television Writers of America, independent. (This,
incidentally, is what the report's above paragraph is actually talking about, not
Television Authority, which was the inteiim form and name while the radio
actors' union became the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists —
AFTRA. )
Presently the new TWA won an NLRB election among television writers,
giving it partial jurisdiction — in the face of warnings of Communist taint in its
AVest Coast leadership ; one such warning was a nationally syndicated column by
Victor Riesel ; another was a later sunimai-y of TWA's troubles inserted in the
Congressional Record by Senator Butler, of Maryland. The apprehension was
based on the Communist-front record reported in connection with TWA's first
president, Richard Powell (not the actor), and the background of the executive
secretary, Joan LaCour.
Many New York writers joined TWA anyway, confident they could handle
the Con-munist issue if it shar])ened. Their hopes were dashed, however, when
Joan LaCour, charged with Party membership before HCUA in Hollywood,
took the Fifth Amendment. When TWA's West Coast board did not discharge
her, most of the Eastern ofl5cers and directors headed by Irve Tunick left the
organization. Later it called a futile strike and soon afterward faded out
■entirely.
The TWA episode was a classic example of the destructiveness of Communism
upon unionism. There were few so-called "liard" anti-Communists involved ;
most described themselves as "liberals," of the kind frequently p'aced by the
report in later pages in the "middle" between the extremes of Communism and
"hard" anti-Communism. Yet the "liberals" took a "hard" anti-Communist
position ; they resigned virtually in a body and in effect ended whatever chance
the ttedu'ling uni(m might otherwise have had in the television field.
Full research of this ei)isode mipht have provided an important lesson for those
who believe that a sound union can tolerate Communism. It is a shame it was
omitted from the report.
Page 47, last paragraph:
"On the other hand, there are shows where the emplo.vment record indicates
a constant use of people associated with the left wing. In 1950-51, 'Danger'
used performers like Lee Grant, Morris Carnovsky, Alan Manson, Lou Polan,
John Randolph, Elliott Sullivan and others who have been accused of being
antagonistic to the right wing, as well as Peter Lyon."
Here is an interesting example of the report's frequent resort to murky
terms — left wing, right wing, as well as the suppression of properly identifying
data.
In 1950-51, perhaps more suspicion than fact attached to the names mentioned.
But the report was researched and written in 1955-56 and the names might have
been idf^ntified. for the reader's benefit, as follows :
Lee Grant, public record of association with the Communist-front apparatus,
partially pulili.shed in AWARE Publication 12. of December 27, 1954.
Morris Carnovsky, Alan Manson, Lou Polan, John Randolph, and Elliott
Sullivan have been identified as Communists before HCUA, some in August
1955.
Peter Lyon was named a "hard-core Communist" by the Senate Internal Se-
curity Subconunittee in 1952 and in his own testimony employed the Fifth
Amendment over 20 times in response to questions about Communist Party
member.ship and connections.
Yet all the report says about them is that they "have been accused of being
antagonistic to the right wing."
Page 56 : A similar example of the suppression of identifying data : the
phrase "* * * Facts About Blacklist, a newsletter published by a group of
blacklisted writers. * * ♦ "
This is a strangely incomplete description of the two editors of Facts About
Blacklist. One was Sam Moore, long writer of the radio program The Great
Gildersleeve, past National President of the Radio Writers Guild as well as
a frequent council and committeeman — who has been named a Communist
befoie HCUA more than 7 times and who, in his own HCITA testimony in 1951,
refused to admit or repudiate a Communist Party card bearing the name Sara
5346 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
Moore, and who resorted to the Fifth Amendment in answer to all questions
about ids relations with the Communist Party.
The other editor of Facts About Blacklist was the writer Walter Bernstein^
with a significant and unrepudiated Communist-front record.
Facts About Blacklist, which appeared twice, was printed by Advance Print-
ing Co., union label 264, well-known as the printshop favored by Communist
fronts such as American Committee for Protection of Foreign Born, Civil
Rights Congress, Committee to Secure Justice for Morton Sobell in the Rosen-
berg Case, Theater Rally to Secure Clemency for the Rosenbergs, Emergency
Civil Rights Committee, Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee, etc., etc.
Yet the report describes Facts About Blacklist merely as "a newsletter pub-
lished by a group of blacklisted writers."
Page 69, second paragraph : "It [an action of CBS] was founded on the no-
tion that communism was totally a conspiracy and not 'political' at all."
This is one of the very few times in the report that the Communist Party USA
is conceded to be part of a conspiracy. Even so, the report dismisses it as a
mere "notion," ignoring the findings of the Supreme Court of the United States
(for example, American Communications v. Douds), the Subversive Activities
Control Board, the House Committee on Un-American Activities, the Senate
Internal Security Subcommittee, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, not to-
mention authoritative writings by Lenin, who commanded conspiratorial meth-
ods ; and J. Peters in The Communist Party — A Manual of Organization.
The report is not obliged to agree with the "conspiracy" estimate of the CPUSA,
but a scholarly approach would at least have set forth why the term "political"'
is used where "Communist" would have been clearer. The term "political"
is used as a euphemism for "Communist" over 40 times in the first section of the
report.
Page 76: The Voice of Freedom Committee provides another example of the
suppression of significant identifying data. The Voice of Freedom Commit-
tee, about which certain facts are correctly stated, showed interest always
and only in Communist matte-s and persons. Further, it has been cited sub-
versive by the Attorney General of the United States, which the report does not
mention.
Page 79: Clifford J. Durr, then a Federal Communications Commissioner, is
not identified as a later president of the National Lawyers Guild, described by
HCUA as "the legal bulwark of the Communist Party" and soon to be heard by
the Subversive Activities Control Board as an organization cited subversive by
the Attorney General.
Page 80, in commenting on William S. Gailmor, Roderick B. Holmgren, Lisa
Sergio, Johannes Steel and J. Raymond Walsh, radio commentators, the report
again suppresses significant identifying data.
Gailmor has been named a Communist in sworn testimony and has been the
fund-raising speaker at many Communist-front meetings.
Roderick B. Holmgren, whose bewildered report of what befell him after
appearing in Red Channels is on pages 82-83 of the report, was a one-time Mid-
west vice president of the now defunct Radio Writers Guild, was later identified
as a Communist employed by the Communist-dominated Mine-Mill-Smelter Work-
ers Union (ejected from the CIO) and, while testifying before the Senate Internal
Security Subcommittee, took the Fifth Amendment when shown a Communist
Party card bearing the same name as his.
Johannes Steel, described in the report, on Steel's say-so, as "an Eisenhower'
Republican foimerly a Roosevelt Democrat," drew this public comment from.
Frederick Woltman, New York World Telegram and Sun, on June 25, 1956 :
"* * * Johannes Steel, one of radio's chief pro-Soviet propagandists of the
1940's. This writer [Woltman] in 1946 described him as 'an all-out defender of
Stalin's policies, with a special bent for Soviet worship.' Steel never objected.
And evidently the Fund's researchers didn't care."
Page 82 : In stating that Arthur Gaeth "formerly broadcast over ABC for the
United Electrical Workers Union," the repoi-t suppresses the fact that UE:
was ejected from the CIO as a Communist-dominated union in 1947 and that
several of its oflScers have been named as Communists in sworn testimony. That
would not prove that Gaeth was a Communist, but it might have given the
reader a hint of Gaeth's general aoproach.
I'age 02 : "In some cases the 'clearance men' have sold their services as Dub-
lic-relations consultants and speech writers to the artists going through a
'clearance.' "
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5347
It is AWARE's conviction that "clearance" and "self-clearance" shonld be un-
marred by the passage of money. The report ought to name the "clearance men"
rei erred to above.
Page 107, next to last paragraph: "Pete Seeger of the Weavers was listed in
lied Channels."
The report appears to suffer from shyness about the word Communist, which
is remarkable in a book about Communism. Seeger whs more tlian simply "listed
in Red Channels." He has been named a Communist in sworn testimony before
a congressional committee ; the Weavers group is a favorite at CP front gatli-
erings.
Page 117 : "As an ex-Communist ami paid CJovernment witness, Matusow
had been instrumental in getting 13 Communist Party leaders convicted for
Smith Act violations."
The implication here is that Matusow was the decisive witness against the J 3.
But in fact, a court ruled later that the convictians stood without Matusow's tes-
timony, which was partial and corroborative, not basic.
Page 121, footnote: "These are not to be taken as literal lists."
Cf. page 16.5, quote of faceless informer Bart : "I (the reporter) asked him if,
when he decides to take an actor as a client, he checks the name against any of
the blacklists."
If there are no literal lists, how could "Bart" check them? A quibble? But
murkiness in use of terms is a regrettable characteristic of the report and the
examples acd up.
Page 128, speaking of the situation at CBS, second paragraph ends: "If he (a
performer) would come bearing credentials, or imijlicit agreement, from AWARE,
Inc., Counterattack, the American Legion, or George Sokolsky, so much the
better."
Spokesmen for AWARE, Inc., told the Report's interviewers that AWARE,
Inc., does not consider itself a clearing agency, does not issue "rebirtli certificates"
or "clearance" papers or letters of any kind. Nor does it do indirectly — over the
phone, by lifted eyebrow or smoke si'.aial — what its policy forbids it to do
directly.
Since the report does not mention, does not possess and has never seen any
"clearance" paper issued by AWARE, Inc., wliat is the basis for the inclusion of
AWARE in the quoted paragrai)h?
Page 129, first and second paragraphs : "In the spring of 195.5, the NBC net-
work, wanted to clear a prominent performer for a top dramatic show, asked
the actor to get two letters of endorsement, one from an otiicer of the Anti-Defa-
mation League, the other from Godfrey P. Schmidt, President of AWARE,
Inc. * * *
"At one time the letter from the Anti-Defamation League official would have
turned the trick, but in this case it took two endorsements. And of the two
(as the actor found out), AWARE's was harder to get."
In fact, the actor was Albert Dekker ; the program was Television Playhouse
sponsored by Goodyear Tire & Rubber. AWARE, Inc., gave no endorsement
whatever, though Mr. Schmidt did, as an individual, on his own stationery, as
fairly noted on page 133, last paragraph.
More interesting in the quoted paragraphs : AWARE, Inc., is equated with
the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith as an influence in entertainment-
communications. But the report index lists only three incidental references to
the Anti-Defamation League, while AWAKE, Inc., bulKs almost as large as
CBS, Counterattack, and the American Legion, and slightly larger than the
House Committee on Un-American Activities.
AWARE, Inc., is not informed about the nature of the reported influence
and activities of the Anti-Defamation League witli respect to "clearance" jiro-
cedures ; perhaps the industry and the general public are not informed either.
The report has denied its readers the benefit of a comparison between AWARE's
approach to the Communist issue, which it does not like, and the ADL's. The
omission is noticeable.
Let it be noted, however, that AWARE; Inc., in no sense seeks to engage in
rivalry for influence with any organizations except Communist organizations.
Page 134, first paragraph : "In its support of political screening, AWARE
operates according to this logic : Communism is a conspiracy ; therefore Com-
munists and all those who collaborate with them, knowingly, or not, are con-
spirators."
Correction : Exactly on the opposite page, the report quotes from AWARE
itself in contradiction. The selection is from The Road Buck (self-clearance).
5348 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
which suggests certain actions that may be taken in self-clearance. The report
quotes :
"2. Recognition that, whatever the suhjecVs intentions at the time, his
name, efforts, money or other support gave aid and comfort to the Communist
conspiracy."
The italicized phrase clearly contradicts the report's prior summary of
AWAREs logic.
Page 131: The Alliance is described as "a coalition of rightwing patriotic
societies."
In fact. The Alliance, of which Mr. Archibald B. Roosevelt is President, is an
alliance only of individuals. The report evidently confuses The Alliance with
The American Coalition, which is a Nationwide coalition of patriotic societies.
As to being "rightwing," why the distinction? Can the report name a coalition
of "leftwing" patriotic societies?
Page 131, second paragraph : "In February 19.55, AWARE sponsored a forum
for young people * * * frankly rightwing."
The purpose of the forum was to explore the educational sources of the
crypto Communism which AWARE believes infects some people in entertainment-
communications ; it was the second such forum, there has since been a third, and
next year there will be a fourth. Whatever the forum speakers were, AWARE,
Inc., takes no position on any political or sociological matters ; only on Com-
munism.
The same paragraph continues : "To many anti-Communists in the industry,
AWARE is barely differentiated from other rightwing political groups (even
though from time to time it speaks as if its patriotic interests transcend partisan
issues) and they want no part of it."
This paragraph raises questions that should have been answered in the same
paragraph. What anti-Communists feel that way? In what way is AWARE
"rightwing," considering that the report never defines the term? Or is "right-
wing" supposed to refer to "hard" anti-Communism as opposed to temporizing
methods? Why the phrase "as if its patriotic interests transcend partisan
issues"? Why the gratuitous "as if," when many persons anonymously quoted
elsewhere in the report seem to have gained credence for their irresponsible
statements without difficulty? And is Communism only a "partisan issue"?
AWARE confesses it cannot follow the reasoning for the murk.
The same quoted paragraph continues : "If they want to support McCarthy
and his crowd, that's their business," said one actor, "but why should my
patriotism be questioned because I disagree with them?"
Again the report, apparently always quick to denounce the anti-Communist
activist, does not scruple to use an ignorant faceless informer against anti-
Communist activists. AWARE, Inc. has taken no position on Senator McCarthy
because he has no connection with AWARE's field of interest — entertainment-
communications (the Government Operations Committee investigation of the
Voice of America took place prior to AWARE, Inc. ) .
The report should name its faceless informer, "an actor," who in tuxm should
state when and where his patriotism was questioned by AWARE, Inc.
Pago 133, second paragraph : "AWARE, though it urges universal political
screening * * *."
Here again the murky use of "political" when the correct phrase would be
"screening for Communist affiliation." AWARE does not urge screening, uni-
versal or local, for Democratic, Republican, Liberal, Farmer-Labor, etc.,
affiliation.
Page 1-33, third paragraph : "AWARE has not published any public 'lists,' but
its bulletins have cited the past political associations of radio-TV workers, a la
Red Channels."
AWARE's publication policy was explained to Report interviewers :
AWARE issues an irregular bulletin to its members ; only a few such have
contained data on Communist or Communist-front individuals and in some 2
years, only four such btilletins have been issued beyond the membership under
the heading: "News Supplement to Membership Bulletin," followed by its
sequence number. These four were mailed to members, organizations, and in-
terested individuals, some considered friendly, some not. None was mailed to
any list of employers or advertising agencies.
Of the publicly distributed publications. No. 12 commented on an AFTRA
election closed 9 days before, named some 16 defeated candidates and touched
on their connections with the Communist-front apparatus.
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5349
No. 13 cited the names and records of eight persons, named as Communists
in sworn testimony, who had heen among those agitating in AFTRA for the
"condemnation" of AWARE, Inc.
No. 16 commented on a later AFTRA election, citing the reported front-
apparatus connections of two AFTRA electees.
No. 18 was an analysis of the activities of Playwright Arthur Miller in
connection with Communist-front groups, and his loss of a writing assignment
from the New York City Youth Board, prior to his recent testimony before this
Committee.
In all, AWARE has named 33 i>ersons in connection with the Communist Party
or front groups.
Page 154, discussing AWARE publication 12, quotes from it : "Happily, AFTRA
is one of the few unions in which flatly declared anti-communism and anti-
totalitarianism have won many clear victories."
