TESTIMONY OF BELLA V. DODD, NEW YORK, N. Y., ACCOMPANIED BY HER ATTORNEY, GODFREY P. SCHMIDT

       Senator FERGUSON. Mrs. Dodd, will you rise and raise your right hand to be sworn?
       You do solemnly swear, in the matter now pending before this sub-committee of the Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate, that you will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
       Mrs. DODD. I do.
       Senator FERGUSON. You may be seated.
       State your full name and address.
       Mrs. DODD. Bella V. Dodd. 100 West Forty-second Street, New York City.
       Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, how recently have you been associated with the Communist Party?
       Mrs. DODD. June 1949.
       Mr. MORRIS. Do you mean you severed your connection with the Communist Party at that time?
       Mrs. DODD. They severed their connection with me. I had previously tried to find my way out of the Communist Party.. In 1949 they formally issued a resolution of expulsion.
       Mr. MORRIS. What are you doing now, Dr. Dodd?
       Mrs. Donn. I practice law.
       Mr. MORRIS. You practiced law at 100 West Forty-second Street? Mrs. Donn. I do.
       Mr. MORRIS. Is that your law office?
       Mrs. DODD. That is.
       Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, will you tell the committee what positions you held while you were in the Communist Party, starting at the highest position that you achieved within that organization?
       Mrs. DODD. I was a member of the National Committee of the Communist Party from 1944 to 1948.
       Mr. MORRIS. What other positions did you hold, Mrs. Dodd?
       Mrs. DODD. I was a member of the New York State committee from 1944 to 1948. I was legislative representative of the New York State district of the Communist Party, and I was a member of various committees, such as legislative, labor, education, women's committees, youth committees.
       Mr. MORRIS. Is it your testimony, Dr. Dodd, that your specialty within the Communist Party included legislation, labor, education, women's work, and youth organizations? Is that your testimony, Dr. Dodd?
       Mrs. DODD. It is.
       Mr. MORRIS. And, as such, you achieved a position as a member of the National Committee of the Communist Party, and prior to that you were a member of the State committee of the Communist Party; is that right?
       Mrs. DODD. Right.

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       Mr. MORRIS. When did you become formally associated with the Communist Party?
       When I use the term "Communist Party," Dr. Dodd, I mean the Communist organization, whether it was at the time known as the Communist Political Association or the Communist Party.
       Mrs. DODD. I actually was given a Communist Party card in 1943, and was assigned to a branch, to work in a branch. I had formerly, for a long period of time, been associated with the Communist Party in its various activities and was known as a nonparty Bolshevik. That is a person who was not a member of the party, but who attended all of the meetings and who was given assignments.
       Mr. MORRIS. While you held that relationship to the Communist Party, Dr. Dodd, did the Communist Party repose confidence in you? Mrs. DODD. Yes. I attended a good many meetings and was in close connection with the party.
       Mr. MORRIS. Did you render service to the Communist Party during that period?
       Mrs. DODD. I rendered many services to the Communist Party. Senator FERGUSON. Even though you did not have a card? Mrs. DODD. Even though I did not have a card.
       Senator FERGUSON. Does card carrying require you to pay dues ? Mrs. DODD. Yes.
       Senator FERGUSON. Were you paying dues prior to the time you obtained the card?
       Mrs. DODD. I did not obtain dues, although I begged contributions at various meetings and for various causes.
       Senator FERGUSON. Could you give us the percentage of members that, to your knowledge, may have been members of the Communist Party without cards at that time?
       Mrs. DODD. I don't have any knowledge of that, of the count; but it is extensive.
       Senator FERGUSON. It is extensive?
       Mrs. DODD. Yes.
       Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, will you give us the circumstances leading up to your first association with the Communist Party ?
       Mrs. DODD. My first association with the Communist Party was back in 1932. I had returned from a trip to Europe. I had been in the University of Berlin and had seen the rise of fascism in Berlin, came back feeling that this must be destroyed, this must be fought.
       Mr. MORRIS. That was in 1932.
       Were you a teacher at that time, Dr. Dodd?
       Mrs. DODD. I was a teacher at Hunter College, an instructor in political science and economics.
       Mr. MORRIS. Did you graduate from Hunter College?
       Mrs. DODD. In 1925.
       Mr. MORRIS. Do you hold any doctor's degrees?
       Mrs. DODD. I hold a doctor of jurisprudence.
       Mr. MORRIS. What countries did you visit while you were in Europe in 1932?
       Mrs. DODD. France, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Germany, Austria, Hungary.
       Mr. MORRIS. Was fascism on the rise at that time, Dr. Dodd?
       Mrs. DODD. It was.

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       Mr. MORRIS. And you experienced it first-hand from your travels in Europe at that time; is that right?
       Mrs. DODD. I saw a great deal of violence in Berlin itself between the Fascists—the National Socialists, as they were called at that time—and the Communists.
       Mr. MORRIS. And you saw first-hand the evils and horrors and excesses of Fascist rule in Germany and Italy; is that right?
       Mrs. DODD. I did.
       Mr. MORRIS. Did that influence your thinking at that time?
       Mrs. DODD. It did. It made me determined to fight anything of that kind and to oppose extension to the United States.
       Mr. MORRIS. You tell us that, then, is the background to your having an association with the Communist Party; is that right, Doctor? Mrs. DODD. Yes.
       Mr. MORRIS. Will you tell us what that actual association was?
       Mrs. DODD. In 1932, I was approached by someone by the name of Harriet Silverman, who identified herself as a member of the Communist Party, who said that she and a number of others were setting up an anti-Fascist-literature committee, and she asked whether I would work on the committee for the purpose of raising money for the underground fight in Germany against the rise of fascism, and also for the writing of literature against fascism.
       I said "Yes," and Harriet Silverman said to me, "Well, would you like proof that this money is going to be raised for the anti-Fascist work?" I said I would like some kind of proof. So she asked whether I would like to meet Earl Browder. I answered in the affirmative. She took me to Thirteenth Street, or Twelfth Street, and she took me to Earl Browder with some other lady who was raising money for the anti-Fascist movement.
       Mr. MORRIS. Did you meet Earl Browder at Thirteenth Street? Mrs. DODD. Yes.
       Mr. MORRIS. And that was the Communist Party headquarters at that time; was it'?        Mrs. DODD. It was.
       Mr. MORRIS.Will you please tell us what happened then?
       Mrs. DODD. Harriet said, "Here are two people who are going to raise money for the anti-Fascist movement." He greeted us very cordially. I didn't say much and we talked about the evils of fascism and we left.
       Thereafter I helped to raise money for the anti-Fascist movement.
       By that I mean that I ran certain parties, certain social functions, and devised ways and means of getting a financial contribution going. From 1932 to 1935 I did practically nothing else but that as an extra-curricula work to my work in college.
       Mr. MORRIS. Did something take place in 1935 that brought you closer to the Communist Party? Is that what you indicate when you give the terminus of that date?
       Mrs. DODD. Yes. In 1935, the Teachers' Union was having a great deal of difficulty because of the so-called Communist and anti-Communist factions within the union.
      I n 1935, or the beginning of 1936, one part of the union left the Teachers' Union. This group of 700 teachers was led by Dr. Linville

