that advisedly because we develop evidence but we don't initiate prosecution.

I understand that, of course, would not involve all witnesses. One of them was a friendly witness who was on that plane. This is published evidence now; I can say it because he testified.

Mr. POFF. Would the gentleman agree with me that the conduct of which he testifies would, if absolutely factual, constitute an act of sedition?

Mr. WILLIS. As the gentleman knows, I would take his word for that. I have not studied it. I don't know whether sedition is related as I had thought it was more or less during times of war.

Now, whether it is also within an emergency and whether the existing emergency makes it sedition, since it is a highly technical thing, I would accept the gentleman's opinion, if that is his opinion, but I would not want to express one without studying it.

MI. POFF. In order to make the record plain, the statute to which I have reference is 18 U.S.C. 2388, which provides that-

Whoever willfully makes or conveys false reports while the United States is at war with intent to interfere with the operations or success of its military and naval forces or

note this is disjunctive—

willfully causes or attempts to cause insubordination, disloyalty, or mutiny in the military or naval forces of the United States or willfully obstructs the enlistment service of the United States to the injury of the service of the United States, shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. Mr. WILLIS. Meaning only one-third refers to Wahl.

Mr. POFF. No; I meant to add that under continuing emergency resolutions this statute is fully applicable today.

Now, with that definition in mind, would not the gentleman agree that the activities of Mr. Luce and others which you have related to committee should be submitted to the Department of Justice to inquire the wisdom of a prosecution under the sedition statute?

Mr. WILLIS. Of course I do. It would be my guess through a Certain agency you know about who have investigative agencies that part of the Department of Justice must be aware of what I am aware of through our committee.

Mr. POFF. Yes.

Mr. WILLIS. But if you want a specific reference for a look-see as to Another law they are violating, why, I would be all for it and I would recommend that you do it. If any committee has jurisdiction over it, I would want to consult the staff. I think it would be well that it might be done although I would imagine they must know about it. Mr. POFF. Now, testimony adduced before our subcommittee Concerning the Cuban trip last summer, which I assume was enlarged in your committee, indicated that certain acts were committed by the students on Cuban soil which, had they been committed on American soil, would probably have constituted acts of sedition.

Mr. WILLIS. Hence your bill.

Mr. POFF. Well, my bill preceded that trip, the concept of the bill. My bill, had it been on the statute books at that time, would have reached those acts. It is possible that some of the conduct of those students currently in Cuba may constitute sedition.

Mr. WILLIS. May I suggest that I notice, as you have, that the ranking minority member on the Committee on Un-American Activities has been seated next to me. He has indicated he wants to make a statement at this time or later; maybe a comment on what you ask. Mr. POFF. If the chairman has no objection, I would be glad to hear from him.

Mr. FEIGHAN. Be very happy to have the witness.

STATEMENT OF HON. AUGUST E. JOHANSEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN

Mr. JOHANSEN. I want to make a very brief statement. I do so, not only as my chairman has stated, as ranking minority member, but as a member of the subcommittee which held the various hearings last year on the illegal travel to Cuba.

First of all, I want to state that I not only strongly endorse and support the bill introduced by Mr. Willis, but, in token thereof, I introduced an identical bill, H.R. 9441, under the date of December 12 of last year. I just wanted to add to the references the chairman made to the present group in Cuba in two particulars, and one of these I think goes to the matter mentioned by the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Poff.

First of all, having heard the invocation of their alleged constitutional rights by so many of these witnesses, I think it is noteworthy that the statement by four of these students on the current trip, one of whom, by the way, is a Luke S. Trip, Jr., from Wayne State University in Detroit.

The statement includes this sentence, and it is peculiarly ironical in view of their invocation or the invocation by similar alleged students of constitutional protection. I am quoting:

We realize the U.S. Government is the biggest farce in history and must be destroyed.

Mr. CHELF. Excuse me.

Where did you understand him to make that statement?

