Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, 1952-53

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1952

TESTIMONY OF BELLA V. DODD, NEW YORK, N. Y., ACCOMPANIED BY HER ATTORNEY, GODFREY P. SCHMIDT

   Senator FERGUSON. Mrs. Dodd, will you rise and raise your right hand to be sworn?
   You do solemnly swear, in the matter now pending before this sub-committee of the Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate, that you will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
   Mrs. DODD. I do.
   Senator FERGUSON. You may be seated.
   State your full name and address.
   Mrs. DODD. Bella V. Dodd. 100 West Forty-second Street, New York City.
   Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, how recently have you been associated with the Communist Party?
   Mrs. DODD. June 1949.
   Mr. MORRIS. Do you mean you severed your connection with the Communist Party at that time?
   Mrs. DODD. They severed their connection with me. I had previously tried to find my way out of the Communist Party.. In 1949 they formally issued a resolution of expulsion.
   Mr. MORRIS. What are you doing now, Dr. Dodd?
   Mrs. Donn. I practice law.
   Mr. MORRIS. You practiced law at 100 West Forty-second Street? Mrs. Donn. I do.
   Mr. MORRIS. Is that your law office?
   Mrs. DODD. That is.
   Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, will you tell the committee what positions you held while you were in the Communist Party, starting at the highest position that you achieved within that organization?
   Mrs. DODD. I was a member of the National Committee of the Communist Party from 1944 to 1948.
   Mr. MORRIS. What other positions did you hold, Mrs. Dodd?
   Mrs. DODD. I was a member of the New York State committee from 1944 to 1948. I was legislative representative of the New York State district of the Communist Party, and I was a member of various committees, such as legislative, labor, education, women's committees, youth committees.
   Mr. MORRIS. Is it your testimony, Dr. Dodd, that your specialty within the Communist Party included legislation, labor, education, women's work, and youth organizations? Is that your testimony, Dr. Dodd?
   Mrs. DODD. It is.
   Mr. MORRIS. And, as such, you achieved a position as a member of the National Committee of the Communist Party, and prior to that you were a member of the State committee of the Communist Party; is that right?
   Mrs. DODD. Right.

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   Mr. MORRIS. When did you become formally associated with the Communist Party?
   When I use the term "Communist Party," Dr. Dodd, I mean the Communist organization, whether it was at the time known as the Communist Political Association or the Communist Party.
   Mrs. DODD. I actually was given a Communist Party card in 1943, and was assigned to a branch, to work in a branch. I had formerly, for a long period of time, been associated with the Communist Party in its various activities and was known as a nonparty Bolshevik. That is a person who was not a member of the party, but who attended all of the meetings and who was given assignments.
   Mr. MORRIS. While you held that relationship to the Communist Party, Dr. Dodd, did the Communist Party repose confidence in you? Mrs. DODD. Yes. I attended a good many meetings and was in close connection with the party.
   Mr. MORRIS. Did you render service to the Communist Party during that period?
   Mrs. DODD. I rendered many services to the Communist Party. Senator FERGUSON. Even though you did not have a card? Mrs. DODD. Even though I did not have a card.
   Senator FERGUSON. Does card carrying require you to pay dues ? Mrs. DODD. Yes.
   Senator FERGUSON. Were you paying dues prior to the time you obtained the card?
   Mrs. DODD. I did not obtain dues, although I begged contributions at various meetings and for various causes.
   Senator FERGUSON. Could you give us the percentage of members that, to your knowledge, may have been members of the Communist Party without cards at that time?
   Mrs. DODD. I don't have any knowledge of that, of the count; but it is extensive.
   Senator FERGUSON. It is extensive?
   Mrs. DODD. Yes.
   Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, will you give us the circumstances leading up to your first association with the Communist Party ?
   Mrs. DODD. My first association with the Communist Party was back in 1932. I had returned from a trip to Europe. I had been in the University of Berlin and had seen the rise of fascism in Berlin, came back feeling that this must be destroyed, this must be fought.
   Mr. MORRIS. That was in 1932.
   Were you a teacher at that time, Dr. Dodd?
   Mrs. DODD. I was a teacher at Hunter College, an instructor in political science and economics.
   Mr. MORRIS. Did you graduate from Hunter College?
   Mrs. DODD. In 1925.
   Mr. MORRIS. Do you hold any doctor's degrees?
   Mrs. DODD. I hold a doctor of jurisprudence.
   Mr. MORRIS. What countries did you visit while you were in Europe in 1932?
   Mrs. DODD. France, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Germany, Austria, Hungary.
   Mr. MORRIS. Was fascism on the rise at that time, Dr. Dodd?
       Mrs. DODD. It was.

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   Mr. MORRIS. And you experienced it first-hand from your travels in Europe at that time; is that right?
   Mrs. DODD. I saw a great deal of violence in Berlin itself between the Fascists—the National Socialists, as they were called at that time—and the Communists.
   Mr. MORRIS. And you saw first-hand the evils and horrors and excesses of Fascist rule in Germany and Italy; is that right?
   Mrs. DODD. I did.
   Mr. MORRIS. Did that influence your thinking at that time?
   Mrs. DODD. It did. It made me determined to fight anything of that kind and to oppose extension to the United States.
   Mr. MORRIS. You tell us that, then, is the background to your having an association with the Communist Party; is that right, Doctor? Mrs. DODD. Yes.
   Mr. MORRIS. Will you tell us what that actual association was?
   Mrs. DODD. In 1932, I was approached by someone by the name of Harriet Silverman, who identified herself as a member of the Communist Party, who said that she and a number of others were setting up an anti-Fascist-literature committee, and she asked whether I would work on the committee for the purpose of raising money for the underground fight in Germany against the rise of fascism, and also for the writing of literature against fascism.
   I said "Yes," and Harriet Silverman said to me, "Well, would you like proof that this money is going to be raised for the anti-Fascist work?" I said I would like some kind of proof. So she asked whether I would like to meet Earl Browder. I answered in the affirmative. She took me to Thirteenth Street, or Twelfth Street, and she took me to Earl Browder with some other lady who was raising money for the anti-Fascist movement.
   Mr. MORRIS. Did you meet Earl Browder at Thirteenth Street? Mrs. DODD. Yes.
   Mr. MORRIS. And that was the Communist Party headquarters at that time; was it'?    Mrs. DODD. It was.
   Mr. MORRIS.Will you please tell us what happened then?
   Mrs. DODD. Harriet said, "Here are two people who are going to raise money for the anti-Fascist movement." He greeted us very cordially. I didn't say much and we talked about the evils of fascism and we left.
   Thereafter I helped to raise money for the anti-Fascist movement.
   By that I mean that I ran certain parties, certain social functions, and devised ways and means of getting a financial contribution going. From 1932 to 1935 I did practically nothing else but that as an extra-curricula work to my work in college.
   Mr. MORRIS. Did something take place in 1935 that brought you closer to the Communist Party? Is that what you indicate when you give the terminus of that date?
   Mrs. DODD. Yes. In 1935, the Teachers' Union was having a great deal of difficulty because of the so-called Communist and anti-Communist factions within the union.
   I n 1935, or the beginning of 1936, one part of the union left the Teachers' Union. This group of 700 teachers was led by Dr. Linville

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and Dr. Lefkowitz. They left and formed what was called the Teachers Guild, and the remaining 1,500 teachers who remained within the Teachers' Union were the union.
   Now, while they had 1,500 teachers, the seasoned leaders of the union had, gone with the opposition, had gone out of the union.
   I might say that the union at that time was affiliated with the A. F. of L.
   Mr. MORRIS. Do you mean by "the seasoned leaders," Dr. Linville and Dr. Lefkowitz ?
   Mrs. DODD. Yes.
   Mr. MORRIS. Are they the people who had formed the union and had developed it up to that time?
   Mrs. DODD. That is right. They were casting about for new leaders, and I, in my own college, had been very active in organizing the instructors and the tutors and the lower category of teaching staff at the colleges.
   Mr. MORRIS. Were you organizing them for the Teachers' Union?
   Mrs. DODD. No, just organizing them for themselves so that they might improve their tenure conditions, their salary conditions, and so forth and so on.
   Senator FEGUSON. Were you a teacher at this time?
   Mrs. DODD. Yes; I was a teacher at this time.
   And in organizing, helping to organize the teachers in these city colleges for the improvement of their economic conditions, I had been successful in having introduced and passed a bill for tenure for the college teachers. They had never had tenure. It was quite accidental that I had that bill passed. I just happened to have some friend in Albany who agreed to introduce the bill, and the bill was passed.
   And it gave tenure to the college teachers for the first time in the history of New York.
   But because I had helped to pass that tenure bill, the Teachers' Union representatives now cast an inquiring eye toward me as to whether I might not be useful to them in the legislative field. And I was asked to serve as their legislative representative for a short period of time, until they could find other leaders.
   But the short period of time grew into a long period of time, and I remained as the legislative representative until 1944.
   Mr. MORRIS. Now, Dr. Dodd, during that period, did you deal with Communist Party officials, and were you connected with that work?
       Mrs. DODD. I did.
   Mr. MORRIS. Will you tell us what relationship you bore to the Communist Party organization while you were the legislative representative for the Teachers' Union?
   Mrs. DODD. Well, I soon got to know the majority of the people in the top leadership of the Teachers' Union were Communists, or, at least, were influenced by the Communist organization in the city.
   Mr. MORRIS. Will you tell us precisely how you knew that, Dr. Dodd?
   Mrs. DODD. Well, at that time–
       Mr. MORRIS. This is now from 1936 to 1944; is that right, Dr. Dodd?
       Mrs. DODD. Yes.
   Mr. MORRIS. And the Teachers' Union in 1936 was made up of how many members?

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       Mrs. DODD. It began with about 1,500 members.
       Mr. MORRIS. What was your greatest strength?
   Mrs. DODD. We increased to about 11,000.
   Mr. MORRIS. What was the year of the greatest strength?
   MRS. DODD. 1938 and 1939.
   Mr. MORRIS. In 1938 and 1939 the union was then at its strongest. During that period, how did the Communist Party function within the Teachers' Union ?
   Mrs. DODD. Within the Teachers' Union you had a caucus of the executive board, Communist members of the executive board. At that time the caucus seemed to be necessary, because they were fighting the Socialists, the Lovestoneites, and the other splinter groups who were struggling to gain power over the union. But the Communists were successful in taking control.
   Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, how many members ordinarily would there be of the executive board? Is that what they called it in the Teachers' Union?
   Mrs. DODD. Yes.
   Mr. MORRIS. How many members were there during this period of time?
   Mrs. DODD. The executive board was elected by proportionate representation, and it varied between twenty-three and thirty-odd members.
   And, unfortunately, at most of the times two-thirds of those executive board members were members of the party.
   Mr. MORRIS. How did you know that, Doctor? Did these people caucus, for instance?
   Mrs. DODD. Yes; we had caucuses from time to time, and we also had a small steering committee.
   Mr. MORRIS. When you say "we," do you mean the Communist Party at that time?
   Mrs. DODD. That is right.
   Mr. MORRIS. Did you know, as a matter of fact, that a Communist Party caucus would meet before executive board meetings?
       Mrs. DODD. They always caucused before these meetings.
       Mr. MORRIS. Did you attend these caucus meetings?
   Mrs. DODD. Whenever I was in the city, when I wasn't in Albany or somewhere else.
   Mr. MORRIS. And you attended and you knew it was a Communist caucus, and everyone else knew it was a Communist caucus; is that right, Dr. Dodd?
   Mrs. DODD. Yes.
   Mr. MORRIS. Who would be present at such meetings other than Communist teachers?
   Mrs. DODD,. Generally only they would be present. Once in a great while, where they had a controversy among themselves and couldn't settle the problem, they would invite someone from the county or district of the party to come in and straighten them out.
   Mr. MORRIS. Of the Communist Party. So there was no doubt at any time that that was strictly a Communist Party operation operating within the executive board of the teachers' union?
   Mrs. DODD. That is right.
   Mr. MORRIS. What political activity was engaged in by the Communist Party through that instrumentality you just described to us?

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   Mrs. DODD. The Communist Party was interested in seeing to it that the union, which was an AFL union, would carry out the line of the Communist Party on political questions.
     Now, you couldn’t take all political questions into the union because you had to present those questions then to the membership, and the membership might revolt against having too many political questions.
     But insofar as possible, they were going to bring as many political questions into the union as they possibly could.
      Mr. MORRIS. Would you give an example of that?
     Mrs. DODD. For instance, during the years of collective security, when the official policy of the Communist Party on foreign affairs was collective security, one of the things you did was to have the executive board of the Teachers’ Union, that is, the caucus for the steering committee of the Teachers’ Union, discuss how collective security might be promoted through the teachers’ union or through the other organizations which the teachers’ union as affiliated with, for instance, with the Central Trades and Labor Council, the State Federation of Labor, and, later on, with the American labor Party, and various other community organizations.
      Mr. MORRIS. Was the Teachers’ Union used by the party for recruiting purposes?
     Mrs. DODD. It is the function of every Communist group to recruit other members into the Communist Party.
     Mr. MORRIS. Did the atmosphere within the Teachers’ Union make it conducive for the Communist Party to operate within that organization for recruiting purposes?
     Mrs. DODD. I would say “Yes.”
     Senator FERGUSON. Was there a party line, as far as teachers were concerned?
     Mrs. DODD. On educational questions, do you mean, Senator Ferguson?
     Senator FERGUSON. Yes.
     Mrs. DODD. Well, only if the questions were connected with the political questions that the Communist Party was interested in. For instance, there was a Teachers’ Union policy on the questions of war and fascism. I mean during the period in which the Communist Party was antiwar, the Teachers’ Union policy was antiwar; during the period when the party came into the full support of the war, the Teachers’ Union shifted its policy, and became prowar.
      Senator FERGUSON. In other words, the steering committee, as I take your testimony, was used for the purpose of steering the teachers along the line that communism desired ?
       Mrs. DODD. On political questions, yes.
       Senator FERGUSON. On political questions?
       Mrs. DODD. I would say also on certain educational questions.
       You take, for instance, the whole question of the theory of education, whether it should be progressive education or whether it should be the more formal education. The Communist Party as a whole adopted a line of being for the progressive education. And that would be carried on through the steering committee and into the union.
       Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, you mentioned that the greatest strength of the union was between 1938 and 1939. What happened at that time that caused your organization to lose some force?

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   Mrs. DODD. Well, two things happened. The Communist Party became very much enamoured of the idea of unity between the AFL and the CIO, and they tried to push as many of their unions in the Central Trades and Labor Council and in the State Federation of Labor to calling conferences on the question of unity. They weren't successful in getting any of these stable unions in it, these large unions, to call the conferences.
   Finally they convinced the Teachers' Union to call a conference on unity between the AFL and CIO. We invited some hundred unions and we did, I think, have 85. We felt that resulted in our being expelled from the Central Trades and Labor Council.
   Senator FERGUSON. When you say you had so many present, do you mean the Communists, or the union ?
   Mrs. DODD. The Communists convinced us that we should call a conference on unity between the AFL and CIO. Since the Communists controlled the union so closely—it was a matter of bad judgment—the Teachers' Union did call that conference, and that conference resulted in having the Teachers' Union ousted from the Central Trades and Labor Council, which was the AFL.
   Then, of course, the Central Trades and Labor Council tried to get us out of the AFL generally. They made trouble with our parent organization, the American Federation of Teachers. We found ourselves in trouble with the American Federation of Teachers at this time, with a great many attacks upon us and a good deal of attacks upon us as Reds.
   At the same time the New York State Legislature adopted a resolution calling for the investigation of the schools. That resolution was to investigate the finances of the schools, but, in addition, to investigate the subversive activities of the New York City school teachers.
   That was popularly called the Rapp-Coudert Investigating Committee.
   We couldn't withstand the two attacks—that is, the A. F. of T. and the A. F. of L. and the Rapp-Coudert committee, and the influence of the union declined considerably during that period.
   In addition to that, the party at that time was apologizing for the Nazi-Soviet pact—I mean, just not knowing how to handle it—and that lost us a great many other people who had supported the union formerly.
   Mr. MORRIS. This question is asked now in connection with legislation along these lines, Mr. Chairman.
   Did you, as a matter of fact, find that the investigation carried on by the New York State Legislature at that time did weaken the Coinmunist force in the teaching field ?
   Mrs. DODD. It most certainly did.
   Senator FERGUSON. You have indicated here that any real publicity of Communist activity in a union or in any organization has a tendency, then, to weaken or destroy communism in that organization.
   Mrs. DODD. I think any honest investigation which brings the issues to the fore and lets all decent and honest people, whether they are the teachers who are trapped in this organization, or not, really look at the issues, will help to eliminate that which is evil.
   Senator FERGUSON. You think, then, that the facts were such that there were many innocent teachers not realizing what was being done

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on the so-called backstage caucuses by the members of the Communist Party that belonged to the union, getting their instructions by calling in Communist members at the time to get instructions; that this was not known to the mass—rank and file, let me call them—of the teachers; is that correct?
   Mrs. DODD. That is absolutely correct, Senator Ferguson.
   One of the real problems is that not only the members of the union didn't know, but a large number of the teachers who became Communists didn't really know what it was all about.
   I, myself, so long as I functioned on the trade-union level in the Teachers' Union, why, my heavens, I was one of the staunchest of the Communists and would have called your committee a committee to smash the schools. It wasn't until I entered the Communist Party as a functionary in the Communist Party that I saw that it was a full, true, cynical conspiracy and something which is so thoroughly evil that I would like to spend the rest of my days to tell the teachers who are entrapped in this thing how to get out.
   Senator FERGUSON. In other words, until you obtained the knowledge as to what actually was taking place as far as the Communist Party was concerned, how they functioned to get control of labor unions, whether it be teachers or others, or any organization, you, as an advocate of labor, were so firm in your opinion as to the justification of the needs of labor that you did not see the Communist activity until you became directly connected with it; is that a fair statement?
   Mrs. DODD. That is correct.
   Mr. MORRIS. You thought prior to that time that you were taking part in honest trade-union activity; did you?
   Mrs. DODD. I thought I was taking part in an organization which was committed to the defense and the promotion of the interests of the working class.
   I didn't realize until I got in that this is just nothing but a masquerade, that these things are just used to capture many people and that actually they are not really interested in these various questions.
   Senator FERGUSON. In other words, the question of the humanitarian cause becomes a front rather than a real desire upon the part of these Communists; is that a correct statement?
   Mrs. DODD. That is a correct statement.
   Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, could you tell us how you worked with some other organizations at the time to further Communist activity; that is, while you were legislative representative of the teachers' union and had such an intimate knowledge of Communist teachers?
   Did the Communist Party use these teachers for other purposes, or did they restrict their activity to the schools alone?
   Mrs. DODD. Teachers have always been a very important part of the Communist apparatus. As a Teachers' Union member, I was a delegate to the central trades and labor council and I was a delegate to the State federation of labor. I was a delegate to the central trades and labor council, and I was put in contact with Communist members of other unions who were to operate with me on the floor of the central trades and labor council. We would caucus. We would decide what should be stressed, what shouldn't be stressed; what we would approve of, what we wouldn't approve of; whom we would vote for, and whom we wouldn't vote for. So that we attempted to carry out the party line in the labor field.

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   We functioned on whatever levels the Communist Party uses teachers for, to get dues, to get finances. They are a stable group with an income and they are generous and conscientious.
   Secondly, they use them for personnel. Teachers are well equipped, I mean they are trained thinkers and if you can convince them that they should go out and fight for the cause, you can get them to go out and become section organizers, district organizers.
   Mr. MORRIS. Do you mean they give, up their teaching jobs?
   Mrs. DODD. Yes. In many cases they gave up their teaching jobs. Or you can get them to go out and teach during the summer, teach labor classes during the summer, teach Communist Party classes during the summer, or during the evening.
   Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, can you name any particular teachers who did become functionaries of the Communist Party? You say that it was a ready avenue.
   Mrs. DODD. Isodore Begun became a member of the national committee, the national advisory committee.
   Mr. MORRIS. He was a school teacher, was he not, Mrs. Dodd?
       Mrs. DODD. He was a school teacher.
   Mr. MORRIS. Was he a member of the Communist fraction?
   Mrs. DODD. Isodore Begun was a Teachers' Union member for a while. He was a leader of the unemployed teachers' movement. Then he became educational director for the New York district of the Communist Party.
   Then he became farm expert, or legislative expert, both. Then there was Maurice Shappes.
   Mr. MORRIS. Had he become a Communist Party organizer?
       Mrs. DODD. He was organizing the educational department of the Communist Party, almost simultaneously with the other.
   There was a man by the name of Green, who went from City College to Texas as an organizer.
   I can't think of all of them.
   Mr. MORRIS. Did you make use of teachers to infiltrate any political organizations?
   Mrs. DODD. Yes. Teachers were, of course, urged to partake of the political life around them. They joined the American Labor Party in great numbers when the teachers' union was affiliated with the American Labor Party.
   Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, were you ever connected with the American Labor Party officially?
   Mrs. DODD. Yes, I was.
   Mr. MORRIS. To your knowledge, was that controlled by the Communists?
   Mrs. Donn. It became controlled by the Communists completely after 1942. Up to 1942, there had been a struggle between the Social Democrats and the Communists for control of the American Labor Party.
   Mr. MORRIS. In 1942 what happened?
   Mrs. DODD. I think the Communists captured the last of the boroughs ; that is, Brooklyn.
   Mr. MORRIS. How do you know that what you tell us now, Doctor?
       Mrs. DODD. I was chairman of the committee to help raise funds and supply personnel for that.

