Senator MCKELLAR. To continue:

HENRY C. HART, Assistant Chairman. P. S.-We received your urgent request regarding distribution of extra bundles of the Daily Worker

I have been trying to find Mr. Robert Hall, who I am told is now the representative of the Daily Worker, the Communist paper here in Washington, but he has not appeared. If he is in the room, will he hold up his hand? I suppose he is not in the room.

Mr. STARNES. For many years, Senator, this man Hall was secretary of the party in Alabama. He was in Birmingham. Senator MCKELLAR. Yes, sir.

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

Now, if you had seen that letter-you say you didn't see it?
Mr. STARNES. No, sir.

Senator MCKELLAR. If you had seen it, would you not have thought that that was worth investigating at the time?

Mr. STARNES. Well, certainly I would.

Senator MCKELLAR. And I want to say that when this letter was introduced the other day, over in the other committee, hearing the Clapp case, Mr. Clapp introduced an affidavit saying that the letter was evidently a forgery and that he had not signed any such letter. Well, how anybody but a comrade in the TVA could have signed a letter like that-the letter shows on its face that it would have been impossible for anybody else to have written a letter like that. Do you not think so? It appears on its face, there, to tell the most intimate details of what the Communist Party was doing on the 31st of January 1939, does it not?

Mr. STARNES. Granting what you say would be true, Senator, and not passing at all upon the authenticity of such a letter, I repeat that no such letter was brought to our attention in 1940 while we were conducting the investigation. If Mr. Smith and Mr. Barker knew of its existence at the time, neither of them brought it to my attention or to that of the committee.

I have never seen such a letter, and my first knowledge of it, as I told you a moment ago, was when it was published in this Sunday section of our daily papers in the summer of 1943, when it did come to my attention for the first time. And at that time, if I recall correctly, Mr. Barker was in the valley area investigating the Federal Communications Commission activities, under the guidance of Mr. Cox. Senator MCKELLAR. And he found the letter, did he not?

Mr. STARNES. That is the story, as I understand it, that Mr. Barker tells. I have never discussed it with him, Senator. He has never called it to my attention, and I never discussed it with him. Senator MCKELLAR. But you know Mr. Barker well enough to know

Mr. STARNES. I think if he had been in possession of the letter at the time that I conducted the investigation, he would have brought it to my attention, and I certainly would have turned that over-had the authenticity of it been denied to the FBI and the postal service to help us check it.

98078-47-14

Senator MCKELLAR. The hearing was July the 26th, 1940, and the letter is dated January the 31, 1939.

Mr. STARNES. And came to light in a newspaper article in the summer of 1943.

Senator MCKELLAR. Yes, sir; that is correct. Did it not come to light in the Knoxville Journal first? And then they took this affidavit? You never heard of any denial of that letter being published, did you?

Mr. STARNES. No, sir; I don't recall that. Because I saw it, as I said, in the press, and the matter had never been brought to our attention, and therefore we never took any official action on it.

Senator MCKELLAR. You never saw a copy of a denial by Hart of that letter, did you?

Mr. STARNES. I don't recall, Senator, whether I did or not. He might have written the committee about it. As I stated before, I asked Mr. Stripling to check the committee files to ascertain what the record showed with reference to it. And Mr. Stripling tells me he has never been able to find that letter or a photostatic copy of it, and I have no information at all except what I am testifying to you now, purely out of recollection.

Senator MCKELLAR. I will read you a part of a statement by Mr. Stripling. I have been trying to get Mr. Stripling over before the other committee ever since he got back, so I am informed, which was Saturday, I believe. This was addressed to the News-Sentinel, a paper not on my side of the political house at all, and which I am very bitterly opposed to:

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

"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. Hart, 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.

This is date-lined "Washington, July 26."

Now, the question I want to ask you is: If you had seen that letter or it had been called to your attention, you would think it would have been worth making inquiries about.

Mr. STARNES. Certainly, yes.

Senator MCKELLAR. If Mr. Hart had not written it, do you not think when it appeared in both papers he would have made some statement about it, especially after he had sent a telegram to his employers, Mr. Clapp and Mr. Lilienthal?

