Those were all mentioned as having attended Communist meetings. with Mrs. Williams. And I also refer to and ask you if you knowMrs. Elizabeth Winston Todd, formerly Mrs. Kenneth Malcolm known as Pat Todd now. Did you ever know her?

Mr. LILIENTHAL. No.

Senator MCKELLAR. Did you ever read her testimony?
Mr. LILIENTHAL. No, I didn't.

Senator MCKELLAR. When they were examining un-American activities in your establishment, known as the TVA, is it not true that Mrs. Todd testified in that case, and mentioned the following, saying that she had seen them in Communist meetings: Frank D. Alexander; Melvin Siegel; Herbert S. Marks; Nelson Travis Barr; Mr. Niehoff; R. O.-I do not know what the R. O. is; F. Woods Beckman; Louis F. Krainock; Bernard Frank; and Harry C. Bauer. Mr. LILIENTHAL. The Senator asked me a little while ago what I meant by the hazards in abandoning the traditional safeguards of the rights of individuals, among which perhaps the greatest is the right to his good name and the right not to be besmirched by statements that are not verified.

And I may say that there are many historical precedents of that very thing, from the days of the Salem witchcraft, alien sedition laws, and other landmarks of history, that the process in which the Senator is now indulging, if I may say so now, without any personal disrespect at all, is the very sort of thing I had in mind.

These are the unsubstantiated statements of people whose credibility has not been established against people who are not here to defend themselves. These were the things for which the Bill of Rights, and a long period of history, and which many men have died to defend these were the things that we were talking about, and that we talk about in our Fourth of July speeches. These are not fair procedures. That is what I was talking about, Senator.

Let me say this further: That the Dies committee itself recognized this and did have a hearing. It was not a judicial hearing, but it was a hearing before men of some legal background and training and understanding of these matters. And I understand that the chairman in charge of that investigation is to be here.

The CHAIRMAN. I may say, Mr. Lilienthal, and for the record, that Mr. Starnes notified us this morning that if the weather will permit, he will be here tomorrow. And if not, he will be here as soon as he can get here. And he will stay until his testimony is presented. Mr. LILIENTHAL. I would like to suggest to the chairman that I am here without anything more than the ability to suggest that the continual dragging of the names of these people before the committee and through the press is the thing that seems to me as un-American as almost any of the things the committee to root out un-American activities had in mind, and Mr. Starnes, who is a stalwart believer in Americanism, will be here, and will be able to advise the committee without any more of this repetition of these charges.

And he can indicate what the testimony was and what his conclusions were. And that would seem to be the part of fairness. The CHAIRMAN. I may say, Mr. Lilienthal, that public office, whether it is appointive or whether it is elective, as we all know, is

an arduous and sometimes a dissatisfying procedure. Nevertheless, it is the American custom and the American tradition that when men or women set themselves for public office, either appointive or elective, the pitiless light of often inaccurate and usually burdensome publicity is turned on them.

And the Senate, in its traditions, and in its, I think, sound practical procedure-not often speedy-in its traditions, now remains probably the only free, open, unlimited forum in this world of ours.

I know of no other comparable freedom. Even at the point of being burdensome, and whether I agree with questions that are asked in committee meetings or not, I am prepared to defend quite a wide latitude of examination on the part of the Senators who are going to have to vote on this matter.

I will say this to you as a witness: That I might not ask all the questions, or in the manner that the Senator is asking; and he might not ask questions in the manner that I would. But he is a Member of the Senate. This committee is only a convenient arm of the Senate for the purpose of trying to pass upon some preliminary recommendation. And questioning may be somewhat lengthy, but I see no other course in the interests of full satisfaction than to go through with the matter. And I don't like to curtail the line of questions, or attempt to, of any member of the committee, nor of a Member of the Senate, who has always had that right, at any committee meeting, of interrogating any witness whether he is a member of the committee or not. I merely want to express my views on that.

We will have Mr. Starnes here, I hope, tomorrow, and we can get his views on some of these things.

Senator MCKELLAR. I certainly hope we can have him. And by the way, since we have interrupted this to this extent, I wrote the chairman a letter this morning and asked him to have summoned five witnesses. And the chairman will get the letter during the day. The first of those is Mr. Smith of Knoxville. The next is Mr. Barker of Knoxville. The third is Mr. Bolt of Knoxville. The fourth is Mr. Comer of Knoxville. And I want also to have Dr. A. E. Morgan, former head of the TVA, summoned from Antioch, Ohio-I believe it is Antioch or very close to there so that we can have the facts and the committee can have them all before them.

And I think they will be very enlightening.

Senator BRICKER. The address is Yellow Springs.

Senator MCKELLAR. The Senator from Ohio is correct.

The CHAIRMAN. I presume I will receive the letter this afternoon. I have not received it yet.

