The Big Lie in Hollywood: The Hollywood Ten Were Not Victims But Villains

The Big Lie in Hollywood: The Hollywood Ten Were Not Victims But Villains

BY MICHAEL BERLINER | NOV 24, 2018 | CLASSIC, COMMUNISM, POLITICS

The Big Lie in Hollywood: The Hollywood Ten Were Not Victims But Villains

November 24 marks the anniversary of fifty of Hollywood’s leading executives and moguls firing the Hollywood Ten. These ten filmmakers had been cited for contempt of Congress for refusing to divulge their political affiliations to the House Un-American Activities Committee [HUAC] investigation into communist infiltration in Hollywood.

The anniversary of the Hollywood blacklist against the Hollywood Ten and other communists in Hollywood has brought an outpouring of sympathy and apologies to the “victims,” along with incessant moral lessons from the media about this “dark” period in American history.

This much is true: Morality and justice are at issue. But the story has been twisted and the characters grossly miscast. The screenplay as written by politically correct Hollywood should be titled “Three Big Lies.”

Lie Number One: By requiring them to testify and then jailing them for refusing, the House Un-American Activities Committee violated the First Amendment, free speech rights of the Hollywood Ten.

The truth: No one interfered with their freedom of speech. In fact, freedom of speech was not even an issue. HUAC was investigating a question of fact, the fact being membership in the Communist Party. The Committee did not ask anyone whether he believed in communism, but asked only whether he had joined the Communist Party. By joining the Party (an undisputed fact), the filmmakers were not merely making an ideological statement but were agreeing to take orders to commit actions — criminal and treasonable actions, since the Party, and the Soviet government it served, was openly dedicated to the overthrow of the U.S. government. Therefore, there was a national security reason for the Committee to determine membership in the Party. In notes to herself prior to testifying as a “Friendly Witness” in 1947, Ayn Rand wrote that “Under American law, there is no such thing as a political crime; a man’s ideas do not constitute a crime, no matter what they are. And precisely by the same principle, a man’s ideas — no matter what they are — cannot serve as a justification for a criminal action and do not give him freedom to commit such actions on the ground that they represent his personal belief.” Legal issues aside, there is an obscene irony in the Communist writers complaining that their right to freedom of speech was violated, since that right was precisely what the Communist Party was out to destroy.

Lie Number Two: The Hollywood Ten were persecuted by being refused jobs.

The truth: They were denied employment by executives who were exercising the right to hire whom they wished — a fundamental right in a free society. It was within the employers’ right (and self-interest) not to hire writers who wanted to use their positions to eliminate all private property and private business. What the writers wanted — in refusing to testify — was the “right” to hide their ideology on the grounds that, were it known, they’d be fired. In other words, they wanted the “right” to defraud their employers. In a free society, there is a private right to boycott (which the Hollywood leftists used against hundreds of anti-Communists). The right to freedom of speech prohibits the government from interfering with the expression of ideas, and that means that an employer cannot be forced to propagate ideas he’s opposed to.

Lie Number Three (the biggest lie): The blacklisted writers were humanitarian idealists.

The truth: Their “ideal” was the sacrifice of the individual to the collective, a moral viewpoint endorsed by Marxism and put into practice by the Soviet government. It was an “ideal” that destroyed millions of human lives. The Communist Party championed by the Hollywood Ten was the same Party that — under the leadership of Joseph Stalin — exterminated millions of peasants in the Ukraine. The “persecuted” writers dutifully paid their dues to the Party whose reign of terror included murdering or banishing to Siberia anyone who remotely threatened its power. The Hollywood Ten littered their movie scripts with Soviet propaganda, the same Soviets who signed a non-aggression pact with Adolph Hitler. While the Hollywood Communists and apologists talked of peace, brotherhood, and workers’ rights, their spiritual masters were perpetrating what is arguably the most murderous tyranny in world history, its victims estimated at 20-40 million people — not including the tens of millions relegated to a sub-human existence. Far from being pitiable victims, the Hollywood Ten and their followers have the blood of millions on their hands.

An intriguing question remains: Why is Hollywood so intent on perpetuating these Big Lies? Why are we asked to apologize to apologists of mass murder? Why are the opponents of tyranny still portrayed as hysterical witch-hunters? The answer lies in ideology. The Hollywood Ten openly hated America and the individualism on which it is based. Little has changed but the concretes. The Soviets are gone, but Hollywood’s anti-capitalist, left-liberal political agenda lives, now in such forms as animal rights and environmentalism. Selling “The Big Lies” helps Hollywood to keep alive the fantasy that the Left is the victim rather than the perpetrator of injustice.

Dr. Berliner is the senior advisor to the Ayn Rand Archives. He was the executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute from its founding to January 2000.

Sounds from the Cold War, Jackie Doll's “When They Drop The Atomic Bomb,”

Sounds of the Cold War era, Jimmie Osborne, "Thank You God For Victory In Korea" written in 1951

Hollywood Mythmaking

  

Screenwriter Dalton Trumbo died in 1976, but Hollywood still hasn’t gotten over its high regard for him. He is the subject of a new movie, Trumbo, that lionizes him as a passionate supporter of the First Amendment and free speech, a true patriot. But that defines Trumbo only in terms congenial to the political culture of the Hollywood left.

Trumbo was, in fact, a member of the Communist party during the years when it was under the tight control of the Soviet Union. He followed the party line faithfully. He was pro-Stalin, even during the 22 months of the Hitler-Stalin pact. He looked favorably on North Korean dictator Kim Il-sung, notably after Kim’s invasion of South Korea.

But you won’t pick up any of this from the movie. Instead, Trumbo is presented as a brave and principled member of the Hollywood Ten, a group of screenwriters who refused to say if they were members of the Communist party when asked at a hearing of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1947. They went to jail for contempt of Congress—Trumbo for 10 months—and were blacklisted from writing screenplays for Hollywood studios.

This made Trumbo a hero to the leftists who dominate the movie industry. And when he broke the blacklist in 1960 with his name in the credits for the screenplay in Spartacus, he became a deity. He’d earlier written screenplays under pen names, even winning an Oscar as “Robert Rich.”

We now know the Hollywood Ten were all Communists—capital “C”—and disciplined ones at that. When the Hitler-Stalin pact was signed in 1939, Trumbo instantly switched from attacking the Nazis to demonizing Hitler’s enemies, chiefly Franklin Roosevelt and the British. When Hitler invaded Russia in 1941, the Soviet line changed, and Trumbo changed with it, overnight.

Anyone who doubts Trumbo’s allegiance to the Soviet Union should tap into Hollywood Traitors: Blacklisted Screenwriters, Agents of Stalin, Allies of Hitler. Its author, Allan Ryskind, devoted more than a decade to investigating the Hollywood Ten and the battle in Hollywood in the 1940s between Communists and anti-Communists, which the Reds came close to winning. Morrie Ryskind, the screenwriter and father of Allan, was a leading anti-Communist. The book is impressively researched. Every assertion is documented.

Ryskind (the son) refers to the Hollywood Ten as the “Stalinist Ten.” But could these now-sainted dissenters really have been Stalin groupies? Ryskind isn’t alone on this point. In their book The Inquisition in Hollywood, Larry Ceplair and Steven Englund agree. “Communist screenwriters defended the Stalinist regime .  .  . with an infuriating self-righteousness, superiority, and selective memory which eventually alienated all but the staunchest fellow travelers,” Ceplair and Englund write. And they did so “unflinchingly, uncritically, inflexibly—leaving themselves open to the justifiable suspicion that they not only approved of everything they were defending but would themselves act in the same way if they were in the same position.”

Only one of the Hollywood Ten has recanted. It wasn’t Trumbo. It was Edward Dmytryk, a respected director, who repudiated the Communist party. He was “shocked” by the HUAC testimony of John Howard Lawson, the Communist boss in Hollywood, and Trumbo. “It was clear to those who listened that the unfriendly witnesses were behaving as Communists could be expected to behave,” Dmytryk wrote in a memoir.

