Transcript of Judy Holliday's Testimony - Page 4
Mr. Arens: Please affirm or deny the fact that you were a signer of a letter to The Nation protesting the Peekskill riot on behalf of Paul Robeson, the Communist singer.
Miss Holliday: I did not sign or write a letter to The Nation. I did write a telegram to either the Governor or some Government official in New York State.
Mr. Arens: And what did you say in the telegram?
Miss Holliday: I said I felt that there should have been police protection for people who were not armed and who were being attacked by people who were armed, and I felt that it was a terrible thing.
Mr. Arens: Who stimulated you to write that letter?
Miss Holliday: I read about it, I had heard about it, and it was one of the few things that I did voluntarily because most of these things have been solicited of me, and I have not had a very political awareness of things. My big interest has been my career in show business, and it took something which would be to me quite shocking to make me do something without being asked.
Mr. Arens: What investigation did you conduct in order to ascertain what the facts were before you sent this letter?
Miss Holliday: I didn't. I just read the newspaper accounts.
Mr. Arens: Did you have any conversations with Mr. Paul Robeson?
Miss Holliday: I never met him.
Mr. Arens: With reference to the incident?
Miss Holliday: No.
Mr. Rifkind: Did you say you never met him?
Miss Holliday: No.
Senator Watkins: Did you know any of the people involved, any of the names, in the newspapers about that time?
Miss Holliday: No; this was to me a civic outrage, and I didn't have any personal ax to grind for anybody that was involved in it, but I thought it was a very frightening thing to happen that unarmed people should be stoned.
Senator Watkins: You have heard of other riots in America during your lifetime; have you ever on any other occasion sent a telegram protesting or asking for protection for certain groups?
Miss Holliday: I once sent a telegram to Washington about something, I think probably to our Senator, but I don't know just what.
Senator Watkins: Which Senator?
Miss Holliday: Whoever it was, or maybe it was the President. I do remember it was something about protesting something by telegram to Washington.
Senator Watkins: About what? What were you protesting about?
Miss Holliday: I don't know.
Senator Watkins: What was the subject of the telegram?
Miss Holliday: I don't know.
Mr. Arens: It did not pertain to the House Un-American Activities Committee?
Miss Holliday: I don't know. It was something I considered outrageous.
Mr. Arens: Now did you know at the time you sent this letter with reference to the Peekskill riot that the Peekskill riot involved the Communists?
Miss Holliday: I knew that it involved the Communists; yes, I did.
Mr. Arens: Now I state as a fact and ask you to affirm or deny the fact that you were among those who sent greetings to the Moscow Art Theater on its fiftieth anniversary, as written up in the Communist Daily Worker in November 1948?
Miss Holliday: I sent greetings to the Moscow Art Theater. Do you want to know why I did it?
Senator Watkins: You are entitled, if you wish, to make an explanation of why you did so. We would like the whole truth.
Miss Holliday: I would like to get it clear so that won't be misinterpreted. I did not send greetings to Moscow, I sent it to actors. To me the Moscow Theater, like the Abbey Players or the Old Vic, have been a theatrical tradition that I have been brought up to respect highly. I admire the idea that these great actors can play small parts one week and large parts another week, and it seemed to me that it was a wonderful way to show that artists could still respect each other no matter what their political backgrounds were. This is why I sent the telegram. It had nothing to do with upholding the Soviet Union because I don't uphold the Soviet Union.
Senator Watkins: Let me ask you this question in connection with it. Are you in the habit of sending telegrams to the theatrical groups wishing them well on their first appearance or anything of that sort?
Miss Holliday: Only when I really feel it. I am not one of those people who feel that every time somebody has an opening you have to send them a telegram. For instance, when the Old Vic came here, I did feel that.
Senator Watkins: Old who?
Miss Holliday: Old Vic. That is the old English theater group with Lawrence [sic] Olivier and Richardson. I not only sent a telegram but wrote a most glowing fan letter, which is unlike me. When I feel that it is something that I admire, then I do. I am not in the habit of it at all. I must say I would never have known about the Moscow Art having a birthday or whatever they had.
Senator Watkins: This was Moscow in Russia. We have several Moscows in the United States. I want to make it clear that you understand what you are answering.
Miss Holliday: I do.
Senator Watkins: It was to Russia that you sent a telegram?
Miss Holliday: I didn't send it. Someone said "Don't you think it's a good idea?" I said, "Yes." They said, "Can we use your name?" I said, "Yes."
Senator Watkins: Who was it that asked you?
Miss Holliday: That is something that I have been through a 150,000 times. I don't get any more, thank goodness, but I have gotten calls from secretaries.
