5. Communist Leaders of the IPR

"[NOTE: The page numbers appearing in parentheses in this and succeeding sections refer to the Hearings before the Internal Security Sub-Committee (known as the McCarran Committee) of the Senate Judiciary Committee, July 25, 1951, to July 2, 1952, on the Institute of Pacific Relations. Page numbers accompanied by the word "Report" refer to the report of that Sub-Committee.]

Let us now see how this job was done. Of course, the highly reputable members of the IPR board served merely as window dressing. The actual work was done by the staffs under the direction of Dr. Carter. Their work consisted in producing a steady flow of pro-Communist propaganda for general consumption and in infiltrating sensitive agencies of government charged with formulating policy in the Far East. We will be concerned here chiefly with the two bodies—the American Council and the Pacific Council—which actually worked in close harmony with each other. The administrative head of the American Council was its executive secretary who directed the office staff.

The first executive secretary was Joseph F. Barnes. He served from 1931 to 1934. Whittaker Chambers testified that Joseph Barnes was a member of an underground unit of the Communist Party, which met in the house of the Communist Frederick V. Field's mother (p. 490). Louis Budenz testified under oath that Barnes was a member of the Communist Party and that official reports of the Politburo in New York disclosed that he rendered great service to the party (p. 543). Hede Massing, former Communist secret agent, testified that she saw Barnes playing tennis in a closely guarded compound in Moscow where only secret Red agents were admitted. The Soviet agent in charge assured her Barnes was all right (p. 244). Barnes has denied that he was a Communist, but his wife, also on the IPR staff, when asked on the witness stand if she was a member of the Party refused to answer on the ground that her answer might incriminate her (p. 2601). Barnes's own writings, however, testify against him. In an article in the Atlantic Monthly for January 1937 he defended Communist leader Earl Browder's use of The Battle Hymn of the Republic. He wrote:

"Every crackpot third party may appropriate for its own purposes the word 'American' and the song 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic.' But in Mr. Browder's campaign some of the fighting words were not mere borrowings; they were already a part of the Communist vocabulary. Even in the maze of Marxist rhetoric these words may be made for many Americans to sing with something of an older throbbing rhetoric" (italics added).

He wrote that young Americans had found two new ponderable changes

". . . which have made the whole equation new. The first is Soviet Russia . . . the second is Marxism". And he was thrilled by the rooted American origins of William Z. Foster, Robert Minor and Earl Browder (Communist leaders)—they are pressing forward 'a new experiment with the American dream.'"

Of course, the intrusion of one Communist or pro-Communist could happen in any organization unaware of Communist methods. But let us see further. Barnes's assistant was Frederick Vanderbilt Field, a notorious Communist, and when Barnes left to take his pink dreams over to the staff of the New York Herald Tribune, the Communist Frederick V. Field succeeded him as executive secretary. He served from 1934 to 1940, when he resigned as secretary but remained as an active member of the inner council.

Field is known as the "millionaire Communist" and he has given his name, his energies and his money freely to numerous Communist causes. He headed the notorious bail bond outfit which provided bail for Communists under indictment and thus enabled some of them to escape from this country when released. When asked by the Senate committee if he was a Communist he refused to answer on the ground that he might incriminate himself (p. 75). He was a member of 26 separate pro-Communist organizations. He has written for years for all sorts of Red publications—54 articles for the Communist Daily Worker, for which he became a columnist, 37 articles for the New Masses. He had a long-standing interest in China. In Political Affairs, an official Red journal, he wrote:

"Special responsibility devolves on American Communists. The China issue presents a signal responsibility to strike a mighty blow at the fortress of world reaction"—by which he meant America. He added: "The opportunity and the power exists to smash American imperialist plans for China. Under the leadership of the great Communist Party of China and its renowned chairman, Mao Tse-tung, the heroic Chinese people are discharging their duties with honor" (p. 119).

Field was not merely the office manager of the IPR. He was a financial angel as well. The McCarran Committee produced a letter written by Edward C. Carter, head of the IPR, in 1940 in which he said: "I think it is impossible for Field to go on paying each year's deficits. I think he now feels that contraction should have been effected two years ago." Under oath. Field admitted he provided $60,000 for these deficits (pp. 7, 8).

In 1940-1941, Hitler and Stalin were partners in the war on Poland, Czechoslovakia and the Baltic countries. There was a feverish movement here to hurry America into the war. There was also a powerful movement to keep her out. But the reasons which inspired the anti-war groups were varied. The Communists here opposed our entry into the war because we would be fighting Russia. They organized a movement called the American Peace Mobilization. The House Un-American Activities Committee branded this movement "the most notorious Red front in America." It was also the most impudent. Part of its plan was to picket the White House against entering the war against Germany and Russia.

Field resigned as secretary of the American Council of the IPR to become executive secretary of this infamous Peace Mobilization. Philip C. Jessup, Acheson's American delegate to the United Nations, was chairman of the Executive Committee of the American Council of the IPR. He urged Field to remain as executive secretary of the IPR. He introduced a resolution in the Council "praising the leadership which Field has given the Council" and urging that he "remain as secretary and exercise a maximum amount of guidance in determining policy." Dr. Carter added his entreaties. But Field was adamant. He resigned, and the minutes of the IPR contain a tribute to "the distinguished service" which he had rendered for 11 years to the council and express the hope that when his new task—an undisguised Communist operation—was completed "it would be possible for him to resume active leadership in the work of the American Council" (pp. 122-124). Will anyone suppose that Dr. Carter and Dr. Jessup did not know of Barnes's and Field's Communist connections and that the American Peace Mobilization was a Russian front? Its White House pickets disappeared the day Hitler marched into Russia.