Trumbo also behaved that way as editor of the Screen Writer, the publication of the Screen Writers Guild, from 1945 to 1947. It “championed Moscow’s war aims, hailed Red screenwriters and their movies celebrating Stalin, lavished praise on Hollywood’s Red guilds and unions and launched scathing attacks against the anti-Communist community,” Ryskind says. The Screen Writer also notified readers of lectures from “a Marxist or Soviet point of view.”

Part of Ryskind’s research involved a trip to Madison, Wisconsin, where the Wisconsin Historical Society houses the papers of screenwriters. He found fresh evidence of Trumbo’s total commitment to the Soviet Union and its allies. “Nothing so underscores his love for Leninism, Stalinism, and Communism in general as an unpublished movie script discovered in his papers,” Ryskind writes in Hollywood Traitors.

The script was titled An American Story. The heroine is a mother about to lose her children in a custody case because of her political views. She wants to take them to North Korea, which she believes is in “a fight for independence, just as we had to fight for our own independence in 1776.” The script was “Soviet Communist ideology in its rawest form,” Ryskind writes. The movie was never made.

Among Trumbo’s papers, Ryskind found a poem entitled “Korean Christmas” that blames America and Christianity for killing Korean children:

Have we hurt you, little boy? Ah … we have We’ve hurt you terribly We’ve killed you Hear, then, little corpse … it had to be Poor consolation, yet it had to be The Christian ethic was at stake And western culture and the American way And so, in the midst of pure and holy strife We had to take your little eastern life.

 All that Ryskind reveals in his groundbreaking book about Trumbo and the Hollywood Ten is lost on most of Hollywood today. The blacklist is reviled as if it still existed, though it vanished more than a half-century ago. It blinds many in the film industry to what motivated Trumbo and his fellow screenwriters. It was their adherence to communism and loyalty to the Soviet Union. Jack Valenti, when he was Hollywood’s lobbyist in Washington, said a few flirted with communism. But real Communists in Hollywood? No. 

In 1997, a gala called “Hollywood Remembers the Blacklist” was held at the Samuel Goldwyn Theatre in Beverly Hills. Its sponsors were listed as the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, the Directors Guild of America, the Screen Actors Guild, and the Writers Guild of America, West. About 1,000 people attended, including Carl Reiner, Kevin Spacey, Billy Crystal, and John Lithgow. Trumbo’s son Christopher, who produced a documentary in 2007 and a play about his father, was a speaker.

Having been blacklisted, Trumbo is treated as a hero, a liberal in a hurry. In Trumbo, he’s courageous and witty. His anti-Communist enemies are villains. Bryan Cranston, the actor who plays him, says Trumbo was jailed for being a “socialist.” Only in Hollywood could someone believe that.

Fred Barnes is an executive editor at The Weekly Standard .

Abstracted from article by Ronald Radosh and Allis Radosh

“For more than 50 years, the communists and former communists of Hollywood have written the script of the past, telling the story of the blacklist in memoirs and histories, movies and documentaries in which they depict themselves as noble martyrs and champions of democracy. It is time, finally, to put an end to the glorification of this unhappy period and take a cleareyed look at the Hollywood Ten, the blacklist and the movie industry Reds who wielded such influence in the 1930s and 1940s.

According to the familiar but utterly romanticized script, the screenwriters, directors and actors who flirted with and joined the Communist Party are unadulterated heroes -- just "liberals in a hurry." It is a simple black-and-white tale, as they tell it: The villains were the Hollywood moguls who blacklisted them, the liberals who abandoned the fight, and most of all, the "friendly" ex-communist witnesses who testified about their lives in the party and named names of old associates to the House Un-American Activities Committee.

It is a fable that has acquired an almost irresistible weight as a result of half a century of telling and retelling. Read Lillian Hellman. Or go see the Irwin Winkler film "Guilty by Suspicion."

But is it true? Certainly the blacklist harmed the careers of some of Hollywood's finest. Its damage extended not only to actual party members but, in some cases, to the well-meaning who joined party-controlled "popular front" organizations. But the accepted narrative obscures the important truth about communist influence in Hollywood. The Hollywood Ten were among the most committed of the party faithful, yet they've been wrapped and protected in a romantic haze, allowed to wear their appearance before HUAC as a badge of honor. The blacklist was a godsend, enabling them to reinvent themselves as heroic victims rather than what they really were: die-hard defenders of Josef Stalin who accepted every twist and turn of the party line, whether it was the Nazi-Soviet Pact, the invasion of Finland or the purge trials.

The truth is that, by the time HUAC arrived on the scene in 1947, the communists had already worn out their welcome in Hollywood. Liberals such as Melvyn Douglas felt betrayed at the time of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, when the communists suddenly transformed the "Anti-Nazi League" into the "Hollywood Peace Forum," calling for American neutrality and using the slogan "Let's Skip the Next War." When the Cold War began, liberals such as Olivia De Haviland were already breaking from the party's main wartime front group, arguing against unity with those "who are more interested in taking orders from Moscow and following the so-called party line."

Today, we seem to have forgotten the credible reasons that led some disillusioned former communists to reluctantly appear as friendly witnesses before HUAC. Budd Schulberg talked about how his Hollywood comrades did everything possible to stop him from working on his first novel, "What Makes Sammy Run?," because it deviated from the party line. The great director Elia Kazan told how the party created a secret cell that sought to take over the Group Theater. Others talked about how the party attacked screenwriter Albert Maltz for daring to write that perhaps art was more than just a "weapon."

The truth about Dalton Trumbo

The truth was that Dalton Trumbo, undoubtedly a top-notch screenwriter, was no friend of free speech and the First Amendment, which he purported to defend when the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) investigated Communism in Hollywood in 1947. Along with the nine other writers, directors, and actors who were subpoenaed, Trumbo took the Fifth Amendment and declined to answer the committee’s questions, presenting himself as a defender of basic civil liberties.

The blacklisted writers are remembered as a group of innocent victims persecuted by reactionary, attention-grabbing congressmen. They had to fight the studio chiefs, the right wing, and the committee’s “friendly” witnesses — whom they branded “informers” who sold their own souls for the right to continue working by naming their old comrades as party members.

The real truth is that Trumbo and his fellow members of the Hollywood Ten were dedicated, hard-line Stalinists who regularly followed the twists and turns of the Communist-party line, as dictated from Moscow.

Back in 1939, Trumbo had written a major anti-war novel that received favorable reviews, Johnny Got His Gun. The book came out during the infamous Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact and was serialized in The Daily Worker, the Communist party’s newspaper.

When Germany broke the pact and invaded the USSR on June 22, 1941, Trumbo withdrew the book from circulation, and copies that had been sent to bookstores were ordered returned.

Disappointed readers wrote to Trumbo asking where they could obtain the novel to read. Trumbo invited the FBI to come to his home and gave them the names of those who had written to him requesting a copy of his book. The right wing, he told them, wanted to make his own censorship of the novel “a civil liberties issue.” So he informed on them, telling the agents that he feared they might be “acting politically” and might even oppose FDR. Some civil libertarian!

In later years he bragged how he had used his position to stop anti-Communist films from being made. Stalin, he said, was “one of the democratic leaders of the world,” so he used his position to stop Trotsky’s biography of the dictator from being filmed and did the same with anti-Communist books by James T. Farrell, Victor Kravchenko, and Arthur Koestler, all of which he called “untrue” and “reactionary.” As he explained in 1954 to a fellow blacklisted writer, the Communist party had a “fine tradition . . . that whenever a book or play or film is produced which is harmful to the best interests of the working class, that work, and its author should and must be attacked in the sharpest possible terms.”

Two years later, when many Communists learned some of the truth about Stalin from the Khrushchev speech, Trumbo wrote a comrade that he was not surprised. He explained that he had read the books by Koestler, George Orwell, James Burnham, Eugene Lyons, and Isaac Don Levine, who all had exposed the truth about the Soviet Union. These, of course, were the very books he had made sure would never be turned into movies. Trumbo supported Stalin, all the while knowing that he was a monster.

