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

3524 COMMUNISM IN HOLLYWOOD MOTION-PICTURE INDUSTRY married in August 1946, but before I got married I had a long talk with my fiancee about it, and agreed, because I wanted to, that I would never again consider myself a Communist, go to a Communist meeting, or engage in any activities which I knew were Communist led, and I never have. Mr. Wood. When did your contributions to the party cease ? Miss Lennart. My contributions stopped when I stopped going to meetings, which was in 1945. Mr. Velde. Did you do anything else of a positive nature to dis- associate yourself from the party, like writing a letter ? Miss Lennart. No ; I was called and asked if I was coming to any more meetings, and this is the name—I had forgotten this call, inci- dentally, I was called by a man named—I have never met him or seen Mm. It was Stach or Stapp, I don't know which his name is. Mr. Tavenner. John Stapp ? Miss Lennart. That, I am almost sure, is the name. He telephoned to ask if I would plan to come to any more meetings, and I said "No." Mr. Tavenner. Did you learn that he was the functionary of the Communist Party in Los Angeles ? Miss Lennart. I had heard his name as being—no, I can't say in Los Angeles, but I heard he was a functionary of the Communist Party. Mr. Tavenner. Did he ask you for any reasons why you had stopped attending the party meetings ? Miss Lennart. No ; but I think these reasons were well known in my group. It is not a policy in the party, especially for a woman, if it is a woman who has been a Communist, if she makes a marriage, mixed marriage to somebody who is not a Communist, it is generally ac- cepted—it isn't a rule or anything—but I suppose for security reasons it is just expected that you probably will want to leave, and I think this is why I got no pressure except for this question. I think that my increasing resistance at meetings and the decreasing number of meetings I went to must have made this quite clear before I actually stopped completely. Mr. Tavenner. What was your activity in the Screen Writers' Guild, after you withdrew from the Communist Party in 1945 ? Miss Lennart. My period of activity in the guild, of any real ac- tivity in the guild, was after—I must say 1946, is the date I would give as the formal end. I had no activity in 1945, but 1946 was when I really considered that the break was final. I was more active in the guild after I was out of the Communist Party than I had ever been before. I think this was largely because I began to be a little more established in my profession. I was for a year alternate on the board of directors of the guild. I was for a year on the editorial board of the guild magazine Screen Writer, and I was elected not by the guild but the writers of my studio as shop steward there for a year. That is normally pretty much a bookkeeping job. You keep track of as- signments, credits, and so on. But during the year I was shop steward there was a very confusing jurisdictional strike. At the guild request I called a meeting of writers on the lot to decide whether we would go through the picket lines or not. We did go through the picket lines which was the guild decision, I believe, at the time.