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   Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, will you get back to this State legislative committee? That committee was in 1940-41, was it not?
   Mrs. DODD. The Rapp-Coudert committee?
   Mr. MORRIS. Yes.
   Mrs. DODD. The resolution was adopted in 1939, the investigation began in 1940.
   Mr. MoRRIs. Were you active in opposing that investigation?
       Mrs. DODD. I opposed it with everything I had in me.
   Mr. MORRIS. How long did that opposition last?
   Mrs. DODD. The opposition continued throughout the 2 years, that is, throughout 1940-41, and it carried into 1942, when Senator Coudert ran for–
       Mr. MORRIS. Was it State senator?
   Mrs. DODD. No. The first time he ran for Congress, wasn't it?
       Mr. MORRIS. He ran for State senator.
   My recollection, Mr. Chairman, is that he was running for State senator in 1942.
   And you say you participated in that campaign?
   Mrs. Donn. Yes, I did.
   Mr. MORRIS. What was the purpose of that?
   Mrs. DODD. The purpose of that was to see to it that anyone who attempted to "smear" the schools, as I thought––putting this in quotation marks—because I thought the Rapp-Coudert committee was to destroy the public-school system, that anyone who attempted to "smear" the school system should not be allowed to go back into public office, and that everything should be done to defeat him.
   Mr. MORRIS. Actually, what was the real reasoning behind that campaign?
   Mrs. DODD. Well, after all, the fight of the Rapp-Coudert committee was to expose Communist teachers. The Communist Party just couldn't permit a person of that kind, who had taken such a toll, to remain in public life.
   Mr. MORRIS. Do you know whether the Soviet Union actually intervened in this fight?
   Mrs. DODD. I wouldn't know whether the Soviet Union intervened. I had one little incident happen which might be of interest to you. Mrs. MORRIS. What was that, Dr. Dodd?
   Mrs. DODD. One of the gentlemen in this city, who represented some of the Russian business interests, made a contribution to the campaign against Senator Coudert.
   Mr. MORRIS. What was his name?
   Mrs. DODD. Charles Recht.
   Mr. MORRIS. Is he the attorney?
   Mrs. DODD. He was the attorney for Amtorg. I don't know whether he is now.
   Mr. MORRIS. Did he say anything to you at the time he made that contribution?
   Mrs. DODD. He gave me some information about the Coudert law firm, Coudert & Coudert law firm. He said they represented many of the White Russians.
   Mr. MORRIS. And he was giving you that information for what purpose?
   Mrs. DODD. He knew that I was going to use it during the campaign.

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   Mr. MORRIS. Now, Dr. Dodd, were you in a position to determine the strength of the Communist organization within the teachers throughout the United States?
   Mrs. DODD. Tentatively, yes.
   Mr. MORRIS. Did you ever address a group of teachers, a large group of teachers?
   Mrs. DODD. Many times.
   Mr. MORRIS. Did you ever address a large group of Communist teachers?
   Mrs. DODD. Yes. In the spring of 1944, after I had been made a member of the National Committee of the Communist Party, I was invited back to speak to the Communist teachers on a Sunday afternoon at the Jefferson School.
   Mr. MORRIS. What Communist teachers were they?
   Mrs. DODD. Those are the teachers in and around New York, the Greater New York teachers, that is, the members of the Communist Party, or people who were close to the Communist Party.
   Mr. MORRIS. Were they all Communist teachers?
   Mrs. DODD. I would say a large number of them were. I think the understanding was that meeting was to be a recruiting meeting and people could bring with them whom they wanted to recruit. Mr. MORRIS. How many people were present at that meeting? Mrs. DODD. Close to 500.
   Senator FERGUSON. Where is the Jefferson School?
   Mrs. DODD. Sixteenth Street and Sixth Avenue.
   Mr. MORRIS. And they were all school teachers, were they?
   Mrs. DODD. It was intended to be a school teachers' meeting.
   Mr. MORRIS. At least you would address them as school teachers or potential school teachers?
   Mrs. DODD. Yes.
   Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, would you tell us what other experience you have had within the teachers' union and within the various teachers' groups within the United States?
Senator FERGUSON. Before we pass on to that, I would like to cover the Jefferson School.
   I would like to know whether or not you have any knowledge as to what the Jefferson School was ?
   Mrs. DODD. The Jefferson School is a school based upon Marxist-Leninist philosophy. It was established as a result of the people who lost their jobs during the Rapp-Coudert fight. There are about 50 teachers and professors who lost their jobs as a result of the fight. And I, with the Teachers' Union, helped to establish what was called the School for Democracy, and these became the teachers in the School for Democracy.
   Mr. MORRIS. Was that a Communist project?
   Mrs. DODD. No. That was a teachers' union project.
   But shortly thereafter, the Communist Party decided they wanted a broad Marxist Institute, and they also saw that the School for Democracy was financing itself and they decided that they might perhaps join the School for Democracy with the Workers School.    At that time they conducted a Communist Party workers' education, Workers School. As a result of that, Mr. Trachtenberg and Mr. David Goldway, and a few of the other people formed a committee for the purpose of amalgamating these two institutions.

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   As a result of that, they purchased a building on Sixteenth Street and established this Jefferson School, which is, as I say, a Marxist institute.
   Senator FERGUSON. So that was a Communist school, was it?
   Mrs. DODD. The idea was that it was to be a Marxist-Leninist institution, but that does not mean that the people who attended that were necessarily Communists. I mean it would mean that it would appeal to people who were Communists and who wanted to know more about communism, or to people who didn't know anything about communism, but would like to learn.
   Senator FERGUSON. But they were teaching the philosophy of communism, were they not?
   Mrs. DODD. They were.
   Mr. MORRIS. Orthodox subjects, from the Communist point of view, have been allowed to be taught?
   Mrs. DODD. I don't think so, although they had many things like a course on how to make a dress, for instance, or a course in dancing, which might be too difficult to relate to the Communist movement.
   Mr. MORRIS. It would have no particular Communist overtone?
   Senator FERGUSON. In other words, making a dress could be capitalistic.
   Mrs. DODD. I daresay that even Russian women like to have nice-looking clothes.
   Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, we would like to get from you, strictly based on your own experience within the Communist Party and within the Teachers' Union and other teachers' organizations that you have associated with, an estimate of the number of teachers who were Communist Party members throughout the United States.
   First of all, what would you estimate as the Communist strength in the area of New York City?
   Mrs. DODD. Of course, it fluctuated from year to year, and you will find that at the peak of the union you had about a thousand teachers in the Communist movement.
   Mr. MORRIS. As party members?
   Mrs. DODD. As party members.
   However, when the WPA projects were closed, some of those dropped out. I would say that in the New York area there would be about 600, 700, 750. I think at the peak, on a Nation-wide basis, you never had more than, let's say, 1,500 teachers in the Communist movement.
   Mr. MORRIS. Do you speak as of down to 1948, or are you holding this to 1944?
   Mrs. DODD. I am speaking of 1944, because I have no knowledge after that.
   Mr. MORRIS. After 1944 you became a higher functionary of the Communist Party, did you not?
   Mrs. DODD. That is true, and although I did retain some relationtion [sic] with the New York City school apparatus, I had no connection with the national situation.
   Mr. MORRIS. You could, however, give an estimate of whether or not the size of the Communist force in New York had waxed or waned, could you not?

Page 13

   Mrs. DODD. I would say it went down during the period of 1940-41, and then for a while, while the union remained completely independent, it was very low. But it began rising again as the union joined the CIO and began to be successful again.
   However, I would say that these 750 to 1,000 is the peak that you would have even in the Greater New York area.
   Mr. MORRIS. In that figure you included public schools as well as private schools; is that right?
   Mrs. DODD. Yes. That would be Communist teachers on any level.
   Mr. MORRIS. In other words, a teacher who would be in a private college in New York City would be eligible for membership (a) in the teachers' union and (b) in the Communist caucus that operated the union; is that right, Dr. Dodd?
   Mrs. DODD. That is right.
   Mr. MORRIS. Could you give us a rough estimate—that is, speaking from the Communist point of view, now—of what your strength on a college campus would have to be before you could operate a successful operation on the campus?
   Mrs. DODD. Well, one thing I think people in America have to learn is that if you have one Communist on a campus, or one Communist in an organization, that person is dedicated to building a unit. And a unit consists of a minimum of three people.
   Senator FERGUSON. Tell us just how they function so that maybe we can advise the American people as to how they function. Explain just how a Communist on a campus, both a student and/or a teacher, would function.
   Mrs. DODD. There are two ways of functioning. One, a Communist who is an idealist tries to take the party line into his various organizations, whatever clubs he belongs to, whatever organizations he belongs to, and tries to find others who are sympathetic with him, or he finds where the sore spots are on the campus. If he finds that some people are being abused, discriminated against, some people are unhappy, he fastens himself on to them and pretty soon he's got them functioning with him. First they will function not as party people, but just as a committee, or as a group. Then later on, what you do is you say to people, "If we had a union we might get higher wages." But then you point out that to really insure high wages, you can't get it until the Socialist system has been established, or until communism has been victorious.
   In other words, you teach people that all they can get are little crumbs here and there, but that ultimately they will have to join the Communist movement in order to make the real change.
   Senator FERGUSON. You said if there was one on a campus, that that may grow into more. How did they function in getting new members so that the new members might function as the one that was established?
   Mrs. DODD. You choose an issue which you would bring up. Supposing you are a member of the faculty and you chose the issue, let's say, of increasing wages, you got up and made a definite proposal, to let the wages be increased by 10 percent. And then you found out who spoke up with you, who seemed to be interested in the program.

Page 14

   If you found two or three or four or five people, then you attached yourself to those two or three or four or five people, and you began to work on them day after day after day.
   You socialized with them, you made it your business to socialize with them. You made it your business to take them to lunch.
       And then you weeded out those who were not possible and those who were possible.
       Senator FERGUSON. What about creation of cells in schools or colleges?
   Mrs. DODD. As soon as you had three people who were committed with you, who felt that the Communist movement was a good movement, that that was the only way to change it, you established yourselves as a unit. That unit then became attached to the district or the section or the city which had a Communist movement, and the district organizer always was very sensitive to what was happening on the campuses.
   Senator FERGUSON. Suppose that you obtained six ?
   Mrs. DODD. Your units might be a minimum of three, and they generally were from three to about seven or eight.
   But I have seen units of as high as 25, in the days when the Communist Party became lax. And then in the period when the Communist Party abolished all cells and established what we called street units--
   Senator FERGUSON. Will you explain those?
   Mrs. DODD. Those were the days when they were emphasizing the importance of a democratic approach, and they established great, big political clubs, and they used to try to convince people that within a large political club you had nothing to fear, nobody was going to know you. You weren't known by any name; you were just known by a first name or nickname. You used a thing of that kind.
   Only one person knew you, your organizer. It was to him that you paid your dues and reported on individual problems.
   But that was only a very short period.
   Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, I wonder if you would tell us how Communist Party directives would be translated into activity by these various teachers' fronts, teacher organizations?
   Could you give us the precise medium by which this Communist Party directive would be transferred ?
   Mrs. DODD. One of the things you have to understand, is that the Communist Party tried to give to their members a certain degree of education along the Marxist-Leninist line and to provide for them a certain amount of initiative on their own part. So that the Communist Party said to you, "We must build the American League Against War and Fascism." A little unit of three would take that directive into whatever mass organizations there were on the campus. If I were a member of the teachers in the English department, I would take it to the teachers in the English department.
   If I were a member of the political sciences, I would take it there. Wherever there were meetings, you saw that those meetings were covered with someone who brought the directive in there.
   You might see to it that one of the unit members would be a writer, on one of the magazines or newspapers. You always tried to get :someone on the newspapers or magazines of the college so that the

Page 15

columns of the newspapers might be open to you for expressing your opinion.
   Senator FERGUSON. What other projects were there for which you might anticipate they would use the teachers? Did they ever use them to pass resolutions and–
        Mrs. DODD. The Teachers' Unions were used a great deal to formulate public opinion in America. The teachers were active in the parents' organizations; they were active with the students; they were active in their own professional cultural organizations, and in the American Federation of Teachers we had our conventions.
   So that anything the Communist Party wanted to be popularized, they would see to it that it had a copy of a resolution, which you then modified to met your own individual needs.
   Some organizations could stand a strong resolution, a total support of the thing; some organizations could only go one step. At any rate,. the individual group modified that resolution to suit its own needs.
   But, at any rate, everyone was moving forward on that particular subject. But whether it was collective security, whether it was prowar, whether it was against war, whether it was against the Dies committee, whether it was against some congressional legislation, there resolutions would be introduced, and simultaneously you would have a. large number of resolutions popularized in the newspapers, delegations going to the various men in public office, telephones, telegrams.
   Senator FERGUSON. How did you function at these so-called conventions where the larger group would meet?
   Mrs. DODD. Well, the American Federation of Teachers convention were held once a year. And what would happen is that the Communist delegates going there would know in advance, they would be told by their own section organizers, or their own district leaders of the Communist Party, that they would meet so-and-so at the convention..
   The central district of the party here in New York always met with a steering committee of that convention in advance to there decide what was to be accomplished at that convention.
   Then when we got to the conventions we would meet with someone from the Communist Party at some hotel room. There would be a representative of the various districts of the United States, California, Michigan, the South, West, East. We would have representatives.
   And we would get a line setting. That is, there would be some discussion as to what the perspectives of this convention were; how to accomplish it; whom to win over;. what caucuses to build and what caucuses not to build.
   For instance, in addition to the Communist Party caucus, we would also have a "united front" caucus.
   Senator FERGUSON. Will you explain the united front as far as these caucuses were concerned?
   Mrs. DODD. The "united front" was always an alliance with someone who didn't go all the way with the group; those who didn't believe with you in everything you believed in, but who would go along. As I said once before, no one formed a "united front" with the Communists, without being weakened, because Communists form a united front when they are going to get strength anew and not when they are going to get weakened.
   Senator FERGUSON. In what cities have you attended conventions and operated with Communists of those cities in the school system?

Page 16

   Mrs. DODD. Philadelphia, New York, Buffalo, Madison (Wis.), Cleveland, Cedar Rapids, Boston.
   Senator FERGUSON. Have you ever been in Michigan ?
   Mrs. DODD. Yes, I was in Detroit twice. We had a convention in 1940 and 1941.
   Senator FERGUSON. Did you find any Communists there? Mrs. DODD. There were some.
   Senator FERGUSON. That cooperated in these caucuses?
   Mrs. DODD. Yes.
   Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, I wonder, on the basis of all your experience within these teachers' organizations and the Communist Party and these various trips and conventions that you are describing, what would you estimate the membership of the Communist Party nationally to have been?
   I think you gave us a figure before which related only to New York. Is not that right?
   Mrs. DODD. I would say that your teacher membership on a Nation-wide basis is not too large. It is about 1,500 members. I don't think you ever had it much larger than that.
   Mr. MORRIS. That is, strategically disposed?
   Mrs. DODD. Distributed; yes.
   Mr. MORRIS. Could you tell us some of the colleges that you, to your own knowledge, that you knew from your own knowledge, had units operating on the campus?
   Mrs. DODD. All of the city colleges here in New York, I mean the four city colleges; Columbia University, Long Island University, New York University, Vassar College, Wellesley, Smith, Harvard, MIT, University of Michigan, Chicago, Northwestern University, University of California, the University of Minnesota, Howard University.
   That is about it.
   Mr. MORRIS. In all of these cases, there would be at least one member of the faculty who would be a member of the Communist Party and he would have operating with him a certain number of students; is that correct?
   Mrs. DODD. It would be his duty to try to get his group of students working with him.
   Mr. MORRIS. But, as a matter of fact when, you name all these schools, each one of these schools had a unit on the campus; is that right?
   Mrs. DODD. We had delegates to the convention from those universities; yes.
   Senator FERGUSON. They were Communists and operated with you through the Communists; is that what you have in mind?
   Mrs. DODD. That is right.
   Mr. MORRIS. And this organization, on any issue that would come up, this whole organization would be brought to play and be used to effect some particular Communist Party purposes?
   Mrs. DODD. Of course.
   Many of the things that the Communist Party proposed were things which the teachers wanted, or, I mean, thought they wanted; they were for.
   They thought they were fighting for something that was good and progressive.

Page 17

   Senator FERGUSON. You mentioned that you think there were about 1,500 Communist teachers in the United States. Now, we have thousands of teachers. What influence could 1,500 teachers have among the many thousands?
   Mrs. DODD. As a matter of fact, you have over a million teachers in America, and, by and large, your schools are not manned by Communists. The Communist influence is important only where it is strategically placed, and no Communist is ever satisfied with remaining in a position of inferiority. He seeks a strategic position.
   If you had Communists in these schools of education, that is a very strategic position because not only are they affecting the philosophy of education but they are also teaching other teachers, who, in turn, are teaching the pupils.
   If you have one Communist teacher in the school of education, and he teaches, let's say, 300 teachers, who then go out all over the United States, that is a strategic position.
   Senator FERGUSON. You were talking, then, about 1,500 actual Communists, were you?
   Mrs. DODD. That is right.
   Senator FERGUSON. Can you tell us where you first were contacted, in your opinion, in our educational system about communism?
   Mrs. DODD. Well, it is very difficult. I guess that the schools are subject to the same influences as all the other conditions in life. I was a freshman at college when my English teacher, for instance, gave me Anna Louise Strong's book, I Changed Worlds. I thought it was a very exciting, very interesting book.
   In addition to that, we had a discussion in that class on the whole question of the new Soviet experiment, and while she didn't say that she was for it, she left all the implications, and thereafter a number of us became attached to her and discussed these problems with her.
   I am sure that she wasn't a member of the Communist Party, but she was sympathetic.
   Senator FERGUSON. When you were a teacher and really a Communist, what did you do to the students and the other teachers?
   Mrs. DODD. God help me for what I did. I was not a member of the Communist Party, but there was no doubt in my mind–
       Senator FERGUSON. But you had a philosophy and you served the cause.
   Mrs. DODD. There is no doubt in my mind that I did a great deal of harm.
   Senator FERGUSON. And how did you function among the students?
   Mrs. DODD. I was their faculty adviser on many problems. I worked with individual students. I was particularly keen about my students. I was very sympathetic, and I was very popular among my students.
   Senator FERGUSON. Do you think you may have convinced some of them to become Communists ?
   Mrs. DODD. I have no doubt that I did.
   Senator FERGUSON. Was that one of your purposes in life as a teacher?
   Mrs. DODD. No. That is not true. My purpose at that time—I thought my purpose was to create an open mind, to create a clear thinking people—people who would throw aside all preconceived

Page 18

prejudices, all preconceived thoughts. My thought was to teach people how to think.
   Well, I've discovered since then that the mind which is so open is often the mind which gets filled with the first evil wind that comes by ; that what you have to do is to see truth and the truth will help you to ward off these evil influences.
   Senator FERGUSON. Then in those days you were an idealist as well as a Communist.
   Mrs. DODD. I was an idealist who was permeated with the philosophy of communism.
   Senator FERGUSON. How did you think that a person should have an open mind and receive the very biased and narrowest of lines in which to think? How did you reconcile that?
   Mrs. DODD. Because I didn't know what communism was. I swallowed the hook, line, and sinker. I thought they were antifascists. I thought they were for the working class. I thought they were for the underdog, and I was for the underdog.
   You don't see the entirety of communism until you have had to wrestle with it. Communism shows itself at different levels to you at different times.
   Senator FERGUSON. Then you are of the opinion that the Communists use these ideals, these humanitarian causes, the evils that are among men, for their own purpose rather than just curing the particular evil; is that right?
   Mrs. DODD. That is absolutely right. And I discovered it to be so when I became the legislative representative of the Communist Party.
   When I went into the apparatus at Twelfth Street as a legislative representative, I thought that my job was to fight for good housing, milk, problems, the question of schools, and so on. I found that within the Communist Party there wasn't even a file on any of these social problems; that there wasn't any cumulative wisdom on the thing; that almost any program which you would pluck from the air which was popular at the moment was the thing you supported; that they weren't interested in carrying through on any of these problems; that these problems were important only as long as there was a group of dissatisfied people to whom this issue was important.
   But as soon as that died down, then they were no longer interested in that issue.
   Mr. MORRIS. That is literal testimony, is it, Dr. Dodd, that there wasn't literally a file on these sociological problems?
   Mrs. DODD. The answer is "No." There wasn't a file, there were some old pamphlets thrown in one corner, and I then proceeded to try to create files on this question.
   But then I discovered they were not interested in this particular thing. I tried for about 4 months to get the national committee to establish a committee on housing. I couldn't get it. I tried to get them to establish a committee on health for the study of the promotion of health legislation. I couldn't get it. They weren't too interested in that.
       Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, I wonder if you could tell us how the Communist Party imparted instructions to the teachers with respect to, how they should try to turn a child's mind in the desired direction?' Can you give us any first-hand experiences along that line?