Mr. STARNES. That I don't know, Senator.

Senator MCKELLAR. You do not know whether he would or not? Mr. STARNES. I don't know what action he took or whether he did or didn't. I don't know what he did do. I have testified all I know about the transaction. And the 55 people that Mr. Stripling refers to were 55 people in the Knox County area, which included 33 areas in Knox County-that is, Knoxville-and 15 over at Mascot, and 5 at Norris, and 2 at Maryville.

At Mascot, they were composed almost entirely of WPA and Workers Alliance people, and of that 55, 7 according to that Communist Party's secretary's report, were employees of the TVA.

Senator MCKELLAR. In order to be as accurate as I could about it, when I heard of the remarkable position taken by Mr. Clapp in the other committee that that was not a genuine letter, I telegraphed the postmasters of the two towns where these members were located. You know Mr. Albright, postmaster down at Birmingham, do you not? Mr. STARNES. Yes; I know Roy Albright.

Senator MCKELLAR. He is an honest man?
Mr. STARNES. A very fine man.

Senator MCKELLAR. I sent him this telegram:

Hon, ARTHUR ALBRIGHT,

Postmaster, Birmingham, Ala.:

JANUARY 31, 1947.

Please wire me Government collect if the Communist Party had P. O. Box 1871 on January 31, 1939, or in whose name it was listed.

And here is the answer:

Hon. KENNETH MCKELLAR,

United States Senator:

FEBRUARY 1, 1947.

P.O. Box 1871 rented in name of Nat Ross on April 1, 1937. Application signed Nat Ross by R. F. Hall. Nature of business Communist Party. Box surrendered March 23, 1944.

ALBRIGHT, Postmaster.

The next one was to the post-office box from which this letter left Knoxville. I sent this to Seaton Garrett:

Hon. SEATON GARRETT,

Postmaster, Knoxville, Tenn.:

JANUARY 31, 1947.

Please wire me, Government collect, if the Communist Party had P. O. Box 1604 on January 31, 1939, or in whose name it was listed.

And here

the reply:

FEBRUARY 1, 1947.

Senator K. C. MCKELLAR:

Replying your request of January 31, Box 1604 held from August 2, 1937, to June 30, 1941, by Pauline Crumley.

SEATON GARRETT, Postmaster.

Now, I spoke about Mrs. Crumley before by another name, and I want the record changed.

Now, would not those facts make you think, when it went from a Communist-controlled box in Knoxville to a Communist-controlled box in Birmingham, that it was a genuine thing?

Mr. STARNES. Senator, I don't want to be put in the position of testifying as to the authenticity of a document that I have never seen, either by direction or indirection. I said: granting that it is an authentic document, still it was not brought to our attention, and the facts came to light in a newspaper article 3 years after we closed our investigation.

And our files, according to Mr. Stripling, are silent as to the matter, except for some mimeographed copies of what purported to be the letter. I have tried my best to get the facts for you, sir, but that is the only fact I can give you.

Senator MCKELLAR. I think it has been sufficiently identified, and I think the proof of a lost or destroyed letter has been sufficiently proved in the other committee.

I just wanted to prove it before this committee.

Now, let us see if I have anything else I want to ask you. I do not know that there, but I will look over my documents here.

Do you not think, Mr. Starnes, that in the present condition of the world, and especially in the present condition of ourselves, with the empire or dynasty, or whatever it may be called, of Russia, and after thinking of the wonderful discovery that was made by the Government under the direction of General Groves, the atomic discovery, do you not think that we ought to be exceedingly careful whom we put on this Board?

Would you not want people that were just known by the world to be absolutely

Mr. STARNES. Like Caesar's wife; above suspicion?

Senator MCKELLAR. Your illustration is good.

Mr. STARNES. I certainly would, sir. I want to say to you that it was a chain of circumstances that found me a member of the War Department Appropriations Subcommittee in the House of Repre sentatives at the time the Manhattan project was initiated. Every appropriation bill, as you know for the Department, is regularly initiated in the House Appropriations Committee under our parliamentary procedure.

Senator MCKELLAR. Certainly.

Mr. STARNES. I followed that as closely as I could and with a great deal of interest, and the story, such little part of it as was given, was intriguing to us.

