Communist infiltration of Hollywood motion-picture industry : hearing before the Committee on Un-American activities, House of Representatives, Eighty-second Congress, first session (1951)

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COMMUNISM IN MOTION-PICTURE INDUSTRY 427 We went to San Francisco and talked to him. He agreed. We told him our experience, that we had been members of the party. We had both gotten out. We asked him to serve as our counsel. Now, we came back to Hollywood, and we were asked to attend a very loose meeting of a group of the people who had gotten sub- penas, other people who had gotten subpenas and who were not friendly to the committee. This meeting was held at Edward G. Robinson's house. He was not there. As a matter of fact, he wasn't even in town at the time. The only reason it was held there—I want to make this very clear— is that Senator Pepper was visiting in Hollywood at the time, and whether he was a house guest with the Robinsons—I know he was quite friendly. They thought it would be wise if we could get to- gether with Senator Pepper and just find out from him what the situation was in Washington, what the feeling was, which we did. He spoke, extemporaneously of course, very informally, completely harmlessly. He simply tried to give us a picture of people in Wash- ington, what was going on in Washington, in a very broad sort of way. There was nothing there you could pick on in any way at all. At the end of that meeting, however, we were approached by people like Herbert Biberman, Adrian Scott, and asked to attend a further meeting, at which we would discuss procedure for our mutual benefit. We had another meeting. We had several after that, and found out that these other people had obtained other attorneys, Ben Margolis, Charley Katz, and Bob Kenny. Now, different ones had gone to different attorneys. Not all had gone to these three. So we finally decided that since the expenses would be heavy and since there were quite a few members of that group who hadn't worked for a long time and had no money and that we would, in effect, have to carry them, support them, that we should all get together and pool our attorneys, pool our resources, as it were, primarily at first for financial reasons. As I say, looking back at it now, I would assume that the thing was probably fairly carefully planned b}^ a certain number, but we went into it with our eyes wide open, not realizing exactly what was going on at the time. There is no excuse that can be made for that. We came back to Washington and worked as a unit, not in discussing what our testimony would or wouldn't be, so much as, as I say, on financial questions, on broad political questions, and that sort of thing. We used to hold meetings. We were at the Shoreham Hotel part of the time, at least some of them. We had a large suite there, used to hold meetings regularly every day and discuss the various problems that came up of our mutual interest. Mr. Tavenner. Did any persons appear before your meeting to discuss—other than your counsel—to discuss matters in which the group as a whole were interested ? Mr. Dmytryk. We had various visitors, yes; at different times, two of whom I can remember. One was Lee Pressman, who delivered a little informal speech. Mr. Tavenner. What was the subject of his speech ? 81595—51—pt. 2—9