Senator Watkins: Can you tell us if you know or do not know.
Miss Holliday: I don't know. They are secretaries. They say, "I am calling for so-and-so." Sometimes they don't even say who they are. Sometimes they do and you don't know them and you don't pay attention to them.
Senator Watkins: This was 1948?
Miss Holliday: Yes.
Mr. Arens: Please affirm or deny the fact that you were a signer of an advertisement which appeared in Variety on December 1, 1948, sponsored by the National Council of the Arts, Sciences and Professions, which has been cited as a Communist-front organization, to call upon the film industry to revoke the blacklist?
Miss Holliday: Yes, I was.
Mr. Arens: How did you happen to become affiliated with
the National Council of the Arts, Sciences and Professions?
Miss Holliday: Well, that organization has had a lot of initials and names. When I first knew it, in fact, when I actually belonged to it, it was called, I think, the Independent Citizens Committee. That was way back. I got into it on the basis of something that they may have called Actors for Roosevelt, it was an election thing.
Mr. Arens: You were active in that?
Miss Holliday: That is when I joined it.
Mr. Arens: I was under the impression that you expressed yourself moments ago to the effect that you did not have time to get into things other than in your art or in your theatrical work?
Miss Holliday: Getting into things has never meant, except in one case, active participation, but I certainly signed a membership card with them, gave them my $2 or whatever it was and permitted my name to be used in that organization. That was the extent of my participation.
Mr. Arens: Do you know that the National Council of the Arts, Sciences and Professions has been officially declared by an investigative agency of the United States to be a Communist-front organization?
Miss Holliday: Yes, I do.
Mr. Arens: When did you first learn that?
Miss Holliday: I learned that when I read it in Red Channels for the first time.
Mr. Arens: It has been repeatedly cited as a Communist-front organization, has it not?
Miss Holliday: Yes.
Mr. Arens: Now, who solicited your membership or your affiliation with the National Council of the Arts, Sciences and Professions?
Miss Holliday: Is that the same one, the first one?
Mr. Arens: Yes.
Miss Holliday: I want to make sure.
Mr. Arens: That is the one we were just talking about.
Miss Holliday: It had several titles.
Mr. Arens: You were with it before it changed its name to National Council of the Arts, Sciences and Professions?
Miss Holliday: Yes. I never renewed my membership.
Mr. Arens: Were you with the predecessor organization?
Miss Holliday: Yes.
Mr. Arens: Who solicited your membership in the predecessor organization?
Miss Holliday: It was something that a lot of actors were doing.
Mr. Arens: Do you have a recollection of who solicited your membership?
Miss Holliday: I don't have a real recollection of a specific person, but I do know that people would call or write with names on their letterheads or call and say, "I am speaking for a committee which is headed by Jo Davidson, Eleanor Roosevelt," people with names that are immediately reassuring. At that time, they didn't have to be reassuring, but nevertheless they commanded your respect and made you think about it. I must say that I got into it because of the kind of people that were getting into it, and because I wanted to help elect Roosevelt even though I never did anything very positive about it except, as I said, give them my two bucks.
Mr. Arens: You let your name be used?
Miss Holliday: I let my name be used.
Senator Watkins: You did not consider these organizations were political organizations for the purpose of electing President Roosevelt, did you/
Miss Holliday: Well, I didn't think of them as like the Democratic Party, but I did think of them as what they said they would be, getting actors together with artists. I think they used the word artists.
Senator Watkins: That is how Jo Davidson came into it?
Miss Holliday: Yes, for the purpose of making other people want to elect Roosevelt because these names for him, just as the Madison Square Garden thing for Eisenhower was not a political organization, I don't think.
Senator Watkins: We thought it was.
Miss Holliday: Was it?
Senator Watkins: It certainly had some indications of it, some of the characteristics of a political meeting or a political organization.
Miss Holliday: What I mean is that they try draw other people to the same -- they try to draw other people through the names.
Senator Watkins: If your purpose was to help elect Roosevelt why did you not do this for the Democratic Party directly?
Miss Holliday: Because they never asked me.
Senator Watkins: How come this so-called leftist-front group would come to you? Did you know any acquaintance in this group?
Miss Holliday: I was in the theater.
Senator Watkins: A lot of people do that same thing.
Miss Holliday: I won an award.
Senator Watkins: You are not referring to this last award?
Miss Holliday: This was the Clarence Durward [sic] award, and I had my picture with a little laurel wreath around me. They probably thought: This appears in the papers every day. It was Kiss Them for Me. At the time, I didn't have any idea that they were a Communist front.
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