Mr. WEISSMAN. American business, or American businesses.
Mr. JENNER. I don't get the initials. A-B-U-S?
Mr. WEISSMAN. A-M-B-U-S--American business.
Mr. JENNER. All right.
Mr. WEISSMAN. And we were trying to develop, in our own minds, without
actually doing it at the time, ways to build up various businesses that
would support us and at the same time support our political activities.
Mr. JENNER. All right. Could I characterize it this way--that a
material objective of this group or partnership was ultimately a
self-interest in business?
Mr. WEISSMAN. No.
Mr. JENNER. Coupled with a political arm which was to aid or assist in
the business, and each was to feed the other?
Mr. WEISSMAN. The business arm was to be developed mainly to feed the
political arm.
(At this point, Representative Ford withdrew from the hearing room.)
Mr. WEISSMAN. We were mainly interested in the political end. At least
this is my feeling on it. Mainly interested in the political end. And
the business end, while, of course, we hoped it would succeed, in my
mind was merely to support us politically.
(At this point, Representative Ford reentered the hearing room.)
Mr. JENNER. All right. Now, as of this moment, Mr. Weissman, there
were the five of you only. There were no others who were part of the
combination business-political group?
Mr. WEISSMAN. We left out one man, one of the original men. His name
was James Moseley.
Mr. JENNER. Was he a GI with you?
Mr. WEISSMAN. No; he was an American civilian. His father was a
major--is a major in the Army.
Mr. JENNER. And was he an acquaintance of yours?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Prior to this time?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Not prior to this. I met him when I went into the
organization.
Mr. JENNER. I see. Was he an acquaintance of Mr. Schmidt's?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. How did he get in, is what I am getting at? How did he get
into this little group here?
Mr. WEISSMAN. They all hung around the same bar.
Mr. JENNER. What bar?
Mr. WEISSMAN. The Gastatte Lukullus.
Representative BOGGS. How far was that from the bar where Hitler used
to gather?
Mr. WEISSMAN. A couple of miles, I think.
Mr. JENNER. It is a bar in Munich?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Yes. It is a GI guest house.
Mr. JENNER. This man you have now mentioned, Moseley, was a civilian in
Germany?
Mr. WEISSMAN. He was a civilian; yes.
Mr. JENNER. How did he come to be in Munich? Was his father stationed
there?
Mr. WEISSMAN. His father was stationed there. But he was also employed
by Rambler--he was selling Ramblers.
Mr. JENNER. What is Mr. Moseley's hometown?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. What is Mr. Mosley's hometown?
Mr. WEISSMAN. I believe it is New York. I am not sure.
Mr. JENNER. How old a man is he?
Mr. WEISSMAN. He is a pretty young fellow. He is about 21.
Mr. JENNER. Now, have you named all of you who were the nucleus of this
group?
Mr. WEISSMAN. To my recollection, yes.
Mr. JENNER. Had you finished your statement as to the general--the
general statement as to the purpose of this organization which
consisted of the two arms?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Not completely. I think what might bear directly is we
had planned while in Munich that in order to accomplish our goals, to
try to do it from scratch would be almost impossible, because it would
be years before we could even get the funds to develop a powerful
organization. So we had planned to infiltrate various rightwing
organizations and by our own efforts become involved in the hierarchy
of these various organizations and eventually get ourselves elected
or appointed to various higher offices in these organizations, and by
doing this bring in some of our own people, and eventually take over
the leadership of these organizations, and at that time having our
people in these various organizations, we would then, you might say,
call a conference and have them unite, and while no one knew of the
existence of CUSA aside from us, we would then bring them all together,
unite them, and arrange to have it called CUSA.
Mr. JENNER. You never accomplished this, did you?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Almost. Here is how far we did get.
Larrie had--and this was according to plan--the first organization we
planned to infiltrate was the NIC, National Indignation Convention,
headed by Frank McGee in Dallas. About a week or so after Larrie got to
Dallas he got himself a job with the NIC, as one of the very few paid
men.
This didn't last too long, because a few weeks after that the NIC went
under. And we had also--in other words, we had planned to use these
organizations as vehicles to accomplish----
Mr. JENNER. Keep going on those details of your infiltration.
Mr. WEISSMAN. All right. We had planned to infiltrate these various
rightwing organizations.
Mr. JENNER. You mentioned one.
Mr. WEISSMAN. The NIC. The Young Americans for Freedom. We succeeded
there.
Mr JENNER. What organization is that?