 and Dr. Lefkowitz. They left and formed what was called the Teachers Guild, and the remaining 1,500 teachers who remained within the Teachers' Union were the union.
       Now, while they had 1,500 teachers, the seasoned leaders of the union had, gone with the opposition, had gone out of the union.
       I might say that the union at that time was affiliated with the A. F. of L.
       Mr. MORRIS. Do you mean by "the seasoned leaders," Dr. Linville and Dr. Lefkowitz ?
       Mrs. DODD. Yes.
       Mr. MORRIS. Are they the people who had formed the union and had developed it up to that time?
       Mrs. DODD. That is right. They were casting about for new leaders, and I, in my own college, had been very active in organizing the instructors and the tutors and the lower category of teaching staff at the colleges.
       Mr. MORRIS. Were you organizing them for the Teachers' Union?
       Mrs. DODD. No, just organizing them for themselves so that they might improve their tenure conditions, their salary conditions, and so forth and so on.
       Senator FEGUSON. Were you a teacher at this time?
       Mrs. DODD. Yes; I was a teacher at this time.
       And in organizing, helping to organize the teachers in these city colleges for the improvement of their economic conditions, I had been successful in having introduced and passed a bill for tenure for the college teachers. They had never had tenure. It was quite accidental that I had that bill passed. I just happened to have some friend in Albany who agreed to introduce the bill, and the bill was passed.
       And it gave tenure to the college teachers for the first time in the history of New York.
       But because I had helped to pass that tenure bill, the Teachers' Union representatives now cast an inquiring eye toward me as to whether I might not be useful to them in the legislative field. And I was asked to serve as their legislative representative for a short period of time, until they could find other leaders.
       But the short period of time grew into a long period of time, and I remained as the legislative representative until 1944.
       Mr. MORRIS. Now, Dr. Dodd, during that period, did you deal with Communist Party officials, and were you connected with that work?
       Mrs. DODD. I did.
       Mr. MORRIS. Will you tell us what relationship you bore to the Communist Party organization while you were the legislative representative for the Teachers' Union?
       Mrs. DODD. Well, I soon got to know the majority of the people in the top leadership of the Teachers' Union were Communists, or, at least, were influenced by the Communist organization in the city.
       Mr. MORRIS. Will you tell us precisely how you knew that, Dr. Dodd?
       Mrs. DODD. Well, at that time–
       Mr. MORRIS. This is now from 1936 to 1944; is that right, Dr. Dodd?
       Mrs. DODD. Yes.
       Mr. MORRIS. And the Teachers' Union in 1936 was made up of how many members?

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       Mrs. DODD. It began with about 1,500 members. 
       Mr. MORRIS. What was your greatest strength?
       Mrs. DODD. We increased to about 11,000.
       Mr. MORRIS. What was the year of the greatest strength?
       MRS. DODD. 1938 and 1939.
       Mr. MORRIS. In 1938 and 1939 the union was then at its strongest. During that period, how did the Communist Party function within the Teachers' Union ?
       Mrs. DODD. Within the Teachers' Union you had a caucus of the executive board, Communist members of the executive board. At that time the caucus seemed to be necessary, because they were fighting the Socialists, the Lovestoneites, and the other splinter groups who were struggling to gain power over the union. But the Communists were successful in taking control.
       Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, how many members ordinarily would there be of the executive board? Is that what they called it in the Teachers' Union?
       Mrs. DODD. Yes.
       Mr. MORRIS. How many members were there during this period of time?
       Mrs. DODD. The executive board was elected by proportionate representation, and it varied between twenty-three and thirty-odd members.
       And, unfortunately, at most of the times two-thirds of those executive board members were members of the party.
       Mr. MORRIS. How did you know that, Doctor? Did these people caucus, for instance?
       Mrs. DODD. Yes; we had caucuses from time to time, and we also had a small steering committee.
       Mr. MORRIS. When you say "we," do you mean the Communist Party at that time?
       Mrs. DODD. That is right.
       Mr. MORRIS. Did you know, as a matter of fact, that a Communist Party caucus would meet before executive board meetings?
       Mrs. DODD. They always caucused before these meetings.
       Mr. MORRIS. Did you attend these caucus meetings?
       Mrs. DODD. Whenever I was in the city, when I wasn't in Albany or somewhere else.
       Mr. MORRIS. And you attended and you knew it was a Communist caucus, and everyone else knew it was a Communist caucus; is that right, Dr. Dodd?
       Mrs. DODD. Yes.
       Mr. MORRIS. Who would be present at such meetings other than Communist teachers?
       Mrs. DODD,. Generally only they would be present. Once in a great while, where they had a controversy among themselves and couldn't settle the problem, they would invite someone from the county or district of the party to come in and straighten them out.
       Mr. MORRIS. Of the Communist Party. So there was no doubt at any time that that was strictly a Communist Party operation operating within the executive board of the teachers' union?
       Mrs. DODD. That is right.
       Mr. MORRIS. What political activity was engaged in by the Communist Party through that instrumentality you just described to us?

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       Mrs. DODD. The Communist Party was interested in seeing to it that the union, which was an AFL union, would carry out the line of the Communist Party on political questions.
     Now, you couldn’t take all political questions into the union because you had to present those questions then to the membership, and the membership might revolt against having too many political questions.
     But insofar as possible, they were going to bring as many political questions into the union as they possibly could.
      Mr. MORRIS.  Would you give an example of that?
     Mrs. DODD.  For instance, during the years of collective security, when the official policy of the Communist Party on foreign affairs was collective security, one of the things you did was to have the executive board of the Teachers’ Union, that is, the caucus for the steering committee of the Teachers’ Union, discuss how collective security might be promoted through the teachers’ union or through the other organizations which the teachers’ union as affiliated with, for instance, with the Central Trades and Labor Council, the State Federation of Labor, and, later on, with the American labor Party, and various other community organizations.
      Mr. MORRIS.  Was the Teachers’ Union used by the party for recruiting purposes?
     Mrs. DODD.  It is the function of every Communist group to recruit other members into the Communist Party.
     Mr. MORRIS.  Did the atmosphere within the Teachers’ Union make it conducive for the Communist Party to operate within that organization for recruiting purposes?
     Mrs. DODD.  I would say “Yes.”
     Senator FERGUSON.  Was there a party line, as far as teachers were concerned?
     Mrs. DODD.  On educational questions, do you mean, Senator Ferguson?
     Senator FERGUSON.  Yes.
     Mrs. DODD.  Well, only if the questions were connected with the political questions that the Communist Party was interested in.  For instance, there was a Teachers’ Union policy on the questions of war and fascism.  I mean during the period in which the Communist Party was antiwar, the Teachers’ Union policy was antiwar; during the period when the party came into the full support of the war, the Teachers’ Union shifted its policy, and became prowar.
      Senator FERGUSON. In other words, the steering committee, as I take your testimony, was used for the purpose of steering the teachers along the line that communism desired ?
       Mrs. DODD. On political questions, yes.
       Senator FERGUSON. On political questions?
       Mrs. DODD. I would say also on certain educational questions.
       You take, for instance, the whole question of the theory of education, whether it should be progressive education or whether it should be the more formal education. The Communist Party as a whole adopted a line of being for the progressive education. And that would be carried on through the steering committee and into the union.
       Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, you mentioned that the greatest strength of the union was between 1938 and 1939. What happened at that time that caused your organization to lose some force?

