SUBCOMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE INTERNAL SECURITY ACT AND OTHER INTERNAL SECURITY LAWS TO THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY UNITED STATES SENATE EIGHTY-FOURTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION FOR THE YEAR 1956 SECTION III 85270 DECEMBER 31, 1956 Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE WASHINGTON: 1957 COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY JAMES O. EASTLAND, Mississippi, Chairman ESTES KEFAUVER, Tennessee ALEXANDER WILEY, Wisconsin JOHN MARSHALL BUTLER, Maryland SUBCOMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE INTERNAL SECURITY ACT AND OTHER INTERNAL SECURITY LAWS JAMES O. EASTLAND, Mississippi, Chairman OLIN D. JOHNSTON, South Carolina WILLIAM E. JENNER, Indiana HERMAN WELKER, Idaho JOHN MARSHALL BUTLER, Maryland ROBERT MORRIS, Chief Counsel SECTION III COMMUNIST PENETRATION OF GEOGRAPHICAL During the year, the subcommittee was led, by the accumulation. of its evidence, into the cities of Honolulu and New Orleans. In these cities it found a considerable concentration of Communist strength, which in the case of Hawaii, led into labor unions. There was evidence of such infiltration in still other cities which could not be pursued. COMMUNIST ACTIVITY IN HAWAII Late in November, the subcommittee went to Honolulu to hold hearings on the nature and scope of Soviet penetration of the Hawaiian Islands. The testimony it had taken on Communist influences on the Nation's waterfronts preceded this undertaking and really compelled the trip. Victor Riesel, the labor columnist, speaking from his visits to Hawaii and from his experiences in the labor movement, had told the subcommittee that a Communist-dominated union, the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen's Union, "is able to shut off all entrance to and egress from the islands except, of course, by air." Speaking of Harry Bridges, the head of that union, he said: Mr. RIESEL. He and his union control the workers on the great plantations, which he has also shut down from time to time and has thoroughly hurt the economy. At any given moment, should he decide to call a strike, the structure of the union is such that he has the power through his lieutenant, Jack Hall. He could not only shut the port, but close down the entire economy by calling an agricultural strike on the big plantations of the islands. Bridges has not been satisfied with just controlling the ports and the agricultural economy of the islands, but has begun to take in Government workers into his union of waterfront and longshoremen. It is now quite probable that he will have the same influence in Government offices that he has amongst the waterfront and plantation rank and file. Mr. MORRIS. Now, does the Bridges lifeline to Honolulu go from San Francisco? Mr. RIESEL. Yes, the command is in San Francisco, and no one should make any mistake about that. It is in the hands of Harry Bridges who takes, of course, considerable advice from Louis Goldblatt and is entirely concentrated with international headquarters in San Francisco. Mr. MORRIS. Now, what control does Bridges exercise over the port of San Francisco? Mr. RIESEL. He could do the same in the port of San Francisco that he could do in Honolulu or elsewhere in the Hawaiian Islands. He could shut the port down. And in fact has proven that, but he is the boss of the waterfront and warehouse workers in San Francisco and therefore able, at either end of the lifeline from Hawaii to California, to immobilize it so it would take the military forces of the United States to actually keep them open and alive should he decide to call a strike at any one strategic moment. Mr. MORRIS. And do you consider that this poses a threat to the internal security of this country? Mr. RIESEL. I certainly do. And I have considered it such for a long time, and for a long time have tried to bring out the story. That is one of the reasons why I stopped in Hawaii and why I spent practically all my time talking to labor leaders in the islands. We further learned that Harry Bridges was working to establish a foothold in eastern and gulf ports and in the Halls of Congress. His New York representative was Irving Velson, his New Orleans organizer was Andrew Steve Nelson, and Jeff Kibre was his legislative representative in Washington. In the course of our investigation we learned that they were Communists. We planned to subpena all three, but in the case of Nelson, the Department of Justice moved first and indicted him and he was convicted of false swearing on a TaftHartley non-Communist affidavit on September 6, 1956. When Velson was called before the subcommittee on July 12, 1956, he testified that he was and had been a representative of the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen's Union since 1954, and that he reported on activities in the New York Harbor area to Bridges and had conferred with Bridges in San Francisco 2 or 3 weeks before. In response to a series of questions about the subcommittee's evidence regarding his Communist affiliations, he asserted his fifth-amendment privilege. When specifically asked if he were presently a member of the Communist Party or if he had been a member of the Communist Party as far back as the 1930's, as the evidence indicated, Velson declined to answer on the grounds that it might tend to incriminate him. When Kibre was called before the subcommittee on June 21, 1956, he testified that he was and had been the Washington representative of the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen's Union since 1953 and had been, for many years before, an official of the Fishermen's Union on the west coast until its merger in 1950 with the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen's Union. To all questions regarding Communist affiliations or Communist Party membership, including his use of an alias, Kibre declined to answer on the ground of self-incrimination. Additional witnesses who are presently active on the New York waterfront with Velson and Kibre of the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen's Union were heard by the subcommittee, and all of them declined to answer questions regarding Communist Party activity and membership on grounds of selfincrimination. It was apparent to us that the trail to the head of this octopus that was reaching out to enmesh our ports led to San Francisco where the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen's Union had its headquarters. Its president, Bridges, not only controlled the organization of all the longshoremen in that great port but his dominion reached to most west coast ports and out into the Pacific to Honolulu and the six main Hawaiian Islands. Hearings were accordingly held in Iolani Palace in Honolulu from November 30 until December 6, and 5 Senators from our subcommittee sat through 9 sessions that proved to be most revealing. As soon as the announcement of the hearings had been made by the chairman, Bridges declared that he would call the 24,000 members of his union off their jobs while the hearings were in progress. He also boasted that he would stage a demonstration when the chairman arrived on the islands. Bridges subsequently downgraded his boasts and the demonstration that was held on the palace grounds featured only a few hundred participants led by Bridges and his lieutenant, Jack W. Hall. The subcommittee could not accurately determine whether the driving rainstorm that descended on the islands that day or a resistance to their leadership kept down the size of the demonstration. According to newspaper reports the sporadic walkouts that occurred involved no more than 6,500 workers on all islands and as far as we could determine only 1 ship was not loaded on schedule and even that was delayed only 1 day. The subcommittee had had the advantage of a briefing on the status of Communist influence in the islands before going to Honolulu. The chairman of the Territorial Commission on Subversive Activities, William B. Stephenson, had given subcommittee counsel, on October 5, a summary of Communist strength as it existed there in 1955. This indicated that the Communists had three main sources of power on the islands: the ILWU, the United Public Workers, a union organizing Territorial government workers, and the Honolulu Record, a newspaper of over 3,000 circulation. The subcommittee issued more than 30 subpenas and asked 10 other persons to testify. A subpena duces tecum was issued at the outset to the chairman of the commission, Mr. Stephenson, directing him to turn his files over to the subcommittee. Subsequently subpenas were issued for the books, accounts, and records of the ILWU and the UPW and to other firms. All of these records are now under continuing study by the staff of the subcommittee. Accountants for the ILWU supplied information under the terms of this subpena which indicated that the union had spent $109,970.15 for the defense of Jack Hall during his trial for violation of the Smith Act. The subcommittee learned during these hearings that Hawaii occupies a most strategic position in the vast Pacific. More than 2,000 miles from California and the north Pacific ports, Honolulu is our only substantial port east of Guam, which is more than 2,000 miles west of Hawaii. Its destruction, capture, or neutralization would create a port vacuum which would seriously incapacitate commerce and shipping to Asia and its island republics. Hawaii was the principal staging, replenishing, repair, and communications area for the |