ADL Info Helped HUAC In 1947
Witch-Hunts
Middle East Labor Bulletin, Vol. 4 No. 2, Spring
1993
REPORTS THAT the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) furnished
information on individuals and organizations to government
agencies is not new. At press time, the MELB learned that in 1947,
Congressional hearings revealed that the self-styled "civil
rights" organization had been furnishing information to the U.S.
Civil Service Commission on persons either alleged to be
"communist," or linked, even indirectly, to some one who was. This
information, was in turn, used by the House Un-American Activities
Committee (HUAC) and the FBI.
The investigation was conducted by a House Subcommittee on the
Expenditures of the Executive Department on October 3,6 and 7,
1947. Its purpose was "to make inquiry as to the authority of the
Civil Service Commission to expend federal funds to compile an '
investigators' leads file containing facts, rumor, and gossip
bearing upon the views, opinions, and acts of individuals who were
neither federal employees nor applicants for positions coming
under the jurisdiction of the Civil Service Commission. Also to
learn for what purpose the "file" was to be used."
What the Subcommittee learned, clearly to its disgust as a
reading of the hearings make clear, was that the Anti-Defamation
League was major source of information which Subcommittee Chair
Clare Hoffman declared to be "all hearsay."
As an example, Hoffman held up a card, referring to the
National Lawyers Guild, February 20-22, 1937,* which stated that
it came "from the subversive files in the office of Attorneys
Mintzer & Levy, 39 Broadway, room 3305, and the files were
made up in cooperation with the American Jewish Committee and the
Anti- Defamation League" (P. 17). According to the Commission
President Harry B. Mitchell, the files contained "the names of
persons connected with some person who may be disloyal, subversive
in some way. And we have the names of a great many who registered
as Communists, who filed a petition, a nominating petition as a
member of the Communist Party" (P. 10). It also apparently,
included the names of some Senators and Congressmen (sic).
"You must remember," Mitchell later acknowledged, "that there
is no evidence against the names on the list." "No," responded
Hoffman, "but it furnishes a most admirable smear list." (P. 17)
Subcommittee member, Fred Busbey of Illinois, asked Commissioner
Arthur Flemming how he could "reconcile your statement before this
committee [regarding its activities] with the order put
out by the Civil Service Commission on November 3, 1943,
prohibiting your investigators from even asking questions about
various Communist-front organizations, whether the man read the
Daily Worker, or whether he was a member of the Washington
Bookshop, or the American League for Peace and Democracy, or other
organizations of that type?"
Flemming replied that "the Commission became convinced" that
the technique being used by some of the investigators, instead of
"helping us achieve our objectives, was deliberately playing into
the hands of the persons against whom the investigations were
being conducted. That type of information could be more
effectively developed in other ways without playing into
[their] hands."(P. 21)
Busbey, noting the "numerous cards" in the Commission's files
that came from the ADL, asked Flemming to explain the relationship
that existed between anyone on his staff and the ADL, and another
organization, the Friends of Democracy, whose name was linked to
it on the cards.
Mr. Busbey: "Do you have any knowledge as to who in your
organization contacts the Anti-Defamation League and checks their
files, and how often they go to their offices and check their
files for leads for your files?"
Mr. Flemming: "I do not know, and I do not have such
information."
Busbey, obviously frustrated when this line of questioning
produced no results, urged the committee to "subpena before it the
executive head" of the Anti-Defamation League, and that they have
Mintzer & Levy, "subpoenaed, to ascertain what they had to do
with getting that kind of information into this file." (P. 36) The
"advisability" of doing so was immediately questioned by
Subcommittee assistant, Porter Hardy, the chair agreed and it went
no further.
The Commissioner was adamant in his refusal to let the
Subcommittee review the files, despite acknowledging that
investigators from other committees, such as HUAC, and the FBI had
been given access. In a letter to Hoffman, dated December 19,
1947, Commission President Mitchell reported that of the 487,033
cards (on individuals) in its New York City office, "6,000 or
7,000 cards" compiled, to some degree, "in cooperation with the
Anti-Defamation League." (P.63)
It should be noted that 1947 was the year in which ten
Hollywood writers, producers and directors, who came to be known
as the "Hollywood Ten,"were called before HUAC and asked whether
or not they were "now or had ever been" members of the Communist
Party. All refused to answer, claiming that their First Amendment
rights protected them from such an inquiry. They were judged to be
in contempt of Congress and sentenced to a year in federal prison.
The House Un-American Activities Committee, at the time, with whom
the ADL made common bond, was largely made up of Southern racist
"Dixicrats" and ultra-right wing Northern Republicans.
*This was during the infancy of the first HUAC, which came to
be known by the name of its notorious right-wing chair, Martin
Dies, as the Dies Committee.
Source: Middle East Labor Bulletin, Vol. 4 No. 2, Spring 1993
