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

3522 COMMUNISM IN HOLLYWOOD MOTION-PICTURE INDUSTRY party, I told him about my membership very soon after I met him, because I knew it was going to be something important to him. He didn't ask me to leave the party or tell me to. I am very glad he didn't, I am glad I made the decision on my own. But he did ask me a lot of questions about why I was in, and there were questions I couldn't answer to my own satisfaction. He asked me how much Marxist literature I had read, and "very little" had to be the answer. He asked me how much I knew about the actual set-up of the party itself, who the actual leadership was, where the money came from and mostly for what purpose it was used, and I didn't know. I didn't have any secrets to hide, I just didn't know. But I was in an organization about which I didn't know anything. He asked me things in terms of my attitude about this country, and did I have what the Communists call the long range point of view, which is that it doesn't matter what happens in a specific country sometimes, that is, at a specific time, that a longer range point of view about the whole world is what is important. I have never been able to have such a long range point of view. I care very specifically about what happens to the country I live in and the people I know. He asked if I believed in the necessity of violent overthrow of any gov- ernment to change that government. I said no, but I thought on very strong ground here, because the party was an association at this time, and I said neither did the party. My fiance was very skeptical about it, he was a stevedore officer in the Army, and met people in different parts of the country, and in- cluding the water front, and he said from what I told him'the party here in Hollywood sounded like a group of very nice people who had not the faintest idea about what the Communist Party was like. Now, after all these years, and after reading what people who were more active than I experienced, I believe he was right, and that the group I was in certainly was a very special group organized largely for the purpose of raising money and names. And even at that time, back in 1944, when it was still an association, this atmosphere of a hot-house started to weave a spell for me. I found myself beginning to question who was the leadership, who chose them, how much was this a democratic organization. Mr. Walter. Who was the leadership at the time you started wondering who selected the leadership ? Miss Lennart. Do you mean of a specific section I was in ? Mr. Walter. Yes. Miss Lennart. John Howard Lawson and Madelaine Ruthven at the beginning, and then later on Madelaine Ruthven seemed to drop out of the picture. Mr. Walter. Who ? Miss Lennart. Madelaine Ruthven seemed to drop out of the picture and there was just Mr. Lawson. But what I just said, I was thinking not so much of the leadership of the Hollywood section, but I realized that I knew nothing about the party throughout the coun- try, and that plainly what we were doing in HollyAvood must have some connection with this, and of this I knew nothing. Mr. Walter. Why do you say plainly? What was there that occurred that led you to that conclusion?