The report comments : "The first statement, that AFTRA is 'one of the few
unions' in which anti-communism is dominant, was itself tell-tale. Given
the complete defeat of the Communists in the AFL (where they never had a
base) and in the CIO (where their unions were expelled), it could only
strengthen the char^re that AWARE was anti-union."
AWARE, which confines itself to the entertainment-communications, was ob-
viously not talking about unions outside that area. Within that area, the state-
ment about AFTRA made by AWARE remains true. It is also clearly true of
Screen Actors Guild, lATSE West, and a few others. In other unions, the
Communist issue remains in unmentioned tension. Before calling AWARE's
statement of fact "anti-union," did the report analyze the situations in the more
than a dozen other unions in entertainment-communications?
Page 156, second paragraph, the report reminds the reader that among those
AFTRAns opposing AWARE were 11 who "invoked either the First or Fifth
Amendment at the House Un-American Activities Committee hearing at Foley
Square in August 1955."
Here again is the report's repeated reluctance to refer to Communism : What
did the 11 invoke constitutional privilege about? The record shows they invoked
it in refusing to answer questions about Communist Party membership.
Same page, next paragraph, the report quotes from a letter .sent to AFTRA
members in May 1955, and attributes it to AWARE. The fact is AWARE did
not send that letter and had no responsibility for it ; it was prepared and issued
by a number of AFTRAns who signed it, as the document itself shows.
Page 158, at the top, the report ends a discussion of "blacklisting" in AFTRA
with comments on the "condemnation" of AWARE, Inc., wliich took place in
July 1955, in the New York local. Why does the report omit that within 3
weeks, AFTRA's national membership adopted a rule that any member there-
after refusing to testify before a congressional committee about Communism
would be subject to suspension?
Pages 163 to 191 are devoted to summaries of conversations with persons identi-
fied only by fictitious initials or nicknames. This section of 28 out of 220 pages
in the part of volume II attributed to Mr. John Cogley raises a question about the
responsibility of researchers conducting surveys.
These interviews are, because anonymous, irresponsible. The subjects cannot
be independently interviewed. There is no indication that the statements made
by the "faceless informers" were checked. In a few cases, the disguises of nick-
names or initials have already been penetrated and the "facts" given by the
"faceless informers" found to be so incomplete as to be misleading. In other
instances, persons are quoted who have but the murkiest idea of what the Com-
munist issue is.
Thus the question raised by this section is : Has a document claiming accept-
ance as worthwhile research the right to quote from ignorance and irresponsi-
bility?
In one respect, AWARE concedes that this section makes a point : It is that
these interviews reflect, with minor exceptions, a stunning lack of understanding
of what the Communist conspiracy is, of its purposes and methods, on the part
of what are supposed to be typical persons in entertainment-communications.
Page 42 : "Pitzele charged, among other things, that [Merle] Miller had ig-
nored sources of information on the subject of blacklisting of anti-Communists
[in particular, that he liad not consulted Morton Wishengrad, a linowledgeable
radio writer], * * ♦."
82833— 56— pt. 2 5
5350 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
Comment: Merle Miller, novelist, had been commissioned in 1950 by the
American Civil Liberties Union to do a book-form survey of so-called blacklisting
in broadcasting. With one or more associates, he carried out interviews. He
did, in fact, consult Mr. Wishengrad, but failed to consult certain others men-
tioned by Mr. Wishengrad. The fact of Miller's interview with Mr. Wishengrad
and his failure to explore the writing situation further was covered by Merlyn
S. Pitzele in his New Leader Magazine review of The Judges and the Judged
which, among other things, exposed the faulty research methods used. Later,
Louis Berg in Commentary Magazine reported that the American Civil Liberties
Union had, in a Board action, virtually agreed with Mr. Pitzele ; it did not, how-
ever, withdraw the book.
Page 147, third paragraph: "Among those who sought to make the [Radio
Writers] Guild into a professional association were a number of the people who
were later to form AWARE, Inc."
This is a curiously telescoped and inaccurate statement.
First, an argument in the Radio Writers Guild about professional-society-
versus-union seems to have taken place in the late 19.30's. By 1950, it had been
long dead; only one person revived it: Hector Chevigny in an RWG-election
campaign letter to RWG members in 1950. No statement about it ever was made
by We the Undersigned, RWG anti-Communist Caucus ; only a few of We the
Undersigned had even belonged to RWG in the late 1930's.
Second, when AWARE, Inc., was formed and announced (December 1953)
the Radio Writers Guild was moribund. Moreover, the report does not know
who formed AWARE but the statement may be made here that no champion
of a "professional society" RWG was involved.
Page 148 : Speaking of RWG : "The result was an 'anti-Communist' ideology
largely based on the proposition that there was only one kind of anti-commu-
nism, that represented by the right wing. Exceptions were made (Morton
Wishengrad, a liberal anti-Communist writer, is acceptable to AWARE, Inc.)."
AWARE, Inc., seems to be the "King Charles' head" of the report ; here again
AWARE is dragged backward in time. RWG and We the Undersigned were
dead when AWARE, Inc., came to life. To say today — 3 years later — that Mr.
Wishengrad is "acceptable" to AWARE, Inc., implies that he has been somehow
"considered" by that organization. Nothing like that ever happened. The only
conceivable basis for the report's gratuitous linking of AWARE, Inc., and Mr.
Wishengrad is that during an interview about RWG by Mr. Blackman, Report
interviewer, the latter a.sked an AWARE Board member about Mr. AVishengrad,
the answer was that Mr. Wishengrad had been a respected, informed, and im-
portant member of We the Undersigned. As AWARE, Inc., was not under dis-
cussion, nothing could have suggested any connection between it and Mr. Wishen-
grad.
Page 149 : "It was this simplification (into two opposed factions) which got the
McCarran Committee into trouble on the very day it released its report on the
Radio Writers Guild. One of the central issues before the Guild at that time
[emphasis added] was a highly publicized resolution submitted by Welbourn
Kelley to the Regular Council Meeting, Eastern Region, of the Radio Writers
Guild. On July 29, 1950, Kelley had proposed that the Guild offer its services to
support America's role in the Korean war. * * *"
There is some error in dates here ; the correct sequence of events is —
1. Kelley's Korean anti-Communist resolution (s) came, as stated, in July
1950.
2. The testimony comprising the McCarran Committee Report was taken in
Washington and New York between April 27, 1951, and April 1, 1952, and
published by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee on August 27, 1952 —
2 years after the Kelley resolutions. By mid-1952 they had little more than
historical interest.
Page 151 : Here the report treats of the "trouble" into which the "McCarran"
[Senate Internal Security] Subcommittee got over Mr. Welbourn Kelley. This
passage quotes from a letter made public in September 1952 by Mr. Kelley to
the effect that when testifying in executive session about RWG, he had been
instructed by Committee Counsel Richard Arens to call his RWG opponents
"pro-Communists" and not "leftwingers." Mr. Kelley expressed concern at the
harm that would be done to his RWG opponents.
As far as it goes, the report's account of the Kelley letter is accurate; the
same cannot be said about its completeness, for Committee Counsel Arens replied
to Mr. Kelley in a widely published letter, stating that he had merely asked Mr.
Kelley not to use the term "leftwinger" for fear it might be taken to refer to
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5351
radicals or leftists, so-called, who were by no means pro-Communist; would
Mr. Kelley limit his remarks to those he regarded as pro-Communist, and use
that term for clarity? Omission of the Arens letter prevents the reader from
making up his own mind on the basis of complete evidence.
Page 150, second paragraph : "Another radio writer who voted against Kelley
[on the Korean resolutions] has notarized statements from leaders of AWARE,
Inc., attesting that they have no knowledge he is 'pro-Communist'."
King Charles' head again; AWARE, Inc., is dragged into something it had
nothing to do with. (Parenthetically, no radio writer or anybody else has state-
ments, notarized or not, from leaders of AWARE, Inc., that he is or is not pro-
Conmiunist. )
The facts behind the report's oddly telescoped sentence were supplied, in
document form, to Mr. Saul Blaekman, Report interviewer.
The "writer who voted against Kelley" was, presumably. Hector Chevigny, an
iutluential RWG member who had been several times a Guild councilman, AVest
and East, and who in 1952 was the administration candidate for national presi-
dent. In a We the Undersigned election campaign bulletin, in 1952, 13 RWG
members were listed who had been identified as Communists before congres-
sional committees: Pauline Hopkins, Sam Moore, Jack Robinson, Reuben Ship,
Gene Stone, Louis Scofield, Carl Abrams, Harmon Alexander, Abe Burrows,
Mary Robinson, Studs Terkel, Millard Lampell, Peter Lyon. (Today it should
1)6 noted that of the foregoing, Abe Burrows thereafter testified before HCUA,
generally admitting and regretting past Communist Party membership ; Reuben
Ship has been deported to Canada, where he wrote the radio play. The Inquisitor,
for the Canadian Broadcasting System.)
The same We the Undersigned 1952 election bulletin also charged certain
RWG members, not Communists, with having run on slates with some or all of
the 13; among the non-Communists so charged were Mr. Chevigny and Philo
Higley. Both considered that they had, by innuendo, been called Communists
and brought libel actions against 30 or so supporters of We the Undersigned.
Neither action went to court. Both were withdrawn when 13 of the defendants
named (the others having dropped away for various reasons: separate agree-
ments, nonservice, etc.) provided the plaintiffs with affidavits stating that they
had not called either man a Communist and had no knowledge of such connection.
Here is the key paragraph, which is correctly given in the report :
"The statements of our opposition to Mr. Chevigny's election made in the
said bulletin were not intended to imply that we had any knowledge of any fact
which would lead to the belief that Mr. Chevigny was a Communist or a member
of the Communist Party or directly or indirectly connected with the Communist
Party or that he was, when the bulletins were issued, or that he is now a member
of any Communist front or action .Lcroup or a member of any Communist con-
spiracy Jftid we do not have any such knowledge." (The aflBdavit given Higley was
almost identical.)
The Chevigny affidavit, later of the two, was dated 12 February 1954. On 18
March 1955, the relevant papers were supplied to a Report interviewer, at his
request ; with them went a letter from which the following paragraphs are now
quoted :
"It has steadily been our (We the Undersigned) position that we did not
refer to Mr. Chevigny or any of his companions in that group as Communists.
Our statement hinged only on their activities in the Radio Writers Guild with
reference to the imputed Communists named. We did not have any evidence
that Mr. Chevigny * * * had been a Communist. If we had, it's obvious that
he would have been bracketed with the imputed Communists and not separately.
Therefore we had no objection whatever to stating, in the final affidavit, that we
had no reason to regard Mr. Chevigny as a Communist. However, it will be
noted from a reading of the enclosed affidavit that our original statement — of
mutual support between imputed Communists and the group of officials and
then-candidates, is not referi*ed to and was not withdrawn."
The letter was signed as an individual by Paul R. Milton, formerly active in
We the Undersigned. The supporters of We the Undersigned (by early 1954 a
group held together only by unwelcome partnership as defendants in a lawsuit)
who signed the affidavit given to Mr. Chevigny were : Vera Oldham, Doris Hal-
man, Knowles Entrikin, House Jameson, Joseph Mindel, Roy L. Deets, Ann
Dixon, Jim McMenemy, Gene L. Farinet, Ruth Adams Knight, Paul R. Milton,
Stanley Niss, Nora Stirling.
A'ow look again at the Report quotation on page 150: "Another radio writer who
voted against Kelley has notarized statements from leaders of AWARE, Inc.
5352 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
[emphasis added], attesting that they have no knowledge he is pro-Communist."
Only one of the above-mentioned 13 persons may be described as a "leader" of
AWARE, Inc., a person who is now 1 among 15 AWARE Directors (Milton) ; 11
of the 13 are not even members of AWARE. Thus the Report statement is
grossly inaccurate.
Comments on part 2 of volume II : "Anti-Communism and Employment Policies
in Radio and Television"
This section, executed on a separate grant from the Fund for the Republic,
was directed by Marie Jahoda of the Research Center for Human Relations,
New York University.
It is, in effect, a study of "morale" in entertainment-communications. Also,
in effect, by its use of opinions from persons unidentified, it is a vehicle for the
conveyance of unverifiable views and "facts". True, any market survey of cus-
tomer-preferences is no more than that, but in market surveys the questions
involve no morality and no treasonable conspiracy. In a survey like this,
anonymity becomes a cover for irresponsibility.
Though this section is better than the first in scholary manner, it still resorts
to unscholarly cliches of the Communist and anti-anti-Communist running fight
against anti-Communists. For example, the use of the term "political" where
"Communism" or its appropriate variant is called for ; the word "political" is
so used 14 times.
Again, page 223 : Miss Jahoda quotes from a book of her own ;••*** self-
appointed individuals and groups * * *" referring to citizen-anti-Communists.
"Self-appointed" is a catch-term implying that citizen-anti-Communists are act-
ing extravagantly. But of course they are self-appointed, as is any other
activist in our society. What about the ASPCA, the Boy Scouts, the American
Civil Liberties Union, the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Fund
for the Republic, etc.; to what place shall we all go to get ourselves appointed?
The third paragraph, same page : "* * * they publicly call attention to the
records of individuals who deviate from their standards of acceptable behavior."
"Who deviate from their standards of acceptable behavior" is the key phrase.
Why not say plainly : "Who object to the Communist taint in such records"?
Page 224, second paragraph, discusses motives attributed to anti-Communist
activists, some praiseworthy, and then continues : "And some persons suggest
that even more naked self-interest — in terms of wishes for personal power or
financial gain — plays a role in the motivation of many private organizations and
individuals who have set themselves up as judges over other people's beliefs and
ideas."
Another snide dig unsupported by an independently verifiable fact. And again,
a phrase such as "set themselves up as judges" — as if that were repreh^sible in a
society founded on the conviction of freedom of expression coupled with in-
dividual responsibility for individual acts.
Page 240, quoting "a TV actor on a top level" : "If you pay you can get cleared."
This remark emphasizes the dangers of anonymous quotation. The speaker
is unidentified, yet behind cover he makes a charge implying criminal extortion.
Did he take his information to the proper legal authorities, the district at-
torney of New York County, for instance? Does the Report staff know on what
information the remark was based? Did the Report staff require supporting
facts from the "TV actor"? If the remark was not checked, why not? Here
again the question of quoting from ignorance intrudes itself.
Page 248, quoting "one man," not otherwise identified: "Many were thus
labeled even though they had been cleared by the FBI."
Once again — why quote from ignorance? J. Edgar Hoover, director of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, has stated many times that the Bureau has
no power to "clear" anyone, not even Federal employees under investigation.
Why does the report print as if true a statement that is false? A corrective
footnote might have been inserted. Pages 2G0-262 : On these pages the second
section of volume II comments on the various plans which have been put for-
ward within the entertainment-communications field to institutionalize standards
of employment and procedure where the Communist issue is involved, and which
all failed of adoption for a variety of commonsense reasons.
AWARE agrees with a conclusion of the Jahoda section that in general the
treatment of the Communist issue in entertainment-communications would
benefit from more openness and less secrecy.
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5353
FINAL COMMENT
It is AWARE's opinion that the report suffers fatally from its murkiness of
language, its quotations from poorly informed "faceless informers," its ap-
parent reluctance to deal with Communism as a conspiracy and its apparently
underlying conviction that anyone held responsible for his Communist actions
is somehow an innocent victim.
