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STATEMENT BY

J. EDGAR HOOVER

DIRECTOR, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

TO THE

SUBCOMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE INTERNAL SECURITY ACT AND OTHER INTERNAL SECURITY LAWS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE

EIGHTY-SIXTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION

CONCERNING THE 17TH NATIONAL CONVENTION, COMMUNIST PARTY, U.S.A., DECEMBER 10-13, 1959

49260

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary

UNITED STATES

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON: 1960

ચો મા

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

JAMES O. EASTLAND, Mississippi, Chairman

ESTES KEFAUVER, Tennessee
OLIN D. JOHNSTON, South Carolina
THOMAS C. HENNINGS, JR., Missouri
JOHN L. MCCLELLAN, Arkansas
JOSEPH C. O'MAHONEY, Wyoming

ALEXANDER WILEY, Wisconsin
EVERETT MCKINLEY DIRKSEN, Illinois
ROMAN L. HRUSKA, Nebraska
KENNETH B. KEATING, New York

SAM J. ERVIN, JR., North Carolina

JOHN A. CARROLL, Colorado
THOMAS J. DODD, Connecticut

PHILIP A. HART, Michigan

SUBCOMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE INTERNAL SECURITY
ACT AND OTHER INTERNAL SECURITY LAWS

JAMES O. EASTLAND, Mississippi, Chairman
THOMAS J. DODD, Connecticut, Vice Chairman

OLIN D. JOHNSTON, South Carolina
JOHN L. MCCLELLAN, Arkansas
SAM J. ERVIN, JR., North Carolina

ROMAN L. HRUSKA, Nebraska

EVERETT MCKINLEY DIRKSEN, Illinois
KENNETH B. KEATING, New York

J. G. SOURWINE, Counsel
BENJAMIN MANDEL, Director of Research

STATEMENT BY J. EDGAR HOOVER, DIRECTOR, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION, CONCERNING 17TH NATIONAL CONVENTION, COMMUNIST PARTY, U.S.A., NEW YORK CITY, DECEMBER 10-13, 1959

Profaning the very meaning and spirit of the "Star-Spangled Banner" by opening its sinister conclave with our national anthem, the Communist Party, U.S.A., convened its 17th national convention on December 10, 1959, in a hotel in New York City's Harlem section. Four days later, the same 200 delegates, representing other Communists throughout our Nation, adjourned in a state of jubilance.

And well they might feel in high spirits-because Communist Party, U.S.A. emerged from this convention more powerful, more unified, and even more of a menace to our Republic.

Without question, the most signal achievement was the welding of the Communist Party, U.S.A., into a solidly unified, aggressive force behind the militant, devious, and ruthless leadership of Gus Hall, ex-convict and avowed archenemy of the American way of life.

Hall was elected general secretary of the party at the convention, and there is virtual unanimous agreement among party powers and rank and file that he is the No. 1 man in the party. As such, he now spearheads as powerful a group of dissidents and fanatic democracy haters as America has seldom seen within its shores during peacetime.

The Communist conspiracy in America today is led by a man who has openly boasted that he was willing to take up arms and fight to overthrow our form of Government. Hall was convicted in Minneapolis, Minn., in 1934, in connection with a riot there when he was a member of the Young Communist League. During his trial he testified as follows:

Q. But you would prefer the Russian--you would prefer to be in Russia? A. I prefer America with a Soviet Government.

Q. And you are willing to fight and overthrow this Government?

A. Absolutely.

Q. And you are willing to take up arms and overthrow the constituted authorities?

A. When the time comes, "Yes."

As a hot-blooded young Communist in the late 1930's, Hall was arrested in Ohio and charged with the possession and use of explosives. He subsequently pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of malicious destruction of property and was fined $500.

The election of the fiery Hall to lead a strongly knit Communist Party which has and always will have as its chief objective the communizing of America should certainly shake even the most apathetic American from his lethargy, especially when viewed in the light of this hardened Communist's own statements. During radio and television interviews at the convention, Hall gladly stated that the American public "definitely" has underestimated the size and influence of the Communist Party, U.S.A. He added that the Communists in this

country should make even greater strides toward increasing its already growing number of members. He boasted that the party "is growing in industry and youth" due mainly to the change in political climate. Assuredly, there is a significant lesson for every American in this display of machinations, propaganda, and opportunism which is communism itself at work within our borders. The 17th National Convenvention of the Communist Party, U.S.A., was a revealing 4-day miniature prevue of what our Nation would become if those who aspire to become commissars of a Soviet America should ever fulfill their evil ambitions. It is apparent that, more than ever before, each American must maintain viligilant watchfulness toward this Trojan horse in our midst.

