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

COMMUNISM IN MOTION-PICTURE INDUSTRY 1527 have such knowledge within your possession that would enable them to conclude in their own minds whether your break with the Communist Party has been definite, complete, and final. Mr. Townsend. Yes. Well, when one goes into a period of indi- vidual thinking, individual consideration, as I say it is difficult. You must, in a sense, remove yourself from this group even though you are still in it. I had come to the conclusion that a member of the Commu- nist Party has a double allegiance. He claims he is loyal to the United States, while at the same time his party membership makes him loyal to the Soviet Union. In his heart he must be loyal to the Soviet Union. In time of crisis, I think he will be asked to choose between these two allegiances, and I think he will choose his first allegiance, which is to the party, and which, in turn, is to the Soviet Union. I think an example of that—I was quite shocked at the testimony in Washington of Waldo Salt when he was asked what I thought to be a very simple question which, I believe, was in case of an unprovoked attack by the Soviet Union upon the United States would you defend the United States? This gentleman did not, as far as I know, answer this ques- tion. He argued with the committee. He obviously hadn't settled the matter in his own mind. There may be others. Wouldn't you say that such a person is potentially dangerous ? I would. I think there is no place in the Communist Party for a loyal Ameri- can, nor is there a place in America for a group which calls itself an American political party but which is. in essence, a conspiratorial organization devoted to the destruction of American democracy. Now, I want to say, too, that the Communists have been blaming these in- vestigations of this committee, as they blame every attempt to unmask the party for silencing on its liberal opinion. I think that the Communists have neutralized the liberals. I think the Communists in a large sense have destroyed the liberal movement in this country. I think that by their treating everything as black and white—I think that a man can be politically left of center without being a Commu- nist, just as he can be right of center without being a Fascist, and I believe—I would like to say this as a personal thought. I think there are a few misguided liberals who may not speak to me as the result of my testimony here, and I say that these people are still living in an age of innocence. Several years ago all of us fought with all our might against German and Italian fascism. Today there is a section of people who shut their eyes to Soviet fascism. I think it is time that they open them; if what I say here and if what this committee does here can help those people, I think that this will show a large measure of success in addition to what the other committee is doing. I would like to quote, if I may, just a couple of sentences from an interesting article I read in a recent issue of the Saturday Review of Literature by Mr. Peter Varat, associate professor at Mount Holyoke College, in line with this very thing. He says: This kind of liberal tends to avoid the real facts of Soviet Russia, such as the enormous aid given to Germany during the Hitler-Stalin Pact; the Stalinist purge of all Lenin-Marxist associates; the postwar anti-Semitic drive in the Soviet Union; the slave labor camps; increasing class lines and pay differentials between Soviet rich and poor, so much greater than the capitalist United States. I think that the Communists who decry the lack of freedom in this country haven't given thought to the amount of freedom allowed the people in the Soviet Union. Let's say the artists, the sciences,