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       Mrs. DODD. Well, two things happened. The Communist Party became very much enamoured of the idea of unity between the AFL and the CIO, and they tried to push as many of their unions in the Central Trades and Labor Council and in the State Federation of Labor to calling conferences on the question of unity. They weren't successful in getting any of these stable unions in it, these large unions, to call the conferences.
       Finally they convinced the Teachers' Union to call a conference on unity between the AFL and CIO. We invited some hundred unions and we did, I think, have 85. We felt that resulted in our being expelled from the Central Trades and Labor Council.
       Senator FERGUSON. When you say you had so many present, do you mean the Communists, or the union ?
       Mrs. DODD. The Communists convinced us that we should call a conference on unity between the AFL and CIO. Since the Communists controlled the union so closely—it was a matter of bad judgment—the Teachers' Union did call that conference, and that conference resulted in having the Teachers' Union ousted from the Central Trades and Labor Council, which was the AFL.
       Then, of course, the Central Trades and Labor Council tried to get us out of the AFL generally. They made trouble with our parent organization, the American Federation of Teachers. We found ourselves in trouble with the American Federation of Teachers at this time, with a great many attacks upon us and a good deal of attacks upon us as Reds.
       At the same time the New York State Legislature adopted a resolution calling for the investigation of the schools. That resolution was to investigate the finances of the schools, but, in addition, to investigate the subversive activities of the New York City school teachers.
       That was popularly called the Rapp-Coudert Investigating Committee.
       We couldn't withstand the two attacks—that is, the A. F. of T. and the A. F. of L. and the Rapp-Coudert committee, and the influence of the union declined considerably during that period.
       In addition to that, the party at that time was apologizing for the Nazi-Soviet pact—I mean, just not knowing how to handle it—and that lost us a great many other people who had supported the union formerly.
       Mr. MORRIS. This question is asked now in connection with legislation along these lines, Mr. Chairman.
       Did you, as a matter of fact, find that the investigation carried on by the New York State Legislature at that time did weaken the Coinmunist force in the teaching field ?
       Mrs. DODD. It most certainly did.
       Senator FERGUSON. You have indicated here that any real publicity of Communist activity in a union or in any organization has a tendency, then, to weaken or destroy communism in that organization.
       Mrs. DODD. I think any honest investigation which brings the issues to the fore and lets all decent and honest people, whether they are the teachers who are trapped in this organization, or not, really look at the issues, will help to eliminate that which is evil.
       Senator FERGUSON. You think, then, that the facts were such that there were many innocent teachers not realizing what was being done

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on the so-called backstage caucuses by the members of the Communist Party that belonged to the union, getting their instructions by calling in Communist members at the time to get instructions; that this was not known to the mass—rank and file, let me call them—of the teachers; is that correct?
       Mrs. DODD. That is absolutely correct, Senator Ferguson.
       One of the real problems is that not only the members of the union didn't know, but a large number of the teachers who became Communists didn't really know what it was all about.
      I, myself, so long as I functioned on the trade-union level in the Teachers' Union, why, my heavens, I was one of the staunchest of the Communists and would have called your committee a committee to smash the schools. It wasn't until I entered the Communist Party as a functionary in the Communist Party that I saw that it was a full, true, cynical conspiracy and something which is so thoroughly evil that I would like to spend the rest of my days to tell the teachers who are entrapped in this thing how to get out.
       Senator FERGUSON. In other words, until you obtained the knowledge as to what actually was taking place as far as the Communist Party was concerned, how they functioned to get control of labor unions, whether it be teachers or others, or any organization, you, as an advocate of labor, were so firm in your opinion as to the justification of the needs of labor that you did not see the Communist activity until you became directly connected with it; is that a fair statement?
       Mrs. DODD. That is correct.
       Mr. MORRIS. You thought prior to that time that you were taking part in honest trade-union activity; did you?
       Mrs. DODD. I thought I was taking part in an organization which was committed to the defense and the promotion of the interests of the working class.
       I didn't realize until I got in that this is just nothing but a masquerade, that these things are just used to capture many people and that actually they are not really interested in these various questions.
       Senator FERGUSON. In other words, the question of the humanitarian cause becomes a front rather than a real desire upon the part of these Communists; is that a correct statement?
       Mrs. DODD. That is a correct statement.
       Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, could you tell us how you worked with some other organizations at the time to further Communist activity; that is, while you were legislative representative of the teachers' union and had such an intimate knowledge of Communist teachers?
       Did the Communist Party use these teachers for other purposes, or did they restrict their activity to the schools alone?
       Mrs. DODD. Teachers have always been a very important part of the Communist apparatus. As a Teachers' Union member, I was a delegate to the central trades and labor council and I was a delegate to the State federation of labor. I was a delegate to the central trades and labor council, and I was put in contact with Communist members of other unions who were to operate with me on the floor of the central trades and labor council. We would caucus. We would decide what should be stressed, what shouldn't be stressed; what we would approve of, what we wouldn't approve of; whom we would vote for, and whom we wouldn't vote for. So that we attempted to carry out the party line in the labor field.

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       We functioned on whatever levels the Communist Party uses teachers for, to get dues, to get finances. They are a stable group with an income and they are generous and conscientious.
      Secondly, they use them for personnel. Teachers are well equipped, I mean they are trained thinkers and if you can convince them that they should go out and fight for the cause, you can get them to go out and become section organizers, district organizers.
       Mr. MORRIS. Do you mean they give, up their teaching jobs?
       Mrs. DODD. Yes. In many cases they gave up their teaching jobs. Or you can get them to go out and teach during the summer, teach labor classes during the summer, teach Communist Party classes during the summer, or during the evening.
       Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, can you name any particular teachers who did become functionaries of the Communist Party? You say that it was a ready avenue.
       Mrs. DODD. Isodore Begun became a member of the national committee, the national advisory committee.
       Mr. MORRIS. He was a school teacher, was he not, Mrs. Dodd?
       Mrs. DODD. He was a school teacher.
       Mr. MORRIS. Was he a member of the Communist fraction?
       Mrs. DODD. Isodore Begun was a Teachers' Union member for a while. He was a leader of the unemployed teachers' movement. Then he became educational director for the New York district of the Communist Party.
       Then he became farm expert, or legislative expert, both. Then there was Maurice Shappes.
       Mr. MORRIS. Had he become a Communist Party organizer?
       Mrs. DODD. He was organizing the educational department of the Communist Party, almost simultaneously with the other.
       There was a man by the name of Green, who went from City College to Texas as an organizer.
      I can't think of all of them.
       Mr. MORRIS. Did you make use of teachers to infiltrate any political organizations?
       Mrs. DODD. Yes. Teachers were, of course, urged to partake of the political life around them. They joined the American Labor Party in great numbers when the teachers' union was affiliated with the American Labor Party.
       Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, were you ever connected with the American Labor Party officially?
       Mrs. DODD. Yes, I was.
       Mr. MORRIS. To your knowledge, was that controlled by the Communists?
       Mrs. Donn. It became controlled by the Communists completely after 1942. Up to 1942, there had been a struggle between the Social Democrats and the Communists for control of the American Labor Party.
       Mr. MORRIS. In 1942 what happened?
       Mrs. DODD. I think the Communists captured the last of the boroughs ; that is, Brooklyn.
       Mr. MORRIS. How do you know that what you tell us now, Doctor?
       Mrs. DODD. I was chairman of the committee to help raise funds and supply personnel for that.