Mr. WEISSMAN. The Young Americans for Freedom? This was an organization
essentially of conservative youths, college students, and if I recall
I think the most they ever accomplished was running around burning
baskets from Yugoslavia.
Mr. JENNER. Where was it based?
Mr. WEISSMAN. This is southwest. Regional headquarters was in Dallas,
Tex., Box 2364.
Mr. JENNER. And the earlier organization, the organization you
mentioned a moment ago, NIC--where was that based?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Dallas.
Mr. JENNER. All right. What is the next one?
Mr. WEISSMAN. We had also discussed getting some people in with General
Walker, getting some people into the John Birch Society.
Mr. JENNER. Stick with General Walker for a moment. To what extent were
you able to infiltrate, as you call it, General Walker's group?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Well, this was rather a fiasco. Larrie's brother, as I
mentioned in the letter--Larrie's brother went to work for General
Walker.
Mr. JENNER. What was his name?
Mr. WEISSMAN. I don't know his first name. But Larrie led me to believe
his brother was some guy. His brother is about 29. And the only
thing I ever heard from Larrie about his brother was good; and when
he mentioned that his brother had joined the Walker organization, I
figured this is another step in the right direction. In other words, he
was solidifying his argument as to why I should come to Dallas.
Mr. JENNER. And this is what he told you?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Right. So when I got to Dallas, I found that Larrie's
brother drank too much, and he had--well, I considered him a moron. He
didn't have any sense at all. He was very happy with $35 a week and
room and board that General Walker was giving him as his chauffeur and
general aide. And so I tossed that out the window that we would never
get into the Walker organization this way.
Mr. JENNER. This man's name, by any chance, was not Volkmar?
Mr. WEISSMAN. This name is entirely unfamiliar to me. Never heard it
before.
Senator COOPER. Could you identify the Walker organization? You keep
speaking of the Walker organization.
Mr. WEISSMAN. General Edwin Walker.
Mr. JENNER. General Edwin A. Walker?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Did you ever meet him?
Mr. WEISSMAN. No; I never have.
Representative FORD. How did you infiltrate the Young Americans for
Freedom, and what led you to believe you had been successful?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Well, Larrie had been named executive secretary of
the Dallas chapter of the Young Americans for Freedom. And another
man--his name is in one of these letters somewhere--I don't recall it
offhand--who was brought into CUSA by Larrie, was named chairman or
vice chairman--vice chairman. And the only other move that we had to
make in order to take control of Dallas Young Americans for Freedom
would have been to get rid of the chairman, who was anti-Larrie
Schmidt. He was absolutely no help to us. And this was on its way to
accomplishment. But for some reason or another, there was some sort of
an argument. I am still not clear on what happened. I wasn't there. I
just can take it secondhand from Larrie.
A friend of Larrie's had come to Dallas--this was Larry Jones, another
partner in----
Mr. JENNER. He is mentioned in some of these interviews. Did you meet
Larry Jones?
Mr. WEISSMAN. I didn't meet him in Dallas; no. He was gone before I
got there. But Larry had come to Dallas, he had stayed a few weeks,
had made friends with these people, and I had advocated many and many
a time--I saw through Larry the first time I met him--is to get rid of
this guy, because he was not going to do us any good.
Mr. JENNER. You did meet Jones?
Mr. WEISSMAN. In the Army; yes.
Mr. JENNER. You met Larry Jones in the Army?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Yes. We were all on the same post.
Mr. JENNER. Mr. Chairman, if you will permit, I would like to go back
to that at this moment.
Representative FORD. Surely.
Mr. JENNER. This was another man. You hadn't mentioned him before.
Mr. WEISSMAN. I didn't? I thought I did.
Mr. JENNER. What rank was he?
Mr. WEISSMAN. SP-4, Specialist-4.
Mr. JENNER. That wasn't the company clerk?
Mr. WEISSMAN. No. Larry worked for headquarters. He was in
communications--the scramblers and so forth.
Mr. JENNER. Seeking to scramble broadcasts?
Mr. WEISSMAN. No. In other words, they would send out the secret
messages and so forth from commander to commander and so on.
Mr. DULLES. These were military messages?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. How old a man was Larry Jones?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Larry--he looked 30. I think he is 21.
Mr. JENNER. Do you have the charter or partnership agreement of CUSA
with you?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Yes; I do.
Mr. JENNER. I wonder if I could see that.
Mr. WEISSMAN. Sure.
