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COMMUNISM IN HOLLYWOOD MOTION-PICTURE INDUSTRY 3495 Mr. Tavenner. I show you a photostatic copy of a letterhead of the American League for Peace and Democracy, dated April 6, 1939. Will you examine the exhibit, please, and state whether your name appears as a member of the Theater Arts Committee sponsoring the organization ? Mr. Odets. Yes, sir; it does. Mr. Tavenner. Will you tell us the circumstances under which your sponsorship of that organization was obtained ? Mr. Odets. I don't know. I don't know what it is. Mr. Tavenner. Well, do you recall being the.sponsor? Mr. Odets. No, I am sorry I don't. Mr. Velde. Mr. Counsel, are all of these organizations cited by the Attorney General to be Communist-front organizations? Mr. Tavenner. Either by the Attorney General or by this com- mittee. In my preliminary statement to this line of questioning, I made a claim that it was the Communist-front organizations that we were intending to inquire about. I show you a circular reproduced and circulated by the Communist Party. It is a statement labeled "In Defense of the Bill of Rights." A most casual reading reveals it is a statement in defense of the Communist Party and known Commu- nists. This statement was released on December 14, 1989. The name of Clifford Odets appears as one of the signers. Will you tell the committee who solicited your signature to this statement, and the circumstances ? Mr. Odets. Again I regret to say that I have no memory of this. It seems to me to be some broad-front matter and I might well have signed it. Mr. Tavenner. You stated it was a broad-front matter. That arti- cle shows it is directly a Communist Party matter, doesn't it? Mr. Odets. Well, it is headlined "In defense of the Bill of Rights," and I don't see that as strictly a Communist matter. Mr. Tavenner. Then it follows with one paragraph regarding the Bill of Rights, and the rest of it is defense of the Communist Party. There is one paragraph, according toray recollection of the document, which relates to the subject, and there are about three or four which relate to the defense of the Communist Party. Mr. Odets. My eye falls on a stateme tit here that "We are not Com- munists and we are not concerned at t his moment with the merits or demerits of the doctrines advocated by the Communists." Mr. Velde. Mr. Odets, do you bel eve now that the Communist Party has been interested in preserving our Bill of Rights and the Constitution? Mr. Odets. I would think that now t he Communist Party was inter- ested in preserving its existence. Mr. Velde. You still maintain that the Communist Party at the present time in the United States of America is interested in preserv- ing our Constitution ; is that your opinion? Mr. Odets. I would say its primiary function was to preserve its own existence, not the Constitution and not the Bill of Rights. Mr. Velde. Preserving the Communist Party's existence ? Mr. Odets. Its existence. Mr. Velde. And what do vou deem as the program of the Com- munist Party in this country ?