Page 19

   Mrs. DODD. I am afraid I don't have that.
   Mr. MORRIS. You don't have that?
   Mrs. DODD. No. I didn't function on the educational policies committee, which is an important committee of the union. But I don't have that.
   Mr. MORRIS. There was a separate subdivision that would take care of a particular program like that, was there?
   Now, Dr. Dodd, in connection with your activity in the New York schools, did various high schools and elementary schools send representations to any of these caucus meetings?
   Mrs. DODD. Well, in the early days, from 1936 to about 1938, about twice a year, both in the beginning of the school term and at the end, we would have a meeting of a fraction, what was called a fraction, a representative from each one of these units, and perhaps one or two thrown in from a district.
   Mr. MORRIS. So you would have a representative from many units? Mrs. DODD. That is right.
   Mr. MORRIS. How many people would constitute a unit?
   Mrs. DODD. Anywhere between 3 and 10.
   Mr. MORRIS. So you had various representatives of these units—the units being dispersed throughout the city—meeting in the fraction?
   Mrs. DODD. Yes.
   Mr. MORRIS. How many people would attend such a fraction meeting?
   Mrs. DODD. You would get anywhere between 60 and 100 people attending. These meetings used to be called Lowell Club—I was really quite startled first when I attended—the Lowell Club.
   And what would happen was that at the beginning of the year you would have a program laid down for the party. They would discuss what the party hoped to accomplish in the schools that year. They would discuss the union. And that is one of the reasons why I was called in. But that was only one of the things they discussed. They discussed largely what the party was going to accomplish as far as the schools were concerned. The fractions were abolished in 1948. As far as I know, they never again were reestablished.
   Mr. MORRIS. Why was that?
   Mrs. DODD. I think because of the danger to the individuals, the question of getting to be known, and the question of people permeating it and exposing party members.
   Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, could you tell us something about an organization called the Committee for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom ?
   Mrs. DODD. That is a committee that functioned on the Columbia University campus.
   Mr. MORRIS. Can you tell us what you know about it ?
   Mrs. DODD. Well, it functioned during the period of the Rapp-Coudert committee, because I know they wrote a very fine report from the point of view of attacking the Rapp-Coudert committee.
   They were a committee which especially used the academic freedom as a nub around which to oppose many different activities or institutions, or people that were around. For instance, one of the committees that would attack a teacher or a professor who was supposedly a Fascist was the Committee for Intellectual Freedom and Academic Freedom.

Page 20

   Mr. MORRIS. In other words, they would take a case of Fascist activity, or alleged Fascist activity, and build it up; is that right? Mrs. DODD. This is right.
   Then they would also take any infringement, so-called, of academic freedom on the campuses. That would be their special regard; the question of textbooks, the question of material which was being used.
   As far as I know, there was a young man by the name of Moses Finkelstein, who was a secretary of the committee. Prof. Franz Boaz, the noted anthropologist, was the acting chairman. Of course, in that committee, like all other committees which had some Communist influence upon it, the chairman was largely a person who was illustrious, famous, and who sometimes didn't know what was going on.
   Mr. MORRIS. On this case, does Dr. Boaz answer that description?
   Mrs. DODD. I think he does. He was a proliberal anthropologist and made a great contribution to American learning and wanted to do the right thing. I think he was approached to serve on this committee, but I don't think he knew what was going on half the time.
   Mr. MORRIS. Was Finkelstein a Communist?
   Mrs. DODD. I never saw his card. I think he was.
   Senator FERGUSON. Did you ever deal with him as such?
       Mrs. DODD. Yes ; I did.
   Mr. MORRIS. You dealt with him as a Communist?
   Mrs. DODD. Yes.
   Senator FERGUSON. Along this line of freedom of thought and so forth, "academic freedom," as you call it, there is not any doubt that everyone desires that; is that not so ?
   That is a wish of the people.
   Mr. SCHMIDT. Senator, doesn't that very much depend on the definition given?
   Senator FERGUSON. I am going to point out whether that idea– Mrs. DODD. I think that the history of this country would say that we are all interested in freedom of thought. But what goes by the name of academic freedom very frequently is not freedom of thought.
   Senator FERGUSON. Tell me what the Communist thinks is "academic freedom."
       Mrs. DODD. The Communists will use academic freedom as a cloak or as a shield to protect themselves in the spread of any idea which they are determined to spread. I think that academic freedom has to be the right for the professor or the teacher to make a search for the truth; but, by heavens, he must then find the truth and label the truth, and let the student and other teachers know what the truth is.
   You can't just ask for academic freedom in general and under that shield just promote anything that you want. That is not academic freedom.
   Senator FERGUSON. Then you think that the idea of the Communists is to carry out the party line under the name of academic freedom; do you?
   Mrs. DODD. Yes; to promote any idea which they think is important to them at the time.
   Senator FERGUSON. And rather than the whole academic freedom?
   Mrs. DODD. I have never known the Communists to go and fight for academic freedom for people whom they didn't agree with, and I think that is the test of it.

Page 21

   Mr. MORRIS. Mr. Chairman, then may I get back to a point that the witness just passed over here ?
   Senator FERGUSON. Yes.
   Mr. MORRIS. You say that very often an organization is headed by a man who is technically not a member of the Communist Party but somebody who can be used as afront for that organization. Who was the president of the Teachers' Union while you were most active in connection with that organization ?
   Mrs. DODD. Mr. Charles Hendley.
   Mr. MORRIS. To your knowledge, was Charles Hendley a member of the Communist Party while he was president of the Teachers' 'Union?
   Mrs. DODD. He was not.
   Mr. MORRIS. You know as a matter of fact that he was not?
       Mrs. DODD. Yes.
   Mr. MORRIS. At least during the period that you were closely identified with him?
   Mrs. DODD. That is right.
   Mr. MORRIS. How did the Communist Party exercise its control over Charles Hendley ?
   Mrs. DODD. Well, Mr. Hendley was a person with very definite views on the whole question of schools and Socialists. He was a known Socialist. And he was a teacher during this period in George Washington High School, and he didn't give too much of his time to it.
   But we had placed in there, in his office, as a secretary, a young lady who made sure that he saw the right reports and didn't see the wrong reports.
   In other words, when he came into the office at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, after teaching all day, he couldn't then be presented with a well-balanced diet of everything that had come in. The young lady, his secretary, would push certain letters under his nose and he would sign certain letters, and there were others she didn't want him to see. They would be hidden. She distorted it.
   Senator FERGUSON. Did you see to it, or did somebody see to it, that secretaries or aides were Communists?
   Mrs. DODD. That is one very prominent method whereby the Communist Party controls an organization; that is, to place a secretary at the disposal of a man who is not too alert on this question. And that person then either passes out copies of letters or information, reports, to the party, or helps to control the person whom she is supposed to be serving.
   Mr. MORRIS. In the particular case of Hendley, did Hendley subsequently become a Communist?
   Mrs. DODD. I heard that he became a Communist. I don't know. I know that he is connected with the Daily Worker.
   Mr. MORRIS. Is he now connected with the Daily Worker? Mrs. DODD. Yes.
   Senator FERGUSON. Have you ever known anyone that was connected with the Daily Worker that was not a Communist?
   Mrs. DODD. No; not as an owner of the Daily Worker. He would not be in a position to not be a Communist.
   Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, we began to talk about a particular case about Hendley and his particular secretary, and then I think we discussed the thing generally.

Page 22

   As a matter of fact, who was the secretary of Hendley at that time?
   Mrs. DODD. A Miss Dorothy Wallace.
   Mr. MORRIS. Do you know how the Communist Party exercised control over Dorothy Wallace?
   Mrs. DODD. Well, I went into the union in 1935, and I didn't learn until perhaps in the forties, in the early forties, that Dorothy Wallace was the sister of the vice president of the union, who was the liaison between the Communist Party and the union.
   Mr. MORRIS. How was that?
   Mrs. DODD. She happened to have blonde hair and he happened to be dark. They just didn't look alike until you learned about it.
   And I now know that three or four of the Communist teachers knew :about it, the top echelon. But I didn't discover it until we had some problem.
   Mr. MORRIS. You say she was the sister of the top liaison man between the Communist Party and the teachers ?
   Mrs. DODD. That is right.
   Mr. MORRIS. And who is he?
   Mrs. DODD. Dale Zysman.
   Mr. MORRIS. So the Wallace girl, the secretary at the time, was Dale Zysman's sister?
   Mrs. DODD. Sister.
   Mr. MORRIS. And that fact was not known by you?
   Mrs. DODD. It was not known to me, was not known by HendIey.
   Mr. MORRIS. And at that time did you have an intimate position with the Teachers' Union and even with the Communist part of it?
   Mrs. DODD. I did. When I discovered it and raised a good deal of Cain about it, they just said "Well"—they didn't want people to know about it.
   Mr. MORRIS. This will be the final question of the afternoon, Mr. Chairman, I think.
       I wonder if you could tell us, Dr. Dodd—and we don't want to get into any of the names of the individuals and the teachers in the schools at this point—but could you tell us the individuals in the Communist Party who would translate and who would direct Communist Party directives down into the teachers' group? Who were the leaders of the Communist Party who would carry the Communist Party directives and orders down to the teachers?
   Mrs. DODD. Well, from the top level, within the union, you had a steering committee within the executive board. Then, in the different counties, the county leader, the county organizer of the party, also knew who the teachers were in his county, and he would have meetings with them and would have discussions with them.
   Mr. MORRIS. Who were they ? Will you name some of those people?
       Mrs. DODD. The county leaders--
   Senator FERGUSON. You are talking about all over the United States now; are you?
   Mrs. DODD. All over the United States; yes.
   Senator FERGUSON. So that, for instance, in Detroit the teachers would know who the Communist leader of that district was, would they?
   Mrs. DODD. That is right.

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   Senator FERGUSON. And they would get party-line instructions from him?
   Mrs. DODD. That is right.
   Senator FERGUSON. And be able to take it to the union meetings, and so forth, and function on down into the school, or into any organization where a teacher happened to go; is that the method of operation ?
   Mrs. DODD. That is correct.
   Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, who was the highest Communist Party official that participated in the party's control of teachers? Would anyone on the level of J. Peters have anything to do with teachers? Would he have anything to do with teachers ?
   Mrs. DODD. Yes. I never knew him as J. Peters. I knew him as Steve Miller.
   At the time I didn't know he was an important person. He was attached to the New York county apparatus of the Communist Party, and he functioned with the teachers and with other people on a county level.
   The highest person who ever functioned with us, of course, would be Earl Browder, or, at present, I guess, Bill Foster. But the highest Person who ever attended a fraction meeting of the Communists was Roy Hudson, who went with us to the Madison, Wis., convention and met constantly with the delegates there.
   Mr. MORRIS. In connection with this man Alfred Brooks, Alfred Brooks came out, as I recall, in the Rapp-Coudert hearings as having some connection with the Comintern, did he not, Dr. Dodd?
   Mrs. Donn. I think so. I mean I didn't know it of my own knowledge; but when he admitted that he was Bosse, which was another: name that was–
       Mr. MORRIS. That is A. G. Bosse, is it?
   Mrs. DODD. Yes.
   Mr. MORRIS. And at that time A. G. Bosse was somebody that had written for the Imprecorr, was he not?
   Mrs. DODD. That is right.
   Mr. MORRIS. And at that time he. was a teacher in the public schools, was he not?
   Mrs. DODD. He was.
   Mr. MORRIS. What happened after that was that he was exposed?
   Mrs. DODD. The evidence that the Rapp-Coudert committee had against him was so overwhelming that, in order not to have him testify as to some of the more lurid tales at that time, he was advised to resign from the school system.
   Mr. MORRIS. Did he resign ?
   Mrs. DODD. Yes.
   Mr. MORRIS. What did he do subsequent to that, do you know?
       Mrs. DODD. He went to . Mexico. He was teaching, I think, in Mexico somewhere.
   Senator FERGUSON. From what you relate today as to your activities with the Communist Party, it would indicate that you were quite a power in the Communist Party back in those days; is that correct?
   Mrs. DODD. I served the party well.
   Senator FERGUSON. You served them well?
   Mrs. DODD. Yes—to my detriment.

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   Senator FERGUSON. Did they during those days recognize your service and give you more power and authority ?
   Mrs. DODD. One of the things the Communist Party always does is to flatter people who have the will to activity, and they give him or her greater platforms and more opportunity for leadership.
   Senator FERGUSON. When did they come to the conclusion that you couldn't serve them longer?
   Mrs. DODD. It was a growing realization. After I had joined the party apparatus officially, after I had become an employee of the Communist Party on the inside, almost from the very beginning I recognized that something was wrong, that this wasn't the thing which I had dreamed about, worked for, and which I believed in. That was in 1944.
   Senator FERGUSON. How long were you on their payroll?
   Mrs. DODD. I was on their payroll from the time that I entered in 1944 until the spring of 1946. I at that time asked to be released from work, and the reason for it was that I, within myself, had the growing conviction that there was something wrong here.
   This was the time after the Duclos letter and the convention of 1945, and I began to recognize that this party was not serving the interests of the United States. So, I asked to be released, and they wouldn't release me.
   As a matter of fact, Bill Norman, who was the secretary of the party, said to me: "There is money accumulated; why don't you take it ?"
   I was in desperate need of money, but I told him "No."
   Senator FERGUSON. What was your highest salary with the Communist Party?
   Mrs. DODD. $50 a week.
   Senator FERGUSON. Then it would appear, from the service that you were rendering, that money is not the objective of the Communists?
   Mrs. DODD. It differs with different people. If it wasn't a Communist like myself—there are those who believed the Communist thing was the right thing and, therefore, money didn't matter. You worked 28 hours a day if there were 28 hours, because you thought you were doing the right thing.
   It is this desire to do the right thing that has entangled more people in the Communist movement—this desire to serve mankind, this desire to help make a better world. Those are the slogans which they preach, and it is only after you are in it up to your neck that you discover that this isn't what it is.
   I know that many of my former associates will not believe me, Senator Ferguson; but, if I could only tell them the things which I really saw on the inside, I think perhaps some of them might be disillusioned more rapidly than I was.
   Senator FERGUSON. We will recess until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning.
   Will the witness return at that time?
   Mr. SCHMIDT. On behalf of my client, Senator, I want to compliment this committee for the intelligent and judicial manner of conducting this session.
   (Thereupon, at 4 p. m., the hearing was recessed to reconvene at 10 a. in. Tuesday, September 9, 1952.)

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Click here for testimony of September 9, 1952.

SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1952

UNITED STATES SENATE,
SUBCOMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE, INTERNAL SECURITY ACT AND OTHER INTERNAL SECURITY LAWS OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY,
New York, N. Y.

     The subcommittee met at 10: 30 a. m., pursuant to recess, in room 1305, United States District Court Building, Foley Square, the Honorable Homer Ferguson presiding.
     Present : Senator Ferguson.
     Also present: Robert Morris, subcommittee counsel, and Benjamin Mandel, director of research.

TESTIMONY OF BELLA V. DODD, ACCOMPANIED BY HER COUNSEL, GODFREY P. SCHMIDT—Resumed

     Senator FERGUSON. The committee will come to order.
     Dr. DODD, you have been sworn, and we will continue the examination.
     I wanted to ask some preliminary questions of you.
     About how long would you say it took you to become a Communist?
     Mrs. DODD. I would say that before I became completely committed it took me at least, 3, 4, 5 years.
     Senator FERGUSON. Were you a Socialist prior to being a Communist?
     Mrs. DODD. No; I was not. As a matter of fact, I went directly from a liberal, humanistic Christian to communism.
     Senator FERGUSON. When you went to communism, did you give up your religion?
     Mrs. DODD. I did.
     Senator FERGUSON. Do you think that communism requires a person to surrender his religion and take, as a substitute, communism?
     Mrs. DODD. There is no doubt that the Marxist-Leninist principles are completely materialistic and, therefore, against anything which has to do with God or religion.
     At different times in the history of the Communist Party, they emphasized the fact that it was possible for you to be religious and, at the same time, Communist. But those were the periods in which they were trying to win over larger numbers of, let's say, Catholic trade-unionists, Catholic workers, and so forth and so on. Those

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were the periods which were called the periods of extending the hand of communism to the people in the religious groups.
     What you did was to say substantially this : "These men have a blind spot. They believe in God, but we Communists know that there is no God. But in order to get them to work with us, we will work with them on a minimum program."
     As a matter of fact, even when you were in the Communist Party, the Communist Party from time to time established committees like the—there was a committee on Catholics for Human Rights, which consisted of Communists who had been Catholics, whose purpose it was to work with mass organizations which had a large number of Catholics.
     Substantially, Marxism-Leninism denies that there is any soul; that there is any after life; that there is any God. That is part and parcel of the entire theory.
     Senator FERGUSON. So, in this period when you said you did not carry a card, you were developing your belief in communism?
     Mrs. DODD. Yes; I was.
     Senator FERGUSON. How long would you say that it took you to absolutely break, if you have absolutely broken, with the Communist ideology?
     Mrs. DODD. It is hard to put a limit on when you completely became a Communist and when you completely ended being a Communist.
     All I can say it is a long period. You begin with certain doubts. They become intensified, and then you break. I would say my complete break didn't occur until 1952.
     Senator FERGUSON. 1952—your complete break?
     Mrs. DODD. That is right. There are things which hang on.
     Senator FERGUSON. I noticed in the press this morning there was a statement that you had gone back to your church.
     Mrs. DODD. Yes ; I have.
     Senator FERGUSON. Would you say, at the time you went back to your church, that you consider that the complete break?
     Mrs. DODD. I did not go back to my church until I had made the complete break, and that was on April 7 of this year. I was conditionally rebaptised.
     Senator FERGUSON. One of the reasons why I ask you these questions is that, in hearings on communism in America, the Internal Security Subcommittee has discovered that testimony seems to be of what has happened in the past. It may be that the public does not understand why the committees are not quite up to date, why they are dealing in past rather than in actual present history.
     Now, it takes a person such as you, who has been in communism and one who can give the facts, such a long time to come out of communism that it is almost impossible for us to be what is known as current.
     Can you explain that on the record?
     Mrs. DODD. Let me try.
     Communism is not just a belief in economics or in politics or in foreign affairs; it is not just the support of the Soviet Union. Communism is a whole philosophy of life. It permeates everything that you do. It permeates your family life, your relationship with your friends, your business relationships, the professional relationships It has to do with your own thinking of what the importance of man is.

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     Therefore, if you once build up a philosophy of life and you are living by it and you live by it for a certain number of years and then you make the break, you have to take every phase of your life, every strand of your body practically, and every thought that you have, and you have to reexamine it and reformulate it into a pattern which is understandable.
     Now, many people break with the Communist Party—because the Communist Party has a tremendous turn-over; people come in and go out—but do not find any new philosophy to substitute for it. Therefore, they live as vacuums, and many of them disintegrate. I mean just become morose people, or people who are just lost to a decent living.
     But this whole question of honestly trying to reformulate your philosophy is a long process if you are an honest person.
     Senator FERGUSON. I have one question here. You stated that one time, I am informed, after you had actually been expelled from the party—and, as I understand it, they do expel people who are known to deviate from their party lines—that the Communist Party was very similar to any political party; its only purpose was to get into power.
     Now, after you have broken entirely with the Communist Party, is that a true, accurate statement of what the Communist Party is in America?
     Mrs. DODD. No ; it isn't. The Communist Party in America is a conspiracy. It is both a legal and an extra-legal and an illegal apparatus. It is a mechanism for bringing about the preconditions for a Marxist-Leninist victory in America.
     Senator FERGUSON. Then it is revolutionary and believes in revolution to accomplish its purpose; that is, the overthrow of this Government; is that correct?
     Mrs. DODD. There is no doubt about that. And when the Communist Party issues statements that all it does is to wait for the reactionaries in this country to create the preconditions and to establish violence, and that all they do then is to defend themselves against the violence, that is a complete hoax and a farce.
     Senator FERGUSON. In other words, they believe in the violence and advocate the violence in party circles to actually accomplish the overthrow of a capitalistic government, or a republic such as America ?
     Mrs. DODD. The whole Marxist-Leninist theory is based upon the fact that it is absolutely inevitable that you will have to sweep away the existing system by force and violence.
     May I just add this thing, Senator?
     Senator FERGUSON. Yes.
     Mrs. DODD. In party circles, they don't make that statement publicly. What they say is, "The workers will want more and more rights; and, in order to keep them from getting these rights, the reactionaries will use repression. And at that time the workers will have to rise and take over the police force, the armies, and so forth and so on.
     Senator FERGUSON. By force and violence?
     Mrs. DODD. By force and violence.
     Senator FERGUSON. You stated in the beginning that they some-times compromise with religion. I think, for instance, the evidence in the Internal Security Subcommittee indicates that in the South

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they permit the meetings of the colored people to open with prayer under the same guise. Now, do they ever temporize with one of their principles in order to gain their end ?
     Mrs. DODD. No. This whole question of using ministers or using men of religion to help in many of their causes is just in order to win over more people who are intrenched in the religious life.
     Senator FERGUSON. At the present time they are unalterably opposed to the Smith Act, are they?
     Mrs. DODD. Yes; they are.
     Senator FERGUSON. That is one under which the Communists are being prosecuted?
     Mrs. DODD. That is right.
     Senator FERGUSON. Eleven in this city have been convicted and the Supreme Court has sustained the conviction. At any time have they ever temporized or stated that the Smith Act was of value?
     Mrs. DODD. Well, I remember at one time, back in 1940-41, when a group of Socialists were attempting to introduce resolutions in the various trade-unions against the Smith Act because the Smith Act was being used to prosecute the Trotskyites out in the Middle West, at that time we were instructed–
     Senator FERGUSON. You say "We." Does that mean the Communists?
     Mrs. DODD. The Communist teachers or the Communist representatives in the various trade-unions were instructed not to give any aid or comfort to the passing of the resolutions against the Smith Act.
     Senator FERGUSON. In other words, that would indicate that at that particular time, when Trotskyites were being prosecuted under the Smith Act, the Communists were not asking for the repeal or condemning of the Smith Act; is that correct?
     Mrs. DODD. That is correct.
     Senator FERGUSON. In other words, it would indicate that they felt that the Trotskyites were a greater menace to them than the Smith Act. Is that the principle upon which they operate?
     Mrs. DODD. The principle that they operate on is that they don't go to the assistance of anyone they are deeply opposed to, even though there might be a question of civil rights involved.
     Senator FERGUSON. Do you want to ask some questions, Mr. Morris?
     Mr. MORRIS. I would just like to bring out one point the Senator covered, Dr. Dodd. What was the last date when you had access to Communist Party secrets? Of course, that is a relative term, I suppose, but when were you really, for the last time, in on Communist Party secrets?
     Mrs. DODD. I think the last meeting that I attended was the State convention of the Communist Party in the summer of 1948. I attended because I was a member of the State committee, even though I was persona non grata and even though that convention was a very painful thing for me to attend.
     Mr. MORRIS. Then you say it was 1952 before you really had broke away from the Communist Party completely, where you would in a position where you would tell, for instance, a Senate committ such as this one what transpired behind the closed doors of the Communist conspiracy?
     Mrs. DODD. That is true.