Years later Trumbo had second thoughts, which he largely kept private. In public he presented himself as a noble fighter against the unjust blacklist, and he gave a much-quoted 1970 speech about how no one came out of the time unsoiled; there were “only victims.”

The public did not learn, however, that he had almost faced trial and expulsion from the Communist party on the grounds that he was guilty of “white chauvinism.”

That little-known episode showed how even a devout Red like Trumbo was not safe from the party’s political correctness. Members were regularly expelled for using terms such as “whitewash” or “black sheep.”

Party leaders used the charge to settle scores, to climb up the ladder of leadership, and to get potential opponents out of the way. Trumbo’s problem was that he wrote a script in 1952 about the case of a woman named Jean Field, a white woman who was a devout believer in Kim Il Sung and North Korea’s Communist state, and who was in danger of losing custody of her children to her ex-husband. One of the charges that her ex levied against her was that she let her own children play with black youngsters their own age.

Field read Trumbo’s script and hit the ceiling. Accusing him of “RANK CHAUVINISM,” she singled out a sentence in which he described a black youngster as “clean and dressed in his Sunday best.” Field charged, and the party comrades agreed, that the implication was that the black child was “clean on only special occasions,” and hence the description was racist to the core.

In fact, Trumbo replied, he had written “her son is in his best clothes,” and she had made up words he had not used. “Would it have pleased you,” he wrote to her, “if I had written ‘dirty and dressed in everyday clothes?’”

To the party, he added that black children “get quite as dirty as your children,” and on special occasions, their parents “have just as much pride in their children as you do in yours.”

Traumatized by this episode, Trumbo suddenly understood what had caused so many party members to defect and even to inform and testify before HUAC. The CP, he told one screenwriter comrade, threw “a bucket of filth over me.”

Soon he acknowledged that he and his fellow members of the Hollywood Ten did not “perform historic deeds,” that in fact they took part in a circus orchestrated by Communist-party lawyers, all “to save [ourselves] from punishment.” Moreover, he even felt that his fellow Red screenwriters failed to get work not because they were Reds, but because they were “mediocrities,” all of whom failed to show “competence, ability [and] craftsmanship.”

Most of all, he said, one of the causes of the blacklist was not HUAC, but the very Leninist group they all pledged adherence to. In an unpublished 1958 article, Trumbo wrote that “the question of a secret Communist Party lies at the very heart of the Hollywood blacklist,” and that is why Americans believed the Communists had something to hide. They lived in the United States, not Stalin’s Russia, he wrote, and should have worked openly and put their ideas in the marketplace to be judged accordingly, rather than work in a Leninist cell. They should, he said, have been open Communists, or “not have been members at all.” The Communist party, he said, had exploited him and the others “for every left-wing cause that came down the pike,” and they all were nothing but “noble losers.”

He even admitted that the informers he had once hated had broken from the ranks “to avoid constant attempts to meddle with the ideological content” of their work and had good reasons to turn against their own comrades. Clearly, that conclusion stemmed from his own experience with the totalitarian group to which he belonged.

Judging from the publicity for the forthcoming movie, and from the book on which the Trumbo story will be based, none of the complex reality that informed Trumbo’s life will be depicted on the silver screen. Once more, Hollywood will honor John Ford’s famous axiom that if a legend has become the real story, go with the legend.

— Ronald Radosh is co-author of Red Star Over Hollywood: The Film Colony’s Long Romance with the Left. He is an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute and a columnist for PJ Media he is also an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute and a contributing opinion columnist at the Daily Beast, is a co-author of Spain Betrayed: The Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War and the author of Commies: A Journey through the Old Left, the New Left and the Leftove

More drama queens misquotes to forward the case of a massive Hollywood blacklisting

The quote often used by Blacklist believers is that Harry Truman said "The HUAC is the most Un-American thing in America today" (1959)

They only use half the quote.

The remark was an off-the-record quip during Truman's lectures at Columbia University that the "House Un-American Activities Committee is the most un-American thing in America today."

He continued that "When you appear before that committee," he said, "you don't have a Chinaman's chance . . . they won't let you work under the Bill of Rights."

He did not condemn the purpose of the committee.

Will Geer, blacklised by self-exiled

“I'm a lifelong agitator, a radical. A rebel is just against things for rebellion's sake. By radical, I mean someone who goes to the roots.” Will Geer.

Will Geer was also commie; he just wouldn’t admit it out loud or in public.  

According to Wikipedia;

Geer became involved with Harry Hay, a homosexual activist. In 1934, Hay met Geer at the Tony Pastor Theatre, where Geer worked as an actor. They became lovers, and Hay credited Geer as his political mentor.

 Hay and Geer participated in a milk strike in Los Angeles. There Hay was first exposed to radical gay activism in the person of "Clarabelle", a drag queen who held court in the Bunker Hill neighborhood and who hid Hay from police. Later that year, Hay and Geer performed in support of the San Francisco General Strike, where they witnessed police firing on strikers, killing two.

Geer became a member of the Communist Party of the United States in 1934. Geer was also influential in introducing Harry Hay to organizing in the Communist Party. In 1934, Geer and Hay gave support to a labor strike of the port of San Francisco; the 1934 West Coast waterfront strike which lasted 83 days.

Though marred by violence, it was an organizing triumph, one that became a model for future union strikes. Geer became a reader of the West Coast Communist newspaper People's World.

Geer became a dedicated activist, touring government work camps of the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s with folk singers such as Burl Ives and Woody Guthrie (whom he introduced to the People's World and the Daily Worker. Guthrie later wrote a column for the latter paper).

 In 1956, the duo released an album together on Folkways Records, titled Bound for Glory: Songs and Stories of Woody Guthrie. In his biography, Harry Hay described Geer's activism and described their activities while organizing for the strike.

Geer is credited with introducing Guthrie to Pete Seeger at the 'Grapes of Wrath' benefit which Geer organized in 1940 for migrant farm workers.

Geer acted with the Group Theatre (New York) studying under Harold Clurman, Cheryl Crawford and Lee Strasberg.

Before 1951, Geer had 16 acting roles to his credit, 10 in films (of which 3 were uncredited, 8 others were as extra roles) and one television role. (His career total was 108 roles)  He was called before the HUAC in 1951. That year he landed six film roles and one  TV credit. He had no film or Tv roles in 1952 or 1953 largely because he had willfully left Hollywood to start and manage The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga, California. Between that, he appeared in one film role and two off-Broadway productions in  1954. However, he was fully booked on Broadway throughout 1955 and 1957. He also did two films in 1956. He also worked in several professional productions of Shakespeare’s plays in Stamford Connecticut.

SWORN TESTIMONY OF WILL GEER

( ACCOMPANIED BY ROBERT W. KENNY AND BEN MARGOLIS, AS COUNSEL)

Mr. Tavenner. Mr. Geer, when and where were you born ?

Mr. Geer. I was born in Frankfort, Ind., Clinton County, March 9, 1902.

Mr. Tavenner. What is your present place of residence ?

Mr. Geer. My present place of residence is 1015 Fourth Street, Santa Monica, Calif., for the past 3 years.

Mr. Tavenner. What is your present occupation ?

Mr. Geer. I am an entertainer, actor, in the theater and screen and in television.

Mr. Tavenner. Will you state for the committee briefly your educational background ?

Mr. Geer. High school ; University of Chicago, Ph. B. ; graduate work at Columbia University and, of course, at Oxford, England.

Mr. Tavenner. When did you complete that course of educational training?

Mr. Geer. I finished about 1926, but I am still a student.

Mr. Tavenner. Well, we all are. But what is the subject of which you are a student?

Mr. Geer. Philosophy, but my main hobby is agriculture and horticulture.

Mr. Tavenner. How have you been employed since 1926 ?