Throughout the report, those facts which are correct were known before.
Other things presented as facts lose their standing because of inaccuracy and
the frequent suppression of significant data.
The result is a document which, whatever the earnestness and good inten-
tions of its sponsors, contributes nothing to the better understanding of one
aspect of a crisis which confronts not only the whole civilized world, but every
individual in it.
The Chairman. The committee will be in order.
Mr. Arens. Mr. Chairman, the next witness is Mr. Godfrey P.
Schmidt. Would you kindly raise your right hand.
The Chairman. Mr. Schmidt, do you swear the testimony you are
about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth, so help you God ?
Mr. Schmidt. I do.
The Chairman. Thank you.
TESTIMONY OF GODFREY P. SCHMIDT
Mr. Arens. Kindly identify yourself by name, residence, and oc-
cupation.
Mr. Schmidt. My name is Godfrey P. Schmidt, S-c-h-m-i-d-t. I
live at 41 Montgomery Place in New Rochelle, N. Y. I am an at-
torney, and I have my own office at 12 East 41st Street, New York
City, I am president of AWARE, Inc. Also I lecture on constitu-
tional law, sometimes on labor law and jurisprudence at Fordham
University Law School.
Mr. Arens. Mr. Schmidt, give us just a brief sketch of your per-
sonal background, if you please, your education and anything of
particular significance in your activities in your life.
Mr. Schmidt. I was educated at Fordham University College and
Law School. During my training at Fordham Law School I took
great interest in the study of communism and the general line of Com-
munist philosophy. That interest was instilled in me by a speech
made by Father Edmund Walsh, who was president of Georgetown
University, a great expert in this field, as you gentlemen know.
I gave a series of lectures and courses on the subject of communism
and the Communist conspiracy during the period, I would say, be-
ginning from 1930 onward. I always reserved at least 4 hours of my
courses on jurisprudence to a discussion of the general line of Com-
munist philosophy.
I was selected by Governor Lehman to conduct the Communist
penetration investigation of the New York State Labor Department,
and I conducted that investigation for a period of some 9 months, be-
ginning in 1939 or 1940 — I have forgotten the exact date — and since
that time I have constantly given lectures and talks on the subject
of communism.
I was interested in the theater and communism from the time I went
into private practice in 1944 when I was retained by Frank Fay, who
was then under charges at Actors Equity for having called some fel-
5354 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING^
low actors Keds. I defended Frank Fay successfully in the sense that
I prevented them from doing what they planned to do ; namely, to oust
him from his profession by taking away his union membership.
Mr. Velde. Wliat kind of an action was that, Mr. Schmidt ?
Mr. Schmidt. That was an intraunion proceeding. He was brought
up on charges before the Actors Equity Council. He was not allowed
to have attorneys present, but I was in an adjoining room and when
he had any difficulties he could question me. I also prepared for him
the documentation, the bill of particulars, and I sat down with mem-
bers of Actors Equity who were conducting this investigation, so-
called, and told them that I would commence suit against them if they
didn't base their decision on substantial evidence.
Mr. Arens. Yesterday for some period, and today, your associate in
AWARE, Mr. Paul Milton, testified. Yesterday he made reference to
the organization AWARE and gave a little of its origins and its func-
tions. Unfortunately, at that time some of the members of the com-
mittee were not present. I would like to ask you now in the presence of
the members who were not here yesterday if you would take a moment
to explain to the members what is AWARE, a word about its origin,
its activities and functions.
Mr. Schmidt. AWARE is an organization of Americans whose
purpose it is to fight Communist influence in the field of entertainment
communications. I should say about half of its membership is taken
from the professions, from the various acting theatrical professions,
and the other half are ordinary citizens of various professions and
avocations and who are interested in the subject of communism, espe-
cially communism in the field of entertainment communications. It
is nonsectarian. It is nonpolitical. It has no orthodoxy in the field
of religion or politics. It welcomes any person of good will who feels,
as we do, that communism is the most unmitigated political, social, and
philosophical evil of our time, the one that has more endangered Amer-
ican civil liberties and the American concept of freedom and the dig-
nity of the human person than any jDrevious heresy in all history.
Mr. Arens. Tell us, if you please, in summary form, of the function
of AWARE.
Mr. Schmidt. AWARE relies primarily on its right to protest, on
the right of free speech and free press. Its purpose is to lay the facts
before those who will have to make decisions of one kind or another.
Mr. Arens. By what vehicle does it operate ?
Mr. Schmidt. By publishing bulletins from time to time, by con-
ducting forums, by offering speakers to its membership, and so on.
Mr. Arens. What are the sources of information of AWARE ?
Mr. Schmidt, The sources of information are documentation of
the work of a committee like this one and similar committees of Con-
gress, various research sources that are available. We don't believe,
with the Fund for the Republic report, that it is not possible to objec-
tively ascertain some of the infiltrations of the Communist conspiracy
in our country. We don't think it is an easy job, but if we felt that it
was always a question of AWARE standards or their standards, but
never objective standards, we wouldn't be in this. We think that it
takes a vast amount of intellectual and moral effort to isolate the right
standards and to apply them, but we do believe that it is a worthwhile
task, a task that is demanded by the exigencies of our time, and a task
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5355
that can be competently handled both by Government officials, like the
distinguished members of this committee, and by private persons of
good Avill.
Mr. Akens. Mr. Schmidt, what is "blacklisting" ?
Mr. Schmidt. Right here I think you have the source of much of
the confusion that appears in the Fund for the Republic report because,
as I understand that report, you have a variety of definitions and the
attack is made in a diffuse fashion precisely because the attack is not
always on the same target. It seems to me that from time to time they
mean blacklisting as a form of rash judgment which is either calumny
or detraction.
At another time — here is one of the most absurd ones in the book,
on page 181 volume II :
Blacklistiug, according to W. Z., * * * is really an attack on New Deal values.
Then the next page, 182 :
The motives of the pro-blacklisting faction * * * are union-busting, anti-New
Dealism, and reaction in general. In certain cases, these motives are linked
with racism — anti-Semitism, and hostility toward the Negro performer * * *.
It seems to me no serious study made by pretense at scholarship and
decent research would quote this kind of definition as worthy of serious
consideration.
The Chairman. Isn't that close to the Communist line ?
Mr. Schmidt. As I understand the Communist line, it is the Com-
munist line.
Mr. Arens. What is your appraisal of the objectivity of the report
on blacklisting of the Fund for the Republic ?
Mr. Schmidt. The Fund for the Republic report, as I read it and
appraise it, is nothing but a partisan and political tract against people
whom they identify with tags and slogans while they assert that people
like myself have no competence to use contrary tags and slogans. It is
guilty of all sorts of suppression of relevant facts, and it makes that
suppression on the pretense "this is my way of writing." It seems to me
that before you undertake a study of this kind there are certain require-
ments, certain objective exigencies for a study of this kind. You can't
excuse the forgetfulness or neglect of those standards by simply say-
ing, "this is my method of writing."
Mr. Arens. May I interrupt you right there, Mr. Schmidt, to ask
you, in your judgment as devout anti-Communist and as one who has
had extensive experience in this field, is it a legitimate concern of a
congressional committee that a tax-exempt foundation with vast re-
soui'ces should be making these allegations to which you have been
alluding?
Mr. Schmidt. I think, from the point of view of our Constitution,
it is exactly what the Founding Fathers wanted a congressional com-
mittee to do. You take away congressional committees, and I say to
you, gentlemen, no newspaper, no private agency, has the power to
investigate or the courage to investigate, especially in these days when
we have somewhat encouraged a kind of "Caesarized" idea of the power
of the executive department and when we have tolerated, it seems to
me, a kind of interpretation of the Constitution that is surely but
slowly chipping away States' rights.
5356 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
It seems to me that the only hope for uncovering some of the truth
that must be known in this kind of picture comes from congressional
committees like yours.
I haven't finished, if I may be pennitted to continue, my appraisal
of this report.
In the first place, this failure to define and this use of the word, which
is in itself a form of denigration, handicaps the book. They have five
different definitions quoted from other sources and the one that should
be most objective from Webster's Dictionary is not fully quoted, and
there is no indication of an omission. On page 27, pages 52, 53, 121,
181, 182, and 237 are other people's definitions.
That fairly leads to what is my definition. What do I say "black-
listing" is, because I don't care what you call a thing, I want to know
what is the reality behind the word. Otherwise debating this becomes
a futile verbal battle. ^Vliat is it that AWAEE does that is called by
these people blacklisting?
I say we are publishing, for a good motive and for a sufficiently
grave reason, truthful statements which potentially or actually damage
someone by imputing to that someone some unrepudiated and until
now hidden fault.
Let me justify that definition by taking it apart because I think it
is the heart of this problem. How can you write a learned treatise
on something that you have never even defined ? Of course, there is a
dogmatic assumption here which is the dogmatic assumption behind
the Times editorial this morning; that is, that this is a thoroughly
un-American art of blacklisting in the entertainment field.
Blacklisting, gentlemen, is not something new under the sun. If
you read the Nichomachean Ethics of Aristotle, you read a treatise on
detraction and calumny. What is the difference in the great Aris-
totelian tradition which was picked up even by men like St. Augustine
and St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Thomas has this magnificently set forth
in his tract on detraction and calumny. Wliat do they define detrac-
tion to be? The unjustified telling of some hidden fault. That is
detraction. Calumny is the telling of a hidden fault when the telling
is a lie — in other words, what we would call libel and slander. That
is calumny.
I submit that we in AWARE are against detraction and slander. We
are against a great many of the fundamental evils that they only tan-
gentially refer to here. But this is not what we do. We do not indulge
in slander or libel or detraction or calumny or tale-bearing or back-
biting or derision. What is it we have done ?
We have published 18 bulletins up to now, and it is our bulletins
that have earned for us the reputation that we are blacklisters. These
bulletins I am sure have been made available to this committee and,
if they haven't been, I will see that they are. We have published 18
bulletins, and in 4 of them we did blacklisting in the sense that I
defined and which I will explain in a minute.
In the first instance we did it as an editorial comment on an election
in AFTRA. We commented 2 weeks after the election on the fact
that the slate that won was defiantly and intelligently anti-Communist
and the slate that lost comprised a large number of people with sig-
nificant repudiated front records.
Now we were intruding in union affairs as if there were some immu-
nization from criticism that would come from people with real or
alleged talent. We have no right to criticize a slate. We criticize
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5357
the slates put up by real political parties like Democrats and Republi-
cans. If we have that constitutional right, and thank God we have,
I see no reason why we should hesitate if we feel we do it reasonably,
and we do, to criticize a slate in a particular union.
That was the first time.
The next two times we defended ourselves against an attack. The
attack was mounted because of that first editorial comment. We de-
fended ourselves against attack by these people, and we pointed out
that the most vociferous attackers were precisely the people with
unrepudiated front associations.
It seems to me that this takes care of the detraction part because
detraction is only the unjustified telling.
Publishing : That means using free speech. That means using free
press. That means using the American right to protest.
For a good motive. We are not actuated by malice. We hate no
man. We would live to welcome them back. Our primary purpose
is to reveal the Communist conspiracy. That is why we published
The Eoad Back and I took a literal translation from the Greek New
Testament, the Acts of the Apostles, that they should have a change
of heart and mind performing deeds fitting this change, as the fore-
word of this important document that we publish, because we are not
interested in attacking people. We are much more interested in
getting them to our side, revealing to them the error of their ways
when they lend their names in some form to communism.
Gentlemen, it seems to me that it is a matter of ordinary human
psychology that when 2 people collaborate to save a man, the 2 people
deserve credit and merit. If two people lend their name, their pres-
tige, and their talent to some unworthy cause, to some form of collabo-
ration with communism as a focus of unmitigated evil, whether they
intend it or not is beside the point, this is something we have a right
to comment on because, gentlemen, it is the effect that is important
here as much as the intent. There is a vast moral difference between
a baby who sets a house on fire and an arsonist, but the effect, gentle-
men, is the same. A lot of people in our day go around with the bland
assumption that they can join any kind of nefarious group that collab-
rates with communism and come out, simply because of the prestige
of their name for their talents, without any criticism. Yet they know
very well, gentlemen, that if they joined a Nazi front, if they asso-
ciated themselves with some form of anti-Semitism, they would be
attacked from one end of this country to the other, and rightly, be-
cause a man holds his reputation in his hand — every one of us. We
can hold it on high or we can throw it away. It is our deliberate con-
duct that does it. We don't run sniveling to some union to rescue
us from our own stupidity. If we are wrong we ought to do what
every person who is wrong does.
In the long history of human achievement the great people have
been the men like St. Augustine or St. Francis of Assisi, who admitted
that their earlier lives were wrong and they knew how to take care of
it. I hear nothing but talk that these people don't know how to clear
themselves. With a little intelligence and a little imagination they
easily would know how, it seems to me, because people who were
dirty far more, men like Louis Budenz or Betty Bentley, have been
cleared. So these people who lend themselves, it seems to me, have an
obligation. I am not saying that w^e are the judges.
82833—56 — ^pt. 2 6
5358 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
Mr. Arens. I would like to ask you a question at this point, Mr.
Schmidt. As I construe certain of the passages of the Fund for the
Kepublic report, there are a number of indictments brought against
you and against AWARE. I should like to invite your attention to
those indictments. One of the first indictments which I construe the
Fund for the Republic report makes is that you identify, you and
AWARE, identify as Communists those people who oppose AWARE.
What is your observation with respect to that indictment which is
brought in the report?
Mr. ScioiiDT. That is an indictment which appears in this Fund
for the Republic report which is absolute falsification. Nothing that
I or anybody in AWARE has ever said, none of our publications, can
be used to justify that slander or that libel. We have said that neu-
tralism is out of place when you are confronted with such a menacing
obscenity of mind and spirit and soul as communism. We don't think
that you could be neutral here any more than you could be neutral if
you were standing on a street corner and saw a hit-and-run driver
knock down a small child. It is conceivable that you could say, "Tliis
is not my child. This is not my affair. I won't be involved. I won't
be an informer. I will be neutral." It is conceivable, I say, but I think
it is indecent.
j\Ir. Arens. I have still another indictment which I construe from
the report was brought against your organization ; namely, that your
organization has no competent standards of judgment. What is your
observation on that indictment? Do you concur with me that that
indictment is brought?
Mr. Schmidt. Yes; that indictment is brought, and it comes with
particularly poor grace, it seems to me, from the Fund for the Re-
public people because they make more delicate distinctions, distinctions
with much less tangible nuances than we have ever tried to make.
They make it apparently with the dogmatic assumption that they are
practically infallible, because here on page 144, volume II, they talk
about pro-Comniunists. On pages 144 and 145 they talk about the
Communist faction. They say that one fact is beyond dispute, that
there was a conscious organized caucus of the Communist Party in
the entertainment field pushing the Connnunist Party line in the talent
unions. There was. When did it stop, Mr. Cogley ?
Mr. Arens. What are the competent standards of judgment?
Mr. Schmidt. I could go on and show you so many distinctions that
they make with great abandon and facility, but when we say a man
belongs to a front or he has lent his aid and support to a front, we have
no standards. I submit we have standards and I submit that this is
one of the reasons why this report is so valueless, because they have
forgotten the basic problems that lie at the heart of this subject.
I would like to take that before I deal particularly with the special
question, because my answer to this presupposes the other.
I say that they have neglected in handling this problem — as scholars
would, they have neglected such things as what is the Communist con-
spiracy, its nature, its instruments, its methods?