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     Mr. MORRIS. So, what happened between 1948 and 1952, particularly as far as your case is concerned, because of the phenomenon involved, of time required to change from one side to the other, is lost to this committee, at least from your own experience?
     Mrs. DODD. Yes.
     There is one thing I would like to add in that. During that period you are beset by all kinds of fears. You are beset by fears of unpleasant publicity; you are beset by physical fears; you are beset by emotional fears; you are beset by the fact that the old world that you lived in, the friends that you had, are cutting away from you, or have already cut away from you, and you are left alone.
     And there is nothing more devastating than leaving a man or woman alone after having been surrounded or completely fenced in. During that period you have to sink or swim; you have to find some method of rationalizing this thing that has happened to you, or of finding some explanation for it.
     Mr. MORRIS. The question is, Senator, we have to now encounter the problem of what to do about some of the teachers who may be presently in the public-school system here in New York or in the private colleges.
     I think, Mr. Chairman, rather than to go into great detail with this witness here today about individual cases, we have subpenaed the following teachers—they are the first cases that we encountered—to come before this committee, and they are going to be here tomorrow.
So, with your permission, may we defer examining this witness on any question of any individuals at this time, and simply state which teachers are going to be subpenaed for tomorrow?
     Senator FERGUSON. I just want to say on the record that, before any individual is named, I want to make sure that the witness appreciates this. And that is why I asked some of these questions as to whether or not she believes that she can testify to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, with a clear conscience.
     I ask you : Do you believe that you are now, when you have entirely broken with this line of thought, a free agent to testify before your country and your God?
     Mrs. DODD. I am a completely free agent, Senator Ferguson. On this whole question of the teachers, it is a very painful subject for me.
     As I said yesterday, I had a great deal of influence over some of these teachers.
     Senator FERGUSON. And over students, as I understand it.
     Mrs. DODD. And over students.
     And I am responsible for some of them. I am the person who is guilty for some of the things that have happened.
     And I said yesterday again that many of these teachers joined the Communist Party without knowing what they were joining. They joined because they thought it meant freedom of speech, because they thought it meant a fight against discrimination, or a fight for better teaching conditions, or a fight for better conditions for the children,
     Most of the motives by which they joined were good motives.
     I realize now, as I never did before, that what they got into was something which is contrary to any of the principles that they hold, that that is nothing but a cloak which is used for the purpose of really destroying some of these values.

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     Unfortunately, many of the teachers are not convinced of that. myself, might never have been convinced if I hadn't been on the inside of the Communist Party, if I hadn't worked with the apparatus.
     I trust and hope that the boards of education, both in this city and elsewhere, will do everything they possibly can to enable these teachers to disentangle themselves, give them an opportunity to disentangle themselves, without either subjecting them to publicity which is unpleasant, or to reprisals within their chosen profession. I think they should be given a decent opportunity to disentangle themselves, at if they don't, then it seems to me that further action should be take
     Senator FERGUSON. You are of the opinion, are you, that the evil of communism, particularly in the minds of teachers of our youth, is a direct challenge to the security of America?
     Mrs. DODD. I do believe that.
     Senator FERGUSON. And do you believe that many teachers, if they realized, as you do, from the actual operation of communism, that they would disentangle themselves and in every way possible rectify or change their lives and their teachings in order that we might help in the security of America?
     Mrs. DODD. I believe that, Senator Ferguson, and I am grateful to your committee for giving me this opportunity to come forward at tell the story.
     Neither the Communists nor any liberal progressive organizatic has given me the opportunity to present the information I had, because the moment I was expelled from the Communist Party, the Teachers' Union, which I helped to build, and which I was very proud of, dropped me as if I were dead. I never since that time received a copy of their publication.
     Senator FERGUSON. Does not that indicate that it was controlled by the Communist Party?
     Mrs. DODD. That I know.
     But the thing which is more tragic than that is that their own thinking ceased at that particular point. They had known me as a person who had helped the teachers, but they never inquired "What made her change? What was the significant thing that made her change?”
     And at this particular point, what will happen is that they will say, "Well, she just went over to the reactionaries"; which is a very simple way of dismissing a story which needs to be told.
     Senator FERGUSON. Coming back to my question : If you do name people in this hearing, have you a free conscience, have you a clear understanding, that you can tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
     Mrs. DODD. I will do my best to do that, and I think I can.
     Senator FERGUSON. You believe you can?
     Mrs. DODD. Yes.
     Senator FERGUSON. I would not want you to name anyone who, in your deep conscience, you could not name and believe, honestly believe, was as you described him. Do you understand that?
     Mrs. DODD. Yes.
     Mr. MORRIS. Mr. Chairman, may I request that I defer asking that particular witness individual names at this time?
     Mr. George Timone, who is the chairman of the law committee the board of education, has requested an opportunity to appear before

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this committee on behalf of the board of education to tell what particular steps the board has taken to combat the evils that we have been bringing forth in the last few days.
     Now, before we ask this particular witness any individual cases, may we defer that particular aspect of the testimony until after Mr. Timone has given testimony ?
     Senator FERGUSON. Yes.
     I mean this same thing, of course, Dr. Dodd, on all of your testimony, whether it is the name of a person or a description of an act, or any of your testimony.
     It must be on the basis that you are telling the truth with a free conscience and a recognition, as your oath requires, of your country and your God.
     Mrs. DODD. Senator Ferguson, on everything that I testified, I am completely free to testify.
     When it comes to the naming of teachers, I am, of course, reluctant, not because of anything else, but because I feel that the teachers are not aware of what they are doing, and the question is, When must we stop giving them the opportunity of being aware?
     Senator FERGUSON. That is the big problem, and sometimes the over-all good requires testimony at a hearing that normally you would say, "We will pass it over."
     But the over-all good that can be done is the paramount issue, the general welfare of this Nation.
     I know that as you now speak you are going to keep that in mind when you testify.
     Mrs. DODD. I am.
     Senator FERGUSON. All right, you may proceed as you desire, then, on that line, Mr. Morris.
     Mr. MORRIS. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Mandel, our director of research, has compiled, during the last few days, from his research work, a list of activities concerning which this particular witness is on record as participating in. We would like, just as background for the testimony that the witness has given up to date, and rather to present as a symbol and sort of as an example of what work she has been doing through the last 10 years for the Communist Party, we would like to review some of these points at this time, because, Mr. Chairman, I think it is relevant.
     Senator FERGUSON. All right, you may proceed on that line.
     Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, you have been listed as active and a member of the National Council of the American Peace Mobilization. According to Mr. Mandel's research, you were active in that organization in 1940. Will you tell us how your position as legislative representative of the Teachers' Union and the relationship that you had to the Communist Party at that time, how that relationship brought you into the American Peace Mobilization?
     Mrs. DODD. Well, the American Peace Mobilization used a good many professional and literate people for speaking engagements and for writing material for the Peace Mobilization. I was asked to speak at hundreds of meetings of the American Peace Mobilization.
     Genuinely, I believed in peace at that particular time. I believed at that time that the only way to keep America safe and strong was to keep her out of war.
     Mr. MORRIS. Did other teachers participate in that?

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     Mrs. DODD. The teachers we used were, to a very large extent, in the entire peace mobilization movement. I mean practically every union teacher who could speak at all was mobilized and used in her own community.
     And the professors, or the people from the colleges, were used on a city-wide, State-wide, and Nation-wide basis. We were used to testify in Washington; we were used to lead delegations against certain acts, or to lead delegations for certain activities.
     Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, what happened to that organization, the . American Peace Mobilization?
     Mrs. DODD. Well, it had a number of transformations. And finally, when the Soviet Union was attacked in 1941, it was changed to an organization for the support of the war. I mean that was one of the most difficult jumps to make, because people who had come to fight for peace had become almost—they had almost believed in no war at all, under any circumstances.
     They reached the point where the Quakers stood. But with the attack upon the Soviet Union, the course was shifted overnight, and the same chairman who had been chairman of the peace organizations now became the chairman of the war mobilization committee.
     I have forgotten the name that was given to it.
     Senator FERGUSON. So that consideration was being given to the Russian Government or Communist Party?
     Mrs. DODD. There is no doubt in my mind that the entire peace program of the Communist Party of America followed every one of the vagaries of the needs of the Soviet Union and that it shifted as: the Soviet Union's need for peace or for war or for allies shifted.
     Senator FERGUSON. And it was the interest of the Soviet Unions rather than the welfare of America that was controlling the acts of the Communist Party and of this organization; is that right?
     Mrs. DODD. It didn't seem so at first because the emphasis was upon saving our boys from going overseas, saving our boys from being killed.
     But as the thing unfolded, it was the interest of the Soviet Union and the policy of the Soviet Union that set our political policy.
     Senator FERGUSON. Go ahead, Mr. Morris.
     Mr. MORRIS. We have here a committee of Sponsors for the Celebration of Fifteen Years of Birobidjan. You are listed there as a member in 1943. Will you tell us the nature of that activity, Dr. Dodd ?
     Mrs. DODD. As I say, I was listed on hundreds of organizations; and many times I didn't even know I was listed. As a person deeply involved in the Communist movement, someone at headquarters would be assigned to get up a committee for this, that, and the other thing, and they would take up people's names whose names meant something in the mass movements.
     Senator FERGUSON. You do not claim that you then were a particular participant in all of these matters, do you?
     Mrs. DODD. No, I wasn't.
     Senator FERGUSON. And you would not then know of the activity or the person, would you?
     Mrs. DODD. On this particular committee, I never attended a committee meeting. My name appears as one of the sponsors, or one of the committee members, but I never attended a meeting. I don't know anything about it.

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     All they did was put my name down as one of the sponsors.
     Senator FERGUSON. You might know some Communists, but not all?
     Mrs. DODD. That is true.
     Senator FERGUSON. You do not pretend to know all; do you?
     Mrs. DODD. No; I wouldn't pretend to know all.
     Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, you are listed as a speaker at the Greater New York Emergency Conference on Inalienable Rights in 1940. Do you have any particular recollection of that organization?
     Mrs. DODD. Yes, I do. I attended that conference.
     Mr. MORRIS. You are listed as a speaker.
     Mrs. DODD. I spoke at that time,nt that conference.
     Mr. MORRIS. What was the nature of that conference?
     Mrs. DODD. If I remember correctly, it was sort of a precursor of the Civil Rights Congress. Essentially, I think that particular year they emphasized the question of peace.
     Mr. MORRIS. You are here listed as a signer of a statement on behalf of the Joint Committee for Trade Union Rights. What was that committee, Dr. Dodd?
     Mrs. DODD. What year was that?
     Mr. MORRIS. That was in 1940.
     Mrs. DODD. I think that that was a committee which was established for the purpose of promoting the peace program. I am not sure; if I could have something to refresh my recollection—you know a lot of these committees all had similar names and similar objectives, and it is very difficult to remember.
     Mr. MORRIS. Here, Dr. Dodd, you are listed as a sponsor of the Conference on Constitutional Liberties in America. Tell us about that particular activity.
     Mrs. DODD. What year was that?
     Mr. MORRIS. That was in 1939.
     And in 1942, you were a member of the executive committee of the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties.
     Mrs. DODD. I remember the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties. I was active in it, spoke for it, and spoke at some of their panels and discussions. That, too, was one of the organizations, a precursor of the Civil Rights Congress. There were a number of different groups: Congress for Inalienable Rights, the Federation for Constitutional Rights, the old ILD, and all of these were finally merged into the Civil Rights Congress in about 1945, 1946.
     Mr. MORRIS. In 1944, you are listed here as active in the Shappes Defense Committee. Can you tell us what that was ?
     Mrs. DODD. I was chairman of that Schappes Defense Committee. Schappes was a school teacher who had been dropped from the school system because of the Rapp-Coudert committee, was indicted for perjury, and I was chairman of the committee to raise money for his defense and to arrange for his legal defense, and to help support his wife.
     MR. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, did many teachers lose their positions at the time of the Rapp-Coudert investigation?
     Mrs. DODD. Approximately 52.
     Mr. MORRIS. Was a loss of job for them something that was hard on their families?

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     And this, Mr. Chairman, I think is a point that we should really develop as much as possible.
     Senator FERGUSON. If it is what Communists do, I think it is very material.
     Mr. MORRIS. That is right, sir.
     Mrs. DODD. I guess every crisis in one's life is a painful thing for a family. A man loses his job, let's say, at City College or Brooklyn College, or any one of the colleges. It is a dislocation for his family and for his children. At the time of the Rapp-Coudert committee, however, we were well organized to help take care of all who lost their jobs, all who wanted to be taken care of.
     Of course, we didn't go out seeking for it. Anybody who wanted to work with the union, work with the Communist group, could be taken care of. We raised money to support the families. We established the School for Democracy to give these men an opportunity to teach to a wider group of adults rather than to the children in the school system.
     Senator FERGUSON. Was that by the union, or the Communists?
     Mrs. DODD. It was by the union officially. It was the Communist nucleus within the union that was the sponsor of it.
     Most of these 52 men or women who were dropped finally got better jobs than they had previously had. Most of them did better economically than they had in the school system, where the salaries were pretty limited.
     Mr. MORRIS. So, as far as economic detriment is concerned, there was none at all in the individual cases of those who were dropped?
     Mrs. DODD. It was an uneconomic thing, but in a long time they bettered by it.
     Senator FERGUSON. Did you know of any people who were not directly connected with the Communist movement that were dropped because of that hearing?
     Mrs. DODD. I have to go over those names, Senator Ferguson. I don't remember.
     Senator FERGUSON. You do not recall any at the present time?
     Mrs. DODD. No, I do not.
     Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, yesterday you testified that you had no direct connection with the process of indoctrination of children in the classroom. Is there an implication thereby that the Communist Party did not provide for that particular thing, indoctrination of children?
     Mrs. DODD. Well, the Communist Party always was very active in having youth committees, and the youth committees, in addition to politicalizing the youth and having them participate in political life, also brought up certain questions of what was going on in the schools. But the connection was always from the youth leader to someone in the party apparatus who was in charge of youth. I had nothing to do with that.
     In the Teachers' Union as a union we had an educational policies committee, and since the union was dominated by Communists, that is. a promaterialist philosophy of education would be sponsored in the educational policies committee of the teachers' union.
     Senator FERGUSON. And would it then be the policy that any Communist in the schools would carry out that program?
     Mrs. DODD. Generally, yes; as far as he was able to understand ii and put it into effect.

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     Senator FERGUSON. So then you would say that there was a definite plan or program or party line for the education of our youth, would you?
     Mrs. DODD. There was party activity on that question. I can't put my finger on any specific line. It was a materialist line, and it differed at different periods.
     Mr. MORRIS.. Dr. Dodd, in your activities within the Communist Party and on behalf of the teachers' union, did you have any dealings with the Association of Internes [sic] and Medical Students?
     Mrs. DODD. Yes.
     Mr. MORRIS. Will you tell us what the nature of those experiences gas?
     Mrs. DODD. Well, at one time, I mean certain of the group that was organizing the organization came in to see me. I couldn't name their names at this particular moment. I don't feel that I would remember .any of their names even after they came to see me. But they came to see me as a member of the Communist Party to help them, give them some ideas as to how to organize this organization.
     Mr. MORRIS. Mr. Chairman, on these organizations, since they are not directly within the scope of our inquiry, we have not pressed the witness to give us the names of the individuals who are involved in that.
     Senator FERGUSON. But I would like if the record would show and she can state the policy of that particular group of people, and so forth, the principles underlying it.
     Mr. MORRIS. What was the policy, to your knowledge, Dr. Dodd?
     Mrs. DODD. At that time there were two main problems they were interested in. One was the question of medical education, and they were having a problem with many of their young students who were .going abroad, going to Scotland to study, having a hard time getting them back here and getting them accredited here.
     There was a question of establishing a medical education here.
     Then there was a question of salaries for these interns. They were increasing sort of on a trade-union basis, increasing the salaries and working conditions of the interns.
     Mr. MORRIS. Again, to your knowledge, was the Communist Party exploiting those difficulties that existed ?
     Mrs. DODD. There is no doubt in my mind that any organization which the Communist Party helps to establish they may improve the conditions temporarily, but, in the long run, it is intended to attach a new group of people to its chariot to use in the long run for the "inevitable day when you are going to change this Government".
     Mr. MORRIS. To your knowledge, was the past activity of the Communist Party in connection with the Association of Internes and Medical Students such activity?
     Mrs. DODD. Yes.
     Mr. MORRIS. What about the Physicians Forum? Do you know anything about the Physicians Forum?
     Mrs. DODD. The Physicians Forum was also established primarily by the Communist Party.
     Mr. MORRIS. For what purpose?
     Mrs. DODD. Please get me straight. I mean I don't want to imply that everyone who was in the Physicians Forum, or even everyone who was on the organizing committee, was a Communist, but the

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initiative for organizing the Physicians Forum came from the Communist Party, came from the ninth floor, where the national committee of the Communist Party existed.
     Senator FERGUSON. You do not intend to say, do you, in these cases, that all the people connected with the movement were Communists?
     Mrs. DODD. As a matter of fact, there were certain of these organizations where the Communists were in a very small minority, but they were in key positions and placed in such a way that they were able to utilize the organization.
     Senator FERGUSON. With many organizations that Mr. Morris is reading this morning, there is, under the name, an indication of the nature of the movement. What can be better, for instance, than "protection of the inalienable rights of people"?
     How are the people of America going to guard themselves in the future against the Communist penetrating, taking over, or starting and using for their benefit such organizations?
     What is your answer, as a former high Communist official? You helped to take innocent people down the road to communism; you helped them into communism; you converted them to communism, and you say unconsciously they got in. Many of them today, you say you doubt that they actually know what communism is. How are you going to tell the people of America and the world, for that matter, how to avoid this entrapment, this unconscious placing themselves at first into the hands of Communists and later becoming a tool of an international conspiracy to establish a dictator or communism in America by force and violence?
     I think that is one of the big problems. What are you going to say about that?
     Mrs. DODD. I think, first of all, those who are the responsible leaders in America have to take away from the Communists the issues which the Communists utilize.
     You take, for instance, what they have done with the Negro people and the whole question of discrimination. Well, if the responsible leaders of this country handled that problem themselves on a local basis, within their churches, within their social organizations, within politics, the Communists will not have that issue.
     More people have to have a conscience and a passion for improving conditions, who are committed to the principles of a democratic people.
     I think we need to train people also in how to recognize communism, and how they operate. I was very happy to see the National Education Association suggest that courses be given.
     I think that if you had the experience of seeing how the Communists work, you can spot it almost immediately. You spot it during the period of the "united front," and during the period when they are against everything.
     Essentially, no Congress and no Senate can do the job by itself. This is a job that has to be done by all the people and all the organizations.
     Senator FERGUSON. Yesterday you indicated that in your teaching, in your activities, that you had actually enslaved the minds of certain Americans through the educational process, and the evidence seems to indicate that.

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     Now, how are the people going to recognize that their minds are being enslaved, their consciences, and their souls are being enslaved, by Communists in America? How are they going to recognize the enslaver?
     Mrs. DODD. Your committee is doing one of the jobs of explaining to the American public how this thing works. I have a great deal of respect for the work that the committee did in the Institute of Pacific Relations. I don't know how many people read the reports; I did. I learned things there that I didn't know as a Communist. I learned certain things which I had never known. That was a new phase of the Communist conspiracy of which I was not a party to, and I was not aware of.
     I think it is important that that kind of information reach a maxi-mum of the people and that the men in public office be dedicated to putting the facts before the public and letting them know.
     Of course, I don't think anything can be done without the help of God.
     Senator FERGUSON. Do you think it is also an educational process? Mrs. Donn. I think it is an educational process. I think the in-formation has to be available.
      I think that, in addition to everything else, I think we have to get on our knees and pray for help. I don't think we can do it just by our intellect alone.
     I think also America needs to be united. The Communists are -al-ways talking about unity. By heavens, America needs to be united on this question. We are not going to give power into the hands of those who would use the anti-Communist movement to further aggravate the conditions in America, but we've got to unite for an improvement in the conditions and for the defeat of this evil.
     Mr. MORRIS. Mr. Chairman, may I suggest that we defer any further questioning of this witness until we hear from Mr. Timone?
     Senator FERGUSON. Is he here?
     Mr. MORRIS. He is here today.
     Mr. Chairman, the following are the teachers who are being asked to come in here tomorrow afternoon, at 2 o'clock. The names of those teachers are :
     Mr. Louis Relin, Mr. Harold Collins, Mr. Louis Cohen, Mr. Leonard Koegel, Mr. Lou Spindell, Mr. Henry F. Mins, Helen Mins Robbins, Mary Daniman, Florence Waks, and Meyer Case.
     They will be the witnesses who will be here tomorrow afternoon in open session.
      Senator FERGUSON. Will you see that they are notified so that there will be no question of their getting notice?
      Mr. MORRIS. That is right. Most of those teachers have testified in executive session.
      Senator FERGUSON. I appreciate that. But notify them as to the time they are to appear in this courtroom and where it is, so that there will be no question, at 2 o'clock tomorrow.
     Mr. MORRIS. Yes, sir; that shall be done.
     Mr. SCHMIDT. Mr. Chairman, does that mean my client and I can leave for this morning, or do you want us to stay here?
     Senator FERGUSON. I would rather you stay, if you could. I am not requiring you to stay.

