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 HOLLYWOOD MOTION-PICTURE INDUSTRY 3525 But those all were activities for the guild and they had no con- nection with the Communist Party because I no longer had any connection with the Communist Party. Mr. Tavenner. We have information that you were a signer of the Albert Maltz nominating petition in the Screen Writers' Guild in 1949. Miss Lennart. Yes. I was going to go on to say that I had agreed that I would never again engage in any activity that I believed was Communist led after 1946. The last and only, the only, activity that could be called political activity that I was involved in since that time was in connection with the Hollywood 10. I did more than sign a petition for Albert Maltz. I signed an amicus curiae brief. I don't remember who asked me to sign the brief, which I did sign, but I know it wasn't a Communist for a very good reason. I was extremely nervous bj 7 that time about my political past, and it was obvious that a great deal of trouble was coming in the future, and I was trying very hard to be involved in nothing. I would have been afraid of being involved in anything that was Communist led. It was explained to me that the brief was on a constitutional question, that it did not mean that you felt the 10 were right or wrong, but that you were asking the Supreme Court to review the case. I had a reason for this, and I hope, and I still have it. I hoped that a review of the case would be that the Supreme Court would declare the Communist Party an illegal party. It seemed to me the only chance for people, but I was very concerned about my family and myself. I felt that if the party were made illegal as of a certain date, people could freely stand up and say "We joined this when it was legal, now it isn't. We want no part of it." And then get out. Those that wanted to stay in then knew consciously and deliberately that they were involved in an illegal organization and they could take whatever was coming to them. I did not know all of the 10, but I understood, rightly or wrongly, that some of them had been in but were out, and that some had not been in. And I identified myself with what was happening to them. I felt that it would very likely happen to me. To the best of my belief, on this problem of the 10, I was involved in activity, but this was the last conscious political activity I have ever taken. In terms of Albert Maltz, this, Mr. Tavenner, was not a peti- tion to elect Mr. Maltz to the board of directors of the guild, but simply to allow him to be a candidate. I know who asked me to sign this. It was somebody where the petition circled the writers' table at lunch time. It was given to me by a totally non-Communist, or nonprogres- sive even, and there were a lot of signatures on it, and I felt if a number of people wanted this guy to run as a candidate, there was no reason for him not to run. This did not mean that the guild did elect him. I did not vote in that election or any election since then because I have alwaj^s felt until my own situation was cleared up I make suspect any side I am on. Mr. Walter. Let us see if we have this straight. You signed a nominating petition after Maltz had been convicted? Miss Lennart. Yes, I did, this was in 1949. Mr. Walter. Do you reconcile that with the statement you made with respect to your signing of the petition amicus curiae? Miss Lennart. The petition for Maltz was not given to me by a Communist or even a Communist sympathizer.