Mr. Geer. Since 1926 mainly in the in theater in stock, small shows in stock, and all around the country on tour with people like Otis Skinner, Minnie Maddern Fiske, Ethel Barrymore; radio when it came along; and television when it came along, and the last 2 years I have been doing some motion pictures on the side, and I teach agriculture and victory gardening.

Mr. Tavenner. How are you now employed ?

Mr. Geer. I am unemployed at the present moment. I would have been employed. This interferes with spring planting.

Mr. Tavenner. What was your last employment?

Mr. Geer. My last employment — I just finished a picture called the Tall Target or the Man on the Train, written about Lincoln's coming to Baltimore and the attempt of his assassination in 1861.

Mr. Tavenner. For whom did you do that work ?

Mr. Geer. M-G-M.

Mr. Tavenner. When was that ?

Mr. Geer. Just about during the month of March — February and March, I would say.

Mr. Tavenner. Who employed you to engage in that work ?

Mr. Geer. My agent got me the job.

Mr. Tavenner. Who is your agent ?

Mr. Geer. Paul Wilkins, 9006 Sunset Boulevard.

Mr. Tavenner. With whom did you contract?

Mr. Geer. Contracted with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Mr. Tavenner. Did you negotiate yourself with any of the officials ?

Mr. Geer. We have agents in the business. They do all the negotiating. We are just entertainers, and they sell us and get 10 percent of us. Our ashes we will them.

Mr. Tavenner. You did not participate in the negotiations for that transaction ?

Mr. Geer. No ; not at all.

Mr. Tavenner. What was your employment prior to that picture to which you referred ?

Mr. Geer. A picture called Lights Out, at Universal Studio, which is about a blind war veteran. I played the father — the boy's adjustment to coming back to life after being blinded in the war.

Mr. Tavenner. What studio was that?

Mr. Geer. Universal Studio at Universal City, Calif.

Mr. Tavenner. What was the date of that employment ?

Mr. Geer. The date of that employment was — let's see, would be roughly, well, that would be about October, I guess. After that I did a picture at Columbia.

Mr. Tavenner. October of what year?

Mr. Geer. Of last year. After that I did a picture. I am mistaken. I did a picture called Barefoot Mailman at Columbia Studios along about Christmastime, I think.

Mr. Tavenner. With whom did you contract in the performance of those two pieces of work ?

Mr. Geer. Columbia Pictures and Universal Pictures.

Mr. Tavenner. Did you deal directly with them ?

Mr. Geer. Not at all.

Mr. Tavenner. Through your agent?

Mr. Geer. Yes.

Mr. Tavenner. Was it the same agent?

Mr. Geer. The same agent.

Mr. Tavenner. You did not personally take part in the negotiations with those studios ?

Mr. Geer. Just to make an appearance and see whether they thought I was a fit subject for the particular role they had in mind.

Mr. Tavenner. Did you furnish any references of any character to those studios in connection with your employment ?

Mr. Geer. References?

Mr. Tavenner. Yes.

Mr. Geer. I don't understand that question, sir.

Mr. Tavenner. I said did you furnish any references to those studios in connection with your employment in those two contracts?

Mr. Geer. I have been in the theater for about 25 years, sir. I think I am well enough known to all of them from the roles I have played.

Mr. Tavenner. You felt that was not necessary ?

Mr. Geer. I don't believe so; no.

Mr. Tavenner. Have you ever furnished references to the studios with which you sought to make contracts ?

Mr. Geer. No. I think a person's work is usually the judge of whether you get a part or not.

Mr. Tavenner. Yes ; after 25 years ; but you have to have a beginning place, some place along the line. So I am asking you if at any time you did that.

Mr. Geer. Well, I don't believe so. It is always a question of which comes first, the hen or the egg y about an actor getting a job. You get the job or the egg or the hen which hatches first.

Mr. Tavenner. Will you answer my question as to whether or not you furnished references to any studio in connection with your employment?

Mr. Geer. No ; I never felt it necessary, sir.

Air. Tavenner. Did you do it?

Mr. Geer. No.

Mr. Tavenner. Whether you felt it necessary or not, did you ?

Mr. Geer. No. We just make an appearance and we are sold like -

Mr. Tavenner. How long have you lived in California?

Mr. Geer. The last 21 ears, in Santa Monica.

Mr. Tavenner. And prior to that time where did you live ?

Mr. Geer. I have a farm in Rockland County, in the Hudson Valley, New York State.

Mr. Tavenner. And how long did you live in New York State ?

Mr. Geer. Ten years. Long enough to get the farm, the home. It is a blueberry farm.

Mr. Tavenner. How long were you in the State of New York in the theatrical profession ?

Mr. Geer. Well, I would say off and on. Of course, New York is a center of show business, so we naturally gravitate there for jobs. I imagine since the year 1924 I have gone to New York off and on. Sometimes you would go on tour all over the country, and again we would be in New York.

Mr. Tavenner. First I will ask you whether you were living in the State of New York in 1942?

Mr. Geer. 1942. I imagine so: Let's see. I was campaigning for Wendell Willkie along about that time. I don't know whether it was 1942 or not. No. Wendell Willkie died.

Mr. Tavenner. Were you also interested at that time in the Communist Party, as indicated by your signing of a Communist Party independent nominating petition July 23, 1942?

Mr. Geer. 1942?

Mr. Tavenner. I hand you a photostatic copy of what purports to be such a petition.

Mr. Geer. Well, that, gentlemen, is an emotional, hysterical question based on the date. I stand on my rights, the fifth amendment, on the grounds it might incriminate or degrade me.

Mr. Tavenner. I ask you again to look at the Communist Party nominating petition which I hand you and state whether or not the name Will Geer appears on that petition, and if so whether or not it is your signature.

Mr. Geer. I stand on the same grounds.

Mr. Tavenner. I desire to file the document in evidence and ask that.it be marked "Geer Exhibit No. 1."

Mr. Geer. 1942? This is 1951. Actors are so gabby I beg your pardon.

Mr. Tavenner. Were you a member of the Communist Party in 1942?

Mr. Geer. I stand on the grounds of the fifth- amendment.

Mr. Tavenner. What do you mean you stand on the grounds of the fifth amendment?

Mr. Geer. Well, it might incriminate or degrade me. The word "Communist" is an emotional, hysterical word of the day, like the word "witch" in Salem.

Mr. Tavenner. Are you refusing to answer the question because you consider it an emotional and hysterical matter? Is that the grounds of your refusal, or is it some other ground ?

Mr. Geer. On the grounds of tending to incriminate.

Mr. Tavenner. In other words, you are refusing to answer the question because to do so might tend to incriminate you?

Mr. Geer. Incriminate.

Mr. Tavenner. And you place your refusal to answer squarely upon that ground ?

Mr. Geer. Upon that ground.

Mr. Tavenner. Will you state to the committee the basis for your refusal to answer that question or give the committee some information upon which it may judge whether or not to answer that question might tend to incriminate you?

Mr. Geer. I answered that question on the advice of counsel and refused it.

Mr. Tavenner. So you refuse to furnish any information to the committee upon which it may act or judge

Mr. Geer. That's correct.

Mr. Tavenner (continuing). The requirement of your answering that question? I have before me an issue of October 20, 1936, of the Daily Worker, in which there is an article under the title "Miner Talks in the Bronx Tomorrow." In the body of- this article appears this language : All the members and friends of the Jewish Bureau of the Communist Party and the Furriers Union which have endorsed Gold's candidacy have been asked to attend this meeting, the Bronx County Committee of the Communist Party announced. Chairman of the meeting will be Harry Yerris, county secretary, who will open the gathering with brief introductory remarks. In addition to the  speaking, an elaborate program has been arranged, featuring Will Geer. Do you recall that meeting ?

Mr. Geer. I refuse to answer the question on the same grounds of the fifth amendment, because it is an emotional question, out of date.