Mr. Sciierer. Do you think that neglect w^as intentional?
Mr. Schmidt. I assume that adults who confront themselves with
a task of writing a two-volume treatise on blacklisting are iiiot that
daft, that they would forget. I am sure it must have been intentional.
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5359
Here are some of the basic philosophical problems that they have
completely iieo-lected, apart from the Communist conspiracy, its in-
struments and its methods. They have talked derisively about some
people's standards for detecting Communist inhltration. sometimes
leaving a subjectivist impression that nobody in this world will ever
be competent. At other times adopting a kind of collectivist theory
that only government has the right to do it, much as to say that gov-
ernment is so important that it must only be left to Congress, i am
sure that no Member of Congress, seriously thinking about it, wants
government left only to Congress.
On the day when it does we have lost our country. When the
people of our country don't manifest an intelligent interest, because
after all you get out of the ballot box only what you put into it,
if you put stupidity and ignorance into it that is what you are going
to take out of it. It is a duty on people who believe in government of
the people, by the people, and for the people to interest themselves in
these things and in intelligent fashion.
They have neglected the standards for collaboration. Not only
have tliey neglected it — listen to this: They have in this particular
passage of the report, on page 97, volume II, they have stated this :
* * * but "collaborator" remains a word open to the several meanings. Is
signing a Communist-sponsored petition "collaboration"?
Just imagine asking. That is like Pilate asking "What is
truth?" and not staying for an answer. They asked this question
and they go on to the next sentence :
It could be clearly so, if that was the intention of the signer.
I refer to what Congressman Scherer just said. There is a dif-
ference sonietimes between the nature of the act and the intention
of the doer of the act. The nature of the act has an efficiency and
finality of its own quite apart from the intention of the doer. If I
go to a medicine chest with the intention of getting a pill to allay
my headache and by accident take poison, I am going to die because
the nature of the act contradicts my purpose. This is one beautiful
illustration of how the nature of what you do contradicts your in-
tention. I think men are held or should be held to tlie normal conse-
quences of their actions and their decisions. They have neglected
in this a whole treatment of what are the standards for immutability,
what are the standards for collaboration, what are the standards for
scandal ? This is exactly the thing we are inveighing against. We are
inveighing against the spectacle of people who are supposed to be
adults, who as adults join Communists fronts or participate in activi-
ties of Communist fronts and apparently it is all right for them
to do it, but when Godfrey Schmidt says they did it, it suddenly be-
comes all wrong. This is particularly important when you are deal-
ing with the Communist conspiracy because you are not having in
the Conmiunist conspiracy the kind of thing that we as Americans
are used to.
In America we are used to joining organizations and saying flat-
footedly, "I am a member of AWARE and I am proud of it." I
wouldn't deny it anyway. But the Communist is not that kind of
fellow. He denies it. He is part and parcel of a movement that
denies it. He follows Imowingly or unknowingly by lending his aid
and collaboration, the dictum of Lenin in 11)21 when he said the
5360 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
bourgeoisie have lied about us. "They tell us that we have no system
of ethics or morality. We have a very scientific and simple morality,
much superior to the hypocrisy of the West," and it comes to this:
Whatever advances the dictatorship of the proletariat is right and
"whatever hinders it is wrong.
This is the thing we are getting at.
Mr. Arens. You have leveled a number of criticisms here at this
report, and I believe you said a few minutes ago that it is worthless.
Do you feel that it has any negative impact upon the fight against
communism, that a great organization with millions of dollars and
great publicity attached to its efforts should come out with a report
of the nature which you have characterized.
(Representative Kearney left the hearing room.)
Mr. Schmidt. I don't think it could fail to have the negative impact
of encouraging the kind of people who, first of all, justify all forms
of joining Communist-front organizations. I am sure that the Com-
munist Party high command would be delighted to have every week
a document like this come out, because this fronts for a line that it
seems to me has been increasing.
I would not have answered. Congressman Doyle, the question that
you presented in exactly the same way because I think you have to
make a distinction. I think that in one respect communism and Com-
munist-f rontism has increased. I think in another respect it has gone
backward. It has gone backward largely b-ecause of the activities
of people like yourselves and the small help that small organizations
like ours render. But it has gone forward in this respect : They have
successfully foisted on an unsuspecting people a theory of civil liber-
ties that in effect makes the first 10 amendments a suicide pact. It
seems to me they have — well, I don't know of any better illustration
of it, gentlemen, than this book that Zechariah Chafee just published,
The Blessings of Liberty. He regards the whole Communist con-
spiracy in this country, the whole thought of it, as a tempest in a
teapot.
Mr. MoTJLDER. You referred to joining Communist-front organiza-
tions and that they should be condemned for it even though they might
do so ignorantly. Is that the way I understand your theory ?
Mr. Schmidt. No ; if you listened carefully to my definition, I said
for a sufficiently grave reason. Sufficiently grave reason, as I said,
involves collaboration. This is exactly what this study fails to do,
develop a theory of collaboration. What is collaboration ? If a i)er-
son holds the door open to a thief or an arsonist without knowing it, he
has objectively collaborated, materially, but not formally. He didn't
intend that. I wouldn't blame him. But it seems to me that it is
a little late in the day for adults to lend their names to strings of
Communist fronts, and fail to repudiate them and then say we did
it in ignorance.
(Representative Doyle left the hearing room.)
Mr. Moulder. They may fail to repudiate it, but do you know of
cases where people joined organizations which at the time were not
actually Communist-front organizations but later on became domi-
nated by Communist influence ?
Mr. Schmidt. Yes ; that is right. Judge Pecora is an example in
New York. He joined the Lawyers Guild. It was Communist-domi-
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5361
nated, but he was intelligent enough to perceive it after a while, and
he resigned with great eclat. Nobody would ever think of calling
Judge Ferdinand Pecora a Communist or a f ronter.
Mr. Moulder, That is my point.
Mr. Schmidt. I say to you that it was the failure, it seems to me,
of this report to elaborate on standards of imputability and collabora-
tion, on the meaning of the ethical standards behind detraction and
calumny that makes this a political tract and nothing short of a politi-
cal tract, rather than a serious research job.
Let me give you one example. In the back of the book here in the
Jahoda study is an illustration of some of the most inept type of
statistical survey I have ever seen. She says on page 238, volume II,
about the middle :
When asked what would happen to a person in the industry who is not a Com-
munist now but who attended Communist Party meetings for a short time 15
years ago and was now named in a magazine as a Communist sympathizer, he
answered, "He would probably lose his job."
It seems to me, gentlemen, that some questions are so stupidly framed
that a man who attempts to answer them in their inchoate form de-
nominates himself a fool for trying to answer. You couldn't possibly
answer that question intelligently, because you would have to ask one
further question, at least. You say he attended Communist Party
meetings 15 years ago? l^Tiat has he done in between ? Has he kept
on defending the Communists in Communist Party caucuses within
unions?
Let's skip that. "Within unions, whether he is a Communist Party
member or not, within unions has he stood up and defended the party
line? Has he been guilty of nothing but anti- anticommunism ? It
is not my standard. It is a question of an objective standard. I
should have thought that a study like this would have tried at least to
isolate some objective standards. They didn't even try.
Mr. Arens. Mr. Schmidt, I would like to invite your attention to
language in the report pertaining to the hearings of the House Com-
mittee on Un-American Activities, appearing on page 211, volume II:
In August 1955 the House Committee on Un-American Activities held hearings
on communism in the Broadway theater. Twenty-three witnesses were called
and 22 of them turned out to be "unfriendly," invoking the First, Fourth, Fifth,
Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.
In Hollywood or on Madison Avenue, actors that "unfriendly" could expect not
to work again until such time as they "cleared" themselves. But the Broadway
performers wlio refused to cooperate with the Walter Committee simply went
back to work. In one case, an actor who had invoked the Fifth Amendment had
his contract torn up — and was given a new one at higher pay, and for a longer
period of time. The actor was not being rewarded for his "unfriendliness," he
was being rewarded for his professional ability. And it is ability that still
counts on Broadway.
Do you have any observation to make, on the basis of your extensive
background and experience with the Communist conspiracy, with
reference to that approach to people who were identified as Commu-
nist members before the House committee ?
Mr. ScioiiDT. I think I could do nothing better in answer to that
question, Mr. Arens, than to refer to page 151 of the report itself.
On page 151, volume II, of the report it says :
Many of the election slates put forward in the talent unions by the anti-
blacklisting group were easy targets for their opponents because there was
5362 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
equivocation on the issue of communism. The majority of those who protested
blacklisting were anti-Communists.
I would agree with that. I am quite sure that the majority of the
people in the talent unions who voted against AWAEE were anti-
Communist. But now listen to this pearl of wisdom :
Yet somehow they believed it necessary to include Communists or well-known
fellow travelers on their slates so as not to violate civil liberties.
Where did you ever hear such an inept and absurd theory of civil
liberties that you violate American civil liberties in a private group
when you fail to put Communists on the slate or fellow travelers on
the slate?
It seems to me there is your answer. If the Fund for the Republic
thought that this was an important opinion, if they reported it
without immediately excoriating as a silly interpolation they were
capable of writing the part that you just read to me.
Mr. Arens. May I ask you a question that I think perhaps might
be going through the minds of a number of people, "So what V What
difference does it make if the Fund for the Republic did issue this
report with these statements? Of what significance is it? Is it a
legitimate concern of this committee ?
Mr. Schmidt. I think it is a legitimate concern of this committee
because of the dogmatic assumption, express and often implied
throughout this and throughout much of the newspaper comment that
walks in where angels fear to tread, because they are saying we are
guilty of un-American practices. You are interested in un-American
practices. I would welcome an investigation of AWARE any time,
any place. You can have any paper we have. You can have any
witness we have. We are not afraid to stand before any people and
show you that we are not guilty of un-American activities.
Mr. ScHERER. Isn't it generally recognized among you experts on
this subject that the top brass of the Fund for the Republic assert,
either directly or indirectly, that it is the activities of this committee
that have resulted in this odious thing they term "blacklisting" ?
Mr. Schmidt. Sure. I don't think there is any doubt about it. I
get that.
Mr. ScHERER. Let me ask you another question following that. You
said at the beginning of your testimony if this committee was abol-
ished, all other anti- Communist groups would hesitate to go forward
in their fight against the Communist conspiracy.
You said that in substance.
Mr. Schmidt. No; I wouldn't say that I said they would hesitate.
AWARE and people like us wouldn't hesitate ho matter what a com-
mittee did or failed to do, but we could not be as effective as you people.
We don't have the power to speak.
Mr. ScHERER. You would not be effective ? You could not go for-
ward effectively ?
Mr. Schmidt. That is right. The newspapers write all sorts of
articles about this, but what has any newspaper done or what has
it contributed to really isolate the issues in this matter and to settle
them ?
Mr. Scherer. So to stop an anti-Communist group like yours and
individuals like you from being effective it would be necessary first
rNTV'ESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5363
to discredit this committee or stop the activity of this committee;
wouldn't it ?
Mr. Schmidt. I have no doubt about that, sir. It seems to me
that every bit of tlie silly propaganda to the effect that this country
is ridden with fear and propaganda because of congressional com-
mittees— that book by Zechariah Chafee that I spoke of is full of
that sort of thing. I tell you this
Mr. ScHERER. What we have agreed on just now may explain the
type of report that the Fund for the Republic has put forth in this
instance on blacklisting ?
Mr. Schmidt. Oh, I think it does, because I think that men like
E. N. Griswold, for example — and I have debated with Griswold on
television — men like Griswold stand for an interpretation of civil
liberties that I think is absolutely wrong and unconstitutional, I
wouldn't want to be shut up by any legislation. I would want to
continue the debate. But I am not going to let him shut me up by say-
ing in papers or in books that I am un-American. I can stand before
him and any audience in the world I think and defend my point of
view.
The Chairman. There wasn't a handful of lawyers at that meeting
in Philadelphia of the American Bar who did not conclude that he
was just simply not telling the truth in what he said about the fifth
amendment.
Mr. Schmidt. I must say I read his book on The Fifth Amendment
Today. I heard him give that argument when he debated me on the
Edward R. Murrow show, and I have no respect for that kind of
lack of logic. I say that there is a new gambit, it seems to me, that
is coming to the fore. Maybe you haven't heard it. But I have met
it. They say to fellows like mj^self : "What about this question of being
an informer? You pretend to be Christians. You pretend to like
the Sermon on the Mount. Turn the other cheek. Wliere is your
Christian charity ? You are hurting people out of malice." And all
that sort of thing.
I say this in answer to that : The same divine Author who gave us
the Sermon on the Mount on the last day of His public ministry stood
in the Temple courts and seven times uttered the most terrible de-
nunciations in the whole Bible. "Woe to you, scribes, Pharisees,
hypocrites." He was telling that there was a plot of murder afoot.
He was informing. So Pie gave us an example of how we have to
act when we are confronted with a terrible crime.
Mr. ScHERER. Getting back now to the questions that I asked you
just a few minutes ago with reference to the feeling of the hierarchy
of the Fund for the Republic, namely, that this committee is respon-
sible for this odious thing that they have called blacklisting through-
out this country, do you have any idea or opinion now as to why the
Fund for the Republic produced that report or engaged in such an
investigation ?
Mr. Schmidt. I think they produced that report to carry out and
to apply a strange theory of simple liberties, a theory of civil liberties
that in effect says that we must tolerate every kind of subversion be-
cause {a) you really can't tell, there are no standards for subversion,
and in the competition with free ideas error will eventually be blotted
out and truth will triumph. I say to you that they don't even believe
5364 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
that themselves because they constantly attack people like myself who
are using civil liberties who propagate our views as un-American, as
unconstitutional.
If they really believed in the competition of the other ideas, why
not debate this as we would always want it debated. That is to say,
go to the essentials. You don't originate this problem. We didn't
originate this problem. Communism originated this problem. When
you were confronted with a conspiracy of the nature of communism
which debauches the mind and the soul of man in more ways and has
more victims than ever before in history — 900 million victims already
and there wasn't a country they took over that they took over by
majority vote. There isn't a country they have taken over where
they permit the slightest vestige of civil liberties. I say this is the
cause for the reaction that says we want to publish for a good and
sufficient reason and out of a good motive, a truthful statement about
those who collaborate, whether they intentionally do it or not. It is
very simple for them to get off that hook, it seems to me. Let them
disown it. This is what we would want.
Gentlemen, why do they attack only our kind of blacklisting?
Aren't they aware that every trade union in this country when it goes
off on a strike or has a blacklist of its own or an unfair list is putting
economic pressure on someone who doesn't agree with them?
The Chairman. What about the Government of the United States,
the Civil Service Commission blacklist ?
Mr. Schmidt. Exactly. What about Dun & Bradstreet? Dun &
Bradstreet gets a call for an investigation for a fee. Wliat about
every newspaper ? Hasn't it happened that newspapers have damaged
reputations ? Are we going to say to the newspapers you fold up be-
cause sometimes you did it by error, and you had to make a retraction
and you never could really make that retraction.
It seems to me, a kind that in effect says let Government speak alone,
but no private citizen may talk on this subject.
Mr. Arens. Mr. Chairman, we have another witness. I don't know
whether Mr. Schmidt has concluded his point, sir.
Mr. Schmidt. This is the kind of subject you could go on and on,
like Tennyson's brook, but I don't want to wear out my welcome.
The Chairman. I assure you that you won't as far as I am con-
cerned.