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     Mr. MORRIS. Let the record show, Mr. Chairman, that even if Dr. Dodd is not called this morning, that she is to remain available fo future testimony.
     Senator FERGUSON. Yes.
     I would have to, on the record, indicate that the subpena is going ti be continued because I do not want it to appear that we are closing your testimony. There are some loose ends that I feel personally w ought to get information on.
     Mr. MORRIS. Mr. Chairman, the problem we have at this time is t what extent should this committee go into the naming of individua teachers who are Communists, and I think after Mr. Timone speaks for instance, on behalf of the board of education and other interested parties, we can then determine whether or not we are going into individual names in open session.
So will you stand by, Dr. Dodd?
     Mr. SCHMIDT. Thank you very much.
     Senator FERGUSON. I indicated yesterday on this record, Mr. Morris that it is not the desire of the committee to try and tell the boards of education who shall work for them or what they shall teach, or what they shall do in the operation of their schools, but we are glad if the board of education, through any representatives, wants to appear here and testify. We are glad to take their testimony.

Click here for testimony of February 10, 1953.

    TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 1953

    UNITED STATES SENATE,
SUBCOMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE ADMINISTRATION
    OF THE INTERNAL SECURITY ACT AND OTHER INTERNAL
               SECURITY LAWS, OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY,
                                                                   Washington, D. C.

     The subcommittee met at 10: 30 a. m., pursuant to call in room 318 of the Senate Office Building, Senator William E. Jenner (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present : Senators Jenner, Hendrickson, Welker, McCarran, Smith, and Johnston.
Also present : Robert Morris, subcommittee counsel ; and Benjamin, Mandel, director of research.

     The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order.
     Dr. Dodd, do you have any objection to being televised in this hearing or your evidence being broadcast by radio?
     Dr. DODD. No.
     The CHAIRMAN. Will you stand up and be sworn to testify?
     Do you swear that the testimony you will give in this hearing will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
     Dr. DODD. I do.
     The CHAIRMAN. You may be seated.

TESTIMONY OF DR. BELLA V, DODD, NEW YORK CITY, N. Y.

     The CHAIRMAN. Doctor, will you state your full name to the committee?
     Dr. DODD. Bella V. Dodd, D-o-d-d.
     The CHAIRMAN. Where do you reside, Dr. Dodd?
     Dr. DODD. At 317 West 17th Street, New York City.
     The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Morris, counsel for the committee, will proceed with the questioning of the witness.
     Mr. MORRIS. Mr. Chairman, inasmuch as most of the Senators presently on this committee did not attend and were not even on the committee when Dr. Dodd last testified, I would like to review again some of her background so that everyone will be conversant with the witness' background in connection with the evaluation of the testimony.
     The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed.
     Mr. MORRIS. Doctor, what is your present occupation? What are you presently doing?
     Dr. DODD. I am an attorney.
     Mr. MORRIS. You are a practicing attorney now?

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     Dr. DODD. Yes, I am.
     Mr. MORRIS. When did you get your law degree, Dr. Dodd?
     Dr. DODD. 1931.
     Mr. MORRIS. Have you been a schoolteacher?
     Dr. DODD. Yes.
     Mr. MORRIS. Will you tell us the extent of your teaching?
     Dr. DODD. I trained to be a schoolteacher. I took all of my courses for teaching, received my high-school certificate for teaching in New York State, New York City, and I actually taught for a brief time in the city high schools, and then returned to teach in the college from which I graduated in 1926.
     Mr. MORRIS. I see. How long did you teach?
     Dr. DODD. I taught from 1926 until 1938.
     Mr. MORRIS. What subjects did you teach, Dr. Dodd?
     Dr. DODD. I taught political science and economics at the Hunter College of the city of New York.
     Mr. MORRIS. I see. Then did you leave the teaching profession?
     Dr. DODD. I left my teaching profession in order to go into the labor movement, and particularly to work for the teachers' union as its legislative representative.
     Mr. MORRIS. Were you the legislative representative of the teachers' union from 1938 until some subsequent date ?
     Dr. DODD. Actually, the legislative representative of the teachers' union from 1936 until 1944.
     Mr. MORRIS. Was that full-time employment?
     Dr. DODD. From 1938 until 1943 was full-time employment.
     Mr. MORRIS. What happened in 1944, Dr. Dodd ?
     Dr. DODD. In 1943 I agreed to join the Communist Party and to act as an open member of the Communist Party, to represent the Communist Party as legislative representative and to do other work which the Communist Party asked me to do.
     Mr. MORRIS. Up until that time, what had been your relationship to the Communist Party?
     Dr. DODD. I had worked very closely with the Communist Party from the time that I first became interested, in 1932, until the time that I became the legislative representative of the Communist Party in New York City.
     Mr. MORRIS. Will you sketch for the Senators, Dr. Dodd, the background of your being drawn into the general Communist periphery?
     Dr. DODD. As a young person in my high school and college, I was the kind of person who was interested in the underdog. I was interested in people who were suffering. I was interested in people who had problems. What made me that way, I don't know.
     In 1930-31, I went to Europe, and when I was in Europe I became very much aware of what was going on in the Fascist countries. I had a chance to see what happened in Italy and had a chance to see the terror which was developing in Germany at the time.
     I came back in 1932 with a sense of pending disaster, the feeling that fascism and nazism was something which was to be deplored. I saw students on the University of Berlin campus beating each other up. I saw knives, guns, stones being used. I came back in the United States as a confirmed anti-Fascist.

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     One of the first people who met me in New York was a representative of the Communist Party. She came to see me at my home, and she said, "We understand you are an anti-Fascist. Will you join a committee, the Anti-Fascist Literature Committee? Will you join a committee and write some pamphlets for us and raise some money?"
     I agreed to do so.
     Mr. MORRIS. At that time, did she mention the words "Communist Party" at all, Dr. Dodd?
     Dr. DODD. She did. She said she was a member of the Communist Party, and when I agreed to do it she said, "Would you like to get confirmation that the money you raise for antifascism work will be used in that way?" I said, "Yes."
     She took me to see Earl Browder. She took myself and two other ladies from the middle class who agreed to raise money for them, to see Earl Browder. Earl Browder greeted us and said he was glad we were anti-Fascist, and welcomed us to the work of raising money for the anti-Fascist cause.
     Mr. MORRIS. Did the question of your being made a member of the Communist Party at that time come up at all, Dr. Dodd ?
     Dr. DODD. No; but some time thereafter, after I had been functioning with them for a while and after I met the Communists in the school system—I was still teaching in the school system at that time; even though I had a law degree, I had gone back to teaching—therefore, I met the Communists in the school system.
     I raised the question of whether I should or should not belong to the Communists, with this woman, Harriet Silverman. She said, "No, it is not advisable for people like yourself, who are in strategic positions, to become members of the Communist Party, to have a card, or to attend meetings. We will bring literature to you. We will have you attend private meetings. We will instruct you personally."
     Mr. MORRIS. On that, basis, you had gained the confidence of the Communist Party, even though you were not actually a member of that party, is that right, Dr. Dodd?
     Dr. DODD. Yes.
     Mr. MORRIS. Were you entrusted with Communist Party secrets during that period?
     Dr. DODD. From 1935 on, I was invited to Communist Party meetings, secret meetings, and caucus meetings, unit meetings. I was invited wherever the work I was doing, whether it was the A. F. of L. trade-labor council, State federation of labor, or in the American Labor Party, of which I became an active leader, or in the teachers' union of which I became an officer. Wherever the work which I was doing was going to be discussed by the Communists at their meetings, I was invited and I was made part of the movement.
     Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, will you tell us about your work in organizing the teachers of New York at the outset? You started organizing school teachers in New York; did you not?
     Dr. DODD. It just so happened that the college at which I was teaching at that time in the early thirty's, the colleges and the public schools and high schools were feeling the effects of the depression. It was the same, everything, throughout the entire country. There were many discrepancies. There were many evils which had arisen in the colleges as far as tenure was concerned, as

Page 513

far as security, as far as finance was concerned, wages, and so forth and so on. I was distinctly an organizer, and I helped to organize the teachers in my college, the instructors, tutors, the laboratory assistants, and clerks, to improve their economic status.
     As soon as I had begun doing a job there and introducing legislation for helping them, the Communists came to see me. They felt I was a capable organizer. They came to see me and offered help. Of course, anyone who is in the process of organizing or in the midst of a campaign just doesn't ask too many questions. You accept the help. The Communists were always there with me, with information, with materials. Pretty soon they began approaching me about bringing the college teachers into the New York Teachers' Union, which was then affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers.
     Mr. MORRIS. What year was that, Dr. Dodd?
     Dr. DODD. 1935.
     Mr. MORRIS. At that time, was the Teachers' Union, to your knowledge, controlled by the Communist Party?
     Dr. DODD. I will have to answer that this way: At that time, I knew that the American Federation of Teachers was investigating local 5, New York, because the charge had been that they were controlled by the Communists.
     Mr. MORRIS. This is 1935 ?
     Dr. DODD. 1935. As a result of that investigation, because after the investigation was over the American Federation of Teachers did not lift the charter of local 5; what happened was that 700 of the teachers who were anti-Communist withdrew from the union and established a new organization called the Teachers' Guild, but the old Teachers' Union retained the charter and continued to organize.
     Mr. MORRIS. At that time, it therefore became completely in the 1 hands of the Communists; is that right, Dr. Dodd?
     Dr. DODD. The Communists were the leaders, although there were what were called the "splinter groups" also running the union. There was the Lovestoneites at times; there were the Trotskyites; there were Socialists, still in the union. These attempted to bargain for power, but soon, in the next 2 or 3 years, were to leave the union as the Communist control continued to make headway.
     Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, will you tell us what the strength, what the number, what the membership of the Teachers' Union amounted to, at its peak?
     Dr. DODD. The Teachers' Union when I first joined it—when I first began to work for it in 1936—had 1,500 members. By 1938-39, we had reached the number of 11,000.
     Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, I realize that you testified previously about how the Communists controlled that organization, but I wonder if you would tell us very briefly how the Communist Party was able to exercise complete control over 11,000 teachers organized as you have just described it?
     Dr. DODD. The Communist Party in the Teachers' Union was organized very much the same way that it is organized in any other trade union, with this difference: that in addition to controlling it from the union point of view, they also controlled the membership from the ideological point of view.
     Mr. MORRIS. Will you tell us precisely how this control was directed to the teachers in the union from the Communist Party?

Page 514

     Dr. DODD. The Communist Party organized teachers in practically every high school and in most of the elementary schools, and where there were elementary schools. in which we didn't have 3 members, then you would associate 3 or 4 of the public schools together and establish a geographical unit. So you would have a network of units which were called shop units, actually working within the school, and then sending representatives to the county, and then sending representatives to the city.
     From time to time, in order to control the union work, we would have a meeting of all the teachers who were in the Communist Party, or representatives from the various units. This was called fraction. This was a fraction. You see, it was the policy of the Communist Party within the unit.
     By 1938, however, it became unnecessary to have fractions any more because the Communist Party had established its domination over the union. What happened then, we established a coordinating committee, we established a top committee of the union of Communist officers of the union, for the purpose of establishing policy.
     Mr. MORRIS. I wonder, Dr. Dodd, if you would explain to us, using concrete examples, if you possibly can—and by the way, Dr. Dodd, it has been our committee rule here during the educational hearings that if a name comes up for the first time and we have not had an opportunity to call that person in in executive session, we would rather not have the name appear in the public record until that person has an opportunity to come in. I think you know the names that have been mentioned before and those people who have been called in. So if a new name should come up, I wonder if you would recognize our committee rule that we have applied during the educational hearings.
     The CHAIRMAN. And give us the name in private session.
     Mr. MORRIS. And give us the name in private session.
     Dr. DODD. Yes.
     Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, will you give us a concrete example of how a directive of the Communist Party emanating from Communist Party headquarters is translated through channels down into the membership of the Teachers' Union?
     Dr. DODD. There was a slight difference in the different periods, but let us just take 1938, for example. The Communist Party of New York, the New York district, representing the State, would meet and make certain decisions Those decisions would be transmitted to the county organizers; the county organizers then transmitted them to' the various sections of the party. Some of the sections dealt with trade unions and some dealt with geographical units of the party. As far as the teachers were concerned, they were in the trade-union division of the party. So the county organizer would see to it that the leader of the fraction of the Teachers' Union or the leader of the coordinating committee of the Teachers' Union or of the Communist teachers, which really became identical, would get the information. And then what would happen is that they would be discussed by the Communist teachers and they would be carried out.
     Mr. MORRIS. What of the executive committee at that time, Dr. Dodd ? Was that controlled by the Communists?

Page 515

     Dr. DODD. The executive committee of the Teachers' Union always, from the time that I knew it, had a majority of Communists. As a matter of fact, it was deplorably large. We had as many as 80 or 90 percent of the executive board were Communists.
     Mr. MORRIS. When you said "deplorably large," Dr. Dodd, precisely what did you mean by that; deplorable from what point of view?
     Dr. DODD. Deplorably from my point of view now, and certainly deplorably even from their point of view then, because it was Communist, and the teacher who was non-Communist didn't have a chance really of expressing her opinion or of really being heard.
     Mr. MORRIS. Was there a superfluity of Communist Party membership on the board?
     Dr. DODD. There was a great deal of rivalry to get on the executive board, and it was very hard to keep the Communists from wanting to play a leading role.
     Mr. MORRIS. For the sake of our evidence, Dr. Dodd, can you tell us how you knew who the Communists were at that time?
     Dr. DODD. One of the things that we did was, before every executive-board meeting, unless we were absolutely sure that we had no opposition, even where there was no opposition, just for clarity among ourselves, the Communist members of the executive board met together in advance, went over the agenda, decided how to clear away the obstacles, and how to achieve the end which we were trying to achieve.
     Mr. MORRIS. In other words, you caucused before an executive board meeting?
     Dr. DODD. Yes.
     Mr. MORRIS. And only members of the Communist Party were admitted to the caucus?
     Dr. DODD. We caucused not only before executive-board meetings, but before membership meetings.
     Mr. MORRIS. During that period, in connection with school matters you generally shared all the Communist Party secrets at that time, did you not?
     Dr. DODD. I did.
     Mr. MORRIS. You had to by virtue of your position?
     Dr. DODD. Yes.
     Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, will you tell us–
     Dr. DODD. Excuse me, Mr. Morris. When I say "all," all in relation to the union. I never was aware, for instance, of the spy apparatus. I was never aware of that. I was one of the people used by the Communist Party to help control the mass organizations. There are three different levels, you know. There is the party functionary, the person in unions or mass organizations who is just aware of the do-good principles of the Communist Party; and then there is the underground spy apparatus and police apparatus, with which I had nothing to do and knew nothing about. I learned much later that even in my union there were contacts with the teachers on the part of people like J. Peters, who later on I learned was an international spy. I knew him as a mousy little man who was active in the New York County unit of the Communist Party. I did not know him as an international spy, nor did I know his name was Peters. I knew him by the name of Steve Miller.
     Mr. MORRIS. When you say he was an international spy, do you mean he was a Soviet international spy?

Page 516

     Dr. DODD. Yes.
     Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, just one thing in fairness to all the people who were then members of the Teachers' Union. Only a small percentage of these 11,000 teachers in the Teachers' Union were Communists, isn't that so, Doctor?
     Dr. DODD. Oh, yes; only a very small percentage.
     Mr. MORRIS. Would you give us an estimate, an informed estimate, based on your knowledge of the Communist situation and the Communist scene of that time, of approximately how many of those were actually Communist Party members?
     Dr. DODD. At the very peak of the Communist strength among teachers in New York City, we never had more than 1,000.
     Mr. MORRIS. Therefore, of these 11,000 members, no more than 1,000 at any time, to your knowledge based on your actual experience with the situation, were members of the Communist Party?
     Dr. DODD. That is right.
     Mr. MORRIS. However, were the other 10,000 drawn by the instrumentality of the union within the Communist periphery?
     Dr. DODD. Yes, they were.
     Mr. MORRIS. In varying degrees?
     Dr. DODD. In varying degrees, because most of the people came to the union because the union carried on a very militant economic program for the betterment of the school system, for increasing wages. But most of the people were not interested, for instance, in the political resolutions. The Communists were more interested in politicalizing the union than they were in the other economic objectives; but we wouldn't get people to politicalize if we didn't give them certain advantages on the economic front. So the twoworked hand in hand. If a resolution on peace or a resolution against fascism or a resolution on supporting a political party for election were to come up, the Communists would be very much interested in the resolution, but the others might not be interested at all and allow the resolution to be passed by without any opposition.
     Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, will you tell us about your formal entrance into the Communist Party and the circumstances leading up to that?
     Dr. DODD. During the period 1939 to 1941, my union was under great attack by the State legislature. We had the famous Rapp-Coudert investigation of the schools. At that time I felt that the budget cutters, those who were interested in reducing the expenses for the schools, were very active. They had, as a matter of fact, in 1940 cut the State aid to education by 10 percent, and the resolution had been introduced to investigate the administrative processes of education, and attached to that resolution was a proviso to investigate any subversive activities in the New York City public schools.
     During that period I became—of course, the union was under great strain, and the Communist Party was the only organization which came to its assistance. Therefore, what the union did, in fighting 'for decent schools, we did everything we possibly could to protect the Communist teachers and the Communist ideology. By 1942, I was just very friendly, very close to the Communist Party leaders of New York; and in 1943, I was in the State legislature in February of that year, where I testified on the budget. And the chairman of the Communist Party, plus Si Gerson, who was legislative representative of the Com-

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munist Party, Gil Green, State chairman, who has now disappeared from the United States, and Si Gerson, then legislative representative, came to me and said, "Look, we think you made a very good speech, the best speech of the day. We want you to join the Communist Party openly and become a representative for us." They then went on to argue with me that the big danger in America was redbaiting; that in the postwar period there would be cooperation between the Soviet Union and the United States; that the Tehran Conference had provided or would provide the program of unity of England, France Soviet Union, and the United States, the great democracies which were going to run the world. But in order to cement friendship with the great democracies, you had to get rid of the evil of redbaiting ir the United States; and to get rid of the evil of redbaiting you had to have more and more people who understood what communism was go out and say communism is doing good for mankind. They said to me. "We are going to have 30 or 40 trade unionists to join the party openly. Will you be one of the 30 or 40?"
     Since I was a person who felt that you should do what you really believed in, I said "Yes." Since I was following the Communist Party line, accepting their support, I said "Yes."
     I was therefore given a card, assigned to a unit, and began to pay dues and to be a member in an official sense. My name, however, was not announced to the public until the convention of 1944, which was the so-called convention for establishing the Communist Political Association of the United States, which did away with the Communist Party and established the Communist Political Association.
     Mr. MORRIS. Which in effect was virtually the same thing, was it not, Dr. Dodd?
     Dr. DODD. The same people ran it and the same literature, only they were getting ready for this program of the integration of democracies Therefore, in order to avoid embarrassment, they were going to call themselves the Communist Political Association.
     Mr. MORRIS. Then you formally became associated with the Communist Party in 1943 or in 1944?
     Dr. DODD. 1943.
     Mr. MORRIS. What offices did you hold in the Communist Party during the subsequent period?
     Dr. DODD. I was legislative representative for the New York district. I was a member of various committees, like the labor committee, the women's committee, the committee on youth, the committee on education. I was a member of the State committee of the party; I was a member of the secretariat of the New York district, which means the three or four people who sit between each of the executive committee meetings and make decisions day by day. I was a member of the national committee and delegate to the national convention 1944, and—well, 1944.
     Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, what relative position did you hold on the State committee?
     Dr. DODD. Relative?
     Mr. MORRIS. Yes. How did you rank on the State committee?
     Dr. DODD. I was an officer of the district. You had a chairman. I was one of the paid employees who was at the office. I was a member of the secretariat, which means one of the three or four people who sit in the office day by day and make decisions.