Mr. JOHANSEN. That was made in a statement by the four students released in Havana. This is from an Associated Press story of June 13, last Saturday.

Mr. POFF. Now, Mr. Chairman, this does very graphically illustrate what I am saying.

Mr. WILLIS. May I supplement what the gentleman just said? Mr. POFF. I hope you will.

Mr. WILLIS. You remember I ask permission to insert additional material analyzing certain cases. Well, let me read this one; it is a

lulu, in this statement which I hope will be in your record:

Louis Wheaton, a New Yorker identified as chairman of the American delegation to the Peking 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.

In speeches at the "peace" conference and elsewhere in China-all gleefully broadcast by Radio Peking-Wheaton denounced the U.S. 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 we 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. As they were trying to save their children, these mothers were machinegunned by our troops.

Mr. CHELF. Amend your bill to give them a one-way ticket, these so-called students.

Mr. JOHANSEN. I just want to quote one other thing which goes to supporting what the chairman has testified to as to the flagrant and deliberate effort to challenge the Presidential order and any existing law. The chairman referred to the statement or to the name of Ed Lemansky who is the group's leader and a self-identified Communist. I would like to amend his statement by one further quotation from Mr. Lemansky:

"We," referring to the 73 Americans now in Cuba, "have different reasons for coming to Cuba but we are united in our opposition to our Government's efforts to prevent U.S. citizens from traveling to Cuba." That is one more corroborative bit of evidence of the determined effort openly and flagrantly to defy the existing order and/or statutes. Mr. POFF. Mr. Chairman, one final question.

In hearings held on the bill I introduced last year, only one witness testified in opposition and he was a representative of the American Civil Liberties Union.

My question to the witness is: Does the gentleman know whether or not the American Civil Liberties Union favors his bill?

Mr. WILLIS. I am not officially informed; let's put it that way. As far as I know, they have taken no position.

Mr. POFF. Nothing further.

Mr. MOORE. Mr. Chairman, I would like the record to note that the American Civil Liberties Union does not even favor Mr. Poff's bill as an extension of the sedition acts outside the geographical limitations of the United States; as a matter of fact, testified in opposition thereto.

I would like to ask the gentleman from Louisiana a question with respect to his bill. We know that there is a lot of activity by various individuals that do not go into Cuba or are not actually there themselves. Does your bill actually take care of this situation and seek to prosecute those who encourage or aid others to violate the provisions of travel? As I read it, I am a little afraid it does not and I am wondering if you want to touch that area.

Mr. WILLIS. Yes; I will be glad to.

As I said a while ago, Mr. Hitz was, until recently engaged by my committee, for 30 years with the Justice Department specializing in contempt cases of this kind. He reminds me of something you and I know as lawyers, that this could be reached under the general conspiracy statute. I am reminded that there is a charge of conspiracy based on existing law to supplement the indictments of those who are affirmatively involved. In other words, no law is necessary to carry out what you have in mind.

Mr. MOORE. That is the basis of the existence of the present indictments, conspiracy indictments that are in existence? Mr. WILLIS. May he answer the question?

Mr. FEIGHAN. Yes.

Mr. HITZ. I understand that there are three counts against each one of the defendants charged in the Brooklyn Federal court. Those who traveled, three in number, mentioned in Mr. Willis' statement this morning, are charged with unlawful departure and unlawful entry and all of them are charged under the general conspiracy statute for conspiring to make the unlawful travel.

One of them, and this quite well illustrates the question asked by Mr. Moore, one of those four individuals charged in that indictment did not make the travel to Cuba; he stayed here; and he is charged. I may say that this indictment and the charges made against the various persons whom I have just indicated here are mentioned in Mr. Willis' statement this morning. It is helpful to have this question brought out so that we can emphasize that point, but the general statutes of conspiracy would cover not only that travel, but would cover the travel prohibited by Mr. Willis' bill, H.R. 9045.

Mr. CHELF. Did I understand the gentleman to say charge of departure and entry?