Senator MCKELLAR. It will be in your office sometime today. The time is immaterial to me whenever the committee is ready for it. I believe I asked you about your knowledge of the letter written by Henry C. Hart to Robert F. Hall, did I not?

Mr. LILIENTHAL. No, Senator.

Senator MCKELLAR. I want to read you that letter. Did you ever see that letter?

Mr. LILIENTHAL. No, I didn't.

Senator MCKELLAR. Well, here it is:

P. O. Box 1604, Knoxville, Tenn., January 31, 1939.

And incidentally that box is held by an employee of your office, Lucy-somebody, which is in the record here.

Mr. ROBERT F. HALL,

Secretary, Communist Party.

It is addressed to another post-office box, 1871, Birmingham, Ala. DEAR COMRADE ROB: We have had signal success in our latest undertaking to purge the TVA of a reactionary-bourgeois supervisor who stood in our way and prevented the expansion of the party control of the employees organization. He was antilabor and his point of view was so repugnant to our ideals that we determined to get rid of him, as further argument seemed definitely hopeless.

We must explain that under the employee relationship policy of the TVA, we were confronted with certain definite obstacles. We presume of course, that the oral reports to you from Comrade Laurent Frantz have covered this in detail. The move was accomplished through the party fraction on the files shop committee of the Knoxville lodge of the UFW, it now having been 2 years since we were overwhelmingly victorious in throwing the AFGE bodily into the UFW in a clever maneuver in 1937, the details of which we assume you heard from Comrades Ted Wellman and Kenneth Malcolm, at the time it occurred.

Comrade John Frantz was selected to bring the charges and was aided magnificently by Comrades Cameron, Miller, Urban, and another comrade whose name will not be mentioned here because of the high position he occupies, but you doubtless know of whom we speak. I, myself, did some work on the matter, but the credit goes to those named above and below.

The skunk, who was the object of our efforts, was James L. Smith, chief of the central files. We took unusual precautions to insure that once we brought the charges, that we could make them stick all along the line and this, of course, involved considerable groundwork.

But Comrade Abercrombie of the Norris branch and Chairman Borah of the Knoxville TVA branch did a wonderful job of persuasion and were especially diligent and at the same time properly secretive, so as to accomplish the desired end, without disclosing the ultimate and basic objective, to all of whom they had to contact, in order to insure that Smith would receive only a cool reception and no encouragement in his fight against our charges.

Many meetings and conferences had to be held and it was also necessary to consult with Comrades Wellman and Crouch several times on matters of strategy and policy.

In the end we were successful, because today, the 31st, Gordon Clapp, director of personnel, signed a previously prepared finding that Smith must be and is removed as head of the central files. Smith is now expected to resign since he has made only a very feeble attempt to defend himself. It is, of course, highly gratifying to know that the party here is just beginning to realize the strength of organization and we should be able to expand the party and obtain additional recruits on the fine showing we have made in the Smith case.

All the comrades in the TVA and Norris branches send you and Comrade Taylor our best regards and wishes for future success.

HENRY C. HART, Assistant Chairman.

P. S.-We received your urgent request regarding distribution of extra bundles of the Daily Worker in the TVA office and this matter will receive immediate attention. The best means of distribution which we have employed so far is to put the DW in another paper and deliver it with a nod to the member.

You say you never saw that letter?

Mr. LILIENTHAL. No.

Senator MCKELLAR. In order to refresh your mind, Mr. Lilienthal, is it not true that that letter was first published in 1942 or 1943 in the Knoxville Journal, the leading Republican paper of our State and one of the leading papers of the country? That letter was first published then. And Mr. Clapp immediately got in touch with Mr. Hart and got an affidavit from him, and Mr. Clapp testified down

before the other committee that when he got that affidavit he conferred with you about it. That affidavit was dated July the 9th. That does not refresh your memory about it? Mr. LILIENTHAL. No, if Mr. Clapp says he that his statement, then he did, and I did. lection of it.

conferred with me, if But I have no recol

Senator MCKELLAR. You have no recollection of it.

Now, is it not true that after the time that affidavit was procured, as aforesaid, in which Mr. Hart made between two and three pages of explanations, telling all these intimate details that occurred on that very day, and is it not true that after you got the affidavit you did not publish it at all?

Mr. LILIENTHAL. I have no recollection of any of these things.

Senator MCKELLAR. Did you see in the Knoxville Sentinel a few days afterward and I think on July the 19th-this is subject to correction; it may have been a day or two one way or the otheron July the 19th?

Mr. LILIENTHAL. What year is that, Senator?

Senator MCKELLAR. 1943. That the Sentinel published an article stating that they had gone to the Dies committee-and I will read that much of it:

Washington, July 26

I was 6 days wrong—

That the Dies committee did find 55 Communist Party members in their investigation of this TVA area 6 years ago, was verified today by Robert Stripling, chief of the Dies staff.

I want to have Mr. Stripling summoned as a witness to testify in that matter, and I would add him to that list.