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       Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, will you get back to this State legislative committee? That committee was in 1940-41, was it not?
       Mrs. DODD. The Rapp-Coudert committee?
       Mr. MORRIS. Yes.
       Mrs. DODD. The resolution was adopted in 1939, the investigation began in 1940.
       Mr. MoRRIs. Were you active in opposing that investigation?
       Mrs. DODD. I opposed it with everything I had in me.
       Mr. MORRIS. How long did that opposition last?
       Mrs. DODD. The opposition continued throughout the 2 years, that is, throughout 1940-41, and it carried into 1942, when Senator Coudert ran for–
       Mr. MORRIS. Was it State senator?
       Mrs. DODD. No. The first time he ran for Congress, wasn't it?
       Mr. MORRIS. He ran for State senator.
       My recollection, Mr. Chairman, is that he was running for State senator in 1942.
       And you say you participated in that campaign?
       Mrs. Donn. Yes, I did.
       Mr. MORRIS. What was the purpose of that?
       Mrs. DODD. The purpose of that was to see to it that anyone who attempted to "smear" the schools, as I thought––putting this in quotation marks—because I thought the Rapp-Coudert committee was to destroy the public-school system, that anyone who attempted to "smear" the school system should not be allowed to go back into public office, and that everything should be done to defeat him.
       Mr. MORRIS. Actually, what was the real reasoning behind that campaign?
       Mrs. DODD. Well, after all, the fight of the Rapp-Coudert committee was to expose Communist teachers. The Communist Party just couldn't permit a person of that kind, who had taken such a toll, to remain in public life.
      Mr. MORRIS. Do you know whether the Soviet Union actually intervened in this fight?
       Mrs. DODD. I wouldn't know whether the Soviet Union intervened. I had one little incident happen which might be of interest to you. Mrs. MORRIS. What was that, Dr. Dodd?
       Mrs. DODD. One of the gentlemen in this city, who represented some of the Russian business interests, made a contribution to the campaign against Senator Coudert.
       Mr. MORRIS. What was his name?
       Mrs. DODD. Charles Recht.
       Mr. MORRIS. Is he the attorney?
       Mrs. DODD. He was the attorney for Amtorg. I don't know whether he is now.
       Mr. MORRIS. Did he say anything to you at the time he made that contribution?
       Mrs. DODD. He gave me some information about the Coudert law firm, Coudert & Coudert law firm. He said they represented many of the White Russians.
       Mr. MORRIS. And he was giving you that information for what purpose?
       Mrs. DODD. He knew that I was going to use it during the campaign.

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       Mr. MORRIS. Now, Dr. Dodd, were you in a position to determine the strength of the Communist organization within the teachers throughout the United States?
       Mrs. DODD. Tentatively, yes.
       Mr. MORRIS. Did you ever address a group of teachers, a large group of teachers?
       Mrs. DODD. Many times.
       Mr. MORRIS. Did you ever address a large group of Communist teachers?
       Mrs. DODD. Yes. In the spring of 1944, after I had been made a member of the National Committee of the Communist Party, I was invited back to speak to the Communist teachers on a Sunday afternoon at the Jefferson School.
       Mr. MORRIS. What Communist teachers were they?
       Mrs. DODD. Those are the teachers in and around New York, the Greater New York teachers, that is, the members of the Communist Party, or people who were close to the Communist Party.
       Mr. MORRIS. Were they all Communist teachers?
       Mrs. DODD. I would say a large number of them were. I think the understanding was that meeting was to be a recruiting meeting and people could bring with them whom they wanted to recruit. Mr. MORRIS. How many people were present at that meeting? Mrs. DODD. Close to 500.
       Senator FERGUSON. Where is the Jefferson School?
       Mrs. DODD. Sixteenth Street and Sixth Avenue.
       Mr. MORRIS. And they were all school teachers, were they?
       Mrs. DODD. It was intended to be a school teachers' meeting.
       Mr. MORRIS. At least you would address them as school teachers or potential school teachers?
       Mrs. DODD. Yes.
       Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, would you tell us what other experience you have had within the teachers' union and within the various teachers' groups within the United States?
      Senator FERGUSON. Before we pass on to that, I would like to cover the Jefferson School.
      I would like to know whether or not you have any knowledge as to what the Jefferson School was ?
       Mrs. DODD. The Jefferson School is a school based upon Marxist-Leninist philosophy. It was established as a result of the people who lost their jobs during the Rapp-Coudert fight. There are about 50 teachers and professors who lost their jobs as a result of the fight. And I, with the Teachers' Union, helped to establish what was called the School for Democracy, and these became the teachers in the School for Democracy.
       Mr. MORRIS. Was that a Communist project?
       Mrs. DODD. No. That was a teachers' union project.
       But shortly thereafter, the Communist Party decided they wanted a broad Marxist Institute, and they also saw that the School for Democracy was financing itself and they decided that they might perhaps join the School for Democracy with the Workers School.        At that time they conducted a Communist Party workers' education, Workers School. As a result of that, Mr. Trachtenberg and Mr. David Goldway, and a few of the other people formed a committee for the purpose of amalgamating these two institutions.

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       As a result of that, they purchased a building on Sixteenth Street and established this Jefferson School, which is, as I say, a Marxist institute.
       Senator FERGUSON. So that was a Communist school, was it?
       Mrs. DODD. The idea was that it was to be a Marxist-Leninist institution, but that does not mean that the people who attended that were necessarily Communists. I mean it would mean that it would appeal to people who were Communists and who wanted to know more about communism, or to people who didn't know anything about communism, but would like to learn.
       Senator FERGUSON. But they were teaching the philosophy of communism, were they not?
       Mrs. DODD. They were.
       Mr. MORRIS. Orthodox subjects, from the Communist point of view, have been allowed to be taught?
       Mrs. DODD. I don't think so, although they had many things like a course on how to make a dress, for instance, or a course in dancing, which might be too difficult to relate to the Communist movement.
       Mr. MORRIS. It would have no particular Communist overtone?
       Senator FERGUSON. In other words, making a dress could be capitalistic.
       Mrs. DODD. I daresay that even Russian women like to have nice-looking clothes.
       Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, we would like to get from you, strictly based on your own experience within the Communist Party and within the Teachers' Union and other teachers' organizations that you have associated with, an estimate of the number of teachers who were Communist Party members throughout the United States.
       First of all, what would you estimate as the Communist strength in the area of New York City?
       Mrs. DODD. Of course, it fluctuated from year to year, and you will find that at the peak of the union you had about a thousand teachers in the Communist movement.
       Mr. MORRIS. As party members?
       Mrs. DODD. As party members.
       However, when the WPA projects were closed, some of those dropped out. I would say that in the New York area there would be about 600, 700, 750. I think at the peak, on a Nation-wide basis, you never had more than, let's say, 1,500 teachers in the Communist movement.
       Mr. MORRIS. Do you speak as of down to 1948, or are you holding this to 1944?
       Mrs. DODD. I am speaking of 1944, because I have no knowledge after that.
       Mr. MORRIS. After 1944 you became a higher functionary of the Communist Party, did you not?
       Mrs. DODD. That is true, and although I did retain some relationtion [sic] with the New York City school apparatus, I had no connection with the national situation.
       Mr. MORRIS. You could, however, give an estimate of whether or not the size of the Communist force in New York had waxed or waned, could you not?