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      Mr. MORRIS. By way of qualifying you, Dr. Dodd, I would like to ask you if you, being a member of the secretariat, which is really the controlling body of the State Communist Party organization—you say you were one of the 3 or 4 members of that secretariat. So as such you were able to have access to party organization?
     Dr. DODD. Yes.
     Mr. MORRIS. You were one of the leaders of the New York State Communist Party?
     Dr. DODD. I was.
     Mr. MORRIS. When you were a member of the national committee of the Communist Party, how many members were on the national committee?
     Dr. DODD. In the 1944 convention there were something like between 60 and 70 members of the national committee. There was a certain number openly members, a certain number who were known only by fictitious names, so I am not sure of the exact number. In 1945, after the Duclos convention, there were 55 members of the national committee and I was one of the 55.
     Mr. MORRIS. I see. Your activities were specialized, were they not, Dr. Dodd?
     Dr. DODD. Yes.
     Mr. MORRIS. Will you give us your specialties?
     Dr. DODD. My specialties were the legislative work, education, youth, women's problems, and the organized-labor movement.
     Mr. MORRIS. And things that came within the scope of your knowledge of your work, you were conversant with, were you not?
     Dr. DODD. Yes.
     Mr. MORRIS. And things that generally were not within the scope of that work would, in the ordinary course of things, not come to your attention; is that right?
     Dr. DODD. Sometimes they would, sometimes not.
     Mr. MORRIS. In other words, it would be haphazard whether or not it would?
     Dr. DODD. That is right.
     Mr. MORRIS. Will you tell us how long you remained an official of the Communist Party ?
     Dr. DODD. I suppose I remained a member of the national committee until 1948. I never went to a meeting of the national committee after June of 1947. I refused to go to any more national committee meetings. I did go to a State committee meeting in August of 1948, which was the end of my term of office there.
     Mr. MORRIS. I see. In other words, you had begun to break with the Communist Party by 1947?
     Dr. DODD. I walked into the State office of the Communist Party in 1946, in the fall of 1946, and said that I refused to work for them any longer because what I had seen in the period, particularly 1945 and 1946, made me realize that I was face to face with something which I had never bargained for. I was face to face with brutality, cynicism, and with an organization which said one thing and did another. There within the party I saw things which I did not and could not have seen as a trade-unionist or as a member of a mass organization or as an intellectual or as a person who believed in the welfare of my fellowman. It was only when I got within the sacred precincts of the

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party that I actually saw the things which are abhorrent not only to decent people but to anyone who has any feelings for his fellowman.
     Mr. MORRIS. However, your break with the Communist Party did not become formal until 1949, did it, Dr. Dodd?
     Dr. DODD. It became formal: when they told me you couldn't get out of the Communist Party; you had to be expelled. - So I was expelled on June 19, 1949.
     Mr. MORRIS. Subsequent to that time, however, your thinking and your outlook was such that you would not, for instance, have given testimony before a tribunal such as this committee for . many years later; is that right?
     Dr. DODD. It takes you a long time to become a Communist, and it takes you an equally long time to unbecome a Communist. Your thinking processes become sort of a reflex action. It takes a conscious struggle with yourself and an understanding of what Communism is in order to disentangle yourself.
     Also, you have to find a doctrine, since Communism is an all-embracing philosophy which embraces everything you do, which determines the kind of marriage you have, your relations with your children, your relationship to your community, your relationship with your profession. It decides and makes decisions for you. Once you are out of it you are left in a vacuum. Until you find something which is a comparable all-embracing philosophy, you are going to be at loose ends.
     Mr. MORRIS. You completely left the Communist Party in 1949, and since that time you have been practicing law in New York City; is that right, Dr. Dodd?
     Dr. DODD. Right.
     Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, since you last testified, we have had testimony from a man named John Lautner. Do you know John Lautner?
     Dr. DODD. I did.
     Mr. MORRIS. That a person named Tima Ludins, who was a teacher in the Evander Childs High School in New York City, had been a leader of a move by the Communist Party in late 1949 and early 1950 to organize 500 Communist teachers into an underground, the plan for which had been imported from Europe by the leaders of the Communist Party. Dr. Lautner testified that Miss Ludins was one of the teachers who had aided him in that work.
     Last week this committee brought Miss Ludins down and presented her with that evidence and gave her an opportunity to deny it. Instead of denying it or affirming the evidence, she involked her privilege against incrimination. She said she would not be a witness against herself on that and many other questions.
     I wonder if you could tell us, Dr. Dodd, whether or not you knew Tima Ludins while you were in the Communist organization and the Communist periphery?
     Dr. DODD. Yes, I knew Tima Ludins. She was a teacher. I didn't know her too well. I didn't know her as a teacher. I knew her as a Communist member of the coordinating committee of the Communist teachers of New York City. She represented one of the boroughs, I have forgotten now whether Manhattan or the Bronx. She was one of the 5 or 6 members of the coordinating committee of the Communist Party of teachers.

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     She came into rapid favor after the 1945 convention of the Communist Party. From time to time after I left the Teacher's Union, I would go back to the teachers' coordinating committee to help them with their interparty struggle. There was always some problem going on, some struggles going on, in the rivalries between various Communist leaders which we could not allow to explode publicly. From time to time, when they had problems, I was called back to help them iron out their problems. On one such occasion, I sat in with Tima Ludins and the other members of the Communist coordinating committee of the Teachers' Union.
     Later on, I knew that Tima Ludins had been assigned actually the chairmanship of this coordinating committee of the Communist teachers of New York.
     Mr. MORRIS. So there could be no doubt that she was one of the leading members of the Communist teaching apparatus in New York, to your knowledge?
     Dr. DODD. No doubt.
     Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, during the war, during World War II, could you tell us anything about the attitude of the Communist Party toward service in the armed services?
     Dr. DODD. The Communist Party basically—of course, Marxism-Leninism states that you can't achieve peace as long as there is a capitalist country left. In other words, war and revolution are going to be the fate of man until the Communists have taken over the entire world. But for countries in which they are yet not in power, the general line always is opposition to military training, except at certain periods. During the World War II period when the Soviet Union was attacked, immediately we had to make a change from antimilitary training to a promilitary training. We had to do this with the youth, we had to do it with the teachers, we had to do it with some of our trade union young people. There was discussion on this question because many of the Communists had almost imbibed the pacifist ideology on the question of war. They had run so many picket lines against war during the 1939-41 period.
     Mr. MORRIS. Why was the Communist Party pacifist during. that period?
     Dr. DODD. Because of the Soviet-Nazi pact which was in existence.
     Mr. MORRIS. In other words, because of the alliance of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, the Communist Party in the United States had changed its outlook?
     Dr.DODD. Its policy was almost a pacifist outlook; that is, for the people, the masses, not for the inner circle.
     When 1941 came along, we immediately had to make the turnover to be in favor of military training. At that time I remember a group of young people coming in. They argued about the question of whether we should or should not be for military training. And I remember "Pop" Mindel, who was one of the teachers of the communism school, saying:

     Where else would a Communist get training how to use a gun? If we are going to make revolution, we are going to have to learn how to use a gun. You join the United States Army and learn how to use modern equipment.

     Mr. MORRIS. By that, Dr. Dodd, in addition to having an overall political outlook toward war, the Communists therefore were going to use it for practical purposes?

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     Dr. DODD. Yes.
     Mr. MORRIS. Namely, to train some of their own members? Dr. Donn. Yes.
     Mr. MORRIS. You say "Pop" Mindel made that expression to you?
     Dr. DODD. Yes.
     Mr. MORRIS. He told you it would be a good time for Communists to learn how to use a gun?
     Dr. DODD. That is right.
     Mr. MORRIS. Will you tell us precisely who Mindel is now?
     Dr. DODD. Mr. Mindel was a teacher in the Workers' School. He was one of the trained Marxists who used to give classes in Marxism-Leninism.
     Mr. MORRIS. He was also a defendant in one of the recent trials, was he not?
     Dr. DODD. He was used to train teachers. As a matter of fact, in a number of the national training schools for teachers. You see, when a teacher became a Communist, he immediately had to be indoctrinated, and one of the national training schools for the teachers was run by "Pop" Mindel. I remember visiting the school.
     Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, did Communist teachers therefore accept the general directives of the Communist Party, and did they themselves go into the armed services of the United States during this period?
     Dr. DODD. Yes; they immediately began volunteering for service and cooperating with the war effort to their fullest extent.
     Mr. MORRIS. Do you know, based on your experience with these school teachers, what assignments they ultimately obtained in the armed services of the United States?
     Dr. DODD. I guess it was varied, because it depends upon the branch of service. Many of our teachers did seek to go into the educational division of the Army, the indoctrination course.
     Mr. MORRIS. How do you know that, Dr. Dodd?
     Dr. DODD. From time to time the members would come back and we would discuss the question of what their work was, and they would discuss particularly the indoctrination courses where they were very eager to make the turn for the American soldier in a pro-Soviet fashion. Many of our soldiers were anti-Soviet, despite the fact that the Soviet Union was in the war with us. It was the question of making the turn and establishing the idea that the Soviet Union was a democracy and was, as a matter of fact, the most perfect democracy in the world.
     The purpose of the indoctrination courses was to get as much of that in as possible. Of course, in some places they got a lot in; in some places they had to take little. They were very anxious to get it in.
     Mr. MORRIS. You know this, Dr. Dodd, because of the fact that you knew these particular Communist teachers who did come back and as a matter of fact reported to you at Communist Party headquarters how they were carrying on their own indoctrination courses in their service?
     Dr. DODD. As a matter of fact, no Communist went to the Armed Forces or came out of the Armed Forces without reporting to the party his experience, his work. No man came in on leave without reporting to the party and finding out just what the pitch was.

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     Mr. MORRIS. In the postwar period, in the immediate postwar period, Dr. Dodd, did these Communist teachers participate in any other work? Do you recall the "Bring the boys back home" movement?
     Dr. DODD. Yes. I guess all of us remember the tremendous agitation to bring the boys back home from the Pacific and from Europe. The American mothers wanted their boys home, the boys wanted to come home. We are a nonmilitaristic people. The campaign, however, achieved organized proportions. Those of you who remember reading the papers will remember the almost sitdown strikes there were in the Philippines, in Austria, and Italy; and I at that time, reading the newspapers, remembered the names of some of the leaders and among them were not only some of the trade-union leaders whom I knew as Communists, but also some of the teachers whom I knew as Communists. There is no doubt that we brought the boys home, 14 million men were disbanded, and our Armed Forces were disbanded; and that was the time when Russia marched into Eastern Europe and made her advances in China.
     Mr. MORRIS. You know from your own experience that the Communist Party in America was supplementing that international military movement at that time?
     Dr. DODD. It seemed no doubt in my mind when I saw the names of the people who were leading this struggle.
     Mr. MORRIS. With respect to the names, Dr. Dodd, I ask you there again if you will not mention any of those names at this particular time.
     Dr. Dodd, during this period, you were the legislative specialist for the Communist Party, were you not, generally in the New York area?
     Dr. DODD. Yes.
     Mr. MORRIS. You were their specialist in the field of education, the field of women's work, and labor legislation, is that right?
     Dr. DODD. There were many specialists in women's work. I served on their committees. I did some of that work.
     Mr. MORRIS. As such, you operated from Albany, from New York City, and at times from Washington, is that right, Dr. Dodd?
     Dr. DODD. Right.
     Mr. MORRIS. That was your general sphere of activity at that time?
     Dr. DODD. Yes.
     Mr. MORRIS. I was wondering if you would tell us the Communist network, the hidden network that aided you in your operations at that time. For instance, in the board of education in New York City, did you have secret members of the Communist Party assisting you at that time?
     Dr. DODD. The Communist Party is an organization which is almost a government within a government, so wherever you have an official public organization, you also have Communists therein. The board of education had people who got their jobs through civil service. Among them certainly there were Communists. There were people at the board of education who functioned on various committees like the curriculum committee.
     Mr. MORRIS. In other words—may I just break in there—there were people on the curriculum committee on the board of education who

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were secret members of the Communist Party and whose services were available to you at all times to supplement the work that you were doing?
     Dr. DODD. Services were available; I mean, from time to time information was available from them. Also, there were clerks of the board of education who kept us informed as to what was happening, so we had advance information about what was going on. That is one of the real problems of the Communist underground network, that you never quite know whether your secretary is a Communist or not, whether she is taking material out of your files or not.
     We did have people, both in the board of education and at the various schools, who were Communist clerks, who were clerks and members of the Communist Party.
     Mr. MORRIS. In connection with the clerks, was that a cell or was that individual clerks only?
     Dr. DODD. The clerks were a subdivision of the Teachers' Union and the Communist clerks had their own apparatus.
     Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, in connection with Albany, in the office of the commissioner of education in Albany, did you have members of the Communist Party operating there?
     Dr. DODD. From time to time there were Communists in the State department of education with whom we coordinated and with whom we worked on education questions, and from whom we got material.
     Mr. MORRIS. There were more than one at some times, were there not?
     Dr. DODD. Yes.
     Mr. MORRIS. You did work with these people and these people aided you in the Communist plan that you were working out at that time?
     Dr. DODD. Yes.
     Mr. MORRIS. Mr. Chairman, again we are not pursuing this and asking the witness for the names of those people on open session.
     The CHAIRMAN. They will be given in executive or private session to this committee.
     Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, did some of these secret members of the Communist Party, and particularly schoolteachers, work on the national scene ?
     Dr. DODD. Yes.
     Mr. MORRIS. In other words, did they have assignments in Washington?
     Dr. DODD. Yes.
     Mr. MORRIS. Will you give us briefly your own recollection of the general assignments that some of these secret members of the Communist Party had in Washington? You do not have to give us the exact title. That would tend to identify.
     Dr. DODD. The Communist Party had members in many of the different departments of Government, in many of the legislative offices, in some of the investigating committees.
     Mr. MORRIS. How about the advisory committees to the Executive, the various advisory committees to the Executive in Washington?
     Dr. DODD. Yes; there were a number of the advisory committees to the President of the United States where we had Communists.
    Mr.MORRIS. Members of the Communist Party. operating and aiding you in your work whenever they could be of assistance to you?

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     Dr. DODD. They promoted the Communist Party program in those committees.
     Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, in connection with the general work of Communists in schools and colleges in which the Communists were operating, can you think of any particular teachers who, after an experience in teaching in New York, say, or in the United States, proceeded abroad and continued to do their work abroad?
     Dr. DODD. I knew of a number of American teachers who taught in Moscow.
     Mr. MORRIS. Who were they, Dr. Dodd?
     Dr. DODD. I understand Tima Ludins taught in Moscow for 8 years. She taught English in one of the universities.
     Mr. MORRIS. For how many years?
     Dr. DODD. The testimony seemed to be–
     Mr. MORRIS. No, no. She testified that she was there for a period of a year and one session, I      think.
     Dr. DODD. There were a number of others that I knew who went to school and taught there.
     Mr. MORRIS. How about people like Margaret Schauch?
     Dr. DODD. Professor Schauch was a full professor of linguistics at New York University. She is not teaching in Moscow, but she has gone to the University of Cracow, of Warsaw, teaching at the University of Warsaw, teaching linguistics. She has a sister, Helen Adams Ingfeld, who taught at Hunter College and went to McGill University. I think they are both at the University of Warsaw.
     Mr. MORRIS. They are people that you knew and dealt with personally ; is that right, Dr. Dodd
     Dr. DODD. Of course, it was interesting to note that Dr. Schauch just recently, before the death of Stalin, wrote a very long article in one of the Polish political magazines on the question of linguistics. There had been a struggle on the question of linguistics within the Soviet Union. Finally, Stalin settled the problem between the professors. The professors were fighting among themselves. Margaret Schauch wrote a long article in one of the Polish magazines praising Stalin and indicating that Stalin was, after all, the only person who would be able to make the final decision on the question of linguistics.
     Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, were you an official of the American Labor Party?
     Dr. DODD. I was.
     Mr. MORRIS. Could you tell us what that organization was ?
     Dr. DODD. The American Labor Party is like other political parties. Originally, in 1935, the Communist Party decided that because of the depression they were going to get a lot of influence over working-class people, but unfortunately for them, the working-class people were not ready to go into the Communist Party. Therefore, the decision was made to establish a Farmer-Labor Party. A committee was set up to establish such a Farmer-Labor Party.
     By 1936, however, by 1935 when the election was coming on for Roosevelt in 1936, some of the A. F. of L.1eaders moved into New York and established a Labor Party. The Communists then withdrew their own plans and merged themselves with the Labor Party of New York.

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     Mr. MORRIS. How long did the Communists remain out of power in that particular party ?
     Dr. DODD. They never remained out of power. As a matter of fact, the first year it was run by the A. F. of L. leaders, but the Communists
     Mr. MORRIS. What was the first year, Dr. Dodd?
     Dr. DODD. 1936.
     Mr. MORRIS. When did the Communists begin to come into power?
     Dr. DODD. They moved immediately to take over strategic positions. The Communist Party, whenever it is in a united front with anyone, any other organization, it will move to take power, to take strategic positions. This is no different. They moved to take positions, and a struggle developed between the so-called Social Democrats, the Dubinsky group, the Hillmanite group, and the Communists.
     By 1942 they captured the last of the counties. They captured Brooklyn or Kings County, which was the last of the counties, and then had undisputed control of both the New York City and the State apparatus of the American Labor Party.
     Mr. MORRIS. Were you an official of the American Labor Party at that time?
     Dr. DODD. I was.
     Mr. MORRIS. You know from your position in the American Labor Party and your position in the Communist Party that the control of the American Labor Party at that time was completely Communist control?
     Dr. DODD. I do.
     Mr. MORRIS. How did the Communist Party use the American Labor Party during the subsequent period?
     Dr. DODD. The American Labor Party was very popular, and raised many popular issues. The American Labor Party immediately, because officials like Fiorello LaGuardia and other liberal officials began working with it, was able to poll 400,000, 500,000 votes from time to time. The American Labor Party became the balance of power with-in the State. The Communist Party simply was the nub, the hard core, in that party. It was able to get very special privileges for itself by using its standing within the American Labor Party. In other words, the use of this apparatus of the American Labor Party was useful to the Communist movement.
     Mr. MORRIS. Were the Communist school teachers who were under your general direction and general control integral parts of this American Labor Party?
     Dr. DODD. As a matter of fact, the teachers' union affiliated with the American Labor Party and paid dues to the American Labor Party and became one of the unions that received a great deal of attention in the American Labor Party.
     Mr. MORRIS. Were the teachers themselves important elements in the American Labor Party?
     Dr. DODD. The teachers themselves became important members, in that they had some free time after school and evenings. Also, they were articulate, they were literate, they were able to write leaflets, to hold meetings, to become delegates to conventions, and so forth and so on. The teachers became an important part of the American Labor Party.

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     Mr. MORRIS. And, as such, participated in the general use that the Communist Party made of the American Labor Party?
     Dr. DODD. The American Labor Party thereafter introduced our legislation and went to bat for us with the various Republicans or Democrats in the State leadership to get certain favors for the teachers.
     The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Dodd, you previously testified that the New York Teachers' Union, with a membership of about 11,000, I believe you said,. was completely under the control of the Communist Party. Could you explain to what extent the Communists were able to influence the 11,000 teachers in the union?
     Dr. DODD. We influenced them on political questions. The union, for instance, had a political program at all times. We influenced them on the question of war and peace, the question of the activity against fascism. We could use their power certainly against anyone we wanted to destroy in public life, by using their voting power and using their power to write letters and generally to be articulate.
     Also, the teachers' union had very effective publications in which you had theoretical articles on the method of teaching, the principles of teaching, the philosophy of teaching. Thus, the people who joined the union for economic benefit of course also got the advantage of the Communist theory on education. The question of even the kind of meetings you had, the kind of speakers that you invited, influenced these teachers. Of course, many of them dropped away as the struggle became harder and the Rapp-Coudert committee came into being.
     The CHAIRMAN. Of your own knowledge, what was the peak of the Communist strength among the schoolteachers and college professors of the country?
     Dr. DODD. The peak was about 1,500 members.
     The CHAIRMAN. Did that number include only the Communist Party members?
     Dr. DODD. Those were Communist Party members.
     The CHAIRMAN. There were other "front" members, and so forth, I presume.
     Dr. DODD. In America, for instance, we never had more than maybe 75,000 members of the Communist Party, but there were times when we said there were at least a million people in the United States who had been either in or out of the party, who supported some campaign.
     The CHAIRMAN. Did the Communist strength radiate more extensively than the number of party members you have mentioned?
     Dr. DODD. The strength of an individual in the Communist Party is infinitely greater than the strength of any other single individual. You must not only count noses among Communists, but you must weigh the intensity with which they believe and also the intensity with which they are trained and educated to carry on a campaign. You yourself might believe in something intensively, but if you were a Communist, every 2 weeks you would be reporting to someone and getting instructions from someone. So, therefore, your line didn't waver. Your intensity would multiply manyfold.
     The CHAIRMAN. Where were most of these teachers concentrated?
     Dr. DODD. The East had the large proportion. There were some in Chicago and a small block out in the California area, but the East was the place where you had the large number.

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     Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, in connection with the colleges, you have given us in public session a list of colleges where you had Communist Party units, and in executive session I think the list that you have given us is even more extensive. I wonder if you could tell us precisely how, viewing the thing from the Communist Party headquarters, a unit operating in a particular college would be coordinated with the whole Communist international organization?
     Dr. DODD. A Communist unit on a college campus consisting of anywhere from 3 members to 25, 30, 40, or 50 members, would first of all coordinate themselves. They would have meetings of themselves which would be educational. They would study Marxist theory. They would then be coordinated with the district organizers. Let's choose a neutral State. Let's suppose it was Jersey. The teachers on that college campus would then be contacted by the county organizer of that particular county or by the State organizer, who would keep in touch with them from time to time. One of their members would be reporting to the official of the party from time to time.
In addition to that organizational contact, which meant paying dues and raising money, there was the educational contact. All those representatives of the colleges would then have some contact with the Teachers' Union fraction; that is, the teachers who were Communists. There would be a national fraction set up.
     In addition to that, the Communists in that college who were, let us say, mathematicians, would have contact with the Communist mathematicians from other universities, because they would be meeting in the professional organizations. In other words, the Communist teacher on a college campus would have many ties in with the Communist movement, depending upon the level on which he was operating and the interest which he had.
     Senator WELKER. Dr. Dodd, based upon your experience at Hunter College and your experience in the legislative field on behalf of the Teachers' Union and your entire background, can you tell me whether or not a Communist teacher or a Communist college professor is a free agent in any sense of the word ?
     Dr. DODD. No Communist who knows he is a Communist can be a free agent. He is a soldier in the international army of world communism, and he has a devotion to that principle over and above anything else there may be. It is not like just being an ordinary liberal or an ordinary radical. You are part of an international movement, and you are coordinated with your committees and your organization. You meet at least once every 2 weeks with the people who are the party apparatus. There is no such thing as freedom for a Communist college teacher.
     Senator WELKER. Dr. Dodd, is such a teacher or professor free to pursue the highest ideal of academic freedom and freedom of inquiry?
     Dr. DODD. I will give it to you from two points of view. From the information we have from the Soviet Union and from the satellite countries, certainly we learn that the physicians, biologists, the linguistic professors, were not free to pursue their own inquiry into the truth. They had to accept the Communist Party determination as to what was the truth.