Any questions, Mr. Velde ?
Mr. Velde. Mr. Schmidt, of course, I have enjoyed your testimony
and I know you are very able. I think you said the only way that we
could handle this situation is through publicity. Do you think there
is an area of legislation that we could recommend ?
Mr. Schmidt. No. I have given that a lot of thought, and I would
oppose legislation on this particular subject. I think that this is one
of those subjects of public debate that should be allowed the arena of
public debate. I was amazed by the climax of this second volume,
the mountains were in labor and came forth with a ridiculous mouse
because the most obvious thing in the world is apparently the conclu-
sion to which they come.
However, a public debate might be initiated to air the facts as well as the
assumptions.
I think if you start legislation you will inevitably regiment opinion.
You will start to create a kind of dictatorship within this field. I
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5365
think there are cases where an employer has the right to discharge
people without specifying a reason. I think that this notion that you
can't discharge someone without giving him a hearing is a rather
ridiculous thing. In the first place, these people didn't give us hear-
ings. They prate condemnation after condemnation against us but
they never gave us a hearing. But they say when we criticize someone
else for justified reasons we must give hearings. I don't agree with
that for a number of reasons. In the first place, if that were true no
newspaper should publish its frank and critical appraisal without
giving a hearing, which I would deplore. In the second place, you
couldn't write histor}' on that theory because you can't give Nero and
Caligula a hearing today but we don't need a hearing to prove that
they were wrong or to prove that Hitler was wrong. It seems to me
that this is an area that is legitimately within the compass of free
speech and free press. But I do think that the function that your
committee can serve is to give these people who always will come 'to-
morrow, who are never here today, these phantoms who keep saying,
"If we only had a forum to which we could present our case, then we
would floor them" — I want to see some of those people.
]Mr. Moulder. Mr. Schmidt, is your organization a self-supporting
organization ?
Mr. Schmidt. It is self-supporting in the sense that it lives on its
initiation fees and dues. It sometimes gets gratuities from people,
donations, but it is not tax-exempt. We always tell people that they
don't get any deduction on their income tax for giving us money. I
don't know of any case where we ever got in excess of $200 from a
particular person.
Mr. Arens. But your organization is attacked by a tax-exempt
organization.
Mr. Schmidt. I gather so.
Mr. Velde. Do you think it should be ?
Mr. Schmidt. The thing that amuses me about this is that little
organizations like us, with a treasury that is rich if it has $2,000 at
one time is now feared by an organization which has $15 million at
its command.
Mr. Moulder. The point I was making is that your organization
is supported from subscriptions and from memberships ?
jMr. Schmidt. That is right. We have no endowments.
Mr. Velde. Mr. Schmidt, do you think the Fund for the Republic
is a type of organization that should be tax-exempt ?
Mr. Schmidt. I suppose that is not my judgment to say, but I do
have an opinion on it.
JMr. Velde. Mr. Chairman, I don't know whether we are getting out
of line here, but I would like to have his opinion.
The CiiAiRMAisr. I do not think he is qualified in that field. Any
questions, Mr. Willis ?
Mr. Willis. I would like to ask one question. I always had in
mind that when the expression was used that a person had been black-
listed, that connotes an unjust accusation.
]\Ir. Schmidt. I would say so. You have to consider history.
Mr. Willis. Wliat worries me is that the way the word "blacklist"
is used in this report it has variations in it.
5366 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
Mr. Schmidt. That is right. You see. Congressman, if you go back
in the history of the world it really originated in the field of labor
relations.
Mr. Willis. Wliat is the origin of it ?
Mr. Schmidt. It originated in the area of labor relations.
The Chairman. Have you overlooked World War I, the so-called
blacklist?
Mr. Schmidt. Yes, but the labor-relations angle antedated World
War I by many years, you see. You had blacklisting in the repre-
hensible practice of some employers though who denied the right of
free association to employees and made them unemployable by actually
handing to one another a list of the so-called troublemakers. We do
not indulge in blacklisting in that sense. Ever since that connotation
the word "blacklisting" has had a kind of slur inherent in it, a built-in
slur, in other words. We don't do blacklisting in that sense. I say
to you that when the Anti-Defamation League does what it has a thor-
ough right to do, isolate anti-Semites and publish the fact that they
are anti-Semites, I am for them. I am glad they do it. But is it any
easier to find an anti-Semite than a Communist? They don't give
hearings, either. They can issue responsible appraisals of a person's
anti-Semitism. I think we can do it without hearing, too. I think
when you have the spectacle of documentation on a man with 20 or 30
significant front affiliations you don't have to go far during that
period that he has never repudiated it.
The Chairman. Of course I am enough of a logician to see exactly
what happened in this tract. They start with the conclusion, there is
blacklisting. Then they built a syllogism around backward. This is
done for the deliberate purpose of deceiving the people, in my opinion.
Mr. Schmidt. Whether they deliberately do it or whether they are
infatuated with a wild and strange series of conclusions about what
the first amendment grants, I wouldn't say. I am even willing to grant
to them perfect sincerity in their way. After all, gentlemen, the fact
that a man is sincere as a Nazi doesn't mean that we don't fight him.
The Chairman. Any other questions ?
Mr. ScHERER. I don't quite agree with your conclusion. I go back
to the thing that I was driving at a little while ago. I think the group
that sponsors the Fund for the Republic is trying to show that this
committee basically is responsible for what they call blacklisting.
Mr. Schmidt. I think I agreed, with that before. I don't think that
you can remove that as one of the motivations here because it prac-
tically says so in many pages.
When they come to discussing AWAEE, for example, and what I
have done, j^'ou can see time and a^ain they completely misrepresented
what I have said. For instance, on page 154, volume II, they quote me
as saying or quote my organization as saying :
Happily, AFTRA is one of the few unions in which flatly declared anti-
commuuism and antitotalitarianism have won many clear victories.
That is the quotation.
Here is the comment :
The first statement, that AFTRA is "one of the few unions" in which anti-
communism is dominant, was itself telltale.
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5367
We didn't say anything like that. We didn't say it was one of the
few unions that was controlled by anti-Communists. We said it was
one of the few unions where tliere were flatly declared statements of
anticommunism. Again I say to you AFTRA or Actors Equity Asso-
ciation have beautiful statements that they are against communism and
nazism. They even have a national rule that says that they are sup-
posed to expel or that they can expel people who take the fifth amend-
ment when they come before your committee. But I say to you what
have they done on the basis of this ? It is easy enough to make speeches
in abstract against communism, but communism can't be fought merely
in the abstract because communism is a kind of contagion that is car-
ried by people. If you throw the searchlight of revelation on the
people they run for cover because they are only used to the underside
of things where things are hidden.
The Chairman. The committee will stand in recess until 2 o'clock
this afternoon. The witness is excused with the thanks of this com-
mittee.
(W^iereupon, at 12: 10 p. m., July 13, 1956, the committee was re-
cessed, to reconvene at 2 p. m. the same day.)
AFTERNOON SESSION, FRIDAY, JULY 13, 1956
(Members of the committee present: Representatives Walter and
Kearney.)
The Chairman. The committee will be in order.
Mr. McNamara, will you raise your right hand, please. Do you
swear the testimony you are about to give this committee will be the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Mr. McNamara. I do.
Mr. Arens. Mr, Chairman, would you pardon an interruption before
Mr. McNamara's testimony. Mr. Riesel, who is one of the persons
alleged by the Fund for the Republic report to be one of these so-called
clearance men, was contacted by your staff with reference to a possible
appearance before the committee. As the chairman and I believe
everyone knows, Mr. Riesel has been suffering from blindness because
of a horrible incident that occurred, and he said he would be unable to
come but he sent down a very brief statement which he said he would
like to have inserted in the record. I respectfully suggest that it be
inserted in the record at this point.
The Chairman. All right. ••
(Mr. Riesel's statement follows :)
STATEMENT BY VICTOR RIESEL TO THE COMMITTEE ON
UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES
I have never participated in any "clearance ring" dealing with persons in the
entertainment industry.
I have never met with persons in the entertainment field to help "clear" them-
selves.
I have never issued "aflBdavits" on behalf of such persons seeking to "clear"
themselves.
I have never made any entertainment figure "controversial" and then partici-
pated in any efforts to "clear" such controversial figures.
I resent the fact that the Fund for the Republic, Inc., never called me and never
queried me about the statements they have published which refer to me. As a
newspaperman I am appalled at the fact that they violated a basic concept of the
profession and failed to check their story with the persons allegedly involved.
5368 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
Mr. Hutcliins and the directors of the Fund for the Republic shrewdly dis-
claimed all responsibility for the "facts" in Mr. Cogley's book on the entertain-
ment industry. So do I.
The Chairman. Unfortunately, for the purpose of this hearing, the
whip has just requested all Members to be on the floor of the House.
TESTIMONY OF FRANCIS J. McNAMARA
Mr. Akens. Kindly identify yourself by name, residence, and occu-
pation.
Mr. McNam ARA. I am Francis J. McNamara. My residence is 5601
Glenwood Koad, Bethesda, Md. I am presently employed as the
director of the American Sovereignty Campaign of the Veterans of
Foreign Wars.
Mr. Arens. Mr. McNamara, would you give us a thumbnail sketch
of your personal background, your education, and the employments
in which you have engaged ?
Mr. McNamara. I attended St. Johns College in Brooklyn and re-
ceived a B. A. degree there in 1938, and an M. A. from Niagara Univer-
sity in 1939. I was in military service from early 1941 until 1946. Sub-
sequent to that time I served in China with the United Nations Relief
and Rehabilitation Administration for a year. In 1948 1 went to work
for Counterattack. I worked in its research office for approximately
2 years and became editor of the newsletter in 1950. I remained in
that position through April of 1954, when I came to Washington to
take up my present work with the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
Mr. Arens. Would you kindly give us a word about Counterattack ?
What is Counterattack and what does it do ?
Mr. McNamara. Counterattack is a weekly newsletter devoted to
exposing and opposing Communist activity. It was established in
the spring of 1947 and is still being published.
I might mention the fact that the men who established the news-
letter all had formerly been associated with the Federal Bureau of
Investigation.
Mr. Arens. Mr. McNamara, while you were with Counterattack,
were you ever approached by a representative of the Fund for the
Republic in connection with its investigation of matters covered by
the report on so-called blacklisting ?
Mr. McNamara. Not while I was with Counterattack, but I was
approached after coining here to Washington. I don't recall the exact
date. It might have been 8 or 10 months ago, or a year ago. Mr.
Edward Engberg, who identified himself as a research associate of the
Fund, called me and asked if he could come in to see me. I happened
to be busy at the time and said not before the following week. He
said he had to go back to New York the following day and asked if he
could just talk to me for a few minutes and become acquainted before
leaving, and then get in touch with me again later on. I agreed to that,
and he came in to see me. He told me that because of the fact that I had
been editor of Counterattack they were interested in interviewing me
in connection with this study. He asked me if I would be willing to
cooperate. I laid down one condition — that anything they asked me
would be in writing and all my replies would be in writing.
Mr. Arens. Wliy did you say that ? Wliy did you make that con-
dition ?
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5369
Mr. McNamara. I explained to Mr. Engberg that I had nothing
against him personally but I had, in effect, been burned on several oc-
casions before by reporters and writers who came in to me and said
that they wanted to write an objective study or account of this prob-
lem. I was interviewed and then, in the work they published on
the basis of the interview, they distorted facts, misquoted, and so on.
I was simply interested in protecting myself and having it all on the
record in black and white.
Mr. Arens, Then what happened after you laid down as a condi-
tion of the interview that the questions and answers all be in writing?
Mr. McNamara. Mr. Engberg seemed to assent to that. Tliis was
a brief introductory interview, that is all. He had to leave for New
York, and he said that he would be in touch with me again when he
came down to Washington. He never did get in touch with me again,
and I was never interviewed in connection with this study.
Mr. Arens. By any person?
Mr. McNamara. No one at all. This seems strange to me in view
of the fact that the Fund report relies so extensively on anonymous
sources and I was willing to be quoted.
Mr. Arens. Mr. McNamara, I invite your attention to volume II of
the Fund for the Kepublic report on so-called blacklisting, in which in
the early part of the report a number of allusions are made to Counter-
attack. Specifically I invite your attention to the second full para-
graph beginning on page 4, in which there are listed a number of state-
ments pertaining to Counterattack, and ask you if you have any obser-
vations with respect to those statements.
Mr. McNamara. I believe you are referring to this statement on
page 4 :
Counterattack sometimes seems compelled to condemn activities that many
Americans feel are the normal manifestations of free political debate.
Then he lists these items :
A petition to gain clemency for the Rosenbergs, or have the Supreme Court
decide on the constitutional issues in the Hollywood Ten case. * * *
I flatly deny that Counterattack has ever done anything like this, and
I charge that this is a false accusation. It is false because it sup-
presses an essential fact. Neither 1 nor anyone associated with Coun-
terattack ever opposed a simple petition to gain clemency for the
Rosenbergs. What we opposed was support of or the signing of a peti-
tion that was Communist-organized, Communist-inspired, and de-
signed to promote the Communist Party line. The same is true of the
brief submitted to the Supreme Court in the case of the Hollywood
Ten.
I can go on down this list of items he mentions. "A protest
against"
Mr. Arens. Excuse me. I think you jumped one or two instances
of censorship. Has Counterattack ever attacked anyone because of a
feeling of censorship?
Mr. McNamara. No.
Mr. Arens. The next item is a "steady concern for civil liberties."
Has Counterattack to your knowledge ever attacked anyone or vilified
anyone because that person had a steady concern for civil liberties?
Mr. McNamara. The answer to that is "no," and I might add this :
As a matter of fact, Counterattack has repeatedly stressed the fact that
5370 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
in all anti-Communist activities great concern must be given to civil
liberties, that on no occasion is there justification for violating them,
Mr. Arens. The next listing here against Counterattack on page 4
of the Cogley report is against Counterattack for attacking people
because they want to study blacklisting. Have you ever attacked
anyone because they wanted to study blacklisting?
Mr. McNamara. That, too, is a false statement.
Mr. Arens. Have you ever attacked anyone, the next indictment
against your organization is, because they want to study Government
security measures?
Mr. McNamara. That, too, is false.
Mr. Arens. Have you ever attacked anyone on the basis of this
next indictment, to quote from the report, because they protest atomic
warfare ?
Mr. McNamara. As stated there, no. I use those words because we
did criticize people who did sign or support the Communist line.
Communist-inspired statements opposing atomic warfare.
Mr. Arens. Mr. McNamara, are there other charges in this report,
to which you would like to direct the committee's attention, of in-
stances in which you would take issue with Mr. Cogley?
Mr. McNamara. Yes, there are quite a few. I don't intend to try
to cover all of them, but I think a few of the key items could be
considered here.
First of all, on page 1, paragraph 3, volume 11. He describes Red
Channels, a book published by Counterattack in the spring of 1950.
The general description is accurate. In addition to saying lied Chan-
nels identified various people with certain Communist fronts, in re-
ferring to these fronts he says :
They included organizations identified as subversive by the Attorney General,
the House Committee on Un-American Activities, the California Un-American
Activities Committee, and other official and private sources. Among the private
sources were the authors of Red Channels themselves.
Then follows the same sort of criticism on page 7, paragraphs 2
and 3. He goes into the question of the problem of identifying Com-
munist organizations. He mentions the fact that in its issue of De-
cember 19, 1947, Counterattack named 34 fronts not included by the
AG, the Attorney General, which "ought to have been." A few months
later it gave its readers a list of 192 fronts, 1 19 of which, it pointed out,
did not appear on the Attorney General's list.