Would it not be departure, entry, and reentry; in other words, entry into the Communist country and reentry back into the United States?

Mr. HITZ. No. The Brooklyn Federal charge against these individuals does not charge them with illegal entry into any foreign country; it is illegal entry and I say reentry back into this country. I say it because the statute only makes it a crime to enter, but it would be reentry.

Now, despite the fact that the Worthy decision holding unconstitutional the penalizing of an American citizen for an act of reentry in the fifth circuit, the Department of Justice is, nevertheless, pursuing that count against those three individuals who traveled, that count charging an unlawful entry or reentry, and they are going to go against the decision in the fifth circuit, hoping for a different result in New York.

So the charge there is unlawful departure, unlawful entry, reentry, and conspiracy. The law does not permit a charge of entry into a foreign country prohibited by Presidential order, and it is that gap that Mr. Willis' bill will fill.

Mr. MOORE. With respect to this decision of the fifth circuit, can you give us a brief review of the facts of that case? That apparently occurred under the general provisions of section 215 of the Immigra tion and Nationality Act and the case represents a test as to whether or not we could punish for reentry into the United States an American citizen who reenters the United States?

Mr. HITZ. Well, Mr. Worthy was charged only with unlawful entry which would be reentry.

Mr. MOORE. He was a U.S. citizen, was he not?

Mr. HITZ. That is right. He had had, I understand, an American passport not validated for any of the prohibitive countries and may even have been revoked in his possession, but that is not part of the case. The charge is only for entry.

Now, why he was not charged with departure, I do not know.
Mr. MOORE. Then, may I direct a question to Mr. Willis?

Mr. Poff has sought to make these acts by his legislation and these statements seditious in nature.

Characteristic of everything we seem to do in this country, I want to escalate just a little bit and ask you the question of whether or not you don't have a good cause to suggest these people have committed treason against the United States. They are adhering to and advocating and giving advice and aid and comfort to a nation which we don't have diplomatic relations with.

What is your thought as a legal scholar in that respect?

Mr. WILLIS. My answer is a note from my general counsel that that very subject is under discussion by him, so I would prefer to have the result. Whatever the result is of the study, I am sure we can make available to the gentleman.

Mr. MOORE. Then my question and the answer thereto apparently indicates that this might well be the case, that at least the Committee on Un-American Activities is going into it in detail to see whether or not it could possibly be considered an act of treason?

Mr. WILLIS. Well, of course, I am not sure, but there must be a copy of the Constitution around here. I think the Constitution, itself, does it not, refers to treason as being something done in time of war?

Now, we might be able to pass a criminal statute by not employing treason if it is possible in that contention. I don't know, but that is being studied.

Mr. MOORE. The Constitution covers a multitude of situations. We have got a comma in the Constitution in that particular section of article III, section 3, which seems to me might be considered really of separating the question of whether or not the acts must be in time of war because it is in the disjunctive when it says "or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort."

May I further make the observation in that respect that we have by reason of acts of the Congress continued our state of emergency and for all practical purposes we are operating this Nation today as though we were actively engaged in war, period.

Now, whether Cuba comes under that classification today, I mean if that were a saving feature from making these acts treasonable, I just don't know.

May I say that I, having participated at great length in the interrogation of several of the Cuban students in executive session of this subcommittee last year upon their return from Cuba, appreciate the great difficulty that the gentleman from Louisiana has had in chairing the Committee on Un-American Activities looking specifically into these problems.

I believe that if the study here would in any way seek to prevent these undertakings by various individuals who apparently are dedicated to the Communist cause, I mean everybody seems to think that is the flag that we wave when we want to place a restriction upon when someone says "freedom." It is perfectly obvious to me that these young people by their acts and by their statements are not in any way serving as far as their allegiance is concerned the United States of America.

I am hoping that we can get the Justice Department reports on this matter at long last and move forward to prevent further acts such as this that have reoccurred.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. FEIGHAN. Mr. Besterman.