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484 COMMUNISM IN MOTION-PICTURE INDUSTRY IATSE; and he refers in this to his communication to Bob Reed, in- directly. I will read this one paragraph: As far as communication, etc. As far back as last fall we suggested the neces- sity of a national faction. Subsequently, I wrote to various contacts in New York, but received no answer. In February— and that was the date of the Bob Reed letter— I sent a more urgent plea, through the secretary of the actors' faction in New York, to Comrade Stachel. No answer was forthcoming. In addition, I urged Comrade Bob Kaye to secure IA contacts and put them in touch with me. There were no results. Certainly we welcome a national faction. Mr. Kearney. May I interrupt, Mr. Chairman ? Mr. Wood. Yes. Mr. Kearney. Is that Comrade Stachel you refer to one of the at- torneys that represented the 11 Communists in New York a few months ago? Mr. Brewer. I don't think he is an attorney. I think he has been identified as a national functionary of the Communist Party. Mr. Kearney. He was one of the defendants. Mr. Brewer. One of the defendants; yes. So, with the publication of these reports, the election was won by the A. F. of L. unions and Mr. Kibre then faded out of the Holly- wood picture. He reappeared in connection with the Englewood strike in 1940, when troops were sent to break the strike at the North American Aviation plant which President Roosevelt charged was a politically inspired strike. He is at present an official of the CIO fishermen's union on the Pacific coast, and he was indicted about 3 years ago, along with others, for violation of antitrust laws in con- nection with the fixing of prices of fish on the west coast. In the transcript which I have here and which I will leave with the committee, there is further evidence of Kibre's membership in the party. There is an affidavit in the record of the committee signed by Ezra Chase, who testified he knew Jeff Kibre as a Communist. There is also testimony given by Lew Blix, business agent of the union at that time, that he had seen the Communist Party card of Jeff Kibre and that he was registered as Barry Wood. And also in the record is a copy of minutes of a particular Communist Party meeting in which the name Barry Wood appears as one of the participants. Mr. Tavenner. Will you give the full name of Blix ? Mr. Brewer. Lew Blix, L-e-w B-l-i-x. He was business agent of local 37 in Hollywood for many, many years. Mr. Tavenner. Before you leave Mr. Kibre, did he attempt to or- ganize an organization or group known as the Unemployment Con- ference ? Mr. Brewer. Yes; he did. The first effort which he made at this so-called unity of the groups in Hollywood was through the form of an unemployment conference. At that time there was a great deal of unemployment in the motion-nictnre industry, and there were a great many men out of work, and he outlines in detail in this report how he intended to exploit this unemployment, as well as the jurisdic- tional problems, in order to create dissatisfaction among the union members with their local unions, and thereby stimulate interest for the industrial type of organization, which would be the CIO.