Again, on page 11, there is a similar implication that Counterattack,
without good justification, was branding organizations as Communist
or subversive. I refer to the end of paragraph 2 on page 11. After
quoting a Counterattack article, he states :
It went on to cite the Committee for the First Amendment as a "front," and ad-
vised its readers to write their Congressmen in support of the House probe.
That is referring to this committee's investigation of Hollywood
in 1947.
Again, on page 27, a similar implication is made. He is speaking of
an organization called the Voice of Freedom Committee and a rally it
held. At the end of the last full paragraph on page 27 there is this
parenthetical statement :
This rally was also cited in Red Channels as a Communist undertaking.
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5371
The general tenor of all these references, as I read it, is to cast doubt
on the accuracy of these citations by Counterattack. I challenge Mr.
Cogley, now, if he can, to prove that Counterattack has ever named
any organization as Communist without justification.
During the period that I was editor of the newsletter I named many
organizations as Communist. To give one example, about a month ago
this committee held hearings on the Save Our Sons Committee, which
was actually engaged in one of the dirtiest Communist operations ever
performed in this country. That committee was organized at the end
of October 1!)52, and in the issue of December 12, 1952 — before it was
2 months old — I stated that that organization was a Communist front.
I stand by that statement today. Within a week o'f the time it was
formed, I named the American Peace Crusade as a Communist front
in the issue of February 9, 1951. I stand by that accusation today
and I point out that both this committee and the Attorney General
have cited the American Peace Crusade.
The same applies to the Peace Information Center, the Labor Youth
League, the American Veterans for Peace, the Union of New York
Veterans, and many other organizations which I stated were Commu-
nist. I can say Avithout any question that various committees, the
Attorney General, have in nearly all cases upheld what I have said.
I think if Mr. Cogley can disprove any claim made by Counterattack
he should come forward and do it and not try to give the impression
by sly implication that we have been making unwarranted charges.
Mr. Arens. Mr. McNamara, does Counterattack engage in black-
listing?
Mr. McNamara. The answer to that question is "No." I would, if
I might, prefer to put off the answer to that question until I have
covered a few more of the key points here.
Mr. Arens. Go right ahead. I didn't mean to anticipate you.
Mr. McNamara. These are points where they go off the beam. I
think this is an important point, the question of whether or not a
private individual or organization can name an organization as a
Communist front with justification and accuracy.
First of all, some years ago this committee published a Guide to
Subversive Organizations and Publications. On page 5 of the preface
to this guide the committee gives a number of criteria which the aver-
age individual can use to judge and determine whether or not an organ-
ization is Communist. On pages 6 and 7 it also lists 14 criteria laid
down by J. Edgar Ploover, Director of the FBI. It is interesting to
note here that Hoover's exact words in giving these criteria were :
There are easy test.s to establisli the real character of such organizations.
In other w-ords, this is not an extremely difficult thing to do.
I have here a reprint of an article which appeared in the New York
World-Telegram, Thursday, January 29, 1948, about 2 months after
the Attorney General issued and made public the first subversive list.
This was written by Frederick Woltman. The headline, "Many Top
Fronts of Commies Left Out of United States List."
He pointed out that more than 70 groups w^ere missing from this
first roster. This was an accurate listing. Here is a case where a
responsible reporter, a man who had won a Pulitzer prize for his work
in this field, with the a]:)proval of the Scripps-Howard papers, had
taken it upon himself to name organizations as Communist, and I say
5372 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
this today : "^Vliat he gave at that time still stands as true. He could
have been sued by the key officials of any one of these organizations.
He was not.
I would like to point out the fact that when the Emergency Civil
Liberties Committee held its first rally in January 1953 in New York
City, the American Committee for Cultural Freedom, an organiza-
tion o'f liberal, anti-Communist intellectuals, issued a public charge
that this organization was Communist. It called on a number of
professors and clergymen to disassociate themselves from this affair.
Its charge in reference to the ECLC has since been upheld by the
Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. It was an accurate charge.
It was a fair charge.
I think that in doing this the American Committee for Cultural
Freedom was performing a valuable and patriotic service, just as
Counterattack was doing when it named organizations as Communist
as soon as they were formed. It was alerting people to a Communist
fraud, doing what it could to see that the American people would not
be sucked into these groups or used by them to aid communism.
On page 7 Mr. Cogley says that the whole issue here was —
whether the American public would accept a private group, however, knowl-
edgeable, fair, careful or scrupulous it might be, which compiled its own list
of subversive organizations and then put the considerable public pressure at
its disposal to force anyone associated with the organization at any time to
"explain" his association or suffer the consequences.
That issue, I think, has been settled. It has been settled by the
American Committee for Cultural Freedom and the fact that the
public has accepted Counterattack, the American Legion, the Scripps-
Howard publications, and other papers which have named organiza-
tions as Communist and called upon certain people to explain their
associations with them. There has been no outcry or rebellion against
this on the part of the American people.
Another point : On page 2 Mr. Cogley makes the following state-
ment, referring to Counterattack :
Its underlying thesis — that Communists were "infiltrating" the radio-TV field
and should be removed — became something of a doctrine in the industry.
Then on page 19, in the last paragraph, there is this statement, re-
ferring to the stated purpose for which Ked Channels was published ;
he says :
The first purpose begs two questions : Did the Communists have a "plan of
infiltration"? The word "infiltration" is vague at best —
and so forth.
In other words, in these two quotations he is raising doubt as to the
accuracy of Counterattack's position that there was Communist in-
filtration in the broadcasting industry.
When J. Edgar Hogver testified before the House Appropriations
Committee in 1947 he made the following statement :
The party —
referring to the Communist Party —
has departed from depending upon the printed word as it medium of propaganda
and has taken to the air. Its members and sympathizers have not only infill
trated the airways but they are now persistently seeking radio channels.
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5373
Again, in 1950, he made the following statement before the same
committee :
Many Communist fellow travelers and stooges have been able to secure posi-
tions enabling them to actually control personnel and production.
And he was here talking about radio and TV programs.
He also stated the Communist Party was setting up schools to teach
writing, acting, and directing in radio-TV work.
In the American Legion Magazine, December 1950, Louis Budenz
wrote an article in which he revealed that in 1943 the Communist
Party set up a special commission to direct infiltration of the broad-
casting field. He pointed out that Alexander Trachtenberg, V. J.
Jerome, A. A. Heller, Joe Brodsky, and himself were members of this
commission.
As a matter of fact, Cogley takes cognizance of this on page 143,
volume II, when he states — this is the opening paragraph :
In the fall of 1952 a partial transcript of testimony given before the Senate
Internal Subcommittee was made public.
He quotes a statement from it referring to this Communist Party
commission set up in 1943.
In other words, he was aware, evidently, of the article by Budenz.
He certainly should have been aware of J. Edgar Hoover's testimony.
But he chooses to give the impression that it is an open question still
of whether or not the Commies have ever tried to infiltrate broad-
casting.
I think that the American public will accept the testimony of J.
Edgar Hoover and the word of Louis Budenz rather than the implica-
tions of Mr. Cogley on this point.
On page 5, volume II, in the second paragraph, referring to Counter-
attack, he makes this statement :
If, for instance, actor T has been cited as belonging to organization P which
has been cited by the California Tenney Committee as subversive, Counterattack
does not take a great chance when it states the fact. It sometimes bappens
that act(»r T actually did vot belong to organization P, or it sometimes bappens
that organization P was not actually subversive in any meaningful sense despite
the Tenney committee — but Counterattack has fulfilled its obligation, it feels,
when it reports what the Tenney committee had to say about organization P
and actor T.
He says here it sometimes happens that actor T does not belong.
Again, inasmuch as that is a completely unsupported statement, I
think it is an unfair allegation and I flatly deny it. I challenge him
to produce one instance in which Counterattack did this, stated in
effect that a certain individual belonged to an organization when he
didn't, or where we accepted a Tenney committee citation of an organi-
zation as a front when the organization was not a front at all.
I might point out in this respect that on one occasion Counterattack
disagreed with the citation of a certain organization by the Tenney
committee. We challenged its listing of one group, the National Insti-
tute of Arts and Letters. We felt that it did not fill the definition of a
front. But at no time in Counterattack itself or in Red Channels did
we connect anyone with an organization that had been incorrectly
accused of being a Communist front by the Tenney committee or by
any other committee.
82833— 56— pt 2 7
5374 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
He repeats the same charge in the following paragraph. I think I
have answered that.
One point which Mr. Cogley raises in his report and which I think
is very important is the one, on pages 7 and 8 of volmne II.
This question goes to the matter of the accuracy and the reliability
of sources used not only by Counterattack, but by this committee and
many other organizations fighting communism in this country, namely,
the reliability of the Daily Worker and the letterheads of Communist
fronts as indications of Communist activity on the part of various
individuals.
He refers to a story published in Counterattack under the headline
"Red Front Uses Phony Sponsor List." In this story Counterattack
brought out the fact that after investigating or looking into a letter-
head of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee and writing to
some of the people named as sponsors on that letterhead, it received
letters of denial and letters stating that the individuals concerned had
called upon the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee years' before to
drop their names. I think the fact that Counterattack did this is a
tribute to Counterattack. This article was published after I left the
organization, but I happened to be the one who saw this letterhead,
who went over the names very carefully, and recognized the names of
individuals who I knew, because of my close study, had not been
associated with Communist fronts for quite a period of years and who
in some cases had taken public anti-Communist stands,
I wrote to the people named here. Yehudi Menuhin, Pierre Mon-
teux, the conductor; Hazel Scott and her husband; Representative
Adam Clayton Powell ; the composer Leonard Bernstein ; Bartley C.
Crum, and so on.
I pointed out that I had this list, that I felt that what the Joint
Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee was doing was just using today a
letterhead that was many years old. I thought if this was true, it
was something that should be exposed. All the replies didn't come
in until after I left the organization, and that is when the story was
published.
I think this story is something that was good to write, and it re-
flects the integrity of Counterattack, the carefulness with which it
looked into things before it made any charges.
He, however, uses it as a vehicle for attacking the reliability of in-
formation used by Counterattack.
"This is a phony letterhead," he implies. "How can you believe
anything that Counterattack prints when it relies on letterheads?"
I would like to make a few observations on that.
There is a similar criticism on page 19, volume II :
It should be remembered that nearly all of the official documents cited by
the professional anti-Communists are tabulations of names made by the Com-
munists themselves. No hearings have been held to determine whether or
not the use of these names was authorized.
I would just like to point out that there is no reason for the Daily
Worker, when it reports today that at a rally two evenings ago in
Madison Square Garden or some place like that, so and so got up
and made a speech and when it quotes what he said — there is no
reason for it to lie, to falsify, to say that a man spoke at this
rally or appeared at it when he never did. You see, it is absolutely
necessary for the success of the conspiracy that the Daily Worker
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5375
have a certain integrity. If it engaged in wholesale falsehoods the
party members themselves would lose faith in the Daily Worker, and
the Daily Worker is the medimn through which the party must get
its directives to iis members. So, although the Communists have
no morality themselves or devotion to high principles and so on, they
must of necessity maintain a certain integrity in the news and in the
facts published in the Daily Worker. This applies not only when
they are giving an account of the rally held some days before, but
when they are naming people who have signed a Communist brief or
statement or were supporting a Communist front, giving their names
as sponsors.
The Chairman. Incidentally, did you know that the Daily Worker
is printing this report in a series of articles?
Mr. JMcXamara. Yes; praising the Fund for the Republic report.
Yesterday and the day before I know that David Piatt devoted his
whole column to plugging this report.
The Chairman. This is the third day.
Mr. JNIcNamara. The same thing applies to Communist-front let-
terheads. If Communist fronts adopted the practice of just pull-
ing names out of hats and putting them on their letterheads without
permission, the value of these letterheads would soon be lost. The
party members themselves would lose confidence in them. There
would eventually be protests. People would learn that these let-
terheads were all phonies, that they have no meaning, and therefore
they would get no response. This of course would defeat the very
purpose of these organizations. Their value lies in the fact that the
people whose names are on their literature actually do support them.
Ii, as some people have repeatedly claimed, the Communist Party
merely pulls its sponsors' names out of a hat and puts them on its front
letterheads without permission then we are faced with this question :
Wliy is it that names like that of Bing Crosby and other people who
are top stars in the entertainment field and have great pulling power —
why is it that we have never seen their names on a single Communist
front or on several Communist fronts ?
Mr. Kearney. You can go beyond the name of Bing Crosby. You
can take George Murphy and Aclolphe Menjou and hundreds of others
out there of which that is true.
Mr. McNamara. That is true. I have given only one example.
There are numbers of them, not only in Hollywood but in all fields,
athletics, business, and so forth. I, of course, have never been in the
party myself or in a front, in an executive position or any other, but I
have tried in talking with people who are former Communists to find
out whether the party ever made it a practice to falsify a letterhead and
a name, and I have been assured that to the best of the knowledge of
these people who were once Communists and who worked in fronts,
that tliat was not the practice. The party in setting up a letterhead
never just took a name out of a hat. It either wrote to the individual
or called him on the telephone before putting the name down, with
this exception : If they tried to reach Paul Robeson, for example, and
he was out of town they would slap his name on, or someone else like
him who was a Communist and who they knew without any question
would support any front.
Mr. Kearney. May I interrupt? Then, according to the testimony
of witnesses we have had here who have been asked directly the ques-
5376 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
tion as to whether or not they gave permission for the use of their
names on letterheads, they either begged the question or said they knew
nothing about it.
In other words, they were not exactly telling the truth ; were they ?
Mr. McNamara. Well, you have to judge each case. If a man had
been in 6 or 8 fronts and then he denied that he had ever given his name
to another, I would be inclined to doubt his word. There is another
possibility. A man could honestly forget that he had given his name
to a front. If 10 years from now I was asked if I had attended this,
that, or the other function of the VFW I could very well forget some
because it is routine for me to go to many VFW functions, being in
the organization.
Mr. Keakney. I could go along with you on that one.
Mr. McNamara. IVlien a person was a tried and true fellow traveler,
going on one front after another, it is very possible that he could forget
the fact that he had been to a certain Communist-front rally or agreed
to sponsor a certain front. So he can honestly get up before a com-
mittee and say, "I don't remember that I ever gave my name." It was
the routine, habitual thing for him to do. It had no special
significance.
I do not claim that no Communist front ever, under any circum-
stances, put the name of an individual or two on its letterhead without
permission. It may have happened. The point I want to make is this :
Granted, for the sake of argument, that on 1 or 2 occasions a front has
put a person's name on a letterhead without permission, you still
cannot justifiably claim that because of these 1 or 2 rare exceptions
to the rule, a basic reliable research technique should be done away
with. These are rare exceptions. It is not the usual thing at all. To
say that just because it has happened on 1 or 2 occasions you must
never refer to a Communist-front letterhead or the Daily Worker as
a reliable source of information is ridiculous.
Mr. Arens. Mr. McNamara, in the course of these hearings on this
subject there have been various definitions of blacklisting. Would
you kindly tell us whether or not by any definition of blacklisting
Counterattack has been engaged in that odious practice ?
