Mr. MOULDER. The committee will be in order, please.
TESTIMONY OF JOHN STENHOUSE, ACCOMPANIED BY HIS COUNSEL, JACK R.
CLUCK--Resumed
Mr. TAVENNER. Mr. Stenhouse, we were discussing the Communist Party
branch or group of which you were a member in Los Angeles. Will you
give the committee, please, the names of those who were associated with
you in that group?
Mr. STENHOUSE. I am unable to give you the names, Mr. Tavenner. It is
a long time ago, and I have been trying to remember. As I indicated to
you the other day, if you give me some ideas of whom you think were
present, it might refresh my memory.
Mr. TAVENNER. I believe I told you that we would try to present you
with a list of persons who had been identified in the Los Angeles area
as members of the Communist Party, but we do not have that list with
us, and we are unable to present it to you now. We may do so later in
an effort to refresh your recollection.
(The witness confers with his counsel.)
Mr. STENHOUSE. I am willing at any time to tell you if any particular
individual in my recollection was at those meetings.
Mr. TAVENNER. Will you tell the committee, please, how you became
employed in the United States Department of Commerce in Washington.
Mr. STENHOUSE. Well, as I indicated, after I was obliged to have my
hernia operation and get out of the defense work that I had been doing
I sought occupation in a number of places. And somewhere along the line
somebody brought my qualifications in the Far East to Congressman Ellis
Patterson, and he referred it to Henry Wallace, and the appointment was
made on that introduction.
Mr. TAVENNER. Did you finally become head of your Section in the
Department of Commerce?
Mr. STENHOUSE. Chief of the Section.
Mr. TAVENNER. Was that the Section dealing with China?
Mr. STENHOUSE. That is right.
Mr. TAVENNER. Did your activities in the Department of Commerce have
anything to do with known Communists in China?
Mr. STENHOUSE. No. The work that I was doing was related to the
rehabilitation of trade. We were answering the inquiries of businessmen
relating to regulations and economic conditions in China and the
Far East. We prepared articles for the Foreign Commerce Weekly and
conducted an economic analysis of the possibilities of reopening trade.
Mr. TAVENNER. Did you tell the committee that you attended Communist
Party meetings in the city of Washington?
Mr. STENHOUSE. That is right.
Mr. TAVENNER. Was that during the entire period of time you were in
Washington?
Mr. STENHOUSE. I can’t be sure of the time again. But it was somewhere
between the end of, I think, somewhere between the end of 1945 and the
end of 1946.
Mr. TAVENNER. How soon after your arrival in Washington did you become
identified with the Communist Party there, and attend those group
meetings?
Mr. STENHOUSE. I can’t place it. I know that shortly after I got to
Washington I had another serious operation, and I was busy getting
adjusted to my new work. Sometime about then I joined the Federal
Workers Union.
Mr. MOULDER. I did not understand you. You joined what?
Mr. STENHOUSE. The Federal Workers Union.
Mr. TAVENNER. Was it after you became a member of the Federal Workers
Union that you first began attending Communist Party meetings in the
District of Columbia?
Mr. STENHOUSE. I can’t be sure. I think it was.
Mr. TAVENNER. Did you advance to the point of holding an office of any
type in the union while you were in Washington?
Mr. STENHOUSE. I was a shop steward and collected dues from 4 or 5
people. That was all.
Mr. TAVENNER. Will you tell the committee, please, the circumstances
under which you were approached to identify yourself with the Communist
Party while you were working for the Department of Commerce?
Mr. STENHOUSE. Well, again I think it was that one of the fellows in
the union asked me to attend some of the similar sort of meetings that
I had before. But it is possible that it was from some contact in Los
Angeles. I am not sure about that.
Mr. TAVENNER. Did that individual indicate that he knew you had been
associated with a branch of the Communist Party in Los Angeles when he
first talked to you about attending such meetings in the District of
Columbia?
Mr. STENHOUSE. I don’t remember whether he did or not.
Mr. TAVENNER. Who was the person that contacted you in Washington?
Mr. STENHOUSE. Well, again I can’t remember his name. But I have
already told you who I thought it was in terms of his union function.
He was a member of the grievance committee in that department.
Mr. TAVENNER. Can you give a better identification of the individual
than the fact he was with the grievance committee?
Mr. STENHOUSE. Well, I can give you a physical description to some
extent. He was a fairly short fellow and dark, dark hair.
Mr. TAVENNER. About what age person was he at that time?
Mr. STENHOUSE. Oh, I imagine maybe 30, 32; something like that.
Mr. TAVENNER. Where did he live?
Mr. STENHOUSE. I don’t know. He may have lived in Virginia. I say that
because one of the houses where we met was in Virginia.
Mr. TAVENNER. Was it his house?
Mr. STENHOUSE. I am not sure now.
Mr. TAVENNER. Was he also employed by the Department of Commerce?
Mr. STENHOUSE. Yes, sir.
Mr. TAVENNER. What was his position in the Department of Commerce?