Mr. Tavenner. Is your answer based upon the date of the document ? Is that the basis of your refusal ?

Mr. Geer. On the grounds of the fifth amendment, as I have already stated.

Mr. Tavenner. Then place your refusal on the grounds that you actually rely upon. I have before me the September 25, 1945, issue of the Daily Worker, in which there appears an article entitled "Thousand Artists, Writers Back Davis," and I read as follows : Formation of an artists, writers, and professionals group for the election of Benjamin J. Davis was announced yesterday by Paul Robeson, chairman of the new group. More than 1,000 citizens, including some of the most outstanding in the theater, radio, and motion pictures, fine arts, dance, publishing, literature, educational and allied fields have already joined the division which will actively campaign for the reelection of Davis. And then further in the article appears the statement of those who were connected with the formation of that group, in which this language is used, "also Howard De Silva r ; and then naming numerous others. And finally in the list the name of Will Geer appears —

Mr. Geer. Among a thousand.

Mr. Tavenner (continuing). As a signer. Did you participate in the formation of that organization ?

Mr. Geer. I claim the privilege.

Mr. Tavenner. What privilege?

Mr. Geer. On the grounds of incrimination. Fifth Amendment. Incrimination, fifth amendment.

Mr. Tavenner. Did you entertain at any meetings of the Communist Party or branches of the Communist Party other than the matters I have already referred to?

Mr. Geer. Ancient history. I stand on the grounds of the fifth amendment.

Mr. Tavenner. On the grounds of the fifth amendment or ancient history ?

Mr. Geer. Well, on the amendment.

Mr. Tavenner. To answer the question might tend to incriminate

you ? Is that what you mean ?

Mr. Geer. Correct, sir.

Mr. Tavenner. Since so much emphasis has been placed by you on the question of ancient history, are you a member of the Communist Party now ?

Mr. Geer. I refuse to answer on the same grounds.

Mr. Tavenner. Ancient history ?

Mr. Geer. No; same grounds.

Mr. Wood. Mr. Geer, we can get along a lot faster if you will make your answers responsive to the questions that are asked you.

Mr. Geer. I will try to, sir.

Mr. Wood. It will help the committee a lot and save a lot of time.

Mr. Geer. I will do my best.

Mr. Tavenner. Mr. Geer, I have before me an April 27, 1948, issue of the Daily Worker, in which under the column "Broadway Beat" there is an article relating to you entitled "Actor's Reply to Columnist." I will read the first paragraph and then go down into the body about a matter which I want to ask you about. Will Geer sounds off in a letter to the editor of a theater publication. We see that a certain columnist has attempted to slough off unemployment in our theater by attacking what he calls the censorship of the artist in the Soviet Union. He tells a discouraged actor to beware of casting envious glances at the good employment of the Soviet actor because some Soviet composers have just been criticized by the Soviet state. Then in the body of the article appears this statement attributed to you :

The clucking that has gone on about control of the Soviet composer has been largely hearsay. He is unaware apparently of the Soviet cultural program. As an American who has worked in the Soviet theater and cinema, I am all for government participation in show business. Over a period of 25 years the Soviet theater has given infinitely more variety than has been evidenced in the London or New York stages. It has given year-round work for the artist, vacations with pay, free day's salaries to young students of the theater. Whenever I write to the young would-be artists of the theater that have given up probably or have been unable to afford study, I am reminded of the young actor I talked to in Moscow before the war. He was to enroll as a student at the Trade Union Theater, a theater of repertory that was largely supported by trade-unionists of a ball bearing factory. I asked him if he was just starting out. "'Oh, no. I have spent one season already in the Realistic Theater and one in the Molle Theater"— and so forth. Were you correctly quoted in that article?

Mr. Geer. I stand on the grounds of the fifth amendment.

Mr. Tavenner. Did that article correctly reflect your views about government participation in the show business

Mr. Geer. Thanks for reading it, but I stand on the grounds of the fifth amendment.

Mr. Tavenner (continuing) . At the time it was alleged to have been made by you?

Mr. Geer. I stand on the same privilege.

Mr. Tavenner. That you refuse to answer ?

Mr. Wood. The reporter can't get your indication.

Mr. Geer. I am sorry.

Mr. Tavenner. When were you in Russia ?

Mr. Geer. I went on a theatrical tour to see the Moscow Art Festival in 1935.

Mr. Tavenner. Was that the first time that you had been to Moscow?

Mr. Geer. It was.

Mr. Tavenner. The first time you had been in the Soviet Union?

Mr. Geer. It was, sir.

Mr. Tavenner. Is it the only time you have been there ?

Mr. Geer. Yes, sir.

Mr. Tavenner. What was the purpose of your trip?

Mr. Geer. To see the theaters. Our theater was in a pretty bad state at this time. It was a repertory theater.

Mr. Tavenner. Did you go alone?

Mr. Geer. I went alone.

Mr. Tavenner. Did you go in a representative capacity of any character  

Mr. Geer. no ; just the theater festival tour.

Mr. Tavenner. And did you pay all of your own expenses, or were part of your expenses contributed  

Mr. Geer. Paid my own expenses.

Mr. Tavenner. Was Harold Ware in Russia at that time?

Mr. Geer. Not that I know of, sir.

Mr. Tavenner. Was Harold Ware your brother-in-law?

Mr. Geer. No, sir.

Mr. Tavenner. Are you related in any manner to him?

Mr. Geer. No, sir; not related.

Mr. Tavenner. What was your wife's name ?

Mr. Geer. Herta Ware.

Mr. Tavenner. Was she related to Harold Ware ?

Mr. Geer. I imagine she was. He has been dead for a number of years.

Mr. Tavenner. What was her relationship?

Mr. Geer. I hadn't met the lady at that time.

Mr. Tavenner. Well, the relationship would be just the same, wouldn't it, then?

Mr. Geer. It would be an in-law relationship. I don't call an in-law a relative.

Mr. Tavenner. I asked you whether he was your brother-in-law.

Mr. Geer. Brother-in-law?

Mr. Tavenner. Yes.

Mr. Geer. No;  he is not my brother-in-law.

Mr. Tavenner. What was the relationship of Harold Ware to your wife  

Mr. Geer. I would call him an uncle-in-law.

Mr. Tavenner. An uncle-in-law?

Mr. Geer. Yes.

Mr. Tavenner. What was the relationship of your wife to Mother Bloor?

Mr. Geer. My wife is the granddaughter of an 88-year-old lady known as Mother Bloor to many people who have no truck with communism.

Mr. Tavenner. And did Harold Ware have any connection of any kind with your trip to Russia.

Mr. Geer. I have never met Harold Ware. I hadn't met my wife at the time either. I had not met my wife.

(Representative Francis E. Walter left the hearing room at this point.)

Mr. Tavenner. I hand you a photostatic copy of a passport application which was obtained by the State Department by  a person by the name of Thomas Gilbert, where you appear or the name Will Geer appears as the identifying witness. Will you examine it, please?

Mr. Geer (after examining document). What was the question you wanted to ask of me, sir?

Mr. Tavenner. I don't recall how the question was worded, but I will now ask you whether or not you were a witness to that application.

Mr. Geer. I recognize the picture. I don't remember the name, but I certainly signed the application.

Mr. Tavenner. And it is your signature ?

Mr. Geer. Yes. People frequently ask for favors of that sort, recommendations.

Mr. Tavenner. The man's name appears as Thomas Gilbert in the

application. You say you recognize the photograph?

Mr. Geer. I recognize the photograph but not the name.

Mr. Tavenner. You do not know him by the name of Thomas Gilbert?

Mr. Geer. I do not.

Mr. Tavenner. Whose photograph is that if that is not Thomas Gilbert?

Mr. Geer. I wouldn't remember the — oh, well, I might. It has been a number of years ago. What date was that? I might have remembered the name, but we meet so many people that it is impossible for me to connect the name with the picture.

Mr. Tavenner. You have just told us that you did not remember him by that name. I want to know by what name you did know the individual whose picture appears there.