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       Mrs. DODD. I would say it went down during the period of 1940-41, and then for a while, while the union remained completely independent, it was very low. But it began rising again as the union joined the CIO and began to be successful again.
       However, I would say that these 750 to 1,000 is the peak that you would have even in the Greater New York area.
       Mr. MORRIS. In that figure you included public schools as well as private schools; is that right?
       Mrs. DODD. Yes. That would be Communist teachers on any level.
       Mr. MORRIS. In other words, a teacher who would be in a private college in New York City would be eligible for membership (a) in the teachers' union and (b) in the Communist caucus that operated the union; is that right, Dr. Dodd?
       Mrs. DODD. That is right.
       Mr. MORRIS. Could you give us a rough estimate—that is, speaking from the Communist point of view, now—of what your strength on a college campus would have to be before you could operate a successful operation on the campus?
       Mrs. DODD. Well, one thing I think people in America have to learn is that if you have one Communist on a campus, or one Communist in an organization, that person is dedicated to building a unit. And a unit consists of a minimum of three people.
       Senator FERGUSON. Tell us just how they function so that maybe we can advise the American people as to how they function. Explain just how a Communist on a campus, both a student and/or a teacher, would function.
       Mrs. DODD. There are two ways of functioning. One, a Communist who is an idealist tries to take the party line into his various organizations, whatever clubs he belongs to, whatever organizations he belongs to, and tries to find others who are sympathetic with him, or he finds where the sore spots are on the campus. If he finds that some people are being abused, discriminated against, some people are unhappy, he fastens himself on to them and pretty soon he's got them functioning with him. First they will function not as party people, but just as a committee, or as a group. Then later on, what you do is you say to people, "If we had a union we might get higher wages." But then you point out that to really insure high wages, you can't get it until the Socialist system has been established, or until communism has been victorious.
       In other words, you teach people that all they can get are little crumbs here and there, but that ultimately they will have to join the Communist movement in order to make the real change.
       Senator FERGUSON. You said if there was one on a campus, that that may grow into more. How did they function in getting new members so that the new members might function as the one that was established?
       Mrs. DODD. You choose an issue which you would bring up. Supposing you are a member of the faculty and you chose the issue, let's say, of increasing wages, you got up and made a definite proposal, to let the wages be increased by 10 percent. And then you found out who spoke up with you, who seemed to be interested in the program.

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       If you found two or three or four or five people, then you attached yourself to those two or three or four or five people, and you began to work on them day after day after day.
       You socialized with them, you made it your business to socialize with them. You made it your business to take them to lunch.
       And then you weeded out those who were not possible and those who were possible.
       Senator FERGUSON. What about creation of cells in schools or colleges?
       Mrs. DODD. As soon as you had three people who were committed with you, who felt that the Communist movement was a good movement, that that was the only way to change it, you established yourselves as a unit. That unit then became attached to the district or the section or the city which had a Communist movement, and the district organizer always was very sensitive to what was happening on the campuses.
       Senator FERGUSON. Suppose that you obtained six ?
       Mrs. DODD. Your units might be a minimum of three, and they generally were from three to about seven or eight.
       But I have seen units of as high as 25, in the days when the Communist Party became lax. And then in the period when the Communist Party abolished all cells and established what we called street units--
       Senator FERGUSON. Will you explain those?
       Mrs. DODD. Those were the days when they were emphasizing the importance of a democratic approach, and they established great, big political clubs, and they used to try to convince people that within a large political club you had nothing to fear, nobody was going to know you. You weren't known by any name; you were just known by a first name or nickname. You used a thing of that kind.
       Only one person knew you, your organizer. It was to him that you paid your dues and reported on individual problems.
       But that was only a very short period.
       Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, I wonder if you would tell us how Communist Party directives would be translated into activity by these various teachers' fronts, teacher organizations?
       Could you give us the precise medium by which this Communist Party directive would be transferred ?
       Mrs. DODD. One of the things you have to understand, is that the Communist Party tried to give to their members a certain degree of education along the Marxist-Leninist line and to provide for them a certain amount of initiative on their own part. So that the Communist Party said to you, "We must build the American League Against War and Fascism." A little unit of three would take that directive into whatever mass organizations there were on the campus. If I were a member of the teachers in the English department, I would take it to the teachers in the English department.
       If I were a member of the political sciences, I would take it there. Wherever there were meetings, you saw that those meetings were covered with someone who brought the directive in there.
       You might see to it that one of the unit members would be a writer, on one of the magazines or newspapers. You always tried to get :someone on the newspapers or magazines of the college so that the

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columns of the newspapers might be open to you for expressing your opinion.
       Senator FERGUSON. What other projects were there for which you might anticipate they would use the teachers? Did they ever use them to pass resolutions and–     
        Mrs. DODD. The Teachers' Unions were used a great deal to formulate public opinion in America. The teachers were active in the parents' organizations; they were active with the students; they were active in their own professional cultural organizations, and in the American Federation of Teachers we had our conventions.
       So that anything the Communist Party wanted to be popularized, they would see to it that it had a copy of a resolution, which you then modified to met your own individual needs.
       Some organizations could stand a strong resolution, a total support of the thing; some organizations could only go one step. At any rate,. the individual group modified that resolution to suit its own needs.
       But, at any rate, everyone was moving forward on that particular subject. But whether it was collective security, whether it was prowar, whether it was against war, whether it was against the Dies committee, whether it was against some congressional legislation, there resolutions would be introduced, and simultaneously you would have a. large number of resolutions popularized in the newspapers, delegations going to the various men in public office, telephones, telegrams.
       Senator FERGUSON. How did you function at these so-called conventions where the larger group would meet?
       Mrs. DODD. Well, the American Federation of Teachers convention were held once a year. And what would happen is that the Communist delegates going there would know in advance, they would be told by their own section organizers, or their own district leaders of the Communist Party, that they would meet so-and-so at the convention..
       The central district of the party here in New York always met with a steering committee of that convention in advance to there decide what was to be accomplished at that convention.
       Then when we got to the conventions we would meet with someone from the Communist Party at some hotel room. There would be a representative of the various districts of the United States, California, Michigan, the South, West, East. We would have representatives.
       And we would get a line setting. That is, there would be some discussion as to what the perspectives of this convention were; how to accomplish it; whom to win over;. what caucuses to build and what caucuses not to build.
       For instance, in addition to the Communist Party caucus, we would also have a "united front" caucus.
       Senator FERGUSON. Will you explain the united front as far as these caucuses were concerned?
       Mrs. DODD. The "united front" was always an alliance with someone who didn't go all the way with the group; those who didn't believe with you in everything you believed in, but who would go along. As I said once before, no one formed a "united front" with the Communists, without being weakened, because Communists form a united front when they are going to get strength anew and not when they are going to get weakened.
       Senator FERGUSON. In what cities have you attended conventions and operated with Communists of those cities in the school system?

