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NUMBER 3

DEFIANCE OF BAN ON TRAVEL TO RED CHINA

(A Partial Study)

A 14-member American delegation attended a so-called peace conference of the Asian and Pacific regions held in Red China in October 1952. Commenting on American representation at the conference, the U.S. Secretary of State declared at the time that no persons had asked for or been issued passports to attend the conference although travel to Communist China had been restricted since April 28, 1952. He also described the Peiping conference as "an obvious propaganda operation in which the Chinese Communists, while taking an active part in defying the United Nations and carrying the war into Korea * ** are continuing to hold peace conferences."

A number of the American delegates were subsequently interrogated by the House Committee on Un-American Activities and the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee.

George Hugh Hardyman, a retired California rancher publicized as vice chairman of the American delegation to the Peiping peace conference, appeared before the House Committee in 1955. In his passport application, dated after the travel ban, Hardyman told the State Department he intended to travel to "Australia, Canton Islands, etc." for pleasure and to visit his brother.

In a speech recorded in China for broadcast to other parts of the world, Hardyman had accused the United States of waging germ warfare in Korea. Hardyman had also claimed that all 14 American delegates became convinced that the U.S. Government was guilty of such a heinous practice. Convinced that Hardyman gave aid and comfort to aggressive enemies of the United States (American fighting men were then dying in Korea at the hands of the Red Chinese), this committee asked the Justice Department to consider prosecution of Hardyman for treasonable activities as well as for falsification of a sworn passport application. Nothing came of these requests.

Henry Willcox, and his wife, Anita, two other delegates to the 1952 conference in Red China, had informed the State Department in their passport applications that they intended to visit France and Turkey to negotiate a building contract. Mrs. Willcox was a witness before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee in 1955 and her husband, a New York builder, was questioned by the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1956.

Willcox admitted that he and his wife had never traveled to Turkey, but, upon arrival in France, had contacted the offices of the Communist-dominated World Peace Council which made arrangements for their travel to China at no cost to themselves. Willcox also conceded that the possibility of their visiting China had been discussed before leaving the United States. When the committee inquired why he had failed to indicate this possibility in his passport application, he replied, "I am sure that if I put that down, the passport would have been refused." Willcox insisted the law did not actually forbid him to go to China, but only rendered his passport invalid in that country. The visas he and his wife obtained in Paris for travel to Red China were on separate slips of paper, requiring no entries in their passports, the witness also revealed.

The hate-America propaganda at the Peiping conference was balanced criticism according to Willcox, who lectured on the subject following his return to this country. The Red Chinese radio had publicized a speech by Mrs. Willcox at the Peiping conference in which she accused American troops of atrocities and assigned to the United States sole responsibility for "the killing of millions of men, women and children in the Korean war." Statements by Mr. and Mrs. Willcox eulogizing the Red Chinese dictatorship were also subsequently printed and circulated in this country.

Louis Wheaton, a New Yorker identified as chairman of the American delegation to the Peiping conference, was questioned by this committee in 1956. His passport application, submitted after the ban on travel to Communist China, had referred only to plans to vacation in France and Italy.

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In speeches at the peace conference and elsewhere in China, all gleefully broadcast by Radio Peiping, Wheaton denounced the United States effort to save South Korea from Communist enslavement as "an unspeakable shame before history and humanity." He described the behavior of American forces in Korea as "vicious and criminal," "ruthless and inhuman." He not only joined in spreading the lie that the United States waged bacteriological warfare in Korea, but he propagated such fantasies about American soldiers in Korea, as the following:

"Just one of these incidents is enough to show the ruthless and inhuman behavior of our forces," Wheaton asserted in a talk beamed abroad by the Chinese Communist radio. "In one village in Korea more than 300 children were put into one warehouse and their mothers into another nearby. Gasoline was poured around the warehouse where the children were and set afire. The mothers, hearing the screams of their children, broke down the door and windows. they were trying to save their children, these mothers were machinegunned by our troops.

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The activities of Edwin and Isobel Cerney, two other delegates to the 1952 Peiping_conference, have been described to the House committee by several former FBI undercover agents within the party. The Cerneys, both of whom were also identified as members of the Communist Party USA, were shown to have spent 8 weeks in Red China in addition to attending the peace conference. Mrs. Cerney had proceeded to propagate false germ warfare charges against the United States following her return to this country.