Mr. McNamara. We have been repeatedly accused of that, not only
by Mr. Cogley but others, but we have not been engaged in blacklist-
ing as such. The cry of blacklisting was raised by the Communist
Party as soon as Counterattack and others went into the entertain-
ment field — even before the publication of Eed Channels — and told the
unpleasant truth about certain people who were making big money in
radio-TV, and that truth led to their being dismissed or fired.
This raising of the cry of "blacklist" is part of the semantic war-
fare the Communists have waged against all their enemies in this
country for years. It is standard technique for Communists to
seize words with pleasant, good, and noble connotations and attach
those words to their agencies — "democracy," "peace," "people's democ-
racy," "constitutional rights," and so on.
Then, on the other hand, they take words with evil or nasty con-
notations and pin them on their enemies — "Fascist," "reactionary,"
"Wall Street imperialists," "witch hunters," and so on. "Blacklist."
This, too, is an example. The word has an unpleasant connotation.
If they can pin it on people who are fighting Communists, then they
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5377
■create the impression that everyone associated with the attempt to
prevent Communist infihration of the broadcasting industry is tainted,
undemocratic. This is a form of guilt by word or name association.
I would like to note that on page 237 of volume II of the Jahoda
study, which is a supplement to Mr, Cogley's report, near the top of
the page there is a subsection, Views on "Blacklisting," in which it
states :
"Blacklisting" is an nsly term. So ugly that it is freely used throughout radio
and television only by those who condemn wholeheartedly the variety of practices
and policies associated with the term.
Mr. Arens. Have you ever tried through Counterattack, as indi-
cated in the foreword to this opus, to cause people to be disassociated
from their jobs because they might be controversial?
Mr. McNamara. That all de])ends on what you mean by contro-
versial. We have never said this : That So and So should be dropped
because he is controversial. We have said So and So has been identi-
fied as a member of the Communist Party. So and So has been asso-
ciated over a period of years with, it may be 5, 6, or a dozen — whatever
it is — Communist-front organizations, and until he gives a satisfactory
explanation of these associations he should not be employed in the
industry.
Mr. Arens. Have you ever attacked people and tried to get them
removed from their jobs because of their political opinions or political
beliefs?
Mr. McNamara. The answer to that is "No.']
I would like to refer to another point raised in this report, the ques-
tion of politics. This is page 2 of volume II, the last paragraph :
Most significant, the acceptance of Red Channels meant that the radio-TV
industry oflBcially adopted the political point of view espoused by Counterattack.
Then he goes on, again referring to Counterattack's political evalua-
tions. This is in the very opening of the book. That is a smear state-
ment for the simple reason that Counterattack never espoused any
political viewpoint. I was editor under a Democratic and under a
Kepublican administration, and under both, on some occasions I praised
individual Democrats and Republicans and the administration for
certain actions they took about communism, and in other instances I
was critical. But the people who owned Counterattack were of varied
political beliefs. They did not represent any one party and at no
time did Counterattack promote a political viewpoint in the usual
sense of that word.
By the time you have finished reading this volume you see that Mr.
Cogley refers repeatedly to the Communist Party as a legitimate po-
litical party or implies that that is what it is. So it may be possible
that here he is referring to Counterattack's views on communism. I
would just like to point out that that is a very unusual interpretation
of the word "political."
Mr. Arens. Have you read this report with some degree of care?
Mr. McNamara. Yes; I have, most parts of it.
Mr. Arens. On the basis of your background and experience would
you care to characterize whether or not this report is a literary or
educational enterprise or presentation ?
Mr. McNamara. I wouldn't call it educational. What I would say
of this report is that it is an attempt to sell a particular viewpoint by
5378 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
distortion, by slanted writing, by the suppression of certain key facts
in some cases, and the inchision of immaterial, irrelevant matters in
others.
If I may, I would just like to go back to this question of blacklisting
and Mr. Cogley's views of it. He has said before this committee that
denying employment to a Communist Party member, a fellow traveler,
one who employs the fifth amendment, or even a waiter because he was
unfortunate enough to have a very homely face — so homely it would
scare the clientele of a restaurant — that that is blacklisting. He said
that "irrespective of the reason," and those are his exact words, firing
people or denying them employment is "blacklisting." He said
that blacklisting "may be justified, unjustified, wrong, or right," but
he refused to commit himself on whether it was right or wrong to
blacklist party members, and so forth.
I say that this is a ridiculous definition of blacklisting, but it fits
in, of course, very well with the way the Communist Party uses the
term. If his definition of blacklisting is correct, then blacklisting is
generally used everywhere in the United States and the whole world ;
it is the policy of every business corporation or association, every group
that employs people — and who can accept such a definition ? Accord-
ing to his definition, the Air Corps would be blacklisting a man be-
cause, we will say, he was 6 foot 5 and weighed 250 pounds and he
wanted to be a fighter pilot. He just doesn't have the physical quali-
fications. He can't fit in the plane. But if they denied him the
"right," as the Fund would say or Mr. Cogley would say, to be a fighter
pilot, they would be "blacklisting" him.
Mr. Arens. Mr. McNamara, may I interpose this question : On the
basis of your extensive background and experience in the fight against
communism and your association with those of like caliber, would you
care to express before this committee whether or not a person who is a
professed Marxist is ideologically equipped to make an objective study
of this subject of so-called blacklisting?
Mr. McNamara. I would say "No." And normally, if a foundation
employed a person with a pronounced bias one way or the other to
work on an objective study it would be criticized. The professed
Marxist would naturally be interested in defending and helping other
Marxists.
Mr. Arens. Do you know that Mr. Michael Harrington who is or
was the chief assistant to Mr. Cogley in the preparation of this report
publicly described himself in publications of recent vintage as a
Marxist ?
Mr. McNamara. I am aware of that.
Mr. Arens. Do you feel that a person who is a professed Marxist
as of this date and as of the time of preparation of this report is
ideologically equipped to discern the facts on Communist penetration
and upon so-called blacklisting?
Mr. McNamara. I do not. He would naturally be biased in favor
of Communists or Marxists.
Mr. Arens. What distinction, would you make ideologically between
a Communist and a Marxist?
Mr. McNamara. On some occasions you do have a man who is an
ideological Marxist who is not a Communist Party member. It may
be, for example, that he was more or less revolted by some of the
ESr^^ESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5379
things Stalin did, because of the atrocities, and so on, and he refused
to affiliate himself formally with the Communist Party.
Mr. Arens. But his basic concepts are the same as those of a
Communist ?
Mr. McNamara. Yes. That man hopes that the Soviet Union will
reform itself, will purify its communism according to his ideas, and
therefore he would never want to see the Soviet Union destroyed be-
cause he sees it as the one hope of bringing to the world his funda-
mental Marxist beliefs. He will try perhaps to influence or change
some of the things that are done. Today such people undoubtedly are
rejoicing at the repudiation of Stalin which is going on but at the
same time if it came to a showdown between the two forces, the anti-
Connnunist and the Marxists in the world, I think the ideological
Marxist would naturally be strongly tempted to go with the other
side, with the side of the Soviet Union.
Mr. Arens. If you were engaged as the expert that you are in
communism to make a study of employment practices relating to Com-
munists and fellow travelers, would you enlist as your chief assistant a
person who is and was a professed Marxist?
Mr. McNamara. No, I would not.
Mr. Arens. Who in his writings says, "We Marxists" ?
Mr. McNamara. No, I would not.
Mr. Arens. Why wouldn't you?
Mr. McNamara. Because I do not believe that such a man would
be able to look at the situation objectively. He would naturally be
opposed to the elimination of Marxists — whether they were Stalinists
or not — from the radio-TV industry and other positions of influence.
Mr. Ivearney. May I ask this question: As far as blacklisting is
concerned, so-called blacklisting, couldn't they very well charge the
Federal Government on form 57 with blacklisting when you have to
swear to an affidavit that you don't belong to a party that is dedicated
to the overthrow of this Government by force and violence ?
Mr. McNamara. They could and they do. That is the danger, I
think, in the Cogley report, that it gives a definition, so far as it goes
in that respect
Mr. Kearney. Pardon me for interrupting. What I am getting at
is that they could very well accuse the United States Government of
blacklisting.
Mr. McNamara. They do. They also accuse this committee of being
a blacklisting committee.
Mr. Kearney. We have been accused of many things.
Mr. McNamara. I realize that. The Cogley definition, so far as
it exists and is fairly definable, helps the party in this respect. I
would like to mention on the question of blacklisting this point, too :
That your better business bureaus, the retail credit agency, Dun &
Bradstreet, and so on, "blacklist" all types of people every day. The
"victim" doesn't know it. When they give a very low credit rating that
is, in effect, a blacklist. It destroys a man's financial opportunities.
It has a tremendous effect on his future and that of his whole family.
This is extralegal. No hearings are granted.
I am not saying this to be critical of these organizations. I think
they have done a tremendous job. They actually have protected thou-
sands of people from being swindled and making bad deals and invest-
5380 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
ments. They have prevented heartbreak and so on. They perform
a real service. I contend that the people who are engaged in what the
Fund for the Republic calls blacklisting are doing the same thing.
They are just making available to the public for its consideration the
records of certain people — exposing fraudulent goods.
Mr. Arens. Mr. McNamara, you are appearing here today not only
because of your prior connection with Counterattack, but also because
jou are presently associated in very important work with the Veterans
of Foreign Wars. Do you care to express to this committee the posi-
tion and attitude of that great veterans' organization with respect to
trying to keep Communists and those in the Communist web out of the
■entertainment industry ?
Mr. McNamara. I can just state the position briefly, and it is this :
That the Veterans of Foreign Wars has consistently supported the
•efforts of this and other committees to expose and eliminate Commu-
nists and fellow travelers from the entertainment industry and that
it is still supporting that effort and is opposed to the hiring of such
people.
One of the basic weaknesses in this report — you might call it an
intellectual weakness — is this : All history indicates that every society
has a certain minimum code of conduct, and there is ostracism for
those who break it. In the past many Hollywood stars have lost out
completely, not because of any subversive affiliation but just because
they did certain things which violated the code accepted by the Ameri-
-can people. They were top stars one day, and the next day they were
ifinished.
The industry, radio-TV, must acknowledge this code. It is a fact
that it exists. It is legitimate and it is good. It is essential for
internal order in this country, 'for peace, for all progress that has
been made in the history of civilization. This code must exist. It has
always existed. Those who defy it and who do not want to isolate
themselves from society have only one choice. They must endure the
censure that society imposes on those who break the code. The Fund
just won't face this fact.
I would like to point out here an example of what Cogley would call
blacklisting. This was done by a union. This is the American Guild
•of Variety Artists AGVA News of March 1952. On page 6, it features
a "national unfair list." An introductory paragraph states :
Artists, employers, and agents are urged not to do business with any person
■or establishment appearing on the unfair list, nor to appear in any show in
which a person on the unfair list is appearing. Every violation should be
reported to AGVA in order that violations of AGVA's rules may be stopped —
And so on and so forth.
Then it lists here — there must be several hundred citations of artists,
agents, spots and attractions, owners and producers.
I am not opposed to this blacklist. I think it is legitimate. Unions
are not the only ones who do it. Right-wing groups do it, liberal
organizations, the National Committee for an Effective Congress, the
AFL-CIO, and so on.
My point is that as long as an organization has legitimate interests
and standards, it is fair for it to engage in such activity to see that those
standards are upheld.
The fact that we have to face and which the Fund for the Republic
won't face, evidently, is that Communists and fellow-travelers have
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5381
violated the standards of the American people. President Truman
once denounced the Communist leaders as traitors.
On August 10, 1950, a full page ad was published in the New York
Times. The ad was signed by many well-known Americans. Bill
Mauldin, the famous GI cartoonist of World War II ; Actress Made-
leine Carroll ; former Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson, who was
known as a liberal ; Irving Berlin, Rube Goldberg, Raymond Massey,
Howard Lindsay, Russell Crouse, Milton Caniff, and 15 other people.
This is what this ad said in part :
The war is on. The chips are down. Those among us who defend Russia
or communism are enemies of freedom and "traitors to * * * the United States."
This is the basic issue here, the basic issue which Cogley studiously
avoids. The era he covers in this book is largely the era of the
Korean war. Yet he never brings up this issue. That was the issue.
Some of the people in Red Channels were people who, even during
the Korean war, were openly siding with the Communist Party which
took the side of Moscow.
The Chairman. Let me show you what the Daily Worker does with
this report and the testimony concerning the activities of Victor Riesel,
George Sokolsky, and Frederick Woltman, with respect to advising
people how to relieve themselves of an unpleasant situation that they
place themselves in. This editorial in the Daily Worker today says :
AVTARE has a "clearance" program all its own. It has published a guide on
the subject called The Road Back. It discusses how the truly repentant can be
recognized. The book lists 12 suggested steps in the process of rehabilitation.
This is what the Daily Worker says about these steps :
They are 12 steps in the making of an informer.
This is the way a twist has been placed in order to discredit the con-
structive work done by some fine Americans and American organi-
zations.
Mr. Kearney. I am sure the chairman didn't expect to get any truth
out of the Daily Worker.
The Chairman. I didn't expect to get any truth, but every day I
learn something by reading it.
Mr. McNamara. The question of civil liberties has featured very
prominently in all the discussion of blacklisting in this book. All
through it you get the impression that Counterattack and Red Chan-
nels and I, inasmuch as I was editor of Counterattack for 4i/^ years,
have no respect for civil liberties and of course in that respect no
regard for people.
I would like to point out that Prof. A. O. Love joy, the founder of
the American Association of University Professors, in 1949 made the
following statement :
[The! conception of freedom is not one which implies the legitimacy and in-
evitability of its own suicide. * * * what it implies is that there is one kind
of freedom which is inadmissible — the freedom to destroy freedom.
In other words, no American has the right and he is not exercising
freedom, he is abusing it, when he supports the Communist Party
and its fronts.
The issue is as simple as that. Wliat has astonished me more or less
is that in all this discussion which is going on there is so much con-
cern for the alleged civil liberties of Communists and fellow travelers
5382 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
and none for the liberties of the great mass of the American people,
the overwhelming majority of the 165 million people in this country,
who are anti-Communists, and I am referring to their right to pro-
tect themselves, their families and their country against this conspir-
acy to destroy their basic rights and the form of government on which
those rights rest.
They have a right to defend themselves not only against the hard
core of the conspiracy, but all its agents, knowing or unknowing, by
taking positive action against everyone who threatens their way of
life, their very existence and the well-being of their families. They
have a right to refrain from supporting anyone who serves this con-
spiracy, either because he is a conscious instrument or because he is
such a sloppy, indifferent citizen that he or she cannot be bothered
to check and find out whether or not what he is doing is a violation
of his fundamental duties as a citizen; namely, aiding the destruction
of all tliat is worthwhile and which this Nation represents,
I will go further and say that when a citizen knows these conditions
exist — the infiltration by a conspiracy, and so forth — he has an obliga-
tion and a duty to take action against it, to do everything he possibly
can, and when he remains indifferent and does nothing he is in a sense
actually guilty of betraying his heritage and the cause of freedom.
Mr. Kearney. If I may interrupt there, in the years that I have
been on this committee I have come to the conclusion that the only
ones who are supposed to have any civil rights or civil liberties in
this country are not the vast majority of the American people but the
liard core of the Communist conspiracy.