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     Within our own country, we have any number of illustrations of both professors and writers who from time to time have been called up before the control commission because they have either written or spoken or done that which was contrary to the Marxist-Leninist philosophy.
     Senator WELKER. What is this control commission, Dr. Dodd?
     Dr. DODD. The control commission is the internal police of the Communist Party in any country that there is. The control commission is the disciplinary commission. Remember, I said that communism is a government within a government. If I commit an offense against New York City, I get taken to the court and go to jail. If I commit an offense against the Communist movement, either by thought, word, or action, I get brought before the control commission, and there I am tried, to a certain extent, and I am given certain penalties.
     Senator WELKER. And you had that control commission in New York?
     Dr. DODD. We had that control commission on a national basis, in New York and every other State in the Union, every other district.
     Senator WELKER. You had dealings with it from time to time, did you not?
     Dr. DODD. I was called before the control commission on three separate occasions during the time I was struggling with the party from 1945 to 1948.
     Senator WELKER. Dr. Dodd, in your opinion, can any teacher or. professor not influence, either in class or out, students toward or in favor of the purposes of the international Communist movement?
     Dr. DODD. The Communist teacher has a very definite function to perform. He must not only make himself an agent of the class struggle; he must indoctrinate other teachers in the class struggle, and he must see that their students are indoctrinated in the class struggle. That doesn't have to be in four-syllable words. The class struggle means in the classroom that the schools are regarded, for instance, as part of the apparatus of the bourgeois state, and therefore the student is considered to be in rebellion against the bourgeois state. It is the function of the teacher to fan that rebellion and to make the student recognize that only by establishing a Soviet system of government will you be able to be free.
     Senator WELKER. Does he do it more in the classroom or more out of the classroom, or are you able to say ?
     Dr. DODD. It is done both ways. Within the classroom—I would like to read to you, if I may, from a publication called The Communist, the theoretical magazine of the Communist Party.
     The CHAIRMAN. Proceed, Dr. Dodd.
     Senator WELKER. You may proceed.
     Dr. DODD. This was an article written in 1947 at the time when the Teachers' Union was at its peak, at the time when the Communist Party within the schools was at its peak, an article called The Schools and the People's Front, written by a man called Richard Frank.
     Senator WELKER. Who published this document?
          Dr. DODD. Published by the Communist Party, the national committee of the Communist Party. This is its monthly magazine, its theoretical journal.
Senator WELKER. You may proceed to read it.

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     Dr. DODD. This is called, The Schools Are the People's Front.

     That which is most immediately apparent to anyone who studies public education must be the fact that the public-school system is part of the state machinery, and the function of the state machinery being to subjugate the proletarian and the toiling masses in general to the rule of the bourgeoisie, the role of the public-school system cannot be isolated from this general function of the capitalist state.

     You find, for instance, on page 436 it says:

     Because of the economic hardships of their homelife, the majority of the children develop a feeling of hatred for the bourgeois public-school system. This hatred develops that spirit of rebelliousness which is to be found in every public schoolroom.

     Then he goes on to say:

     The rebelliousness of the schoolchildren directed against a part of the state machinery itself is something that Communists cannot afford to ignore. This,, together with their desire for knowledge and social life, must form the starting point for our work among the students in the schools. The problem is rather how to guide and direct that spirit of rebelliousness which already exists.

Then he goes on to say that:

In addition, we must use the YCL to do that.

     Senator WELKER. What is that?
     Dr. DODD. The Young Communist League.

     The Young Communist League must endeavor to raise the spirit of rebellion found among schoolchildren to a level of higher consciousness by educating the student on the basis of their own experience to a realization of the class basis for the oppressive nature of the schools and to a realization of how the school system under a workers' and farmers' government would deal with the immediate problems of the majority of students, imparting to them, with the utmost solicitude for their own interests, that warm and friendly culture of their own class.

     Then on page 439 it says:

     The task of the Communist Party must be first and foremost to arouse the teachers to class consciousness and to organize them into the union.

     Here is one other quotation which I should like to leave with the committee, page 440, talking about the teachers:

     Communist teachers are therefore faced with a tremendous social responsibility. They must consider not merely their own teaching problems, but the problems of the children. They must take advantage of their position without exposing themselves, to give their students to the best of their ability the working-class education.

     Senator WELKER. I think that answers it. Thank you very much, Doctor.
     The CHAIRMAN. Have you concluded your questions?
     Senator WELKER. I have.
     Mr. MORRIS. Were those official Communist instructions that you have read to the committee, carried out during the course of your experience in the Communist Party by yourself and other Communist teachers?
     Dr. DODD. There is no doubt about it. There is no doubt about it. This was the function of a Communist teacher : To create people who would be ready to accept the Communist regime.
     The CHAIRMAN. Senator Smith, do you have any questions?
     Senator SMITH. Yes; 2 or 3.
     Dr. Dodd, while you were working as a Communist in New York City, was there any effort made at the time to purge, I may say, a

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State legislative chairman who had attempted to expose the activities of the Communists and the teachers?
     Dr. DODD. The Communist Party knew how to fight very effectively against anyone who touched the Communist movement. If anyone tried to attack the Communist movement, the Communist Party immediately went among the liberals, among its allies, and on various bases got the support and help of these people to smear and to isolate the person who was hurting Communists.
     Senator SMITH. Can you tell us any more about the efforts that you participated in, particularly in New York State, with respect to one of the legislative chairmen?
     Dr. DODD. Of course, I was responsible for the attack upon Senator Coudert, who had investigated the schools. I made it my business to get as much information about his business affairs—I mean, I was the recipient of much of the information. People came to me with the information. We used that information. Senator Coudert had a firm which had a branch in France, and at that time France was under Petain. We smeared Senator Coudert as a Vichy agent, an agent of the Fascists, and conducted a campaign to defeat him in the election.
     Senator SMITH. Was it not true that many times the Communists in their smear efforts did not hesitate to use false information about a man in public life in order to smear him, to convince even the unsuspecting that he was not all right when he was ?
     Dr. DODD. What we did was—you always took someone who had a germ, just enough factual material, and built the thing up until it became a mountain, and then used it against him.
     Senator SMITH. Everybody now knows that Mr. Coudert is one of the most prominent anti-Communists in America, and has hunted them relentlessly; is that not true?
     Dr. DODD. That is true.
     Senator SMITH. Yet he did become the subject of a great smear campaign put on by the Communists because of his exposure of some of their activities.
     Dr. DODD. That is true.
     Senator SMITH. Was that common in New York State where, as you say, you could get the germ of an idea as to how you could smear a man ?
     Dr. DODD. It was a very common technique. You then used all the facilities which the party had. It had representatives, for instance, in the press, representatives in the magazine world, in the radio world. If everyone is concentrating upon one particular person, you get the cumulative effect of a party working on many different levels.
     Senator SMITH. From your observation and knowledge of the activities of the Communist Party, is there any doubt in your mind but that that same course of action has been followed with respect to congressional leaders who have stood out against the Communist movement?
     Dr. DODD. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that anyone in America who dares to buck the Communist conspiracy is going to receive very rough treatment from the Communists, who learn how, unfortunately, to utilize many unsuspecting people, who think that they are supporting freedom of thought but who in reality are the best protections for the Communist conspiracy.

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     Senator SMITH. Will you tell us, if you can, by using some concrete examples, how the Communist Party instructions are actually transmitted down the line to various teachers that you are using?
     Dr. DODD. It was never just instructions. It was always put on the high plane of theory. A. new line comes out. Take, for instance, the question of military training, which we were discussing before. The Communist Party had been almost pacifist from 1939 to 1941. Came 1941, and we became militantly prowar. That line then was carried into the teachers' fraction. The teachers' fraction then made a decision as to how to implement that, how to carry that out in various branches. The branches then would decide, maybe they would give blood, maybe they would raise money for an ambulance, maybe they would get students of theirs to volunteer for the Army and Navy.
     Then came 1945, and the party line changed again. This time it was against war. In January of 1945, they were for military training. By May of 1945, they were against military training. Then the party teachers would have to change the line and begin to carry out their line within their own branches, not only within their branches but within their mass organizations. A teacher would belong not only to the Communist Party, but she would belong to the Teacher's Union, she would belong to the American Labor Party, she would belong to her own professional organization, she might belong to a high-school teachers' association or a college-teachers' association. Wherever she went, then, she had to carry the Communist line of the day.
     How do you carry a line? If it is in a mass meeting, you offer a resolution. If it is a question of raising money, make a contribution.
     Senator SMITH. Of the 11,000 teachers in the Teachers' Union, I believe you told us there were 1,000 Communists, about 1,000. The other 10,000 were in reality being used by the Communists who had gotten in key positions of control, and without their really realizing or appreciating that they were being used by the Communists?
     Dr. DODD. I think most of them did not know how deep the Communist conspiracy was.
     Senator SMITH. Is that not one of the difficulties we are having in this country today : To convince the better element among the teachers that they sometimes have been victimized by these Communist conspirators and have been used, under the guise of liberalism or something of that sort?
     Dr. DODD. I think the American teachers have a great opportunity in the very difficult time America faces; American teachers who are not Communists have a great opportunity of showing themselves as people who love their country, rather than people who unwittingly cover up a conspiracy against our country.
     Communism is the challenge of our times, and until that challenge is actually met and resolved, nothing else is important. The teachers who talk about freedom, either academic or otherwise, must understand that there will be precious little freedom if this conspiracy is not overcome, or if this world philosophy which seeks to destroy us is not overcome. I think the American teachers are overwhelmingly patriotic. I think they are overwhelmingly real Americans. I think that they are afraid of two things when it comes to the question of congressional investigations: They are afraid (1) that in-

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vestigations may create such hysteria that it will stay the hands of local budget committees, who will deprive the schools of money they need to run themselves. That is a fear I think some of the administrators have. (2) There is a genuine and a healthy respect in America for people who are genuinely independent. There is even a respect for the radical tradition in America. We have had independent radical leaders of America who have made a contribution. No one wants to stop a person from thinking what he wants to.
     The only thing that is important here is how to unearth, how to uncover this conspiracy, how to isolate the Communists. What the Communists have done now is they have gotten control of a large number of well-meaning people and they have isolated the American Government.
     Senator SMITH. Dr. Dodd, I have recently made some efforts to enlist the support of some of the top educators in America in efforts to help this committee, to help it upon a thoroughly sane plane, in order that we might weed out the small group that are influencing and have influenced these activities.
     Do you think it would be possible for us to get the support of men and women high up in the academic world to realize that their institutions have been in danger and to get them to cooperate with us?
     Dr. DODD. I know that this committee has a will todo the job in a way that will make America proud. I think that you can get the cooperation of the leading educators in America if they understand that you are not interested in budget-cutting, if they understand that you are not interested in penalizing or victimizing any particular person, but that you are interested in uncovering conspiracy.
     An argument which is always given to you about investigations is, "Why don't we let the people back home do it?" That is all right if you are just going in to see whether a teacher teaches well or doesn't teach well in a classroom. That is all right if you are just going to investigate curriculum. But the home folks do not have the equipment or the information to uncover this conspiracy. This is material which is away down under. Only a committee which has the subpena power, only a committee which has had experience with the Communist conspiracy, can do it.
      It seems to me if the educators of America realize that this is your sole purpose, you will get the cooperation of the teachers of America, who are basically patriotic, self-sacrificing, and indeed have made a great contribution to this country of ours.
     Senator SMITH. Would not one of the best ways for this committee and any other similar committee to weed out the communistic activities among teachers be to get these outstanding educators to cooperate with us?
     Dr. DODD. I think that is the job the committee has before it. I think it is the job which not only the committee has before it, but the American educators have that job before them. They have to cooperate in this Government of ours.
     Senator SMITH. It would be your feeling, then, that they should be willing, and it would be helpful for them, to give us assistance rather than resistance, as some seem inclined to do?
     Dr. DODD. I think so.
     Senator SMITH. There is one other question I believe I have. When the Communist Party solicits teachers to join, does it reveal its real

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nature, its full nature, and the aims it has ? Does it mention espionage activities, and things of that sort? Does it mention its possible resort to violence to carry out its schemes or plans ?
     Dr. DODD. At different stages of history, the Communist Party will use different approaches in soliciting membership to the party. The period in which the. Communist Party gained its greatest strength in America, the period of the united front, the period from 1935 to 1945, was a period in which the Communist Party held itself forth as the great fighter against fascism. They were the ones who were fighting the brutality, the inhumanity of fascism. It was upon that basis that many people were involved in the Communist Party.
     The second great campaign of the Communist movement was the campaign to proclaim that they were for democracy, and this is the campaign which went on largely through the World War, to make everyone realize that the real democrats of this world were not the members of the Democratic Party here or not the Americans, but the real democrats were the Communists, because they carry democracy from political democracy into economic democracy, so everyone felt, "If I can be as free in my economic life as I am in my political life, that is really my ultimate good."
     Most people do not know what they are joining when they join the Communist Party as a whole. They haven't had a chance to discuss things basically or philosophically. Americans are essentially a nation of "doers." We don't philosophize too much. This is a question of basic philosophy. What they do is to get you to join on the basis of doing. "Will you join a committee against discrimination?" "Will you join a committee to fight fascism?" "Will you join a committee to promote peace?" So we say, "Yes."
     Senator SMITH. Thank you, Dr. Dodd.
     The CHAIRMAN. Senator Johnston, do you have any questions?
     Senator JOHNSTON. I do have.
     Dr. Dodd, from your teaching and your experience, is it your opinion that legislative investigations of Communist activities in the schools and colleges are necessary?
     Dr. DODD. I don't see how you can unearth and uncover the Communist method of operation without investigations which have the subpena power.
     Senator JOHNSTON. In your opinion, can a Communist teacher keep from spreading the communistic influence in the classroom or out of the classroom?
     Dr. DODD. I don't believe that it can.
     Senator JOHNSTON. As a teacher in the Teachers' Union in New York, have you at any time known the Communist teachers there in New York to try to spread their doctrine among the Puerto Rican immigrants in any systematic way or any other immigrants?
     Dr. DODD. The Communists use the race situation in a very effective manner. Since the Communists want to create a sense of fear among people, and a sense of hatred, what they do is to indicate that the majority of the people are against them. They will say to the Puerto Ricans, "The white people are against you," or "The American people are against you."
     They will say that to the Negro person. They will say to the Italian, "The Irish are against you."

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     In other words, they pit one racial group against another. They are constantly talking about minority groups. They forget that in this country we don't have minority groups, this is a country made up of minorities, and that that is the strength of this great country of ours. They utilize this racial situation very effectively.
     Among the Puerto Ricans and among the Negro people particularly, the teachers have worked very hard to improve the schools, but at the same time they have worked very hard to get control of the parents, to organize the parent-teacher's organization, and to guide them and use them for their own ends.
     Senator JOHNSTON. That is all.
     The CHAIRMAN. Senator McCarran, do you have any questions?
     Senator MCCARRAN. Dr. Dodd, I am sorry I came in a little late.
     I.heard you use the term "conspiracy" quite frequently. You have not any doubt in your mind, from your knowledge of the Communist movement in this country, that it is a conspiracy to take over the United States of America?
     Dr. DODD. There is no doubt in my mind at all.
     Senator MCCARRAN. That grows out of your intimate knowledge of the workings of the Communist Party? From that you make the answer that you have just given?
     Dr. DODD. And from political theory.
     Senator MCCARRAN. Doctor, from your observation, is there any more fertile field for the implanting of doctrine for conspiracy than in the minds of the youth?
     Dr. DODD. The youth are a very special target of the Communists. They want youth because the youth are the government of tomorrow. The people of today are pretty well through, as far as they are concerned. They want to indoctrinate, and teach the people with whom they will take over tomorrow.
     Senator MCCARRAN. The youth, when in school, for the hours that he is in school, is removed from the home and the family ties, and the guidance of the home. So the youth during those hours is a subject for the activities of this conspiracy to train the mind of the youth along the lines that would eventually lead to the destruction of our form of government, is that not true?
     Dr. DODD. There is no doubt in my mind that the Communists will use the schools and every other educational medium, whether it be comic books or the radio and television; they will use every educational medium.
     Senator MCCARRAN. They go to every level in the schools, is that not true?
     Dr. DODD. From the nursery school to the universities.
     Senator MCCARRAN. From the primary schools, the grade schools, the high schools, and then into the academies, is that right ?
     Dr. DODD. There is no doubt about that.
     Senator MCCARRAN. To get back at it, Dr. Dodd, the object of this conspiracy and the object of all of this movement in the schools is to build up over a long period of time, if necessary, the tearing down of the American way of life?
     Dr. DODD. To establish a Soviet America.
     Senator MCCARRAN. That is all.
     Senator WELKER. Dr. Dodd, do you know of any teachers who later became full-time Communist Party workers and functionaries?

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     Dr. DODD. Yes; many of the teachers. The teachers were used on many different fronts, and the highest peak that they ever reached was that of becoming a party organizer. I, myself, became a party functionary. The man who organized down in Texas, a man by the name of Green, was a Communist teacher from City College.
     Senator WELKER. Doctor, I will ask you not to give any names of persons not heretofore named by you and not brought before this committee in private session.
     Dr. DODD. He is a public official.
     Senator WELKER. Dr. Dodd, I was very much interested in your statement a moment ago given to the committee counsel about the struggle you had in leaving the Communist movement. Would you elaborate on that a moment, please?
     Dr. DODD. You see, up to 1945, it wasn't hard for a man or woman who had been trained in the atmosphere of American life during the period of 1935 to 1945, to go along with some of the Communists. You were for social security; you were for better schools; you were for all of these things. You were even for the war and for the support of democracy.
     Then came 1945, and we had this letter from Jacques Duclos, the head of the French Communist Party. Essentially what that letter said was, "You American Communists have got to stop talking so much about generalities. You have to get back to the job which you have to do—the job of getting ready to make the Communist revolution."
     At that time in 1945, I, as an American citizen, felt that my country needed to get back on its feet after the war period and reestablish a peacetime atmosphere. I did not feel that my country was ready to make a revolution. I didn't feel that a revolution was necessary. I saw the Communist Party move directly, step by step, to get ready for the change that they expected to make.
     The Communists were a little bit fooled by the fact that they expected an immediate depression right after the war, and out of depression and out of war, with the establishment of chaos, a revolution might be made, or at least the Communists could take advanced positions. The Communist Party internally was waiting for orders from overseas, and there was a great deal of confusion between 1945 and 1947. They said one thing publicly and they did another thing privately.
     I, who had been interested in the building-trades unions, found that they now began to move to destroy the very unions which I had helped to build. For 10 years we had been building unions, and now they moved to destroy them.
     How? They moved, for instance, to take key positions. They moved to take over three key industries. They moved to take over marine completely, by the establishment of the League for Maritime Unity. They moved to take over transport, and they moved to take over communications.
     I watched each step with apprehension. I watched each step with the feeling that something was wrong. I didn't immediately see the whole thing. I didn't see the whole conspiracy immediately. But I saw the individual actions which were wrong.

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     I then tried to get out of the Communist Party, and found it very difficult to get out. By 1947, when Foster came back from Europe, after having consulted with world Communist leaders, he brought with him the plan of how the Communist Party was going to go underground.
     Senator MCCARRAN. Who did you say came back from Europe?
     Dr. DODD. William Z. Foster came back from Europe in the spring of 1947, and we had our national committee meeting in June of 1947. At that time he came before the national committee and made some very drastic recommendations.
     The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Dodd, having been a victim of the Communist conspiracy, what would be your message of warning to the teachers of this Nation on this problem, and to the students of our schools and colleges, and to the Nation as a whole? You having experienced this, what would be your best advice?
     Dr. DODD. I would say that the Communist movement when they see it in the schools and colleges isn't what the Communist movement really is. Had I seen it only on that level, I might not have been able to disentangle myself. It was only when I actually got in the middle of the thing, when I saw the inside of it, that I recognized that there was an instrumentality for destruction of the very thing which we hold most dear. Our Declaration of Independence says that our Government is founded on:

     We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that man is endowed by his Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

     I say to them that to preserve America we must get back to the principles of that Declaration of Independence, and we must hold onto it for dear life. I say to them that they can be proud and happy that they are Americans, and that they must join the cooperative venture which the Government is putting on today, which the trade unions are putting on today, which practically every decent American is putting on today. They must not lag in this. They must join in uncovering this conspiracy. They must not be sentimental about it, because they must remember that if they don't do it now, they are bound to contribute to the destruction of their country.
     Toynbee once said there were19 civilizations since the dawn of history; 16 were destroyed from within.
     Senator SMITH. I was going to ask Dr. Dodd right along that line : A few years ago, Czechoslovakia was probably the purest and the finest democracy on earth, was it not?
     Dr. DODD. Yes.
     Senator SMITH. They had more of the ideal of democracy in actual fact. Today we know that nation is under the dictatorship of the Communist Party.
     Is there any doubt in your mind that we in America might succumb to the same sort of blandishments that they succumbed to unless we are able to break this conspiracy up?
     Dr. DODD. There is no doubt in my mind. I was at the University of Connecticut not long ago, and I was talking to the teachers and students there, and I got some fight in the audience on this whole question ; that we were terrifying the teachers of America.
     I said, "I don't see where we are terrifying anyone. We are just trying to uncover this thing."

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     So after the debate was over, one boy got up and in broken English said, "I came from Czecho. We used to talk just the way you do, but then when we found out the truth it was too late for us."
That was the answer.
     Senator SMITH. Is there any doubt in your mind that violent revolution is the final objective of the Communists, as indicated by their training in the use of firearms and military skill, if that should be indicated as necessary to put across their ideas?
     Dr. DODD. The Marxist-Leninist literature is clear on that point except to those who don't read it. It says you cannot make the turn from capitalism to communism except by war and revolution.
     Senator JOHNSTON. You have attended some of the meetings where they made plans for what they were going to do in the future. Have you ever heard at these meetings, their making plans where the; would say that, "We must really go into this field of teaching in or der that we can train up the young people in how they should live and teach them the communistic doctrine"?
     Dr. DODD. Let me read to you from The Communist, which is again the theoretical magazine, for September 1938, an article written by William Z. Foster, the present chairman of the Communis Party, the real chairman of the Communist Party, the real hard-core Communists. He is giving a lot of credit for having recruited large number of teachers, doctors, dentists, lawyers, engineers, scientists, writers, musicians, artists, actors, et cetera, a large number had joined in 1938. It was the peak of party enrollment, as ; matter of fact. Now he says :

     These middle-class professionals, when equipped with the Leninist-Stalinist training and a genuine Communist outlook, are of great service to the cause a democracy and socialism.