Mr. Geer. I just don't recognize that name.

Mr. Tavenner. But who is the man ?

Mr. Geer. I don't know.

Mr. Tavenner. You know the man ?

Mr. Geer. I know the man's face, but I do not know his name.

Mr. Tavenner. Never heard the name Whitey Roland?

Mr. Geer. I never heard that name.

Mr. Tavenner. Never heard the name Whitey Roland?

Mr. Geer. Never heard the name — 1037 is the date ?

Mr. Tavenner. You stated in your affidavit that you had known this individual, Thomas Gilbert, for a period of 4 years.

Mr. Geer. At that time. That's 1937. At that time I probably

did.

Mr. Tavenner. I desire to introduce this photostatic copy into evidence and request that it be marked "Geer Exhibit No. 2."

(The document referred to above was marked "Geer Exhibit No. 2.") x

Mr. Tavenner. I hand you another application for passport, purporting to be under the name of Thomas Gilbert, a photograph attached, in which Isabel S. C. Wright appears as the identifying witness. Will you examine that application and look at the photograph of Thomas Gilbert ?

Mr. Geer. I have never seen that man before.

Mr. Tavenner. It is an entirely different photograph from the one in the application which you signed as a witness, is it not ?

Mr. Geer. I would say so, sir.

Mr. Tavenner. Do you know the person whose photograph appears on the application?

Mr. Geer. I have never seen

Mr. Tavenner. On the application just handed you?

Mr. Geer. I have never seen this face before to my knowledge. I have never seen his face before.

Mr. Tavenner. Did you ever confer with the party whose photograph appears in exhibit No. 2, which was the first copy I handed you

Mr. Geer. To my knowledge -

Mr. Tavenner. Just a moment. About his acting as a witness to an application for passport by you ?

Mr. Geer. As far as I can recollect, never, to the best of my memory. I don't believe I really understood that, Mr. Tavenner.

Mr. Tavenner. To simplify the question, did you ever talk to the person whose photograph appears on the exhibit 2 and ask him to act as the identifying witness in an application to be filed by you ?

Mr. Geer. To the best of my knowledge, I have never seen the man.

Mr. Tavenner. Let me hand you again exhibit No. 2, which contains the photograph of the individual whose photograph you recognize.

Mr. Geer. This is No. 1 ? Is this exhibit No. 1 ?

Mr. Tavenner. Well, it's exhibit No. 2, but it is the first of the photo-

stats which I handed you.

Mr. Geer. You've got me all mixed up on 2"s and l's. I'm sorry.

Mr. Tavenner. That's easily understandable. So I am handing you now the application which is marked "Geer Exhibit No. 2" and contains the photograph of the person known the application as Thomas Gilbert, and I ask you whether you at any time made an arrangement with the individual whose photograph appears there by which he was to act as the identifying witness for you if you acted as the identifying witness for him.

(At this point Kepresentative Charles E. Potter left the hearing and Representative Clyde Doyle entered the hearing.)

Mr. Geer. I believe, to the best of my recollection, sir, when I applied for a passport in 1935 my witness was a woman and had nothing to do with this person at all.

Mr. Tavenner. I know, but will you answer my question as to whether or not you ever had conversation with the individual whose photograph appears there of the character that I mentioned to you ?

Mr. Geer. To the best of my recollection, never.

Mr. Tavenner. How many passports have you obtained ?

Mr. Geer. In 1935, the year I went to the festival, and in 1920 1 went over in a cattle boat, one of Harold Swift's cattle boats, after I got out of school, but I don't think I had to have a passport then as I remember. Maybe I did. That's about 1920. It's when I was just a kid. I remember I worked over on a cattle boat. And I have forgotten if we had to have passports or not.

Mr. Tavenner. What were the circumstances under which you signed this application which is exhibit No. 2 as an identifying witness ?

Mr. Geer. It's entirely vague in my mind. Someone just asked me they wanted to get a passport. People frequently come b}?

Mr. Tavenner. Had you known the individual for 4 years ?

Mr. Geer. Yes. I think he was something to do with the merchant marine or something or other.

Mr. Wood. Counsel, we are going to have to suspend here for about 20 minutes so the members may answer this call, and we will resume at 11 : 30.

(Thereupon, at 11: 10 a. m., a recess was taken until 11:45 a. m., at which time the following proceedings were had :)

Mr. Wood. Come to order, please.

By virtue of the authority vested in me as chairman of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, I have designated Mr. Doyle, Mr. Kearney, Mr. Jackson, and Mr. Wood as a subcommittee to continue this hearing. Proceed, Mr. Tavenner.

Mr. Tavenner. Yes, sir.

Mr. Geer, do you know the purpose for which Thomas Gilbert sought permission to travel abroad?

Mr. Geer. To the best of my recollection, no. Just he wanted to go. He's a merchant seaman. I think I should add, if you would permit me, that I worked as a merchant seaman in between jobs on shore and naturally I met a great many seamen at that time, and there would be dozens and dozens— hundreds of people, in fact —that I couldn't recall the name of and still at the same time I'd be perfectly willing to help them out on getting a reference for a job or anything of that sort.

(At this point, Representative Harold H. Velde entered the hearing-) . . . .

Mr. Geer. (continuing) . At the same time, you wouldn t remember their name but you'd know their face.

Mr. Tavenner. You don't mean that you would sign an identifying affidavit that you had known a person for 4 years if you hadn't known him, would you ?

Mr. Geer. I certainly wouldn't.

Mr. Tavenner. Well, can you state whether or not the person whose photograph appears on exhibit No. 2, which I will hand to you again, is a person who was known to you by the name of Roland ?

Mr. Geer. No, I have no recollection about the name whatever. The face does look familiar. Just as the face of a lady in the back court there I hadn't seen for 20 years.

Mr. Tavenner. I desire to offer in evidence the second passport application and ask that it be marked "Exhibit Geer 3.''

Mr. Wood. It will be admitted. I thought it was admitted already.

(The document referred to was marked "Exhibit Geer 3.'') 1

Mr. Tavenner. And also the other excerpts from the papers which I read in evidence, namely, the issue of the Daily Worker of October 20, 1936, [p. 4], which I ask be marked "Exhibit Geer 4," and of the Daily Worker of April 27, 1948, [p. 16], which I asked be marked "Exhibit Geer 5."

Mr. Wood. They may be marked.

(The documents referred to were marked "Exhibits Geer 4 and Geer 5," respectively.) 2

Mr. Tavenner. Mr. Geer, were you a member of or affiliated in any way with the American Peace Mobilization?

Mr. Geer. Well, there are about four or five hundred organizations listed as being here, and I'd have to really consult this book to find out.

Mr. Tavenner. To find out whether you were a member?

Mr. Geer. No. To find out whether it's — what it's listed. There are several hundred organizations. It is difficult to remember the names of them, as it is difficult to remember the names of people. So I ask the privilege of looking at this book to find out whether that is one so listed.

Mr. Tavenner. What difference does it make, in answer to the question of whether or not you were a member, as to whether it's listed in a book?

Mr. Geer. I simply list all things like this as an — emotional words used in a time that is altogether — it is like — —

Mr. Tavenner. That doesn't change the fact of your membership or nonmembership, does it?

Mr. Geer. No. I just simply stand on the grounds of the amendment.

Mr. Tavenner. In other words, you refuse to answer on the grounds that to do so

Mr. Geer. Might incriminate me.

Mr. Tavenner (continuing). Might tend to incriminate you?

Mr. Geer. Those things are years ago.

Mr. Kearney. That is again a period of ancient history, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Geer. Yes. At the present time, hospital benefits. I play veterans' hospitals. A little group goes around and plays veterans' hospitals. For all I know they might be listed in another 6 months as something altogether out of order. Things change very rapidly nowadays.

Mr. Tavenner. Were you at any time a sponsor of the Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace?