Mr. STENHOUSE. He was in the Balance of Payments. I am not sure of the
actual name of the division. The work of that division was related to
the study and report of international balance of payments.
Mr. TAVENNER. Can you tell us where his office was located in the
Department of Commerce?
Mr. STENHOUSE. No. It was a huge building and I don’t remember what
floor it was on. It was in the main building.
Mr. TAVENNER. Was it on the same floor as your office?
Mr. STENHOUSE. I don’t remember.
Mr. TAVENNER. Can you give us his name?
Mr. STENHOUSE. No; I can’t sir.
Mr. TAVENNER. Were all of the members of this group employees in the
Department of Commerce?
(Representative Harold H. Velde entered the hearing room at this
point.)
Mr. STENHOUSE. I am not sure of that. I think they were. I identified
them in my mind at least with members of the Public Workers Union. And,
while I was--well, I was going to say with that local. But I am not
sure of that.
Mr. TAVENNER. What was the number of the local?
Mr. STENHOUSE. I don’t remember. I only attended about, oh, not more
than 4 or 5 union meetings. I dropped out of the union around the end
of 1946, I think it was. And, as a matter of fact, I was extremely busy
in my work and wasn’t actually familiar with the organization of the
union.
Mr. TAVENNER. You were active enough in the union to be made a steward.
Mr. STENHOUSE. That is right. I was a shop steward.
Mr. TAVENNER. Was it your duty, as a shop steward, to represent the
membership of the union in legitimate grievances?
Mr. STENHOUSE. Well, we never had any. And all I did was collect dues
and turn them over to another fellow.
Mr. TAVENNER. Were any of the persons from whom you collected union
dues members of the group of the Communist Party to which you referred?
Mr. STENHOUSE. No. No; I don’t think they were.
Mr. TAVENNER. Was this a mixed group, men and women?
Mr. STENHOUSE. In the discussion group?
Mr. TAVENNER. Yes.
Mr. STENHOUSE. Yes; I think it was only men.
Mr. TAVENNER. How many?
Mr. STENHOUSE. Four or five.
Mr. TAVENNER. Will you give us the names, if you can, of any of the
members of the group?
Mr. STENHOUSE. No, sir, I can’t.
Mr. MOULDER. You have referred several times to the discussion group.
Can you tell us what you discussed?
Mr. STENHOUSE. Well, we discussed international affairs, domestic
problems; we discussed articles, as I indicated before, in Communist
and other publications.
Mr. MOULDER. In any of these groups were you ever addressed by
prominent Communist officials or leaders?
Mr. STENHOUSE. In those discussion groups?
Mr. MOULDER. Yes.
Mr. STENHOUSE. Not that I know of. They were all people, as far as I
could determine, just like myself, maybe temporarily off on a wrong
track. There was never any use of fictitious names as far as I know. I
didn’t use a fictitious name.
Mr. MOULDER. Will you repeat over what period of time did you attend
discussion groups when you were in Washington?
Mr. STENHOUSE. Well, it was some time between the latter part of 1945
and 1946.
Mr. VELDE. Mr. Chairman, it seems unusual to me that the witness cannot
remember anybody’s name, or the name of any person who attended these
meetings.
This occurred less than 10 years ago, did it not?
Mr. STENHOUSE. About 10 years.
Mr. VELDE. And you cannot remember the name of a single person who
attended those discussion groups?
Mr. STENHOUSE. No. And I have tried to do it, and I have offered to
cooperate to the best of my ability with the staff of your committee,
sir.
It is, as you say, 10 years ago. I have moved out into a different
part of the world, an entirely different environment, new thoughts.
Since I have been out here I have been working hard to establish myself
economically, and I haven’t had association within that time to remind
me.
Mr. VELDE. Have you conscientiously tried to search your memory, to
review the history of that period to determine whether you could name
any persons who attended these meetings?
Mr. STENHOUSE. I have, sir.
Mr. VELDE. Did you say you have consulted with our staff to determine
whether or not they can refresh your memory?
Mr. STENHOUSE. Yes.
Mr. VELDE. Of course, it still seems odd to me that you cannot remember
one single person.
Mr. STENHOUSE. Well, as a matter of fact, I can’t remember the names of
people whom I was in much more direct contact with in those days.
Mr. VELDE. You are a very intelligent person. There is no question
about that. It does seem to me that you could remember someone that you
went with. But can’t you remember the occasion of your first visit to
one of these discussion groups?
Mr. STENHOUSE. No.
Mr. VELDE. Or how you happened to get to the meeting?
Mr. STENHOUSE. I don’t remember where it was. It was apparently in the
house of one of the members of the group.
Mr. VELDE. Do you remember the physical surroundings of the meeting
place? Apparently it was in a home of one of the members of the group.
Mr. STENHOUSE. One of the meetings, as I recall, was in, I think it was
an apartment in one of the projects over on the Virginia side.
Mr. VELDE. On that occasion can you remember anyone discussing any
particular legislation; for instance, legislation pending at that time?