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COMMUNISM IN HOLLYWOOD MOTION-PICTURE INDUSTRY 3499 This is not in my hands, certainly. And right at the moment, I am in a very uncomfortable position, as I say, of being pushed into a corner defending communism. I don't want to, and I am not here for that purpose. Mr. Tavenner. It was not my intention to ask you questions which would put you in a position to defend communism. 1 wanted merely to give you the opportunity to explain yourself fully because the use of the term as purely a political party may be subject to consider- able misconception. Mr. Odets. I can only say for myself that I find their conspira- torial methods—conspiratorial means to me chiefly underground, working in secret and hiding. I find them extremely reprehensible. Mr. Tavenner. Xow, you spoke of the duty of the committee as an investigative body to make recommendations if it believed that the Communist Party is a conspiratorial body, and that possibly the committee should recommend that the Communist Party be outlawed. What is your recommendation on that subject? Mr. Odets. My recommendation is that any political party has been made to declare itself in the open, if it wants to exist as a legally recognized political party in the United States. This is my whole- hearted recommendation. I believe in democratic procedure. I be- lieve in stating and avowing your beliefs, if you want to stand up for them in public and want support for them. Mr. Velde. Even though you admit that trie Communist Party is directed from Moscow ? The policies are directed from Moscow, still you believe it should exist in this country as a political party ? Mr. Odets. I didn't say that. Mr. Velde. I am sorry. What was your recommendation with reference to outlawing the Communist Party ? Mr. Odets. My recommendation was that any party or any group of people that wanted to stand as a political party in the United States had to stand up and move in the open and had to be willing to be counted in public. Mr. Velde. But by making that statement you don't mean to infer that the Communist Party should be such a recognized Mr. Odets. I think, if you ask me, I think we need a liberal party in this country. I don't think the Communist Party is it, by the widest stretch of imagination. But when I talk this way, I am talk- ing about the possibility of some kind of liberal labor party that I would like to see come into existence. If I may say so, the foolish position of a man like myself is that he has no party to belong to. And I think that I share this foolish, empty position with thousands of sincere and earnest-thinking liberals in the United States. We have no party to join because we cannot give our allegiance to the Com- munist Party. So when I talk to you this way, I am talking from that background of feeling. Mr. Walter. You feel that the Democratic Party is too reactionary for you ? Mr. Odets. I don't think I said that, sir. Mr. Walter. There is a very clear inference. Mr. Odets. We know that there are all sorts of groups within the Democratic Party. Mr. Walter. Yes. For which I apologize every 2 years.