fession" of Petar Koev, the Petkov aide who had been arrested in mid-January 1947. Koev had been arrested once before, in August 1946. While he was in prison he had been elected to parliament and, in consequence of parliamentary immunity, he had been released. On his release he sent a letter to his leader, Petkov, which Petkov had the courage to read to the assembly.

"They reduce you to a state of utter moral and physical prostration," said Koev's letter, "in which you become indifferent to your fate and to life itself, so that you desire some solution-any solution-so long as it will put an end to the intolerable suffering. * * * Contrary to normal juridical procedure,

you are condemned first, and it is only afterwards that they begin to search for accusations and proofs. These are obtained by means of three types of torture: Physiological torture-hunger, lack of sleep, thirst; physical tortures-beatings and being compelled to stand upright for days and nights on end; phychological tortures-insinuations that your family had been incarcerated, etc.

64

* *

* * I remained for 21 days in solitary confinement without being interrogated. During this time they subjected me to the hunger treatment-a bit of bread and water each day. * The obvious purpose of this treatment is to produce physical attrition and a corresponding weakening of your will. At 8 a. m. one Saturday they took me up to the fourth floor to be interrogated. The interrogation went on for 5 days without interruption, 24 hours a day. The interrogator was changed every 3 hours, while I was compelled to remain standing, handcuffed, without sleep, unable to support myself either against the table or against the wall, without food and-what was cruelest of all during those suffocatingly hot August days and nights-without water. Every 3 hours the same questions were repeated until I became unconscious. My bare feet swelled to unimaginable proportions. The interrogators showed not the faintest pity. * * * On the fifth day they threw me into an empty cell, where I slept like a dead man for more than 12 hours."

* * **

On the four succeeding nights Koev was trussed and beaten on the soles of his feet for three or more hours on end, with interludes during which he was questioned by Inspector Zeyev.

"During the balance of my detention," concluded the letter, "I was asked no questions, but I remained the object of a campaign of moral pressure and psychological terror. They applied refined tortures of such a kind-allusions to the fate of my family, the safety of my children, etc.-that I would honestly have preferred physical tortures."

When Koey was deprived of his parliamentary immunity on the occasion of his second arrest, he made this final declaration before leaving the parliament, “I am innocent. I know, however, that through me you are attempting to strike at the general secretary of our party, Nicola Petkov. My final words are that only the declarations which I make before you now correspond to the truth, and that, if it should happen later that, after a period of 'instruction,' I should make some 'confessions,' they will have been extorted from me by means of violence." Koev made his "confessions" and was sentenced to 12 years. He will never emerge alive. Petkov, though he defended himself heroically and admitted nothing, was sentenced to death.

I salute the memory of one of the great spirits of our time. To Nicola Petkov there can be no other monument than the liberation of his people from Communist tyranny.

Mr. NIXON. The committee will now recess until 2:30 this afternoon, at which time the witnesses will be Mr. Charles Sullivan and Mr. James Burnham. Thank you very much.

(Whereupon, at 12:45 p. m., the subcommittee recessed to reconvene at 2:30 p. m. of the same day.)

AFTERNOON SESSION

Mr. NIXON. The meeting will come to order. Mr. Stripling, will you call the first witness?

Mr. STRIPLING. Mr. Charles S. Sullivan, will you please raise your right hand? Mr. Sullivan, do you solemnly swear the testimony you are about to give the committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

Mr. SULLIVAN. I do.

Mr. NIXON. Identify the witness.

Mr. STRIPLING. Mr. Sullivan, will you state your full name and address?

TESTIMONY OF CHARLES S. SULLIVAN, CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES OF THE VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS

Mr. SULLIVAN. Charles S. Sullivan, Jr., 1301 Vermont Avenue NW.,. Washington, D. C.

Mr. STRIPLING. Are you here at the request of the committee?
Mr. SULLIVAN. I am.

Mr. STRIPLING. Do you represent any organization?

Mr. SULLIVAN. I am authorized to represent the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Department of the District of Columbia. At the present time I am the department's judge advocate, chairman of the committee on un-American activities of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, District of Columbia.

Mr. STRIPLING. Would you give the committee a brief résumé of your professional background, Mr. Sullivan?

Mr. SULLIVAN. I was admitted to the bar and practiced law in Massachusetts. I was admitted to the bar on April 12, 1926. I was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary in 1927, 1928, 1929, and 1930. I was an assistant corporation counsel with the city of Boston in 1934 until I resigned to accept my present position in 1946. I became a senior assistant corporation counsel in the city of Boston in 1938, in the trial division.

I was called on active duty in the Navy in the early part of 1941 and went overseas in the south Pacific theater of war in 1944. I became senior judge advocate of the Fourteenth Naval District, Hawaiian Islands.