The 140 Americans attending the Communist-dominated World Youth Festival in Moscow in the summer of 1957 were invited by the Red Chinese to take a free tour of the China mainland when the festival was over. Forty-three Americans accepted and arrived in China late in August of 1957. The journey was undertaken in spite of stamped notations that American passports were invalid for travel to Red China and in spite of a special warning addressed to American youth in Moscow by our Acting Secretary of State.

This unauthorized junket was described at hearings of the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1960 by Stephen Tyler, a non-Communist writer from New York who was part of the delegation. The witness testified that Communist purposes in promoting such a tour appeared to be indoctrination of young Americans with attitudes sympathetic to communism; embarrassment of the United States; and grist for the Communist propaganda mill.

A staff study issued by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee in 1958 on the subject of "Communist Passport Frauds" made reference to this same youth delegation to Red China. The study asserted that both the Russian and Chinese Governments issued to some of the delegates slips of paper instead of visas, which could later be destroyed leaving no record of the individual's visit to a Communist country. One of the delegates was quoted as stating that most of the American youths had surrendered their passports upon arrival in Peiping at the demand of the Chinese authorities. The subcommittee staff observed that Communist governments had "cooperated to encourage and provoke American students to violate the passport regulations of the United States," and that they had capital ized on youthful curiosity "to their own propaganda advantage, to bring these students into legal conflict with their own Government, and to embarrass the United States."

Anna Louise Strong has long played an active role in the Communist Party USA, according to the testimony of many witnesses before the House Committee on Un-American Activities and the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. Miss Strong was issued a passport on June 25, 1958, and subsequently traveled to Red China. She currently writes articles from Peiping for pro-Communist publications in the United States.

Maud Russell is a full-time lecturer and publisher concentrating on the subject of Red China. She was interrogated by the Committee on Un-American Activities in March 1963 regarding her 3-month visit in Red China in 1959. Although Maud Russell's own publications, as well as advance publicity for her lectures, advertised her travels in a proscribed area, Miss Russell refused to testify regarding her trip on grounds of self-incrimination. The passport application which she submitted to the State Department in 1959 had stated she intended to visit Great Britain, Scandinavia, France, the Soviet Union, India, and Japan.

Miss Russell, who has been identified in testimony before the committee as a Communist Party member on a national level, conceded to the committee that her lectures were favorable to the Red Chinese regime, which she said was good for the Chinese people

DEFIANCE OF BANS ON TRAVEL TO U.S.S.R. AND EAST EUROPEAN COMMUNIST NATIONS

(A Partial Study)

William L. Patterson, general manager of the official Communist newspaper, the Worker, admitted in testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities that he had embarked on a tour of various Eastern European Communist nations in 1950 on a passport he had obtained 2 years earlier for travel to England and France. Although Patterson's tour concededly took him to Hungary and the State Department had picked up his passport upon his return for violating travel restrictions then in effect with regard to that nation, Patterson insisted in his testimony before the committee in 1959 that there was no provision in the law requiring him to inform the U.S. Government of his intentions to travel to a proscribed area. Patterson had traveled on a passport issued to him before the imposition of the travel ban. Once behind the Iron Curtain, he made numerous speeches attacking the United States; his forums included the Supreme Court of Communist Hungary.

Mary S. Russak, an identified Communist Party member from New York City, traveled abroad extensively in the early 1950's in support of various Communist international peace conferences. Testifying before the House committee in 1956, Mrs. Russak admitted that she had applied for a passport in 1950 to travel in Sweden, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, and had used that passport to travel in Rumania in 1952, when that nation was the subject of a travel ban. Her passport was declared invalid by the State Department as a result of this unauthorized travel.

Committee investigations also revealed that Mrs. Russak, upon her return from Europe in the summer of 1952, began organizing a delegation of Americans willing to defy U.S. travel regulations in order to attend the Peace Conference of the Asian and Pacific Regions in Peiping, China, in October 1952. The committee obtained a letter signed by Mrs. Russak in which she disclosed that delegates would go to China on a long and roundabout route via Paris. In that city, further travel arrangements, including costs, were to be taken care of, Mrs. Russak's letter stated. "All other aspects of travel we are undertaking actively with full knowledge of what is involved," she had also written.