I will read again:

"We did not make the names public, but certainly expected TVA to see that Communists were purged from its staff;" Mr. Stripling said. Instead, the committee files contain a letter from Henry C. Guyon, Jr., TVA personnel employee, claiming that the Communists were instrumental in getting James L. Smith, native Knoxvillian, fired from TVA. Mr. Smith now heads the Knox County

Ration Board.

Now, I will ask the committee to allow both this letter and the Knoxville Journal article and the Knoxville Sentinel article to be published in the record.

The CHAIRMAN. They may go in.

(The letter and articles referred to are "Exhibits Nos. 2, 3, 4, and 5, and will be found in the appendix at pp. 835-837.)

Senator MCKELLAR. I am going to take the liberty of doing another thing. Before the other committee, there was this explanation and repudiation by Mr. Hart of this letter first read and sent to one of the leading Communists of the country, who is now, incidentally, the representative of the Daily Worker here in Washington.

And he may be in this audience; I do not know. I have been asking audiences down there if he was there, and we have not found him yet. But if he is here, I would be glad if he would stand up. I would like to see him and hear him.

All right. I would like to put that unpublished affidavit that was brought to the other committee for some purpose by Mr. Clapp, and I would like for that to go into the record at this point, Mr. Chairman. The CHAIRMAN. It may go in.

(The affidavit referred to is as follows:)

AFFIDAVIT OF HENRY C. HART, EMPLOYEE OF TVA

Attached to this affidavit are pages one and three of the Calvacade Section of the Knoxville Journal of June 27, 1943. The attached pages contain falsehoods concerning me which I wish hereby to protest, deny, and correct. The statements which follow concern the most important of these falsehoods:

1. On the first page of this section, there appears what purports to be a reprint of a letter signed by Henry C. Hart and addressed to Robert F. Hall. I never wrote or signed such a letter. If such a letter does exist signed with my name, it is a forgery.

2. The letter is dated January 31, 1939. It is signed "Henry C. Hart, Asst. Chr." and addressed “Dear Comrade Rob." It pretends to speak for "All the comrades in the TVA and Norris branches." I was not a member of the Communist Party on January 31, 1939, and I was never assistant chairman of any Communist branch or organization. I joined the Communist Party in the summer of 1937 when I was 20 years old. I resigned in January 1939, when I saw the Communist Party in its true light. I have never belonged to or assisted the Communist Party since. I oppose the Communist Party, its principles, and the ways in which it works.

3. The letter, dated January 31, 1939, ascribes to me full knowledge of the case leading to the resignation of James L. Smith. I was not connected with that case in any way. I knew nothing about the decision which was signed on January 31, 1939, until it was made available to all employees in the February issue of the White Collar, publication of the United Federal Workers. During the hearings concerning Mr. Smith and at the time of the decision I was employed as Personnel Clerk in the Workmen's Examination Section of the Personnel Department, entirely removed from any official or informal contact with the case of James L. Smith.

After reading the Journal article, I have taken occasion to look over the record of this case. It shows that a grievance was brought by subordinates of Mr. Smith in the Central Files on the grounds that he had conclusively failed to apply the TVA Employee Relationship Policy in dealing with them. While I was a mem ber of the communist party it took absolutely no part in this grievance case, overtly or covertly.

4. The letter refers to "Comrade John Frantz * * Comrades Cameron, Miller, Urban and another Comrade whose name will not be mentioned here because of the high position he occupies." This is a direct implication that the men in TVA associated with the James L. Smith case or the United Federal Workers and bearing these names were communists. As I stated under oath before the Dies Committee, no TVA employee bearing any of these names was then or at any other time a member of the communist party. I know positively from the fact that I had several arguments on matters of international and economic policy with John M. Frantz, Hugh W. Urban, and Kenneth D. Cameron during 1938 that they did not endorse or sympathize with the communist "line." It is not clear who is meant in the letter by "Comrade Miller." During my membership in the communist party there was never any member of the communist party in TVA named Miller. After consulting the then President of the United Federal Workers and the record of the Smith case, I find that no "Miller" was connected with the Smith case. To my knowledge, and as far as the published record of the Dies Committee investigation discloses, there was never any member of the communist party in TVA in any "high position."

5. Neither "Comrade Abercrombie" nor "Chairman Borah" had anything whatever to do with the case against Mr. Smith.

6. As stated in my testimony before the Dies Committee, no copies of the Daily Worker or any other publication of the communist party was distributed "in the TVA offices" by me or by the communist party in Knoxville.

7. On the face of it, the letter appears suspicious because it conveniently asserts so many facts which would, if it were genuine, be damaging documentary evidence against the author and the others named in it, as well as the United Federal Workers and the TVA. I never wrote any such letter, but if I had, I would never have addressed it to the secretary of another district of the communist party. Moreover, I would never have addressed as "Dear Comrade Rob" a man I never saw or communicated with in any way.