Let me say this to you: That General Marshall told a session of the committee, on one occasion, in a dramatic closed session when we started to mark up the bill in 1944, as I recall it, that although victory then seemed to be within our grasp, if the enemy, who was working on something similar, was able to perfect the processes for this engine of destruction-he never named it, of course -we would lose the war and what we term our civilization and our form of government.

It was that all-important. And only four men, so far as he knew, knew of the full history of the development, one of whom appeared before this great committee this morning-Dr. Bush.

Now, frankly, Senator, my background and whatever little experience I had as a member of this special committee, plus the experience that I had overseas in World War II, after I left the Congress of the United States and part of my task overseas was a study of economic and political conditions after VE-day for the Chief of Staff; I was attached to SHAEF in the beginning, and later to the office of military government in Berlin, and served there from Potsdam Conference days on down-all that convinces me that here at home the greatest threat to our institutions and to us as a people-as a free people-comes from the insidious activities of the Communist Party

Senator McKELLAR. I agree with you a thousand percent.

Mr. STARNES. Working through the medium of labor unions, of schools and colleges, and of whatever means are available to them to control the sources of information in this country.

Secondly and I hesitate to say this, but I think it is necessary for me to say it in order for me to say what I want to say in conclusion, if the committee is through with me-secondly, my studies in central and western Europe throughout the year of 1945 convinced me that the greatest threat to the security of world peace and all people everywhere who love freedom and love peace, lies in the machinations of the Communist Party.

Senator MCKELLAR. Again I tell you I agree with you.

Mr. STARNES. I wouldn't want any military secret vital and essential to the safety and the security of our people and their institutions to fall in the hands of the Communist Party here or elsewhere.

There is only one nation on the face of this earth today that can hope to cope with us in economic and military power, and that is Russia. And I wouldn't for a moment endorse any living soul for any position of power and trust and responsibility unless I had unbounded faith in his judgment, his patriotism, and his loyalty to the Government of the United States and its people and their best interest.

And I certainly wouldn't have said what I had today, Senator McKellar, for my life, about Mr. Lilienthal-my estimate of his character, his ability, and his patriotism-which if what I said had not come, as I said, through years of work with him as a man and as a public official.

And I have absolutely no qualifications in my belief in this man's sincerity, his integrity of character, and his patriotism and loyalty to the United States of America and its institutions and its people. Senator MCKELLAR. Let me ask you this: You first learned of the atomic energy secret after Hiroshima, did you not?

Mr. STARNES. Everybody did, except, according to General Marshall, about four or five people.

Senator MCKELLAR. As a preliminary to what you said a few moments ago about the number of people, I am going to make a statement and then ask you a question concerning it.

Mr. STARNES. Yes, sir.

Senator MCKELLAR. I think it was in 1941 that I got a message from Secretary Stimson, saying that he wanted to come down and see me. I told him I would be delighted to see him; to come right down. He said, "No, I will be there in about an hour."

In about half an hour, he called me up and asked me if I objected to meeting in the Democratic caucus room on my floor, instead of his coming over, as there were either two or three other SenatorsI can't say which; I think three-and he wanted to see us all about the same matter, and would I come there. I told him I would. I laughed at him a little for meeting in a Democratic caucus room, because when I first knew Henry Stimson, one of the finest men in the world

Mr. STARNES. I agree with that, sir; one of the finest men America ever produced.

Senator MCKELLAR. He was a Republican. And I just laughed at him a little for meeting in a Democratic caucus room. But it was all in good nature, and in a short time we met.

If I remember the facts about that meeting, they were these: He first asked us to swear to secrecy about what he was going to tell us. My recollection as to who was there was that it was Senator White, of Maine, a splendid man; Senator Barkley, of Kentucky, also an excellent man; a splendid man in every way; and I think Senator Bridges was the third one, and I was the fourth one.

After the usual preliminaries, the way friends meet, after these four of us met, the Secretary said, "Gentlemen, I want to swear you." And everybody said they would keep it secret.

He said, "Now, I have the two leaders from the Senate, Mr. Barkley and Mr. White, and I have the chairman of the--I don't know whether