It should be recalled that the aforementioned George Hugh Hardyman of California, as well as the Willcoxes of New York, had journeyed to Peiping in 1952 via Paris. Congressional hearings also revealed that a number of Americans at the Peiping peace parley made unauthorized visits to the Soviet Union and certain of its East European satellites in the course of traveling to and from Red China.

Hardyman went to the Soviet Union, Poland, and Czechoslovakia in violation of restrictions in his passport, an official of the State Department informed the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. Henry Willcox told the House Committee on Un-American Activities that he and his wife had stopped in Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Soviet Union en route to Communist China. House committee hearings also produced evidence that Edwin Cerney and his wife had spent several weeks in the Soviet Union in the latter part of 1952.

A group of young Americans defied U.S. travel restrictions to participate in a Communist-led international youth conference held in Communist Poland in July and August of 1955. Joseph Scislowicz, a University of Minnesota student and writer, had received State Department authorization to visit Poland as a journalist during this period. He reported on the proceedings of ths so-called Fifth World Youth Festival in testimony before the Committee on Un-American Activities the following year. The witness, who was housed for a time with the American festival delegates estimated that about 32 Americans were in the delegation at Warsaw, and he was given to understand that their travels had not been validated by the State Department.

Six or eight of the American delegates continued on to Moscow after the festival, while a couple of other delegates visited Bulgaria, Scislowicz testified. A general travel ban was also in effect at that time with respect to the Soviet Union and Bulgaria. The witness identified 10 photos from passport applications as repreRenting Americans in attendance at the Warsaw festival. Committee counsel observed that many of these individuals had informed the State Department they intended to take pleasure trips to non-Communist European countries and their passports were not valid for travel to the U.S.S.R., Poland, and other East European Communist nations.

NUMBER 4

LABOR LOOKS AT IMMIGRATION-REMARKS OF HON. PHILIP A. HART, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN

Mr. HART. Mr. President, one of the paradoxes of our democracy is how we can have so many national leaders in support of immigration reform and still have no national immigration reform.

This irony was pointed out forcibly in a speech by James B. Carey, president of the International Union of Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers, AFL-CIO. The speech was made April 16 before the American Immigration and Citizenship Conference here in Washington.

I hesitated momentarily to put it in the Record because it speaks approvingly of me--but my desire to inform my colleagues finally triumphed over my modesty, and I ask unanimous consent that the speech may be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the address was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

"LABOR LOOKS AT IMMIGRATION

"(Address by James B. Carey, vice president, AFL-CIO, and president, International Union of Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers, AFL-CIO, before the American Immigration and Citizenship Conference, Washington, D.C., April 16, 1964)

"Ladies and gentlemen, the story goes that a few years back, here in Washington, a Cherokee Indian appeared before a congressional committee to testify on pending immigration legislation. His testimony was brief and to the point. 'You should learn from our experience,' said the redskin sadly. We weren't sufficiently careful about immigration and look what happened to us.'

'American unionists who deal with immigration matters have enjoyed recalling that anecdote, but many more of them, I imagine, will cherish President Franklin D. Roosevelt's pungent comment to the 1938 convention of the Daughters of the American Revolution. 'Remember always,' said F.D.R., with his big ironic grin, 'that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.'

"We of the labor movement have not forgotten that admonition, and for a very good reason. The American labor movement, more than any other labor movement in the world, has its origins and its traditions deeply rooted in historie tides of immigration and in the brains and brawn of a hundred different nationalities.

"This rich heritage of internationalism is a wellspring of deep pride with us for we know that these many converging streams contributed immeasurably toward making the American labor movement the largest and strongest in the free world. "The millions of refugees from political oppression, religious persecution and hunger, the hundreds of thousands who came to the United States because they wanted to make a new life in the New World-those whom Emma Lazarus wrote about: the 'huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the homeless, tempesttossed' all these pioneers were the men and women who endowed our American labor movement with its vitality, dynamism and jealous devotion to democracy. "Out of innumerable strains of social and economic thought, philosophy and political ideas, the American labor movement has woven its unique ideological fabric. Perhaps even more than our Nation itself, trade unionism in our country has been a vast and successful melting pot.

