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

1434 COMMUNISM IN MOTION-PICTURE INDUSTRY that he was afraid some of the comrades didn't understand it, and I finally got disgusted and told him to speak for himself, and let's get on with the agenda. He has held any number of functionary jobs, but I don't recall at this time what they are. I remember distinctly at a free-speech meeting in Hollywood in 1934 where he was keenly disappointed because the police wouldn't arrest him, and he pushed his way over to a squad car and they finally obliged him. This is the first time he made a martyr of himself. Mr. Tavenner. Melvyn Letzman, L-e-t-z-m-a-n ? Mr. Ashe. Letzman was a member of the Communist Party in Hollywood and later transferred to San Pedro and was an assistant to whoever was then the section organizer down there. I am not sure just who that was. Mr. Tavenner. I would like to ask you one or two other questions about your Communist Party. What was your connection with the Motion Picture Artists' Committee ? Mr. Ashe. In about 1937 the Motion Picture Artists' Committee conceived the idea of touring the country in their name with a motion- picture short, about a 30-minute sound film, called Heart of Spain. There was no one in Hollywood that they could use, so they apparently appealed to the downtown section of the Communist Party—that is, the county [branch] of the Communist Party to supply a suitable man- ager and speaker for this tour. Paul Cline recommended me, and after considerable consultation with John Howard Lawson, they fin- ally decided that it would be all right for me to go representing the committee, even though I was fairly widely known as a Communist Party member. They bought a couple of old broken-down laundry trucks which they painted up to look like ambulances, and I and several other people made the tour of the country, ending in New York City about the 14th of December 1937. The purpose of the trip, of course, was to raise money for—or the ostensible purpose was to raise money for the North American Committee To Aid Spanish Democracy. Mr. Tavenner. In other words, that was another device to raise money for the Loyalist Spain ? Mr. Ashe. That's correct. Mr. Tavenner. Which was the Communist Party line and project at that particular time? Mr. Ashe. That's right. I wouldn't want to testify as to how much of the money ever got to Spain. Mr. Tavenner. Well, do you have any direct information of your own as to the misuse of any of that money ? Mr. Ashe. I have just got a very strong feeling that it didn't all get there. Mr. Tavenner. Now, I would like at this point to go back in your testimonv to the organizational work done by Stanley Lawrence and later by V. J. Jerome in the motion picture industry, generally. Mr. Ashe. Well, I am not too familiar with that aspect of the Com- munist Party activity except insofar as I had some knowledge of it as a result of reports made in the county executive committee meeting in informal discussions with various functionaries of the party, in- cluding discussions with Stanley Lawrence over coffee sometimes. I do know that they raised a considerable sum of money out there dur- ing that period—I believe considerably more than they anticipated at the outset. In other words, I don't think they quite knew the