Transcript of Judy Holliday's Testimony - Page 11
Mr. Arens: When was the last meeting you ever attended of either Actors Equity, Screen Actors Guild, or the American Federation of Radio Artists?
Miss Holliday: Years and years ago.
Mr. Arens: Have you had any active participation in the affairs of those organizations recently or in the last few years?
Miss Holliday: Oh, no; years ago.
Mr. Arens: Miss Holliday, during the course of your session here with the Internal Security Subcommittee have you been treated courteously and fairly?
Miss Holliday: Yes.
Senator Watkins: You are not saying that because of any fear of coercion?
Miss Holliday: No. The fact that I am nervous is not because of this, because I get nervous whenever I get a parking ticket.
Senator Watkins: If you are nervous I have not noticed it because I think you have conducted yourself very calmly in my judgment.
Miss Holliday: Thank you.
Senator Watkins: Now I would still like to ask you if in connection with what you said there were a lot of others?
Miss Holliday: I want to cut my mouth off on that. It seemed to me when I was interrogated by Judge Rifkind that I was admitting to all of these things except those that were just lies. Most of it I admitted, so when you said ----
Senator Watkins: Speaking now of Mr. Arens?
Miss Holliday: Yes. When you said that most of them I have denied, I said no, there are a lot more. What I meant was that there are a lot more that I probably admitted. I guess there aren't a lot more. There is one that nobody has brought up, and that is that I went to a Wallace for President -- whatever you call it -- rally and told a minute and a half of jokes.
Senator Watkins: I do not think anybody is raising a question about anybody appearing at a Wallace campaign because Mr. Wallace's campaign was supported by a legitimate party, but there were elements supporting Mr. Wallace at the time that were not interested in the welfare of the United States, apparently interested in the welfare of Russia, but Mr. Wallace has been disillusioned since.
Miss Holliday: Why don't those people call up? This thing was sponsored by ASP for Wallace. Nobody ever called me up from legitimate organizations. I didn't have a chance to respond or not respond to them.
Senator Watkins: Why do you suppose that the illegitimate organizations were calling you all the time?
Miss Holliday: Because I said "Yes", that is why I am sure of it.
Senator Watkins: Your name would have been just as valuable, would it not, to these so-called legitimate organizations?
Mr. Rifkind: I think the witness misspoke herself. There have been a great many organizations, legitimate, to which she has responded.
Miss Holliday: I mean political organizations. Sure, I responded to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the Stage Door Canteens and USO and polio and church charities, and played benefits on battleships and things like that, but I mean political parties never asked me to respond to anything.
Senator Watkins: Probably they had seen these ads, at least your name was associated with them, and they came to the conclusion that there would be no use approaching you. If you endorsed Communists I don't think a Democrat or Republican would contact you to endorse their program.
Miss Holliday: No. Yet the American Legion and the Catholic Church has called me for contributions, which I have always responded to. Of course, it's neither here nor there.
Senator Watkins: The thing we are interested in is what influences are being exerted in this country to get people who are in a position to influence public opinion, what influences are doing that.
Miss Holliday: I will tell you. They take people who will listen to a hard-luck story, and they give them a hard-luck story. On the face of it, their story sounds legitimate, and heart-rending. It sounds like you should be ashamed of yourself if you don't respond to it. They also use the names of perfectly respectable people, as I mentioned, such as Einstein, Mrs. Roosevelt, and at the time I thought Jo Davidson -- well, Thomas Mann, Albert Switzer [sic], people who are idols in every way. They use that, and then they say ----
Mr. Arens: Do you know about the Communist record of some of the people you have been talking about? Do you know the Communist-front record of Thomas Mann?
Miss Holliday: No; how could I know?
Senator Watkins: And Mr. Einstein as well? Do you know the Communist-front record that he has?
Miss Holliday: Then I am sure that they got into it the same way I did, because I am sure none of them are Communists. I mean, if you are a Communist, why go to a Communist-front? Why not be a Communist? Whatever you are, be it.
Senator Watkins: Of course, if you have been reading the newspapers, the Communists have found that they can influence public opinion by having Communist fronts and getting in there. Some of them are able people in the country and they use their names. They know as a straight-out Communist Party line if they announced that they were Communists they could not get anywhere. The idea is to infiltrate and persuade people.
Miss Holliday: That is right.
Senator Watkins: If you are an example of what has happened, or whether you were a conscious agent, is one of the things we are trying to determine. In effect you said here in a way that you just did not understand, you had ignorance of that, and you did not know about these affairs and what they meant.
Miss Holliday: I understood what was told to me. I wasn't responsible not to look behind it.
Senator Watkins: In other words, you did not check up on these requests. As a matter of fact, all of these happened just purely as a coincidence that so many of these people came to you?
Miss Holliday: It sounds terrible, but that is pretty much it.
Senator Watkins: That is all.
Mr. Rifkind: Mr. Chairman, would you allow me to say something?
Senator Watkins: If you have something that you want to call to our attention that we have not inquired into, as chairman of this group I would say yes, but if it is a matter of argument, no, unless you want to be sworn?
Mr. Rifkind: If there is any testimony that Mr. Arens thinks I can give. I just wanted to report that when Miss Holliday first came to me I asked her to put down on paper just how she felt on loyalty and subversion, because I had not met Miss Holliday before this engagement. She wrote something down on paper, and I have edited it, and brought it down here. She is willing to swear to it. If you think that is useful I have it. When you consider that these are public records ----
Senator Watkins: This might possibly become a public record; I cannot assure that it will not, but at present this is a closed session.