In 1946, February 1, I was released from active duty from the Office of the Judge Advocate General, Navy.

I was admitted to the bar, District of Columbia, in 1943. My present occupation is legal consultant, Veterans' Administration, Washington, D. Č.

Mr. STRIPLING. Mr. Sullivan, the committee has before it at the present time several bills which would either curb or outlaw the Communist Party. I believe you have prepared a legal brief on the subject?

Mr. SULLIVAN. I have.

Mr. STRIPLING. Would you read that to the committee at this time? Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the Department of the District of Columbia have taken the position that the existence of the Communist Party at the present time is a conspiracy in violation of the law. That position is predicated on the brief that I have here which I drew up a short while ago. With your permission, I would like to state the reasons for that and the legal citations accompanying it.

The question presented is whether the existence of the Communist. Party in the United States of America is in violation of law. A criminal conspiracy is defined as

A combination between two or more persons by concerted action to accomplish a criminal or unlawful purpose or some purpose not in itself criminal or unlawful by criminal or unlawful means (35 C. J. S. 1057).

When once a conspiracy is shown to exist which in its nature is not ended merely by lapse of time, it continues to exist until consummated, abandoned, or otherwise terminated by some affirmative act (U. S. v. Rollnick, 91 Fed. (2) 911). (See also McDonald v. U. S., 81 Fed. (2) 128.)

Now, there has been some question regarding this overt act. I have some law here on that question which I would like to present to the committee.

An overt act is not necessary for conviction under (Criminal Code 6) section 6 of title 18, U S. C. A., which makes conspiracy to overthrow the Government of the United States by force and violence a criminal offense (Orear v. U. S., 261 Fed. 257, and Bryant v. U. S., 257 Fed. 378).

Section 10, title 18, U. S. C. A., 1945 cumulative edition is as follows:

(a) It shall be unlawful for any person—

(1) To knowingly or willfully advocate, abet, advise, or teach the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government;

(2) With the intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any government in the United States, to print, publish, edit, issue, circulate, sell, distribute, or publicly display any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence;

(3) To organize or help organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any government in the United States by force or violence; or to be or become a member of, or affiliate with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof.

(b) For the purposes of this section, the term "Government in the United States" means the Government of the United States, the government of any State, Territory, or possession of the United States, the government of the District of Columbia, or the government of any political subdivision of any of them (June 28, 1940, ch. 439, title I, sec. 2, 54 Stat. 671).

Section 11, title 18, United States Code Annotated, 1945 cumulative edition reads:

It shall be unlawful for any person to attempt to commit or to conspire to commit any of the acts prohibited by the provisions of sections 9-13 of this titleWhich, of course, includes section 10.

Now, the question is: Is the Communist Party of the United States of America a conspiracy to overthrow by force or violence the Government of the United States of America?

The following is a portion of the testimony rendered by William Z. Foster before the House Investigating Committee of the United States Congress in 1930:

Mr. FOSTER. The aims and principles of the Communist Party, briefly stated, are to organize the workers to defend their interests under the capitalist system and to eventually abolish the capitalist system and establish a workers' and farmers' government.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, can you tell us more definitely if the principles of the Communist Party, as advocated in this country or anywhere else, are the same? Mr. FOSTER. Yes

The CHAIRMAN. Do the Communists in this country advocate world revolution? Mr. FOSTER. Yes; the Communists in this country realize that America is connected up with whole world system and the capitalist system displays the same characteristics everywhere everywhere it makes for the misery and exploitation of the workers and it must be abolished not only on an American scale but on a world scale.

The CHAIRMAN. So that they do advocate world revolution; and do they advocate revolution in this country?

Mr. FOSTER. I have stated that the Communists advocate the abolition of the capitalist system in this country; that this must develop out of the sharpening of the class struggle and the struggle of the workers for bread and butter.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, are the Communists in this country opposed to our republican form of government?

Mr. FOSTER. The capitalist democracy-most assuredly.

The CHAIRMAN. They are opposed to our republican form of government? Mr. FOSTER. Most assuredly.

The CHAIRMAN. That is, what you advocate is a change of our republican form of government and the substituting of the soviet form of government? Mr. FOSTER. I have stated that a number of times.

Later in the same testimony:

The CHAIRMAN. If they had to choose between the red flag and the American flag, I take it from you that they would choose the red flag; is that correct? Mr. FOSTER. I have stated my answer.

The CHAIRMAN. I do not want to force you to answer if it embarrasses you, Mr. Foster.

Mr. FOSTER. It does not embarrass me at all. I stated very clearly the red flag is the flag of the revolutionary class, and we are part of the revolutionary class.