     They always use the word "democracy."
     Then he goes on to say what must be done with these people. He lays down a plan as to how to recruit teachers and professionals. H said:

     In drawing professionals into the party, care should be exercised to selec only those individuals who show by practical work that they definitely understand the party line, are prepared to put it into effect, and especially display a thorough readiness to accept party discipline.

Then he says:

     There must be special attention paid to the Marxist education of the professionals entering the party. This would have the definite goal of thorough communizing their outlook and reorienting their previous intellectual trainin so that its full value may be utilized in a revolutionary sense by our part and the masses.

     Senator JOHNSTON. Then it is true that you have meetings at intervals where the teachers come and where they are indoctrinated in the communistic doctrine?
     Dr. DODD. There is no doubt about it. They are given the Marxist Leninist training. As a matter of fact, most teachers who join hat to go to a school. They are sent to a school to learn how to become Communists.
     Senator JOHNSTON. Is it not true that they also report the success they are making?

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     Dr. DODD. They report both successes and failures, and they are praised and scolded, and they are given new directions as to how to make the change. Where they have failed, they are shown how to get success. Where they have succeeded, they are told to go on and make some more.
     Senator SMITH. Dr. Dodd, I have jotted down a question that I do not know whether you have touched on heretofore in any testimony or not. I am interested in knowing whether or not you have any reaction to this question : Have you made any observations to the effect that those witnesses with whom you may be familiar, who refused to testify, resorting to their privilege under the fifth amendment, are really Communists, that is, insofar as you are familiar with them? Of course, you would not know all the people whom we have investigated and who have testified. W hat has your general observation been?
     Dr. DODD. When the McCarran committee was in New York and we had the investigation, all those who were Communists invoked the fifth amendment. All those who were not either said, "I was a Communist and am no longer," or "I am not a Communist."
     Senator SMITH. I was interested in that.
     Dr. DODD. That is in New York.
     Senator SMITH. I conducted some of those hearings in New York, and I thought that would be your observation, from knowing the people in the party. There is no doubt in your mind that generally as to those who refused to testify, that that is an indication, in most cases at least, of the people you have known who were or had been Communists?
     Dr. DODD. The people who refused to testify have to be disciplined. They have to have a plan of action. A person who is not part of the Communist Party or conspiracy would hardly say, "I am not going to testify," because he would be afraid of what was going to happen to him next. The Communists already have plans for what is going to happen next, if there are any charges; they are ready with lawyers and finances to support them. An individual would hardly take that action on his own.
     Senator SMITH. Then, as I understand, a person who is asked that question and did not respond, but rather, resorted to his privilege under the fifth amendment, might do it because of the danger of party discipline as well as because of the publicity he might get as a Communist?
     Dr. DODD. I am referring just to these hearings, and not to the criminal courts. Criminals frequently invoke the fifth amendment. Let's remember that the fifth amendment was put into our Constitution to protect individuals. It is being used now by a conspiracy to protect the conspiracy, and not individuals.
     Senator MCCARRAN. That is right.
     Mr. MORRIS. Senator Smith, in connection with the question you just asked, on the basis of executive session testimony that we have taken here during this and the preceding series of hearings, we have called in 39 teachers, the majority of whom were college teachers, and we have given them an opportunity to comment and testify on the evidence that we have received in executive session. Thirty-nine of those teachers have invoked their privilege against self-incrimina-

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tion, and all but two of them have been dismissed by their local school authorities or in some cases had previously been dismissed by the school authorities.
     Senator SMITH. One other question, Mr. Chairman.
     Dr. Dodd, from your experience dealing with various groups in New York, is there any doubt in your mind that some of the severe fight made upon the present immigration law has been made by those who wish to have a freer hand to bring to this county men and women whom they could have in their Communist groups?
     Dr. DODD. I can't discuss that question. I am appearing before the Board of Immigration Appeals tomorrow. I prefer not to discuss that.
     Senator SMITH. All right, we will not ask you that question now.
     Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, quite a bit has been stated publicly about. the question of an ex-Communist. I wonder, Dr. Dodd, based on your own experience in the Communist Party and as a lawyer for Communists in that connection, could you tell us what the Communist attitude is toward a sincere, genuine ex-Communist?
     Dr. DODD. It is the same attitude as you have toward anyone who is an apostate, a person who is no longer with you. Everything has to be done to destroy that particular person. What you do is gather information and use it to affect him emotionally, you try to drive him into a breakdown, you try to destroy him economically by making it impossible for him to be employed, and you also destroy his personality as a person.
     For instance, when I was expelled, I might have sued them for a couple of million dollars, because the resolution of expulsion read that I was anti-Negro, anti-Puerto Rican, anti-Semitic, anti-workingclass, and degenerate. I spent 20 years of my life working for the workers. I had given up everything I had held dear to do that work, and suddenly I found myself smeared in the most violent kind of way.
     Mr. MORRIS: What I had in mind when I asked the question, Dr. Dodd, was the fear that the Communists have that the ex-Communists will be a source of evidence and testimony against their conspiracy.
     Dr. DODD. Yes. When this resolution was passed and it was published in the press, of course the Associated Press called me up and asked me what I wanted to say about it. I said, "No comment."
     But a few weeks later I ran into one of these cynical members of the Communist Party who is one of the leaders of the trade-union movement, and I said to him, "So-and-So, how in the name of heaven did you allow a resolution like that to be passed against me? After all, you could just have expelled me."
     He said, "Bella, we had to make it impossible for you ever to have any credence or support from anybody. We had to make it impossible for you ever to rise and talk against us." So that is the method of shattering people so they will not tell what they know.
     As far as I am concerned, it has taken a long time to get the courage to come before you, because I also feared the publicity and the whole question of just getting up before you and saying, "Look, I was a teacher, and I was wrong. I went along with what I thought was the path to freedom, and I have reached the wrong dead end."

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     But as partial reparation for the harm I have done to this country, I think it is my duty to come forth and tell you what I know, because it may help the young people and may help some of the teachers and may help some of our governing people.
     Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, in connection with some of the actual cases that have taken place in the past, you remember Prof. Bernard Grebanier, do you not, and there were other witnesses such as Professor Grebanier, who did testify against the Communist organizations, against the Communist network in colleges, before the State legislature committee in 1941? You recall that, do you not?
     Dr. DODD. Yes; I do.
     Mr. MORRIS. Did the Communist Party conduct an active campaign against that particular source of evidence against you?
     Dr. DODD. Yes. They attempted to destroy the effectiveness of that evidence by attacking the individual, by making all kinds of statements about the individual. By destroying the individual, they hoped to destroy the evidence.
     Mr. MORRIS. What steps did the Communist Party take todisseminate smears against the particular witnesses?
     Dr. DODD. The Communist Party, as I said, is a government within a government. It operates within many different—for instance, if we decided we were going to destroy one of you Senators here in Congress, what we would do, of course, is, first of all, get it published in the Communist press, the Daily Worker, and the Mainstream, New Masses, and whatever other publications the party has. The party then would publish the official attitude.
     The trade-union leaders reading that would understand that is the official attitude, and then, where they had power within the trade-union movement, they would publish it in their newspapers, or, if they were part of the mass organization, they would publish it in the mass organization newspapers.
     Then we had certain contacts with the newspaper world. We had Communist Party members on various newspapers. We would contact them and see to it that they would use the publicity to smear the person.
     We had contacts with the radio world, and we would use them to see that they were smeared.
     We had contact with the intellectual world. We had various committees, professors who could be called upon, or ministers who could be called upon at any time, to adopt a resolution which would be sup-porting the Communist point of view.
     Senator WELKER. Doctor, are you familiar with the committee known as the Committee for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom?
     Dr. DODD. I am.
     Senator WELKER. Has that committee been used to exploit this issue called academic freedom?
     Dr. DODD. The Committee for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom, when I knew it back in 1939, 1940, 1941, was a committee which was intended to get strong support from the college professors on the question of any interference with colleges or any interference in the intellectual life of the various people. In other words, if there was a Rapp-Coudert Committee investigating the schools, this was a method of Mobilizing professional opinion against the investigation.

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     If a certain gentleman in public life was stepping on the toes of the schools or doing something which was deleterious, this committee would then be brought into action, and these various professors would be canvassed to support it, a telegram, or a resolution or some specific action.
     The purpose of that was to get public opinion behind them. For instance, a resolution, let's say, against a Senator here, the resolution would be perhaps prepared by the executive secretary of the committee, it would be read over the telephone to two or three professors who were very sympathetic, and they would sign their names. Then the telegram would go to maybe a thousand professors throughout the United States, asking them to wire collect whether their name could be used to be attached to that telegram. Thus, in three or four days you would be able to have a thousand or 2,000 professors signing a statement which had originated within a very small group. This was done over and over again.
     The professors who signed it very often signed because they didn't know out of what the telegram arose and what were the implications. They read the telegram and it sounded good, and therefore, being fine people, they thought they ought to sign their names to it. That is how, over and over again, you find publicity, free newspaper publicity, given to items of this kind. You wonder what were the resources for doing it. The resources were, first of all, a tightly controlled and well-organized Communist Party; and, secondly, the setting up of these apparatuses which were partly Communist and partly non-Communist.
     Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, will you tell us whether or not the question of academic freedom was ever discussed behind the scenes in the Communist Party as a tactical move?
     Dr. DODD. The question of academic freedom would be discussed every time we had a serious menace to the Communist movement in the schools or in any of the intellectual centers.
For instance, in the various scientific groups when there was a great deal of discussion about biology, the various theories of genetics, that would be discussed here in the United States, how the Communist geneticists might promote the newest theories which had come out of the Soviet Union. It would be discussed among the party as to how it should be done.
     Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, could you tell us how Communist teachers acted to convert the class struggle into reality, as far as schools were concerned?
     Dr. DODD. First of all, you had to give both the students and your fellow teachers an understanding that this country of ours is divided into two contending classes. The Communists will say we are a capitalist country on the verge of decline. Therefore, there are two contending classes, the working class and the bourgeoisie, and they so hate each other that they are unable to work together. They so hate each other they are going to carry on an unmitigated struggle until the bourgeoisie is destroyed and is converted into a social regime.
     The way you have to do that is not only by ideas, but you also have to train people into action. Part of the action that you take is direct action. There is no doubt in my mind that, for instance, when you conducted a mass delegation of 1,000 or 1,500 teachers to Albany and

Page 542

just kind of landed on the poor legislator and you brought students -And brought parents, that was schooling in direct action.
     This, of course, is part of the thing in which you constantly have to politicalize people to take direct action so they will understand the feeling of illegality.
     Mr. MORRIS. Are you prepared to cite any Communist directives and Communist texts on that point, Dr. Dodd?
     Mr. DODD. No; I haven't.
     Senator WELKER. Dr. Dodd, may I ask you another question? What would you say is the principal decoy organization that the Communist Party uses in decoying into the Communist Party a few members, shall I say, of the teaching profession?
     Dr. DODD. It differs at different periods. For instance, during the thirties, the greatest decoy for the American intellectuals was the Committee Against War and Fascism, which later was known as the Peace Mobilization Committee. That was the greatest decoy.
     Senator WELKER. That will decoy not only teachers, but almost any-one else-lawyers, doctors, intellectuals, any other thinking person. I am sorry I interrupted. Will you go ahead, Doctor?
     Dr. DODD. As far as the organizations, of course, unions were one method of decoying the teachers, but this is not to say I am opposed to unions. I am for good unions, because I believe good unions are necessary from time to time to improve the economic conditions of workers. That includes white-collar workers as well as the man who works with his hands. Unions were used because in unions the Communists had already promulgated their poisonous philosophy of class struggle.
     Senator SMITH. The term "human welfare" was frequently used in the name of organizations, was it not, that were decoys?
     Dr. DODD. Yes, especially the question of welfare, the question of discrimination. You take the whole question of economic security. You take the question of freedom. The Communists pervert freedom into freedom from want only. When you talk to a Communist about freedom, he says, "What do you mean by freedom?" He boils it down to freedom from want. Certainly we all want to give people freedom from want, but if you debase freedom as nothing but that, you get into a situation where freedom is meaningless.
     Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, as a teacher at Hunter College, while you were in the Communist periphery did you, as a matter of fact, try to take advantage of your position to slant your teaching in the Communist direction?
     Dr. DODD. All Communist teachers who read the literature of the Communist Party and of the Communist movement cannot help but slant their teaching in that direction. I was a teacher of economics, and of political science, and it was very easy for me to slant my teaching that way. As a matter of fact, I wasn't even conscious of slanting it., That was the way I was thinking, and that was the way I was teaching it, because I had become imbued with the whole philosophy and system of communism.
     Many people will say to you, "That is all right; in political science and economics it is easy to bring in communism," but I have seen communism, the Marxist philosophy, used, for instance, in the teaching of literature. If you are going to teach Milton, teach the poetry

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of Milton, you also teach the background. What happened economically? What happened in the time of Milton? What were the struggles then? Which was the class that was going down; which was the class that was rising? The whole question of teaching the class struggle, teaching the need for a classless society, teaching the fact that there was always an oppressed and an oppressor, becomes the theme of every teacher.
     Senator SMITH. You could do that same thing with literature, such as Milton's Areopagitica. It was very easy to slant that.
     Dr. DODD. Yes, to say nothing of Shakespeare, lots of Shakespeare.
     Mr. MORRIS. You, as a matter of fact, did this yourself, didn't you, Dr. Dodd, and you knew that other teachers did this?
     Dr. DODD. Yes. Communism is a total philosophy. If you believe in it, you live it, you breathe it, you teach it. You can't separate yourself and say, "Now I am a teacher of mathematics; now I am a Communist." You are a total personality with your total philosophy, and you take it with you 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, as long as you believe in that philosophy.
     Senator JOHNSTON. It would be impossible, then, to keep from rubbing a little off on the students you came in contact with.
     Dr. DODD. They wouldn't recognize it as communism; nobody else might recognize it as communism. But there is no doubt in my mind that the Communist teacher teaches the Communist way.
     Senator McCARRAN. When did you say—I was not here if you did say—that you had severed with the Communist Party and Communist activity?
     Dr. DODD. Senator McCarran, there were different stages of my severing my connection with the Communist Party. In 1946, I went in and I turned in the key to my desk and said, "I don't want to stay here any more. I don't want any salary from you." I was being paid $50 a week to be the legislative representative of the New York Communist Party. I couldn't take it any more. I said, "I am going to leave."
     They said to me, "You can't resign. You can only be thrown out, and you can't resign."
     Nothing happened for 3 months, and I said to them at 10 committee meetings, "I will not work for you."
     In 1947, in June of 1947, when Foster came back from Europe, he came to a national-committee meeting, and he actually went through the process of putting on the blackboard how the Communist Party of America was going to go underground, how we were going to divide all our membership into groups of threes.
     I looked at myself and looked at the people around me and said to myself, "Can this be actually so?" I didn't see the need to become an underground apparatus. I felt when I had joined, that I had joined an open radical party in America, but I did not believe I had joined something which was just going to be an underground apparatus. So in 1947 was the last time I went to a national committee meeting.
     By June of 1949, the Communist Party had sufficiently besmirched my name and had given me "the works," as it were, and they proceeded to adopt a resolution to expel me. They told an insignificant incident which happened in east Harlem, where I was living at the time, and they used it as a method of expelling me.

Page 543

     When did I really get myself completely separated ? When I found myself a new philosophy of life, when I found something that I could believe. You can't just live in a vacuum. I had to come to a belief in God in order really to achieve a reintegration of myself as a person, because those who believe in God aren't going to give power over their finer things to a state or dictator. If you don't believe in God, there is a vacuum there, and where the vacuum is, the others will step in to take over.
     Senator MCCARRAN. My question was preliminary to another question which perchance you cannot answer, Dr. Dodd.
     Either before you separated from the Communist Party or since that time, have you had occasion to observe what is known as the "one world" movement ?
     Dr. DODD. Yes; I have.
     Senator MCCARRAN. Have you seen the effects of communism in putting forth that doctrine?
     Dr. DODD. I don't feel that I am sufficiently equipped to answer that question, Senator McCarran.
     Senator WELKER. Dr. Dodd--
     The CHAIRMAN. Did you have a further question, Senator McCarran?
     Senator MCCARRAN. Not right now, thank you.
     Senator WELKER. Dr. Dodd, realizing that only a small percentage of the American teachers are members of the Communist Party, can you tell us whether or not that small percentage of teachers who are members of the Communist Party are encouraged to work in the parent-teacher organizations or associations?
     Dr. DODD. The function of the Communist teacher is to get under his control as many organizations as possible, and one of them was the parent-teacher organization, to move into the parent-teacher organization, for two reasons : (1) to recruit more people for the Communist movement or other organizations which the Communists control, and (2) to help them in the control of some of the school apparatus.
     For instance, if they were discussing the question of methods of teaching, the Communists want to be able to control the parents sufficiently in order to have their point of view adopted. The Communist teachers in New York City did a very effective job among the parent-teacher organizations. I don't mean to say now that the parent-teacher organization of New York is run by Communists. It is not. But within the individual parent-teacher groups, various schools, the Communist teachers always worked with parent-teacher organizations so the teachers could work with the parents, and they concentrated on those areas like Harlem and the East Harlem area. They concentrated upon the Negro sections and the poorer sections where the parents were grateful to the teachers for leading them and teaching them how to become parent-teacher leaders.
     As a matter of fact, in some cases we developed some of these women to such a high degree that they became members of the American Labor Party and some of them even ran for public office after having been trained by the teachers. The teachers were very assiduous in developing the parent-teacher movement.
     The CHAIRMAN. Any further questions ? It is getting close to recess time.

Page 545

     Senator JOHNSTON. From your statement here, the way the Communist Party works is to try to go along with popular things; is that true?
     Dr. DODD. Yes. They put their finger on the pulse of mankind. Whatever is popular at the moment is what they do.
     Senator JOHNSTON. They plan for things that they think might happen in the future?
     Dr. DODD. That is right.
     Senator JOHNSTON. For instance, they were planning ahead when they thought a depression was coming after the war, and they were making plans how they would move in if that depression did develop.
     Dr. DODD. As a matter of fact, a great controversy developed between two economists in the Soviet Union about the American depression. One of them got purged because the depression didn't take place. They made real plans for what they would do in the event of that depression.
     The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Dodd, in behalf of the committee, I want to thank you for appearing before us this morning and being so candid and so forthright in your testimony. You have done a courageous thing. It has been of great assistance to the committee. On the basis of your open testimony and also the testimony that you have given us in executive session or private session, we intend to go forward with the investigation of the Communists in our schools in this country. I thank you very much, Doctor.
     We stand in recess until 2 o'clock tomorrow afternoon.

(Whereupon, at 12: 25 p. m., the hearing was recessed until 2 p. m,. Wednesday, March 11, 1953.)

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December 31, 2009

TESTIMONY BY DATE

Monday, September 8, 1952, Bella V. Dodd, former Teachers Union official.
     Expelled from the Communist Party in 1949, Dodd was a willing witness.
Tuesday, September 9., 1952, Bella V. Dodd.
Tuesday, September 9, 1952, George A. Timone, Board of Education.
     He defended the BE's behavior and practices.
Wednesday, September 10, 1952, George A. Timone.
      He asked to testify about new information
Tuesday, March 10, 1953, Bella V. Dodd.
Wednesday, September 24, 1952, Frederic Ewen, English Department.
He retired the day before his testimony and took the Fifth Amendment.
Wednesday, September 24, 1952, Harry Slochower, German Department.
       He took the fifth amendment.
Thursday, September 25, 1952, Harry G. Albaum, Biology Department.
     He was a willing witness who admitted having been a member of the Communist Party.
Tuesday, February 10, 1953, Joseph Bressler, Health and Physical Education Department
     He took the Fifth Amendment.
Tuesday, February 24, 1953, Elton Gustafson, Health and Physical Education Department.
He took the fifth amendment.
Tuesday, February 24, 1953, Murray Young, , English Department.
   He took the fifth amendment.
Tuesday, February 24, 1953, Charles Hendley, former president of the Teachers Union.
He finally takes the fifth amendment.
Wednesday, March 11, 1953, Harry D. Gideonse, President, Brooklyn College.
He vehemently denounced Communism/Communists.
April 1, 1953, Irving Goldman, formerly in Anthropology Department.
     No teaching at Sarah Lawrence, he admitted to being a Communist but refused to name names.
Wednesday, April 8, 1953, Howard Selsam, formerly in the Philosophy Department.
He took the fifth amendment.
Thursday, April 23, 1953, Alex Benjamin Novikoff, formerly in Chemistry Department.
Now teaching at the University of Verment College of Medicine, he took the fifth amendment.
Wednesday, June 17, 1953, Joseph B. Cavallaro, Member of the Board of Higher Education.
     He introduced resolutions and by-laws adopted by the BHE on communism and cooperating with investigative committees.
Monday, October 13, 1953, Melba Phillips, Mechanics and Physical Science Department.
        She took the fifth amendment.
Monday, October 13, 1952 , Sara Riedman, Biology Department.
        She took the fifth amendment.

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Monday, November 25, 2013

Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, 1952-53

TESTIMONY BY DATE

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