Mr. JENNER. Mr. Chairman; the document consists of two pages
which have been identified as Commission Exhibit No. 1034. It is
entitled "Corporate Structure of American Business, Inc.," naming as
incorporators or partners, Larrie H. Schmidt, Larry C. Jones, Bernie
Weissman, James L. Moseley, Norman F. Baker. It purports to be signed
in those names as well on the second page.
(The document referred to was marked Commission Exhibit No. 1034 for
identification.)
Mr. JENNER. I notice on the first page that after each of those names
there appear to be some initials. Are those the initials of those
respective men?
Mr. WEISSMAN. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. And were those initials placed on there in your presence?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Yes; they were.
Mr. JENNER. The signatures that appear under each of those names or
above each of those names on the second page, those are the signatures
of those men, including your own?
Mr. WEISSMAN. That is right.
Mr. JENNER. Were they placed on there in your presence?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Yes, they were.
Representative FORD. Do you want that admitted at this time, Mr. Jenner?
Mr. JENNER. I was going to offer these documents in sequence, if it
suits the convenience of the Chairman. If we may return now, Mr.
Weissman, please, to your efforts to infiltrate various conservative
groups----
Senator COOPER. May I ask a question there? I may have to leave in a
few minutes. Was there any time when your organization drew up a list
of organizations, of other organizations, that it wanted to infiltrate?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. Do you have that list with you?
Mr. WEISSMAN. I don't know. I have lost an awful lot of it. I might.
Mr. JENNER. Would you look, please?
Mr. WEISSMAN. No; I don't have it.
Senator COOPER. May I ask, then--can he name from memory the
organizations?
Mr. JENNER. Using your recollection, sir, and it appears to be very
good, if I may compliment you----
Mr. WEISSMAN. Thank you.
Mr. JENNER. Would you do your best to respond to Senator Cooper's
question by naming those various groups?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Yes. One was the NIC.
Mr. JENNER. When you use initials, will you spell out what the initials
mean?
Mr. WEISSMAN. National Indignation Convention, headed by Frank McGee,
in Dallas, Tex.
Young Americans for Freedom, which encompassed the southwest. The
initials are YAF.
Mr. JENNER. Located in Dallas?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Regional headquarters in Dallas. John Birch Society.
Mr. JENNER. Where was the John Birch--was there a chapter or
headquarters in Dallas?
Mr. WEISSMAN. There are several chapters in Dallas; yes. And as far as
I can recollect, that is as far as we went.
Representative BOGGS. What did you hope to accomplish by this
infiltration, as you call it?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Well, I will be very blunt.
Representative BOGGS. That is what I would like for you to be.
Mr. WEISSMAN. We were, you might say--at least I personally--this is
my reason--I was sick and tired of seeing America as a weak sister
all the time. And this is especially in the field of foreign affairs,
where it seemed that our administration, whether it is the Eisenhower
or the Kennedy administration, both of them, had no set, stable foreign
policy. We were constantly losing ground all over the world. We were
going to conference tables with everything to lose and nothing to gain,
and coming away by losing.
And we hoped by developing a powerful political organization we could
exert some influence on the government and eventually even put, you
might say, our man in the White House, let's say, in order to obtain a
stable policy--because we felt that the Communists were gaining ground
all over the place, we were doing nothing but losing.
Representative BOGGS. Did you have a candidate for the Presidency?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Excuse me?
Representative BOGGS. Did you have a candidate--you said your man.
Mr. WEISSMAN. I wouldn't say we had a candidate. We had looked to
Barry Goldwater as personifying Mr. Conservative. And we had stated in
writing, though, that we would support him for the Presidency, but we
were not obligated to support him or any other individual.
Representative BOGGS. Are you still in this business?
Mr. WEISSMAN. No.
Representative BOGGS. What are you doing now?
Mr. WEISSMAN. I am a salesman, I sell carpets.
Representative BOGGS. You have given up this goal?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Well, if I had money I didn't know what to do with, I
would get back into it--only I would do it myself, because I found that
in order to accomplish these aims--I mentioned before I considered
myself an idealist. I found in order to accomplish these goals I had to
against my will prostitute my ideals in order to further the general
cause of the organization.
Representative BOGGS. What ideals did you find you had to prostitute?
Mr. WEISSMAN. I personally didn't want to associate with the John Birch
Society.
Representative BOGGS. You did not want to?
Mr. WEISSMAN. No; I did not.
Representative BOGGS. Why didn't you?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Well; they are rather extreme, I thought. I didn't like
some of the things they were doing. For example, I didn't want to spend
my days and nights sneaking into bathrooms around the country, pasting
up "Impeach Earl Warren" stickers.