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       Mrs. DODD. Philadelphia, New York, Buffalo, Madison (Wis.), Cleveland, Cedar Rapids, Boston.
       Senator FERGUSON. Have you ever been in Michigan ?
       Mrs. DODD. Yes, I was in Detroit twice. We had a convention in 1940 and 1941.
       Senator FERGUSON. Did you find any Communists there? Mrs. DODD. There were some.
       Senator FERGUSON. That cooperated in these caucuses?
       Mrs. DODD. Yes.
       Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, I wonder, on the basis of all your experience within these teachers' organizations and the Communist Party and these various trips and conventions that you are describing, what would you estimate the membership of the Communist Party nationally to have been?
       I think you gave us a figure before which related only to New York. Is not that right?
       Mrs. DODD. I would say that your teacher membership on a Nation-wide basis is not too large. It is about 1,500 members. I don't think you ever had it much larger than that.
       Mr. MORRIS. That is, strategically disposed?
       Mrs. DODD. Distributed; yes.
       Mr. MORRIS. Could you tell us some of the colleges that you, to your own knowledge, that you knew from your own knowledge, had units operating on the campus?
       Mrs. DODD. All of the city colleges here in New York, I mean the four city colleges; Columbia University, Long Island University, New York University, Vassar College, Wellesley, Smith, Harvard, MIT, University of Michigan, Chicago, Northwestern University, University of California, the University of Minnesota, Howard University.
       That is about it.
       Mr. MORRIS. In all of these cases, there would be at least one member of the faculty who would be a member of the Communist Party and he would have operating with him a certain number of students; is that correct?
       Mrs. DODD. It would be his duty to try to get his group of students working with him.
       Mr. MORRIS. But, as a matter of fact when, you name all these schools, each one of these schools had a unit on the campus; is that right?
       Mrs. DODD. We had delegates to the convention from those universities; yes.
       Senator FERGUSON. They were Communists and operated with you through the Communists; is that what you have in mind?
       Mrs. DODD. That is right.
       Mr. MORRIS. And this organization, on any issue that would come up, this whole organization would be brought to play and be used to effect some particular Communist Party purposes?
       Mrs. DODD. Of course.
       Many of the things that the Communist Party proposed were things which the teachers wanted, or, I mean, thought they wanted; they were for.
       They thought they were fighting for something that was good and progressive.

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       Senator FERGUSON. You mentioned that you think there were about 1,500 Communist teachers in the United States. Now, we have thousands of teachers. What influence could 1,500 teachers have among the many thousands?
       Mrs. DODD. As a matter of fact, you have over a million teachers in America, and, by and large, your schools are not manned by Communists. The Communist influence is important only where it is strategically placed, and no Communist is ever satisfied with remaining in a position of inferiority. He seeks a strategic position.
       If you had Communists in these schools of education, that is a very strategic position because not only are they affecting the philosophy of education but they are also teaching other teachers, who, in turn, are teaching the pupils.
       If you have one Communist teacher in the school of education, and he teaches, let's say, 300 teachers, who then go out all over the United States, that is a strategic position.
       Senator FERGUSON. You were talking, then, about 1,500 actual Communists, were you?
       Mrs. DODD. That is right.
       Senator FERGUSON. Can you tell us where you first were contacted, in your opinion, in our educational system about communism?
       Mrs. DODD. Well, it is very difficult. I guess that the schools are subject to the same influences as all the other conditions in life. I was a freshman at college when my English teacher, for instance, gave me Anna Louise Strong's book, I Changed Worlds. I thought it was a very exciting, very interesting book.
       In addition to that, we had a discussion in that class on the whole question of the new Soviet experiment, and while she didn't say that she was for it, she left all the implications, and thereafter a number of us became attached to her and discussed these problems with her.
       I am sure that she wasn't a member of the Communist Party, but she was sympathetic.
       Senator FERGUSON. When you were a teacher and really a Communist, what did you do to the students and the other teachers?
       Mrs. DODD. God help me for what I did. I was not a member of the Communist Party, but there was no doubt in my mind–
       Senator FERGUSON. But you had a philosophy and you served the cause.
       Mrs. DODD. There is no doubt in my mind that I did a great deal of harm.
       Senator FERGUSON. And how did you function among the students?
       Mrs. DODD. I was their faculty adviser on many problems. I worked with individual students. I was particularly keen about my students. I was very sympathetic, and I was very popular among my students.
       Senator FERGUSON. Do you think you may have convinced some of them to become Communists ?
       Mrs. DODD. I have no doubt that I did.
       Senator FERGUSON. Was that one of your purposes in life as a teacher?
       Mrs. DODD. No. That is not true. My purpose at that time—I thought my purpose was to create an open mind, to create a clear thinking people—people who would throw aside all preconceived

Page 18

prejudices, all preconceived thoughts. My thought was to teach people how to think.
       Well, I've discovered since then that the mind which is so open is often the mind which gets filled with the first evil wind that comes by ; that what you have to do is to see truth and the truth will help you to ward off these evil influences.
       Senator FERGUSON. Then in those days you were an idealist as well as a Communist.
       Mrs. DODD. I was an idealist who was permeated with the philosophy of communism.
       Senator FERGUSON. How did you think that a person should have an open mind and receive the very biased and narrowest of lines in which to think? How did you reconcile that?
       Mrs. DODD. Because I didn't know what communism was. I swallowed the hook, line, and sinker. I thought they were antifascists. I thought they were for the working class. I thought they were for the underdog, and I was for the underdog.
       You don't see the entirety of communism until you have had to wrestle with it. Communism shows itself at different levels to you at different times.
       Senator FERGUSON. Then you are of the opinion that the Communists use these ideals, these humanitarian causes, the evils that are among men, for their own purpose rather than just curing the particular evil; is that right?
       Mrs. DODD. That is absolutely right. And I discovered it to be so when I became the legislative representative of the Communist Party.
       When I went into the apparatus at Twelfth Street as a legislative representative, I thought that my job was to fight for good housing, milk, problems, the question of schools, and so on. I found that within the Communist Party there wasn't even a file on any of these social problems; that there wasn't any cumulative wisdom on the thing; that almost any program which you would pluck from the air which was popular at the moment was the thing you supported; that they weren't interested in carrying through on any of these problems; that these problems were important only as long as there was a group of dissatisfied people to whom this issue was important.
       But as soon as that died down, then they were no longer interested in that issue.
       Mr. MORRIS. That is literal testimony, is it, Dr. Dodd, that there wasn't literally a file on these sociological problems?
       Mrs. DODD. The answer is "No." There wasn't a file, there were some old pamphlets thrown in one corner, and I then proceeded to try to create files on this question.
       But then I discovered they were not interested in this particular thing. I tried for about 4 months to get the national committee to establish a committee on housing. I couldn't get it. I tried to get them to establish a committee on health for the study of the promotion of health legislation. I couldn't get it. They weren't too interested in that.
       Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, I wonder if you could tell us how the Communist Party imparted instructions to the teachers with respect to, how they should try to turn a child's mind in the desired direction?' Can you give us any first-hand experiences along that line?