Field was succeeded in the secretaryship by Dr. William W. Lockwood, who served until 1943 but remained as a trustee along with Field until 1946. Lockwood had been employed on the research staff under Field since 1935. He asks us to believe that he was actually attracted to the Institute by his aversion to communism, yet never suspected the Communist leanings of either Barnes or Field (p. 3874). The notorious antics of the Peace Mobilization, widely described in the newspapers, meant nothing to him. Nor did the presence in an adjoining office with an open communicating door to the IPR of the infamous Amerasia (which we will examine later) inspire any suspicions in his trusting soul. The Communist tinge of almost the entire staff did not impress him.

When Lockwood resigned as secretary after three years and was succeeded by a Communist apologist as secretary—Harriet L. Moore—he asks us to believe that he was not in the least disturbed. He was preceded by two Communist apologists and succeeded by another without having his suspicions aroused. Miss Moore was associated with a number of notorious Communist-front organizations. The former Communist Elizabeth Bentley testified that Miss Moore was identified to her as a Communist by her Communist superior Golos, after which she knew Miss Moore as a Party comrade (p. 438).

Dr. Goodwin Watson, of the Foreign Broadcasting Intelligence Service, inquired of Dr. Carter about Miss Moore. Carter wrote him: "I have no hesitation in testifying to her unimpeachable loyalty and high character. She is an American of Americans." This statement was a falsehood and Dr. Carter could not help knowing it. He told Dr. Watson that he had "known Miss Moore to criticize manuscripts that were pro-Soviet and thus not effective" and that she was critical of the American Peace Mobilization (p. 2565).

As a matter of fact, Miss Moore was connected with Russian War Relief, a Communist front almost as notorious as the Peace Mobilization, and it is curious that Dr. Carter should consider criticism of the Peace Mobilization a virtue when he himself showered praise on Field when he left the IPR to lead it. Then he told Dr. Watson that criticism in certain high quarters of Miss Moore "derived from a case of mistaken identity. She is confused with another Miss Harriet Moore who is said to be one of the founders of the Communist Party" (p. 2565).

These statements were also false. Miss Moore herself has said she had no recollection of criticizing these Red manuscripts referred to by Dr. Carter. The story about the mistaken identity through which she was confused with another Miss Moore is even worse. David Dubinsky, of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, refused to contribute to Russian War Relief, which was headed by Dr. Carter, because Harriet Moore was its secretary. Carter told him the story of the mistaken identity and swore on the witness stand that Dubinsky had conceded this. Dubinsky in reply to this wrote the McCarran Committee that he never made any such concession. On the contrary, he refused to contribute until he was informed by Carter that Miss Moore had resigned. After that, the Dubinsky organization made a large contribution. But Dubinsky wrote the committee that:

"Later we learned that Dr. Carter, although complying technically with his promise to us as head of the organization, in typical Communist fashion placed Miss Moore in another equally important position in Russian War Relief. Now I learn that Carter is using my name to alibi himself and Miss Moore in the proceedings before you" (p. 293).

Later, Miss Moore resigned from Russian War Relief and worked with a far more notorious outfit—the American-Russian Institute, of which this same Dr. Carter, the executive director of the IPR, was also a director. On the witness stand before the McCarran Committee, Miss Moore, when asked if she was a Communist, refused to answer on the ground that her answer might incriminate her (p. 2559).

Miss Moore was succeeded as secretary of the American Council by Raymond Dennett, who was clearly not a Communist and who became very quickly disturbed at what he saw. He swore he soon came "not to trust the staff 7 (p. 939). It was loaded with Reds and Pinks. Its members belonged to the Office and Professional Workers Union, Local 36, which had been expelled from the leftist CIO because of its Communist activities. Dennett concluded that it was impossible to get unbiased research from such a staff. He got out in disgust at the end of 1945, after a brief tenure. Shortly after this, Dr. Carter retired as active executive director of the IPR and was succeeded by William L. Holland, who seems to have looked after the American Council as well. However, Maxwell Stewart testified that his wife, Marguerite Stewart, served as secretary of the American Council during 1946-1947. She was probably serving as Acting Secretary until the appointment of Clayton Lane in 1948.

Here was a succession of executive secretaries of the American Council from 1931 to 1948—Joseph Barnes, Frederick Vanderbilt Field, Harriet L. Moore, Mrs. Marguerite Stewart—all strongly pro-Communist and deeply biased toward Russia. One, Mr. Dennett, became quickly disillusioned and disgusted and quickly got out. If there were no other evidence of the pro-Communist bias of the IPR than this, the case would be complete. Apologists for the IPR point to the names of the eminent conservatives who appeared on its boards. But this is meaningless. This show was run by the professional staff. It is certain that the businessmen whose names appeared on its literature knew little or nothing of what the staff was doing. They provided the protective, conservative coloration behind which the staff was able to operate with safety and effectiveness. These gullible sponsors dealt chiefly with the impressive and scholarly-looking Dr. Carter, who bore no resemblance to that utterly mythical figure—the Communist of the imagination and the cartoon.