The CHAIRMAN. I understand that.

Mr. FOSTER. And all capitalist flags are flags of the capitalist class and we owe no allegiance to them.

At the time the foregoing testimony was rendered by Mr. Foster, he was the head of the Communist Party in America, having been restored a short time previous to his appearance before the above-named committee.

Now, that testimony took place in 1930. Ordinarily, a crime occurring then would be outlawed by the statute of limitations, but we are dealing here with a conspiracy and as I stated before and cited my authority for that, when a conspiracy is first shown to exist and is not in its nature ended by mere lapse of time, it continues to exist until it is consummated, abandoned, or otherwise terminated by some affirmative act.

You have testimony as late as 1946 establishing the fact that the conspiracy continued to exist as brought out in Mr. Foster's testimony until the time Mr. Budenz testified. Mr. Louis F. Budenz, former editor of the Daily Worker newspaper, gave the following sworn testimony on November 22, 1946, before the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities in the second session of the Seventy-ninth Congress:

We must understand, then, before we get to the meat of the matter that we are dealing with a conspiracy to establish Soviet dictatorship throughout the world. This conspiracy resorts normally to illegal methods. This conspiracy requires the utmost servility on the part of the so-called Communist leaders in various countries throughout the world. It makes puppets of this leadership, as shown in the case of William Z. Foster or Earl Browder.

At the present moment this conspiracy is directed specifically against the peace and safety of the United States of America. Those are serious charges, but they can be fully confirmed. You must also know the background of this business in order to appreciate this one instance before us. That is, the reference to BergerEisler is only an incident, but the point of the matter is that it is an incident which illustrates what the American people should know much more about.

I say this conspiracy is to establish the Soviet dictatorship throughout the world. There is so much evidence on that I even hesitate to try to add further confirmation. But we have such confirmation in the activities of the Communist Party itself in the United States. Never throughout its history has the Communist Party found one defect of any kind in any leader of the Soviet Union who

was endorsed by the Kremlin. You can search the Daily Worker or any other Communist publication from beginning to end for 25 years and you will find that always the Soviet leadership is 100 percent perfect in those pages (p. 3, pars. 5, 6, 7).

What I would like to state is we have here a totalitarian regime committed to the form of Soviet dictatorship existing in Russia and seeking to expand that dictatorship to world domination including, of course, all countries under this domination (p. 39, par. 4).

Now that statement brings this conspiracy outside the statute of limitations since it establishes the fact that a conspiracy has continued to exist.

The above-quoted testimony of the foregoing individuals establishes the continued existence of a criminal conspiracy to overthrow by force and violence the Government of the United States of America.

A conspiracy that continues to exist over a period of years up to the time of indictment of the conspirators does not come within the statute of limitations (Dunne v. The Unied States, 138 Fed. (2d) 137). It was stated in Dunne v. The United States, supra, that—

Overthrow or destruction of a state consists essentially in abolishing its forms and institutions.

The next question that has been raised in respect to this is whether or not an overt act is necessary to obtain a conviction. As I stated before, to obtain a conviction for a conspiracy to violate section 10 of title 18, United States Code Annotated, an overt act is not necessary and the court stated in Hogan v. O'Neill (255 U. S. 52):

At common law, no overt act is necessary to constitute a criminal conspiracy, and this rule obtains unless changed or limited by statute.

(See also U. S. v. Olmstead (5 Fed. (2d) 712); McGinness v. U. S. (256 Fed. 621.) Upon examining the statute relative to conspiracy to violate section 10, it is to be noted that the restriction "to prove the conviction rests on an overt act" is omitted. Therefore, under the decision I just cited, an overt act is not necessary. In other words, in order for an overt act to be necessary, it must be so stated by statute. This statute omits any such requirement.

Now, the essence of a criminal conspiracy is the unlawful agreement to violate a law, not its actual violation. Meyers v. U. S. (36 Fed. (2d) 859), clearly explains that doctrine.

Since section 11 of title 18 does not require the commission of an overt act to constitute a violation thereof, it is not necessary that the Government in proving its case must introduce evidence of an overt act. However, as was explained in Meyers v. U. S. which I just cited, simply because a statute does not require an overt act to be proved does not limit the prosecution of the Government to prove overt acts in order to constitute the conspiracy.

Now, the next question in the case such as we have drawn up, is whether or not the Communist Party of the United States of America advocates the overthrow by force and violence the Government of the United States of America.

I have just recited an excerpt of testimony of William Z. Foster in 1930 and of Louis Budenz in 1946, which establishes not only a conspiracy to violate section 10, title 18, supra, but the continuous violation thereof, since both of these individuals were members of the policy-forming body of the Communist Party.