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       Mrs. DODD. I am afraid I don't have that.
       Mr. MORRIS. You don't have that?
       Mrs. DODD. No. I didn't function on the educational policies committee, which is an important committee of the union. But I don't have that.
       Mr. MORRIS. There was a separate subdivision that would take care of a particular program like that, was there?
       Now, Dr. Dodd, in connection with your activity in the New York schools, did various high schools and elementary schools send representations to any of these caucus meetings?
       Mrs. DODD. Well, in the early days, from 1936 to about 1938, about twice a year, both in the beginning of the school term and at the end, we would have a meeting of a fraction, what was called a fraction, a representative from each one of these units, and perhaps one or two thrown in from a district.
       Mr. MORRIS. So you would have a representative from many units? Mrs. DODD. That is right.
       Mr. MORRIS. How many people would constitute a unit?
       Mrs. DODD. Anywhere between 3 and 10.
       Mr. MORRIS. So you had various representatives of these units—the units being dispersed throughout the city—meeting in the fraction?
       Mrs. DODD. Yes.
       Mr. MORRIS. How many people would attend such a fraction meeting?
       Mrs. DODD. You would get anywhere between 60 and 100 people attending. These meetings used to be called Lowell Club—I was really quite startled first when I attended—the Lowell Club.
       And what would happen was that at the beginning of the year you would have a program laid down for the party. They would discuss what the party hoped to accomplish in the schools that year. They would discuss the union. And that is one of the reasons why I was called in. But that was only one of the things they discussed. They discussed largely what the party was going to accomplish as far as the schools were concerned. The fractions were abolished in 1948. As far as I know, they never again were reestablished.
       Mr. MORRIS. Why was that?
       Mrs. DODD. I think because of the danger to the individuals, the question of getting to be known, and the question of people permeating it and exposing party members.
       Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, could you tell us something about an organization called the Committee for Democracy and Intellectual Freedom ?
       Mrs. DODD. That is a committee that functioned on the Columbia University campus.
       Mr. MORRIS. Can you tell us what you know about it ?
       Mrs. DODD. Well, it functioned during the period of the Rapp-Coudert committee, because I know they wrote a very fine report from the point of view of attacking the Rapp-Coudert committee.
       They were a committee which especially used the academic freedom as a nub around which to oppose many different activities or institutions, or people that were around. For instance, one of the committees that would attack a teacher or a professor who was supposedly a Fascist was the Committee for Intellectual Freedom and Academic Freedom.

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       Mr. MORRIS. In other words, they would take a case of Fascist activity, or alleged Fascist activity, and build it up; is that right? Mrs. DODD. This is right.
       Then they would also take any infringement, so-called, of academic freedom on the campuses. That would be their special regard; the question of textbooks, the question of material which was being used.
       As far as I know, there was a young man by the name of Moses Finkelstein, who was a secretary of the committee. Prof. Franz Boaz, the noted anthropologist, was the acting chairman. Of course, in that committee, like all other committees which had some Communist influence upon it, the chairman was largely a person who was illustrious, famous, and who sometimes didn't know what was going on.
       Mr. MORRIS. On this case, does Dr. Boaz answer that description?
       Mrs. DODD. I think he does. He was a proliberal anthropologist and made a great contribution to American learning and wanted to do the right thing. I think he was approached to serve on this committee, but I don't think he knew what was going on half the time.
       Mr. MORRIS. Was Finkelstein a Communist?
       Mrs. DODD. I never saw his card. I think he was.
       Senator FERGUSON. Did you ever deal with him as such?
       Mrs. DODD. Yes ; I did.
       Mr. MORRIS. You dealt with him as a Communist?
       Mrs. DODD. Yes.
       Senator FERGUSON. Along this line of freedom of thought and so forth, "academic freedom," as you call it, there is not any doubt that everyone desires that; is that not so ?
      That is a wish of the people.
       Mr. SCHMIDT. Senator, doesn't that very much depend on the definition given?
       Senator FERGUSON. I am going to point out whether that idea– Mrs. DODD. I think that the history of this country would say that we are all interested in freedom of thought. But what goes by the name of academic freedom very frequently is not freedom of thought.
       Senator FERGUSON. Tell me what the Communist thinks is "academic freedom."      
       Mrs. DODD. The Communists will use academic freedom as a cloak or as a shield to protect themselves in the spread of any idea which they are determined to spread. I think that academic freedom has to be the right for the professor or the teacher to make a search for the truth; but, by heavens, he must then find the truth and label the truth, and let the student and other teachers know what the truth is.
       You can't just ask for academic freedom in general and under that shield just promote anything that you want. That is not academic freedom.
       Senator FERGUSON. Then you think that the idea of the Communists is to carry out the party line under the name of academic freedom; do you?
       Mrs. DODD. Yes; to promote any idea which they think is important to them at the time.
       Senator FERGUSON. And rather than the whole academic freedom?
       Mrs. DODD. I have never known the Communists to go and fight for academic freedom for people whom they didn't agree with, and I think that is the test of it.

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       Mr. MORRIS. Mr. Chairman, then may I get back to a point that the witness just passed over here ?
       Senator FERGUSON. Yes.
       Mr. MORRIS. You say that very often an organization is headed by a man who is technically not a member of the Communist Party but somebody who can be used as afront for that organization. Who was the president of the Teachers' Union while you were most active in connection with that organization ?
       Mrs. DODD. Mr. Charles Hendley.
       Mr. MORRIS. To your knowledge, was Charles Hendley a member of the Communist Party while he was president of the Teachers' 'Union?
       Mrs. DODD. He was not.
       Mr. MORRIS. You know as a matter of fact that he was not?
       Mrs. DODD. Yes.
       Mr. MORRIS. At least during the period that you were closely identified with him?
       Mrs. DODD. That is right.
       Mr. MORRIS. How did the Communist Party exercise its control over Charles Hendley ?
       Mrs. DODD. Well, Mr. Hendley was a person with very definite views on the whole question of schools and Socialists. He was a known Socialist. And he was a teacher during this period in George Washington High School, and he didn't give too much of his time to it.
       But we had placed in there, in his office, as a secretary, a young lady who made sure that he saw the right reports and didn't see the wrong reports.
       In other words, when he came into the office at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, after teaching all day, he couldn't then be presented with a well-balanced diet of everything that had come in. The young lady, his secretary, would push certain letters under his nose and he would sign certain letters, and there were others she didn't want him to see. They would be hidden. She distorted it.
       Senator FERGUSON. Did you see to it, or did somebody see to it, that secretaries or aides were Communists?
       Mrs. DODD. That is one very prominent method whereby the Communist Party controls an organization; that is, to place a secretary at the disposal of a man who is not too alert on this question. And that person then either passes out copies of letters or information, reports, to the party, or helps to control the person whom she is supposed to be serving.
       Mr. MORRIS. In the particular case of Hendley, did Hendley subsequently become a Communist?
       Mrs. DODD. I heard that he became a Communist. I don't know. I know that he is connected with the Daily Worker.
       Mr. MORRIS. Is he now connected with the Daily Worker? Mrs. DODD. Yes.
       Senator FERGUSON. Have you ever known anyone that was connected with the Daily Worker that was not a Communist?
       Mrs. DODD. No; not as an owner of the Daily Worker. He would not be in a position to not be a Communist.
       Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, we began to talk about a particular case about Hendley and his particular secretary, and then I think we discussed the thing generally.