Mr. Rifkind: I do not mean a disclosed session, but it is a governmental record. I consider this woman as being one of our coming great actresses in this country. I think it might be well if she were given an opportunity to state under oath.
Senator Watkins: I have no objection if she wants to state it. Of course, if she has prepared it herself.
Mr. Rifkind: I asked her to put it on paper, and she wrote on paper just what she believed. I edited it and put it some punctuation marks.
Senator Watkins: My stand has always been, I cannot speak for the other members of the committee, but before any statements are put in the record, in view of the experience that we have had recently, I would want to see it. I will only put in such statements as are not contemptuous of Congress. I do not want any witness to come in here and abuse the institutions, and in effect insult the entire American people.
Mr. Rifkind: Please accept my warranty that it is not of that kind. I am sure Mr. Arens would agree that I would not be guilty of a participation in an indirect way to contempt Congress.
Mr. Arens: I am not in any sense contending that you have contempt of Congress. However, I would like an opportunity to interrogate the witness a little bit before the Chair arrives at a decision as to the admissibility of this statement.
Senator Watkins: I want to read it first.
Miss Holliday: Would you like me to read it aloud?
Senator Watkins: I want to read it first.
Mr. Arens: I would like to interrogate the witness before the Chairman makes up his mind with reference to the admissibility of the statement.
Senator Watkins: I see no objection to the statement if the witness would like to read it into the record.
Mr. Arens: I should like, before she undertakes to do so, to interrogate a little bit with reference to the preparation of this statement.
Senator Watkins: All right.
Mr. Arens: Who suggested that you prepare this statement?
Miss Holliday: Columbia.
Mr. Arens: And who in Columbia?
Miss Holliday: Well, I don't know. It was sort of agreed upon by Nate Spingold and myself.
Mr. Arens: When was the suggestion made?
Miss Holliday: Well, I made several of them.
Mr. Arens: No, who suggested that you make this one, the statement that I have in my hand which your counsel just handed to us?
Miss Holliday: I wanted to have that. You see, I started a statement, I had written a statement last year.
Mr. Arens: That is when your name came up in connection with the Communist fronts?
Miss Holliday: Because I wanted to give it to my employers and NBC, which was going to be my employer. I wanted them to have the record straight. I didn't want them to feel that they were hiring somebody who had something to hide. I wanted to make it as clear as I could. So, I gave it to them. This was not for any publication or Government body because no Government body had called me. That was for them. Then when I met Judge Rifkind the Columbia lawyers were there, too, and we wrote this. Since it was not to employers but to a possible Government body, I felt that I might want to try to submit it. I made a couple of changes in it and Judge Rifkind took it and changed some tenses and made sentences shorter.
Mr. Arens: Who helped you in preparation of the first draft?
Miss Holliday: I wrote the first draft. It was changed. Well, let's see who was there. Nate Spingold was there.
Mr. Arens: Who is Nate Spingold?
Miss Holliday: He is the eastern head of Columbia.
Mr. Arens: Who else was there?
Mr. Rifkind: Columbia Pictures you mean?
Miss Holliday: Yes. Ray Bell was there.
Mr. Arens: Who is he?
Miss Holliday: He is an employee of Columbia.
Mr. Arens: Did he participate in the preparation of the original draft?
Miss Holliday: No; but we all discussed it. I rewrote it many times. It was always in my language, but we discussed it orally. Someone would say, "This is a very bad way of presenting it. You are using past tense when it should present."
Mr. Arens: These are men who draw their salary from Columbia Pictures?
Miss Holliday: Yes.
Mr. Arens: And you have been making pictures for Columbia Pictures?
Miss Holliday: Yes.
Mr. Arens: You know, of course, that it is to the interests of Columbia Pictures not to have its performers have a bad public relations or publicity with reference to Communist affiliations or Communist activities, is that not correct?
Miss Holliday: Sure.
Senator Watkins: And they were very concerned about it and that is the reason they suggested that you fix up some kind of statement?
Miss Holliday: The first statement I made was this.
Senator Watkins: Can you answer that?
Miss Holliday: Yes.
Mr. Arens: I have no further questions, Mr. Chairman.
Miss Holliday: I simply said to them, I volunteered this, that I was not a Communist, had never been, and had no interest in anything subversive. It was a short paragraph. I gave it to them. Then they said, "Now we want something for our record." I said, "Good, I will write it and I can give it to NBC, too." That is how it happened.
Senator Watkins: It has been discussed, and finally after all these conferences and talks this is what you came up with for this statement this morning?
Miss Holliday: Yes.
Mr. Rifkind: And that is what you believe?
Senator Watkins: Well, just a moment. We can ask her that.
Mr. Rifkind: I apologize for that.
Senator Watkins: I realize that you are used to being in court.
Mr. Rifkind: I apologize.
Senator Watkins: When did you begin to have these views, because before you said you never discussed politics up until about a year ago?
Miss Holliday: That is right.
Senator Watkins: When did you begin to have these views?
Miss Holliday: All of those views are views that I have never expressed or never even -- I took for granted. I have always been for my country; prodemocracy, pro-America. When I did things I didn't consider them to be subversive things, I didn't think of them that way. I never would have done anything that way.
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