The 17th national convention is being hailed by the Communists themselves as a great milestone in the party's history in the United States.

These gains, recognized as formidable ones, are regarded by the party faithful as their chief accomplishments:

1. Promotion of Gus Hall, strongly pro-Russian and an energetic, aggressive leader, to the No. 1 position in the party;

2. Uniting the membership solidly behind the newly elected leadership, making the party a hard-hitting, mobile weapon against the free American Government;

3. Exploiting the current international political climate in an effort to make Russian policies more acceptable to American public opinion. This involves an attempt to exploit Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev's visit to the United States as a means of furthering its own schemes for bringing about a Soviet America; 4. Implemented a number of concrete programs aimed at increasing party membership and party influence in America. Such programs include increased emphasis on party recruiting, training of leaders, collection of funds, stepping up of party propaganda, and infiltration efforts into non-Communist organizations such as labor unions, Negro groups, national minorities, etc. The newly elected "boss" of the Communist Party, U.S.A., Gus Hall, vaulted to the top post of the party through a combination of fortuitous circumstances and artful plotting. He has long been disgruntled at what he believed to be soft, ineffectual leadership in the party-but his ambitions have been hidden by the shadow of Eugene Dennis, national chairman and previously acknowledged leader of the party. As the date of the convention approached, Dennis still was top man in the party although there was indication that Hall had nurtured a "dump Dennis" campaign to the point where Dennis' position was indeed a tenuous one. Then came the news that Dennis Iwould be unable to attend the convention-that he had suffered a slight stroke and that someone else would have to give the keynote address.

The scheming, opportunistic Hall rose to the occasion and delivered the address. He saw his ambition start to crystallize. Today he is communism's champion in the United States-a powerful, deceitful, dangerous foe of Americanism.

What sort of a man is Gus Hall? We in the FBI know him as a fanatical practitioner of Karl Marx' tenet that "the end justifies the means"; a coldly calculating Communist conniver who changes tac

tics as easily as he changed his name many years ago. He was born Arvo Halberg in 1910 at Virginia, Minn., the son of Matt and Susanna Halberg, both of whom later became charter members of the Communist Party. As a result of his early background of having been born into communism, many of his followers regard him as literally a man of destiny who can breathe new life into the party.

Hall joined the party in 1927 and went to Russia in 1931 to attend the Lenin School where students were taught, among other things, sabotage and guerrilla warfare techniques. After returning to this country in 1933, he became active in the Young Communist League as an organizer and in 1938 entered into full-time party work as a section organizer. As a Russian-taught disciple of Leninistic communism, Hall worked hard and rose swiftly into positions of increasing power. He was elected to the party's national committee in 1945 and became a national board member in 1947. In 1950, he was appointed national secretary, a move necessitated by the imprisonment of Eugene Dennis, who was then general secretary and who was found guilty of conspiring to violate the Smith Act of 1940.

Then, faced with confinement himself after being convicted for violation of the same act, Hall jumped $20,000 bond and became a fugitive. He dyed his blond hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes dark brown, shaved off his mustache, and shed 40 pounds in an unsuccessful effort to evade apprehension. Arrested by the FBI in 1951, Hall was sentenced to 3 years for contempt of court, making a total of 8 years when added to the 5-year sentence imposed for conspiracy to violate the Smith Act.

Conditionally released from prison in March 1957, Hall, after his probationary period ended on April 5, 1959, immediately resumed his nefarious aim of infecting America with communism.

This, then, is the man-ex-convict, propagandist, unabashed emissary of evil, and rabid advocate of a Soviet United States.

Behind this Moscow-trained, utterly ruthless Communist leader, the 17th national convention formulated an organizational apparatus designed to make the Communist Party a hard-striking power against American society. A 60-member national committee was established with such veteran and hardened party leaders as Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, James Jackson, Hyman Lumer, Arnold Samuel Johnson, and Irving Potash. This national committee is theoretically the governing body of the party between conventions, but actual policy is made by the small ruling clique.

This small clique consists of the party's national officers (though a national executive committee is later to be established) who were elected after the convention by the national committee. The national officers are:

William Z. Foster, chairman emeritus.
Eugene Dennis, national chairman.

Claude Lightfoot, vice chairman.

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, vice chairman.

Benjamin J. Davis, national secretary.

Gus Hall, general secretary.

Hyman Lumer, national education secretary.

James Jackson, national secretary for the South.

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