Mr. McNamara. That is what it amounts to. I think this isn't
accidental. It has been developed. I honestly think that the Fund
for the Republic if it had gone into the facts — it is supposed to be
interested in civil liberties^ — could have done a lot of good. If, instead
of using sly innuendoes and slanted writing to imply that people who
are active in so-called blacklisting are reprehensible it would actu-
ally praise these people, the networks and advertising agencies and
•other organizations and individuals who, the best they could, were
fighting Communist infiltration of the broadcasting industry, it would
not be used as a propaganda device by the Communist Party in its
■effort to destroy this country, and they would have been performing
a real service. Unfortunately they have done just the opposite.
I think this inordinate interest in the rights of Communists is due in
part to the fact that in the fall of 1952 Stalin issued a directive to
Communists in all parts of the Western World to "raise higher the
banner of bourgeois civil liberties." That was 4 years ago. They
have had 4 years to work and agitate along this line. Last August
at a meeting of top Communist Party brass in New York, Claude
Lightfoot, who has been convicted under the Smith Act, called upon
all members of the party and fellow travelers to conduct a "national
crusade" — those were his words — a "national crusade" to stop all effec-
tive anti-Communist action under the slogan "the struggle to preserve
the Bill of Rights."
As usual, the party hasn't had great success with this theme among
the American people as a whole. There has been no grassroots out-
cry that because communism is being fought, everyone's civil liberties
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5383
are beinc; destroyed. But as usual, too, there is a minority, a relatively
small group of people, usually self-proclaimed liberals, who have fallen
for this line. I don't believe they are doing it wittingly. They are
raising this big fuss. They have been atfected by this propaganda.
The Chairman. They do not do it wittingly, but they think it is
clever. It satisfies some sort of inferiority complex to sit around and
criticize people who have gotten into the position that they aspire to
attain but never can and never do. That is the answer.
Mr. Abens. Have you any other comments to make, Mr. McNamara ?
Mr. McNamara. I just happened to think of this: Some time ago
I was referring to the Fund's attack on the reliability of the informa-
tion used by Counterattack, this committee, and others who fight
communism, namely, the Daily Worker, the front letterheads, and so
on. In Counterattack issue of March 2, 1051, I stated that the Na-
tional Council of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions, a Communist
front, was willing to give performers in the radio-TV field a lying
letter to the effect that they had never been associated with the
NCASP, even if they had been.
This, I believe, was part of the Commies' plan, or attempt, if it
could, to cast doubt on the trustworthiness of letterheads of Com-
munist-front organizations and therefore the reliability of this com-
mittee in certain of its reports, of Counterattack, and Ked Channels.
I stated this :
Those who have been affiliated with the National Council of Arts, Sciences,
and Professions (XCASP), for example, can get in touch with J. JULIUS
JOSEPH at Council's hqs. in N. Y. City. (JOSEPH was named by ELIZABETH
BENTLEY as a member of CP and of Washington espionage ring * * * she
said he, while in OSS, cooperated in getting information from Govt, files for
Soviet agents.)
"Knuckling down to reaction won't help matters," JOSEPH may say (as he
already has) to convey a gentle reprimand when a request for clearance is made.
But, if the caller persists, JOSEPH will agree to supply a letter stating that the
NCASP used his or her name in its literature and press releases without obtaining
permission to do so.
I think this illustrates the extent to which the Communist Party
has gone in its efforts to discredit the sources of information used by
Counterattack, Red Channels, and others in fighting communism.
On the whole issue of blacklisting I think some of these exhibits,
which show how extensively the Communists agitated about "black-
listing," may set this Fund for the Republic report in its proper
setting.
This is a copy of the approved version of V. J. Jerome's speech to
the loth National Convention of the Communist Party in December
1950, published by New Century Publishers, a Communist publishing
house. The title is "Grasp the Weapon of Culture." This speech
was one of the counts which was included in Jerome's indictment when
he was charged under the Smith Act with conspiring to teaoh the
overthrow of this Government by force and violence. On page 16,
column 2, first full paragraph of the approved version of the speech
at the party convention he says this. This is 6 months after Red
Channels was published :
Against the Fascist blacklist and censorship campaign spearheaded by Red
Channels and Counterattack, there is gathering resentment which can be or-
ganized into a storm of protest —
and so on.
5384 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
This man is one of the key people in the Communist Party as far
as activities in the cultural field is concerned.
Here is another example of the conspiracy's "antiblacklist" cam-
paign. I have referred to the National Council of Arts, Sciences, and
Professions, a (Jommunist front. In the fall of 1951, following
Jerome's orders, this organization staged a series of rallies
against the "blacklist." This is a flyer announcing one of those
rallies :
"Stop the Blacklist," "How Counterattack Gets People Fired," and
so on, reproductions of various headlines. The American Labor Party
and other Communist fronts cooperated.
Here is another copy of the same flyer from this committee with a
little attachment stapled to it :
Monitor Musts #1. VOF has pledged full support of its monitors for
this meeting —
the same rally.
VOF is the Voice of Freedom Committee. Wlien J. Edgar
Hoover testified before the Appropriations Committee in 1950 he re-
ferred to this organization indirectly. He didn't name it. But in
speaking of Communist attempts to move in on radio and TV he said
that one front boasted of the fact that it had thousands of monitors
all over the country who write letters of protest, and so on, to sponsors
to kill anti-Communist commentators and speakers. Tliis little note
is signed by Stella Holt, who urges all members of the Voice of Free-
dom Committee, which the Attorney General has cited as subversive,
to support this NCASP antiblacklist rally.
I have another interesting exhibit here. The party really went
all out to sell this blacklist idea and to kill off those who were engaged
in trying to stop and clear up the infiltration of the industry. Here
is a flyer advertising a rally which was held on April 4, 1951, Wednes-
day, at the Hotel Sutton in New York. A rally to CRACK THE
BACK OF COUNTERATTACK, sponsored by the advertising divi-
sion, as I recall, of the National Council of Arts, Sciences, and Profes-
sions. That ad asks :
What important art studio was put out of business within 1 week after it was
BLACKLISTED by Counterattack?
This is a reference to a truthful story Counterattack published some
months before this about an art studio in New York owned and riddled
by Communists which had valuable contracts with many Govern-
ment agencies and was making big money. All I did was write the
truth about the organization. Within a few weeks it had lost all these
contracts and was out of business. The party charges that Counter-
attack blacklisted the organization. It did no such thing. It told
the truth.
Mr. Arens. Did that epithet "blacklisting," which is used by the
Communist Party antedate the Fund for the Republic's report on
blacklisting?
Mr. McNamara. Yes. All this antedates the Fund for the Re-
public. It is very interesting to me that nowhere in this report-sunless
I have missed some important things, and I don't think I have — is there
any reference to the concerted campaign which the Communist Party
waged on this issue of blacklisting, its efforts to destroy everyone who
was engaged in this work of exposing and ending the infiltration of the
broadcasting industry.
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5385
Mr. Arens. Is the term "blacklisting" as applied to the efforts of
the anti-Communists to expose Communists in the entertainment in-
dustry a term which has been for some time in common use by the
Communist conspiracy ?
Mr. McNamara. Yes. I couldn't pin it down to a month or any-
thing like that, but I would say in the late forties when identified Com-
munists began to be dropped by the movie, radio, and the TV in-
dustry, then this blacklist cry began. It was raised by the Communists
and really whipped up.
Just one more comment in line with these rallies to end the black-
list that the National Council of Arts, Sciences, and Professions staged.
This is an exhibit from the Hollywood Reporter, November 13, 1950.
The Arts, Sciences, and Professions Council in Hollywood, the Holly-
wood branch of the NCASP, had held an antiblacklist rally out there.
In reply to this rally this full-page ad appeared in the Hollywood
Reporter :
HOLLYWOOD REPUDIATES the Arts, Sciences, and Professions Council. * * *
The Motion Picture Industry Council emphatically denies that this organiza-
tion or this meeting in any way represents Hollywood —
referring to this rally against blacklisting —
The motion-picture industry resents being identified with or judged by this or
any group which fastens on this industry only to misrepresent and injure it.
It is signed by the Motion Picture Industry Council and its affiliated
groups: Association of Motion Picture Producers, Hollywood AFL
Film Council, Independent Motion Picture Producers Association,
Independent Office Workers, Screen Actors Guild, Screen Directors
Guild, Screen Producers Guild, Screen Writers Guild, Society of
Independent Motion Picture Producers, Society of Motion Picture
Art Directors.
In other words, Hollywood as a whole, all the basic elements in
the industry, have flatly repudiated this Communist effort to play
this whole thing up as blacklisting and to say that it must be destroyed
and eliminated. I think in doing so they were responding to the
wishes and the desires of the American people.
The radio-TV industry in New York, where it is centered, is doing
the same thing in its efforts to clear up and prevent any further
Communist infiltration in that field.
The Chairman. What the Communists are trying to do is to create
the impression that exposure and blacklist are synonymous; isn't
that it?
Mr. McNamara. Yes. As a matter of fact, the Fund for the Re-
public or Cogley report aids that basic Communist aim because when
you have finished reading this book you get the impression, the strong
impression, the impact of the whole book, that no one can do anything
against communism without being a blacklister, without being kind
of nasty and dirty.
What is the lesson? Therefore, no one should do anything about
communism? Sit back, do nothing, give the Communists free rein.
You might say that is the fimdamental lesson that this book teaches.
I would like to make 1 or 2 comments on the book, the intellectual
level of the book. Just one example. I refer to page 144, volume II.
Some things in this book are actually fantastic. He is describing
conservatives here. These are his exact words.
5386 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
Mr. Kearney. When you say "he," whom do you mean ?
Mr. McNamara. I am referring to Mr. Cogley, the author of the
report. He is referring to conservatives and defining them. This is a
parenthetical statement in the second paragraph, page 144 :
"Anti-Communist but not right-wing." This is the definition of a
conservative ! Maybe I am crazy, but I have always heard conserva-
tives referred to as right-wing people. He says a conservative is not
a right-winger. What is a conservative ? A left-winger ? A person
who says he is a middle-of-the-roader — is he a conservative? This
defies common usage in the American language.
One other example of just how low he actually goes sometimes to
discredit Counterattack. On page 80, volume II, the chapter in which
he is referring to various commentators who have been tied up with
Communist fronts :
Of the 10 radio newsmen listed in Red Channels, only Robert St. John, William-
L. Shirer, and Howard K. Smith, were network commentators of national
reputation.
Then at the end of that sentence there is an asterisk denoting
a footnote. The footnote is this :
Winston Burdett, CBS newsman who testified in the summer of 1955 that he
had once served briefly as a Soviet agent, was not listed.
Counterattack never made any claim that it knew every man in
this Nation or any other place who had ever served as a Soviet agent,
and this ridiculous footnote is introduced in the book for no reason
except to try to discredit Counterattack and claim it knew nothing.
How would anyone reasonably expect Counterattack to know in 1950;
that Winston Burdett sometime in the past had been a secret agent
of the Soviet Union ^ Ridiculous, but I think a good indication of
the little tricks that Cogley uses throughout this book to attack anti-
Communists, to make them look bad. There is a terrific contrast be-
tween the treatment he gives people who are fighting communism,
and the Communists themselves.
He will devote a whole chapter to Mr. Laurence A. Johnson, for-
instance, to Mr. Vincent Hartnett, to Jack Wren, and others, digging;
up every little item of gossip, rumor he can against them. The chap-
ter on Mr. Johnson is just loaded with anonymous quotations of
things people are alleged to liave said about Johnson. Yet when he
gets to discussing the actual Communists and fellow travelers who
allegedly have been blacklisted he gives the minimum of evidence
and often all he will say is that they were listed in Red Channels.
If they have been identified by a dozen witnesses as party members,
if they have taken the fifth amendment, no mention is made of that.
All this is concealed. He suppresses as much vital information as
he possibly can about the commies and fellow travelers and just loads
the other side with nasty remarks, innuendoes, digging up every little
item he can when writing about those who are fighting communism.
Mr. Arens. What will be the impact, for good or evil, of this report
by this very powerful and well-financed Fund in the fight against
communism in the United States ?
Mr. McNamara. That all depends, of course, en its reception. If
it is widely distributed and read and if people accept what it teaches — ^
and it is possible that they might because this is so worded that vital
INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING" 5387
information is suppressed — then it will greatly aid the Communist
Party. It can have no other effect. In effect, it pleads the party line,
the party cause, in the question of radio and TV, the whole entertain-
ment industry.
Mr. Arens Mr. McNamara, is there another point you want to make
before the committee ?
Mr. McNamara. No ; I think I have completed my statement.
Mr. Kearney. Mr. Arens, how widely distributed or read are these
reports ?
Mr. McNamara. The Fund for the Kepublic report? I do not know
just what distribution the Fund intends in the case of this report. I
understand that it will be sold for $1.25. Tliere is no telling just what
distribution it will ultimately receive.
The Chairman. If it doesn't sell, they will give it away. They
will see that it is distributed.
Mr. McNamara. They have done that in the past.
The Chairman. That is right.
Mr. McNamara. They have distributed free copies of various things
they have promoted. Usually in the case of books it is no more than
a thousand copies. But the thing is, it goes to key people, people in
the best position to influence public opinion.
If you can influence those people in the wrong way, then, of course,
through them you can influence thousands and thousands of others.
The Chairman. Like this Griswold's slanted book and discussion of
the fifth amendment. It went to every United States district attorney
and every judge in the ITnited States. It was accidental, of course,
but that was the distribution, free distribution.
Mr. Arens. Mr. McNamara, I think this is a fair question to you as
a person who is an expert in the field of fighting communism. Is this
report an objective, scholarly, educational report, or is it, on the other
hand, of the propaganda variety ?
Mr. McNamara. I would say it is definitely propaganda. I think I
said before that it is not an objective study. There is not a full pre-
sentation of all sides. Certain vital facts are suppressed. It is slanted
writing, innuendo, hints, and so forth, to sell a definite point of view.
It is not objective.
If I may, just one more point. The attempt to discredit Red Chan-
nels. If he had been interested at all in giving the full facts he would
have pointed out — for instance, he repeatedly claims that Red Chan-,
nels is the bible of Madison Avenue, that it was so used that no one in it
could get any work at all, and so forth. In the September 13, 1950,
.issue of Counterattack the following statement appeared:
Red Channels was not meant to be used as a "blacklist" in the industry.
In other words. Counterattack carefully pointed out that it never
meant the book to be used as an automatic blacklist, that no one named
in that book was ever to be used. As a matter of fact, a paragraph or
two later, this statement :
Counterattack knows of many instances in recent months where Red Channels
listees have appeared on radio and TV programs.
This statement was made in rebuttal of the claim of some news-
papers that Red Channels had become the bible of Madison Avenue
and that it was a complete and thorough blacklist. Counterattack;
5388 INVESTIGATION OF SO-CALLED "BLACKLISTING"
never protested the appearance of many of the persons referred to
above whose Communist-front records were documented in Red
Channels.
Mr. Arens. May I ask this question at this point : Is Counterattack
a tax-exempt organization ?
iJMr. McNamara. No, it is not.
The Chairman. Any questions ?
Mr. KIearney. No.
The Chairman. Thank you very much.
Mr. Kearney. I appreciate very much the testimony you have given,
Mr. McNamara. It contrasts to some of the other testimony we have
received.
The Chairman. Yes. It is very refreshing to receive the testimony
of those who have no axes to grind.
Mr. Arens. We have no other witnesses for today, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. The hearing is adjourned subject to call of the
Chair.
(Whereupon, at 3 : 35 p. m., Friday, July 13, 1956, the committee was
recessed subject to call of the Chair.)
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