Representative BOGGS. Is that what they do?
Mr. WEISSMAN. This is part of their program. And I can't see any use in
it, frankly. In other words, it is just little things like this. Plus
the fact that after I got to Dallas, I found that most of the people
who are professing anti-communism, they were, they were definitely
anti-Communists. But, at the same time, it seemed to me to be nothing
but a conglomeration of racists, and bigots and so forth.
Representative BOGGS. What do you mean by that--bigots?
Mr. WEISSMAN. They are anti-everything, it seems.
Representative BOGGS. Are you Jewish?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Yes; I am.
Representative BOGGS. Were they anti-Jewish?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Too many of them, yes. It was requested at one time that
I change my name.
Representative BOGGS. Is that right?
Mr. WEISSMAN. That is right.
Representative BOGGS. What did you tell them?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Excuse me?
Representative BOGGS. What did you tell them? Did you change your name?
Mr. WEISSMAN. No, sir.
Representative BOGGS. Well, did you find this request unusual?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Yes; I did, as a matter of fact, I got pretty mad.
Representative BOGGS. When you were in Germany, did you find sometimes,
particularly in Munich, as long as you opened this line of replies,
that some of the Nazi-alleged anticommunism was also associated with
their racist policies?
Mr. WEISSMAN. In what vein are you using Nazi?
Representative BOGGS. Well, of course, you know they exterminated quite
a few members of your religion in Germany.
Mr. WEISSMAN. Yes.
Representative BOGGS. That is a fact; is it not?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Yes; it is.
Representative BOGGS. I am using Nazi in the normal term of state
dictatorship, with all that it implies. I am sure you have worked on
foreign policy, you understand what I mean.
Mr. WEISSMAN. I think you are giving me a little too much credit. But I
think I can answer your question.
Representative BOGGS. I would like for you to.
Mr. WEISSMAN. At no time did I, and to my knowledge, in Germany, did we
consider ourselves fascists or Nazis. As a matter of fact, in my every
conversation, and everything I had written----
Representative BOGGS. I didn't ask you whether you had considered
yourself as a fascist----
Mr. WEISSMAN. Or any of my associates, sir.
Representative BOGGS. Or any of your associates. I asked you if in
your study of events in Germany, having been stationed there, that you
didn't soon associate, or that you didn't see some association in your
mind of the alleged so-called extreme right with naziism.
Mr. WEISSMAN. No. In fact, I never thought--I thought of the extremists
as superpatriots. I had never really defined the term fascist or Nazi
in my own mind----
Representative BOGGS. Of course, you realize that members of your
religion in Germany were described as traitors, treasonable, and
Communists. And I presume that on the other side of the coin those
making the accusation classified themselves as superpatriots.
Mr. WEISSMAN. This is quite true. But you are getting into a field
right now that at the time----
Representative BOGGS. Were you surprised when you discovered this
anti-Jewish feeling? You must have been somewhat, shall I say,
disappointed when one of your associates asked you to change your name.
I would think that was right insulting.
Mr. WEISSMAN. It was downright insulting, as a matter of fact. No, I
wasn't surprised. Now----
Mr. DULLES. Did you have something on this in your letter? I noticed
you looking through that letter a minute ago. I thought maybe you had
something on this very point in your letter.
Mr. WEISSMAN. Yes. I received a letter from Larrie, while I was in
Germany.
Mr. JENNER. Is this another document to which no reference has been
made?
Mr. WEISSMAN. I am not sure whether this is the one I want to read
from. But this letter is an answer that I wrote Larrie.
Mr. JENNER. Excuse me, sir. I want to put an exhibit number on that.
This will be exhibit--Commission Exhibit No. 1035.
(The document referred to was marked Commission Exhibit No. 1035 for
identification.)
Representative BOGGS. I would like for a moment to pursue this a
bit. This gentleman is telling us something that I think is very
significant. You have a letter there about changing your name?
Mr. WEISSMAN. This is my answer. I would like to read just this one
paragraph.
Representative BOGGS. Who was this addressed to?
Mr. WEISSMAN. This was addressed to Larrie Schmidt.
Representative BOGGS. Did he ask you to change your name?
Mr. WEISSMAN. Yes.
Representative BOGGS. He was your associate?
Mr. WEISSMAN. He didn't ask me directly. He had written a letter to
Larry Jones, and Larry Jones gave me the letter.
Mr. JENNER. Where was Larry Jones at this time?
Mr. WEISSMAN. In Germany.