Mr. Geer. The name doesn't sound familiar, but I'd like — I really don't recall the name of that one, sir. I am sorry.

Mr. Tavenner. All right. It was held on March 25, 26, and 27 of 1949 in New York City under the sponsorship of the National Council of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions.

Mr. Wood. What is your answer?

Mr. Geer. The name sounds unfamiliar to me, but I would stand on the grounds of the same privilege.

Mr. Wood. You mean you decline to answer the question ?

Mr. Geer. On the ground of the same privilege, sir.

Mr. Tavenner. Have you at any time been a member of or affiliated with the International Workers Order ?

Mr. Geer. I would stand on the same privilege.

Mr. Wood. That isn't an answer, Mr. Geer. Do you answer the question?

Mr. Geer. I refuse to answer on the grounds of the same privilege. That is the correct wording? Thank you, sir.

Mr. Tavenner. Were you at any time a member of or affiliated with the International Labor Defense?

Mr. Geer. I refuse to answer the question on the same grounds, sir.

Mr. Tavenner. Were you at any time affiliated with the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade ?

Mr. Geer. I would decline to answer that on the same grounds, sir.

Mr. Tavenner. Were you at any time affiliated with the Theater Arts Committee?

Mr. Geer. I would decline to answer that question on the same grounds, sir, on advice of counsel.

Mr. Tavenner. Were you at any time affiliated with the Workers Alliance of Greater New York either as a sponsor of any of its programs or policies or activities ?

Mr. Geer. I would decline that answer tending to incriminate me. I couldn't be responsible for the use of my name.

Mr. Wood. Well, now, which?

Mr. Geer. May I link them together, sir? I'd appreciate it.

Mr. Tavenner. You are a member of the Screen Actors' Guild ?

Mr. Geer. I am, sir. I pay dues. I am a life member of the Actors' Equity Association and AFKA, radio organization. Those are the only organizations I can think of I paid dues to in my life.

Mr. Tavenner. Have you ever paid dues to the Communist Party?

Mr. Geer. Decline on the grounds it might tend to incriminate me.

Mr. Tavenner. Were you ever questioned by officials of the moving-picture industry regarding your alleged activity in Communist front organizations — that is, organizations which have been cited as Communist fronts by the Attorney General of the United States and this committee or other committees ?

Mr. Geer. No. They simply told me they didn't believe everything they read.

Mr. Tavenner. Then, they discussed the matter with you prior to your employment?

Mr. Geer. Just casually. People around the studio. I wouldn't remember the names.

Mr. Tavenner. Who was it said to you they didn't believe everything they read or heard ?

Mr. Geer. That's an old saying of mine too. I don't know which one.

Mr. Tavenner. You quoted some official of the moving-picture industry as having made that statement.

Mr. Geer. I wouldn't recall who it was, sir.

Mr. Tavenner. Well, whom did you talk to on the subject of Communist-front organizations within the industry?

Mr. Geer. I can't remember. There are many people that discuss the subject, but they would probably be in the hundreds. I couldn't possibly remember their names.

Mr. Tavenner. Did you discuss it with them at the time of your employment on any of the projects that you undertook?

Mr. Geer. To my recollection, no, sir.

Mr. Tavenner. Were you employed by any of the people with whom you had discussed that subject?

Mr. Geer. I imagine so.

M r. Tavenner. Who were they ?

Mr. Geer. I wouldn't recollect offhand, sir, but I would presume so because I have done 15 pictures with 4 major studios.

Mr. Tavenner. And did any of those producers talk to you about your activities either within — alleged activities within the Communist Party or in Communist-front organizations? That is, organizations cited as being Communist-front organizations?

Mr. Geer. I discussed it with one director perhaps, and he asked me just what I was anyway, and I told him I was a conservationist.

Mr. Tavenner. Conservationist?

Mr. Geer. Conservationist, sir. That is my philosophy. I believe in returning the land to the same shape we found it in. I believe also in conserving the things that one-world Wendell Willkie talked about and F. D. R. got for us. That's my philosophy.

Mr. Tavenner. Now, did he ask you about communism?

Mr. Geer. No, not to my recollection. He asked me what I was anyway. That was my answer.

Mr. Kearney. Who was .that director? What was his name?

Mr. Geer. I can't recollect the name of it, the particular occasion, but I do remember making that statement, because the man happened to be opposed to F. D. R., and he didn't think much of it, whoever it

was.

Mr. Tavenner. But you did not tell him that you had been connected with Communist-front organizations?

Mr. Geer. I stand on the grounds of the fifth amendment in answering that question, sir, because I already said that that's a hysterical word.

Mr. Tavenner. I do not see how it could tend to incriminate you to state whether or not you discussed the subject with an employer, or an employer with you.

Mr. Geer! Well, I'm — I really — that's just something casual that happens in everyday life. I have really — that's all the conversation I happen to recall on it. I say that would happen, oh, an average of once a day during the past few years, discussions with people about philosophy.

Mr. Tavenner. I'm speaking of your employers. Did your employers discuss your activities with you daily ?

Mr. Geer. Never in connection with employment to the best of my knowledge. I would be quite willing to discuss it with them any time.

Mr. Tavenner. More willing than you have been with this committee?

Mr. Geer. I should say so, sir, because this is a peculiar atmosphere we are living in today. And the citizen has to see clearly all the time how important it is to preserve individual rights.

Mr. Tavenner. You would answer then questions propounded to you by your employer as to whether or not you had been or are at the present a member of the Communist Party ?

Mr. Geer. I should think I would, sir.

Mr. Tavenner. I have no further questions.

Mr. Geer. Thank you very much.

Mr. Wood. Mr. Doyle?

Mr. Doyle. No questions.

Mr. Wood. Mr. Velde?

Mr. Velde. Do you consider yourself to be a patriotic citizen ?

Mr. Geer. I do indeed, sir. I love America. I love it enough to want to make it better.

Mr. Velde. In the event of an armed conflict in which the United States would find itself opposed to Soviet Russia, would you be willing to fight on the side of the United States ?

Mr. Geer. Factually, I would grow vegetables for victory for the Farm Bureau as I did before and play hospitals. It would be a wonderful idea, in fact, if they put every man my age in the front lines and in Washington fellows on the other side. I think wars would be negotiated immediately. I approve of that.

Mr. Velde. You say you would be willing to join the Army?

Mr. Geer. Indeed I would, sir, if they could take me.

Mr. Velde. That's all.

Mr. Geer. My function is growing vegetables and entertaining, however.

Mr. Kearney. Mr. Geer, there is one thought running through my mind on your various answers here, and I wish you would explain to me because I just can't get your reasoning. Will you tell this committee as to membership in these various organizations that have been asked you by counsel, and that you have declined to answer on the ground it might incriminate you : How would such an answer incriminate you ?

Mr. Geer. Well, in my opinion it is something set up outside. It is the committee set-up. And you yourself or this committee has made these stipulations. It is something that has been set up and to my mind created artificially.

Mr. Kearney. You mean to say that this committee has set up the fact that if you said that you belonged to any one of these particular organizations asked by the counsel that we would have you in the position where you have incriminated yourself ?

Mr. Geer. I don't quite undertsand that, but so far as this committee is concerned I believe so, sir. That's my feeling today in 1951.

Mr. Kearney. In other words, you think that this committee is a persecuting committee ?

Mr. Geer. To my mind there's great similarities between the Inquisition and people like in our country that have been persecuted, like Mormons.

Mr. Kearney. Is that your's or your counsel's ?

Mr. Geer. That's my own opinion.

Mr. Kearney. I see counsel advising you on your answers there.

Mr. Margolis (attorney for the witness) . I will be glad to give you my opinion, Mr. Kearney.

Mr. Kearney. You're not testifying.

Mr. Margolis. No, but I'd be glad

Mr. Geer. I'd be glad to answer that question.

Mr. Kearney. Do you believe, Mr. Geer, that the Congress of the United States has the right to set up a committee such as this is to search out subversive activities in this country?

