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 4479 In my earlier testimony—I don't remember the names of these spe- cific people—but in my earlier testimony when I was asked about some of these meetings and gatherings 1 was at, I said that a lot of the people were kind of faceless to me, and when I saw the list of people that Owen Vinson named as being part of the people in the group that I was supposed to have been part of, I knew, maybe, two of them. The others I really had not known, and I didn't even know them by name. I couldn't recall their faces. Mr. Velde. Do you remember them talking in these groups about the Duclos letter? Mr. Burrows. I don't know whether it was in this group. I remem- ber a great deal of conversation, socially and such, when the Duclos letter hit. And all over Hollywood there was a good deal of whisper- ing and hushing and stuff like that. But I remember the discussion in one group, I am trying to remember, on one evening where they were trying, one fellow, as I remember, was trying to make sense out of this thing. That seemed to be always the role of these guys, to try to make sense out of it. They spoke of how this would be a force for good. I remember way back in 1936-37, I told the committee the last time I was here, that I had belonged to the American League for Peace and Democracy. When the Nazi-Soviet pact hit, I resigned with a letter to the league. But at that time I remember they said when the Nazi- Soviet pact was put through, they said, "This is going to be a force for peace; a great thing." And the talk after the Duclos letter hit was about the same. They said, "This was going to do a great thing." I didn't know what anybody meant. Mr. Velde. Mr. Burrows, you are a fairly intelligent man, I think your testimony has shown that. Couldn't you tell from the way their party line shifted that you were studying about Marxist communism ? Mr. Burrows. Oh, yes, I knew that Mr. Velde. And if you were interested in Marxist communism, don't vou think it is reasonable to assume, or for us to assume and for you to assume, too, that you were a member of the Communist Party? Mr. Burrows. But the study groups I mentioned, Mr. Velde, were in 1045, when there was absolutely no word mentioned of Marxist com- munism as we know it. It was a case of the writers' aid in the war, the writers' role in the war, the writers' role in establishing unity, how the writers should treat minorities, how T he should treat the war effort, he shouldn't make jokes about gas rationing; stuff like that, you know. I attended no such study groups, as far as I know, after thinking, when it switched to what seems to be back to a revolutionary role. Mr. Velde. But you know now. do you not, that in order to get into those study groups in the first place, that you had to be an applicant or at least considered for membership in the Communist Party or an actual member? Mr. Burrows. Well, I don't deny that I may have been considered for membership, and they may have been trying to prepare for it. I actually think that because of my work, my humor and my satire, that I wasn't very well trusted, I was called "chi-chi," phoney, I will use any word I can think of, because I mingled with people who weren't of the left. I did satires, for instance, on folk songs in a period when the Communist Party had taken the folk song very dearly to its bosom,