"We of labor, consequently, will forever be indebted to the courageous men and women who came through the golden door from so many lands, bringing with them not only fortitude and fervor but also their love of freedom and a vision of the future.

"A mere half century ago one out of every seven American workers was foreign born. Around the turn of the century no fewer than 10,215,000 Americans were foreign born, an impressive 134 percent of our total population. Gradually, of course, this has dwindled; but interestingly enough the last U.S. census in 1960

revealed that we have almost exactly as many foreign born today as in 1900 but today they comprise only 5% percent of our 179 million population.

"American trade union after trade union, as well as industry after industry, owes an incalculable debt to the immigrants who settled in our villages, towns, and cities not only to toil but to build. No one nationality, it goes without saying, was entirely responsible for building a particular union or industry.

"Yet even today we associate many of our greatest unions with the pioneering immigrants who founded them and built them, sometimes at the sacrifice of blood and tears and even life itself. There were the Hungarian, Lithuanian, and Estonian immigrants who built our iron and steel unions; the Slovaks, Scottish, Welsh, and English who created our miners' organizations; the Russians, Poles, and Latvians whose dreams gave birth to the great garment unions; the Irish in transportation (not to mention half the police forces of the country); the Scandinavians who developed unionism in the lumber industry; Italians in the building trades; Portuguese and Spanish workers in fishing; the German pioneers who founded the brewery and printing unions; and many others.

"The roster of immigrants who inspired and led great sections of the American labor movement, just in the 20th century, would sound like a rollcall of most of the immortal union leaders of our time, from the time of immigrant Samuel Gompers through the time of immigrant Philip Murray.

"Thus down through the years the American labor movement has been deeply conscious of its precious heritage from the Old World, sharply aware of its debt to the immigrant heroes who organized our early unions and who guided their survival and growth.

"Because of this the labor movement's position on immigration has become increasingly liberal as the years have gone by. We would, in fact, be repudiating our past, denying our patrimony, if it were otherwise, if we were to advocate restrictive immigration.

"Let me hasten to mention here that there is, regrettably, one unhappy chapter, but only one, in organized labor's relations with Federal immigration policies and programs.

"For too many years before and after the turn of the century the American trade union movement was terrified to the point of irrationality over the threat of Chinese labor. As a result, in 1881, the first convention of the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, the AFL's predecessor, demanded legislation excluding oriental labor. In 1886 the first AFL convention reiterated this stand and reaffirmed it at subsequent conventions. That the fear and antagonism were directed entirely against orientals was made clear at the 1889 convention when the report by President Gompers (an immigrant himself, as already noted) insisting on more rigorous enforcement of the Chinese Exclusion Act was unanimously adopted-while the same convention a few minutes later refused to approve a proposal halting all immigration for 15 years as a means of helping more than 2 million unemployed Americans find jobs.

"There is, obviously, an object lesson for us in this episode the wretched spectacle of one group of immigrants, occidentals, fearing, and fighting another group of immigrants, who happened to be orientals.

"The fact is, of course, that to a far greater extent than any other body of immigrants the Chinese did not come to the United States by themselves; they were virtually conscripted, brought here practically as indentured labor by ruthless and rapacious employers or their agents. The Chinese were imported to slave away their lives for a few cents an hour building the transcontinental railroads and working the western mine fields. They were "coolies" in the detested sense of the word, undermining union-won wage scales and working standards. "The blame here must be placed squarely at the door of greedy managements; the Chinese-imported in batches of hundreds-labored, lived, and died under conditions tantamount to slavery. No wonder other workers, other immigrants, began to fear that the same employers who imported the Chinese for railroad building might before long introduce the orientals to maintenance-of-way work or even operational jobs. In after-years many historians pointed out the obvious: that if the employers had brought the Chinese to America to work at going rates of pay, or nearly so, and under minimal union conditions, the hatred between the two groups of workers would never have arisen at least not to the intensity that it did-and the oriental exclusion legislation might never have been passed. "The extent to which the labor movement has come to see clearly-perhaps more clearly than some other groups in the United States-the realities of the immigration issue can be gaged by the action of the most recent AFL-CIO

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