Mr. Geer. I'm an entertainer and not a lawyer. I wouldn't know whether it would be right or not.

Mr. Kearney. Well, you seem to have enough answers on all other subjects here, questions. Can't you answer that question "Yes" or "No"?

Mi-. Geer. As an entertainer simply and not a lawyer, I really couldn't answer that question, sir. In my opinion, I think it would be more important right now to investigate inflation and the high cost of living. That's my own opinion.

Mr. Kearney. Well, I think you've got something there too.

Mr. Geer. We all of us have to appear in a turkey once in a while. I don't think the public is seriously interested in the fact

Mr. Kearney. That's all, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Wood. Mr. Jackson  

Mr. Jackson. Mr. Geer, von say you appeared in a picture called The Tall Target in February or March

Mr. Geer. February or March of this year, sir.

Mr. Jackson. I should preface this for the record that the introduction of names I shall mention has no particular connotation. Who was the producer of Tall Target ?

Mr. Geer. The producer of the picture was I believe Mr. Richard Goldstone.

Mr. Jackson. Who did the script ?

Mr. Geer. I wouldn't know about that, sir. I met a man named on the set — but I couldn't recollect his name.

Mr. Jackson. Who was the director of the picture ?

Mr. Geer. The director of the picture was Anthony Mann.

Mr. Jackson. And on Lights Out who was the producer ?

Mr. Geer. The producer on that picture was a man named Buckner, a very brilliant producer, and the director was an exceptionally remarkable director named Marc Robeson, who has had several successes.

Mr. Jackson. Who did the script on Lights Out  

Mr. Geer. I imagine the producer did. He usually does his.

Mr. Jackson. On The Barefoot Mailman, who was the producer?

Mr. Geer. The producer on that, Mr. Cohn I think. He's the son in-law of Harry Colin. I believe that's the name. Robert Cohn.

Mr. Jackson. Do you know who wrote the script on that ?

Mr. Geer. No. It was a western laid in Florida. That's about all I recollect about it.

Mi-. Jackson. And the director?

Mr. Geer. The director of that was quite a brilliant young director named Earl McAvoy from Boston.

Mr. Jackson. What is your agency, Mr. Geer?

Mr. Geer. My agency is Paul Wilkins, 9006 Sunset Boulevard.

Mr. Jackson. On the "strip," is it

Mr. Geer. Yes. On the "strip," sir.

Mr. Jackson. I stress again that the names given by the witness in answer to my questions are not necessarily connected with the subject of the committee's investigation.

That's all, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Geer. Thank you very much.

Mr. Wood. Mr. Geer, did I understand you to say in response to counsel's question a while ago concerning the conversations that you had had with the employers that some one of them had told you that he didn't believe all he read about your connection with

Mr. Geer. Yes. And I added I don't believe all I hear either.

Mr. Wood. Well, in connection with the organizations about which you have been interrogated by counsel, particularly concerning your affiliation or membership with them,' don't you think that it would be enlightening to the party, whoever it was in connection with your employment that made that expression that he didn't believe all he read in the paper, to set him completely right about it now by answering the questions frankly here?

Mr. Geer. I think there is too decided an atmosphere of fear nowadays and hysteria to answer that, sir.

Mr. Wood. Don't you feel now that your declination to answer questions here leaves you in the position of either giving false testimony or of tacitly admitting membership therein?

Mr. Geer. I don't feel so, sir.

Mr. Wood. You don't ?

Mr. Geer. No ; I don't really.

Mr. Wood. If you're not a member of such organizations, to say so wouldn't incriminate you, would it ?

Mr. Geer. I'd appreciate it so much, Mr. Wood, if you'd ask me questions about the thousands of other benefits I played.

Mr. Wood. I'm asking you about the questions I'm concerned about and that this committee is concerned about.

Mr. Geer. That's why

Mr. Wood. And I would very much appreciate a frank answer. I ask you the question : If you are not a member of a single one of these organizations about which you have been interrogated, do you admit that it wouldn't incriminate you to say you are not a member of them ? Don't you admit that?

Mr. Geer. Mr. Wood

Mr. Wood. I'd like an answer to that question if I may.

Mr. Geer. I frankly don't know how to answer that question.

Mr. Wood. You don't know how to answer it?

Mr. Geer. I don't know how in this day, 1951.

Mr. Wood. I will try to make it a little more explicit. You are asked particularly about membership — well, in the Communist Party. Now, if you are not a member of the Communist Party and have never been, do you think it would incriminate you to say so?

Mr. Geer. At this particular time, although the Communist Party is a perfectly legal one, I think they should

Mr. Wood. I'm asking if you're not a member would it incriminate you to say you're not a member ?

Mr. Geer. I'm standing on the Constitution. I believe that they're being persecuted now like the Mormons, the Jews, the Quakers, the Masons

Mr. Wood. That isn't responsive.

Mr. Geer (continuing). Even radical Republicans in Lincoln's day.

Mr. Wood. That's not responsive to my question.

Mr. Geer. I'm trying to answer directly, sir.

Mr. Wood. I want to know what your conception is about what incriminates you to tell the truth before this committee, if it is the truth, that you are not a member of the Communist Party. That wouldn't in any sense incriminate you, would it?

Mr. Geer. I really believe, sir, that the best answer to that, that I'm just allergic to meetings and things of that sort, and I stand on the advice of my counsel that

Mr. Wood. And decline to answer that question ?

Mr. Geer. In this particular day, April 11, 1951, I do, sir, with the situation of the world as it is. It's a hysterical situation.

Mr. Wood. That's all.

Mr. Geer. Thank you, sir.

Mr. Velde. I have one more question. Did I understand you to say that you felt the Communist Party was a legal party?

Mr. Geer. I understand so. I believe that.

Mr. Velde. You understand it is ?

M r. Geer. To my understanding.

Mr. Velde. Would it be any crime to admit your membership in a legal party, then ?

Mr. Geer. In this clay of hysteria it is, sir.

Mr. Velde. That's all.

Mr. Geer. Because they're like

Mr. Wood. Then you want to leave it before this committee then that in your opinion it would subject you to the danger of self-incrimination to either admit it or deny it?

Mr. Geer. I think so, sir.

Mr. Wood. Even if your denial was true? If you should deny it and it should be true, that would still incriminate you ? Is that the way you want to leave it ?

Mr. Geer. Well, I'm just simply an entertainer, and I'm not a lawyer, sir, and I can't testify.

Mr. Wood. Is that all the answer you desire to give the committee ?

Mr. Geer. That is, sir. We don't get the training in law that you do down in Athens, Ga.

Mr. Wood. You have a couple of very astute counsels. You can confer with them.

Mr. Geer. I trust lawyers even when they back shows I'm in. I have had some bad experiences in one called Tobacco Road.

Mr. Wood. I didn't ask your opinion about lawyers. I'm just commenting on the fact you have one on each side of you.

Mr. Geer. I trust the lawyers, sir.

Mr. Wood. Did the lawyers advise you to say that it would tend to incriminate you to deny your membership in an organization to which .you have never belonged

Mr. Geer. Well, I take a lawyer's backing if he backed a play, but in this situation —

Mr. Wood. I asked if they advised you —

Mr. Geer. Mr. Wood

Mr. Wood. You said you answered on the advice of counsel. I want to know if the counsel have advised you that that is a correct answer and bona fide, straightforward

Mr. Geer. I think we're getting out of bounds, Mr. Wood, about the lawyers and things. I'm just simply an entertainer and like to entertain for the public.

Mr. Wood. Then do you want to decline to answer that question as to whether or not the attorneys advised you ?

Mr. Geer. I think it would be advisable, sir. I'm sorry.

Mr. Wood. All right, if you want to leave that cloud on them.

Mr. Geer. Oh, there are lots of clouds, war clouds, all sorts of clouds.

Mr. Wood. That's all.

Mr. Geer. Thank you, Mr. Wood and committee.