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       As a matter of fact, who was the secretary of Hendley at that time?
       Mrs. DODD. A Miss Dorothy Wallace.
       Mr. MORRIS. Do you know how the Communist Party exercised control over Dorothy Wallace?
       Mrs. DODD. Well, I went into the union in 1935, and I didn't learn until perhaps in the forties, in the early forties, that Dorothy Wallace was the sister of the vice president of the union, who was the liaison between the Communist Party and the union.
       Mr. MORRIS. How was that?
       Mrs. DODD. She happened to have blonde hair and he happened to be dark. They just didn't look alike until you learned about it.
       And I now know that three or four of the Communist teachers knew :about it, the top echelon. But I didn't discover it until we had some problem.
       Mr. MORRIS. You say she was the sister of the top liaison man between the Communist Party and the teachers ?
       Mrs. DODD. That is right.
       Mr. MORRIS. And who is he?
       Mrs. DODD. Dale Zysman.
       Mr. MORRIS. So the Wallace girl, the secretary at the time, was Dale Zysman's sister?
       Mrs. DODD. Sister.
       Mr. MORRIS. And that fact was not known by you?
       Mrs. DODD. It was not known to me, was not known by HendIey.
       Mr. MORRIS. And at that time did you have an intimate position with the Teachers' Union and even with the Communist part of it?
       Mrs. DODD. I did. When I discovered it and raised a good deal of Cain about it, they just said "Well"—they didn't want people to know about it.
       Mr. MORRIS. This will be the final question of the afternoon, Mr. Chairman, I think.
       I wonder if you could tell us, Dr. Dodd—and we don't want to get into any of the names of the individuals and the teachers in the schools at this point—but could you tell us the individuals in the Communist Party who would translate and who would direct Communist Party directives down into the teachers' group? Who were the leaders of the Communist Party who would carry the Communist Party directives and orders down to the teachers?
       Mrs. DODD. Well, from the top level, within the union, you had a steering committee within the executive board. Then, in the different counties, the county leader, the county organizer of the party, also knew who the teachers were in his county, and he would have meetings with them and would have discussions with them.
       Mr. MORRIS. Who were they ? Will you name some of those people?
       Mrs. DODD. The county leaders--
       Senator FERGUSON. You are talking about all over the United States now; are you?
       Mrs. DODD. All over the United States; yes.
       Senator FERGUSON. So that, for instance, in Detroit the teachers would know who the Communist leader of that district was, would they?
       Mrs. DODD. That is right.

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       Senator FERGUSON. And they would get party-line instructions from him?
       Mrs. DODD. That is right.
       Senator FERGUSON. And be able to take it to the union meetings, and so forth, and function on down into the school, or into any organization where a teacher happened to go; is that the method of operation ?
       Mrs. DODD. That is correct.
       Mr. MORRIS. Dr. Dodd, who was the highest Communist Party official that participated in the party's control of teachers? Would anyone on the level of J. Peters have anything to do with teachers? Would he have anything to do with teachers ?
       Mrs. DODD. Yes. I never knew him as J. Peters. I knew him as Steve Miller.
       At the time I didn't know he was an important person. He was attached to the New York county apparatus of the Communist Party, and he functioned with the teachers and with other people on a county level.
       The highest person who ever functioned with us, of course, would be Earl Browder, or, at present, I guess, Bill Foster. But the highest Person who ever attended a fraction meeting of the Communists was Roy Hudson, who went with us to the Madison, Wis., convention and met constantly with the delegates there.
       Mr. MORRIS. In connection with this man Alfred Brooks, Alfred Brooks came out, as I recall, in the Rapp-Coudert hearings as having some connection with the Comintern, did he not, Dr. Dodd?
       Mrs. Donn. I think so. I mean I didn't know it of my own knowledge; but when he admitted that he was Bosse, which was another: name that was–
       Mr. MORRIS. That is A. G. Bosse, is it?
       Mrs. DODD. Yes.
       Mr. MORRIS. And at that time A. G. Bosse was somebody that had written for the Imprecorr, was he not?
       Mrs. DODD. That is right.
       Mr. MORRIS. And at that time he. was a teacher in the public schools, was he not?
       Mrs. DODD. He was.
       Mr. MORRIS. What happened after that was that he was exposed?
       Mrs. DODD. The evidence that the Rapp-Coudert committee had against him was so overwhelming that, in order not to have him testify as to some of the more lurid tales at that time, he was advised to resign from the school system.
       Mr. MORRIS. Did he resign ?
       Mrs. DODD. Yes.
       Mr. MORRIS. What did he do subsequent to that, do you know?
       Mrs. DODD. He went to . Mexico. He was teaching, I think, in Mexico somewhere.
       Senator FERGUSON. From what you relate today as to your activities with the Communist Party, it would indicate that you were quite a power in the Communist Party back in those days; is that correct?
       Mrs. DODD. I served the party well.
       Senator FERGUSON. You served them well?
       Mrs. DODD. Yes—to my detriment.

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       Senator FERGUSON. Did they during those days recognize your service and give you more power and authority ?
       Mrs. DODD. One of the things the Communist Party always does is to flatter people who have the will to activity, and they give him or her greater platforms and more opportunity for leadership.
       Senator FERGUSON. When did they come to the conclusion that you couldn't serve them longer?
       Mrs. DODD. It was a growing realization. After I had joined the party apparatus officially, after I had become an employee of the Communist Party on the inside, almost from the very beginning I recognized that something was wrong, that this wasn't the thing which I had dreamed about, worked for, and which I believed in. That was in 1944.
       Senator FERGUSON. How long were you on their payroll?
       Mrs. DODD. I was on their payroll from the time that I entered in 1944 until the spring of 1946. I at that time asked to be released from work, and the reason for it was that I, within myself, had the growing conviction that there was something wrong here.
       This was the time after the Duclos letter and the convention of 1945, and I began to recognize that this party was not serving the interests of the United States. So, I asked to be released, and they wouldn't release me.
       As a matter of fact, Bill Norman, who was the secretary of the party, said to me: "There is money accumulated; why don't you take it ?"
       I was in desperate need of money, but I told him "No."
       Senator FERGUSON. What was your highest salary with the Communist Party?
       Mrs. DODD. $50 a week.
       Senator FERGUSON. Then it would appear, from the service that you were rendering, that money is not the objective of the Communists?
       Mrs. DODD. It differs with different people. If it wasn't a Communist like myself—there are those who believed the Communist thing was the right thing and, therefore, money didn't matter. You worked 28 hours a day if there were 28 hours, because you thought you were doing the right thing.
       It is this desire to do the right thing that has entangled more people in the Communist movement—this desire to serve mankind, this desire to help make a better world. Those are the slogans which they preach, and it is only after you are in it up to your neck that you discover that this isn't what it is.
       I know that many of my former associates will not believe me, Senator Ferguson; but, if I could only tell them the things which I really saw on the inside, I think perhaps some of them might be disillusioned more rapidly than I was.
       Senator FERGUSON. We will recess until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning.
       Will the witness return at that time?
       Mr. SCHMIDT. On behalf of my client, Senator, I want to compliment this committee for the intelligent and judicial manner of conducting this session.
       (Thereupon, at 4 p. m., the hearing was recessed to reconvene at 10 a. in. Tuesday, September 9, 1952.)

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