From The Communist Trail in America by Jacob Spolansky, 1951

. . .  It was [Bill Nowell] who was able to identify the picture of Gerhardt Eisler, the notorious Communist International Representative exposed by Robert Stripling before the Committee on Un-American Activities.

( page 39 )

 

. . . there were many bona fide pacifist groups in the country—composed of people who honestly and earnestly believed in �peace at any price�—but they were not represented in the American Peace Mobilization. On the contrary, they were shunned by the Daily Worker, whose columns gave glowing reports of the A.P.M.

The vehemence with which the Party Line was pushed attracted the attention of Congress through its Committee on Un-American Activities. Robert Stripling, then its secretary, asked me to prepare a full and detailed report on the nature and tenor of Communist tactics at that time.

My investigation . . . convinced me of one amazing fact, namely, that the Communists did more to help Hitler than all his German Bunds put together. Not that the Nazis here did not try, but they were simply no match for the Communist machine. From August 23, 1939, to June 22, 1941, the duration of the pro-Hitler Party Line, the Communists no only stole the show but were the show.

( pages 77-8 )

 

On May 27, 1941, I submitted a full report to Robert Stripling. In it I stressed the fanaticism with which the Communists and their front organizations were adhering to the Party Line.

( page 83 )

 

Lambkin and Leon Josephson, legal adviser of the International Labor Defense, developed an ingenious espionage machine in the United States. Teamed with them was one George Mink, a water-front desperado who commuted between this country and Russia. When he and Josephson were arrested in Denmark for underground Communist activities, he had no fewer than four passports in his possession.

Mink, Josephson, and one Nichols Sherman, another Communist, were imprisoned for four months in Denmark. Upon the trial, Josephson used his legal talents on his own behalf, obtaining his own acquittal while his confederates went to jail. So adroit was he that upon his release from the Danish prison he was lavishly entertained at the American Embassy in Copenhagen.

Through the brilliant detective work of Robert Stripling and Louis J. Russell, the above and many other notorious schemes of this international spy ring have been brought to public attention and have been entered on the records of the Committee on Un-American Activities.

Josephson, recently convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to tell the Committee about the labyrinth he created, has been jailed.

( pages 146-7 )

 

The Commodore Hotel in New York ; early in the morning ; June 20, 1943 ; long distance call ; the caller was Bob Stripling ; �Where�s the fire, Bob?� ; �In Detroit.�

Speeding to Detroit, I recalled vividly the tense racial feeling rampant over the Midwest. For more than two years the Committee had been trying to located the roots. I had done a considerable amount of work in the area, assisting Harry Pfaltsgraff, head of the Midwestern operations for the Committee. . . .

One of my earliest reports contained the following language :

To begin with, there is a definite, organized, subversive movement in Detroit . . .

A strong Communist movement is very much in evidence. This Communist influence exploits every incident which takes place in this city involving racial antagonism, and uses them on a wide scale as a means of aggravating conditions. As a result of the inflammatory activities on the part of the Communists, there have been a series of unprecedented racial incidents in this area. White workers have staged work stoppages, strikes and walkouts in the Packard, Timken Axle, Dodge Truck and Hudson plants, refusing to work alongside of Negroes.

In succeeding reports, I submitted documentary proof that the Communists had inserted the Negro issue into every political campaign . . .

If the Communists had made overtures to the Negroes in good faith, sincerely attempting to help this minority, the situation might not have become as ugly as it did. . . .

Comment If the Communists had made overtures to the Negroes in good faith, this have resulted not in increased, but in reduced racial tensions in the area. — (WPT)

After a considerable amount of patient detective work, we unearthed a series of documents clarifying the motives of the Communists. . . .

Primarily, the Communists relied on the Negro�s grievances . . .  To be sure, the Negro often had grounds for complaint; he was the victim of many social ills, By magnifying the ill treatment he received the clever Communist propaganda went far towards convincing him that the citizens of the United States were engaged in a conspiracy to terrorize him, oppress him, discriminate against him and deprive him of his rights. Even the government.—local, state and federal—was taking part in this plot, the Communists whispered.

Routine criminal proceedings involving Negroes were . . . distorted into �frame-ups� ; the police and other law enforcement agencies were caricatured . . .

The Communists nursed these grievances skillfully . .

Gradually, some leaders in the Negro ranks took up the Communist cudgels. . . . Even the Detroit Tribune, a Negro publication, carried the statement on January 3, 1943, by A. Philip Randolph, a sincere progressive: �Justice is never granted. It is exacted. It is written in the stars that the darker races will never be free until they make themselves free. This is the task of the coming year.�

The first rumblings were heard in May. I had been inconstant touch with the various law enforcement agencies in the area, particularly with the office of William Dowling, Prosecuting Attorney of Wayne County, an earnest and conscientious public official . . .

. . . On May 29 he [i.e. Dowling] issued an appeal to the public, pointing out that his office had been deluged with complaints by white citizens that they had been beaten by gangs of Negro hoodlums: �Grievances on both sides are being seized by the Communists in order to make us all lose our heads. Please give me your cooperation. Otherwise, we may have a full-fledge race riot.�

This was said less than a month before the tragedy.

Was it mere coincidence that on May 28, 1945, a well known Negro Communist organization . . . held its national convention in Detroit? or that the Michigan Youth Congress, an avowed pro-Communist group, held a local mobilization and selected June 12 and 13 as the days for a �Michigan Youth Conference,� at which Negro Communists played a dominant role?

The theme of the conferences was identical; namely, that Negroes were subjected to all sorts of indignities. . . .

Comment not that there was no malady of sorts, it was the proposed remedy that has proved worse than the malady itself. — (WPT)>

. . . everyone was ganged up against the Negro. Everyone, that is, except the Communists.

. . . On June 13, in a Detroit suburb, a preliminary skirmish took place between three hundred Negroes and two hundred white soldiers. Like a chain reaction, other flare-ups followed. Significantly, these battles often found the Negro as the aggressor, goaded as he was by Communist propaganda. The whites, for their part, became surly, sometimes refusing to work beside any dark-skinned person.

In order to create an open rupture, the Communists rubbed slat into the smarting wounds. Negroes were urged to enter places of amusement, taverns, clubs, and other places whose managements barred them as a matter of policy. More conflagrations took place.

In direct charge of the Communist campaign was a specially established �Negro Commission� whose functions were to keep the pot boiling and to control the activities of the national Negro Congress, Communist front organization.

It should not be supposed that all Detroit�s Negroes were taken in. . . .

. . . the only ones who profited from this misery and suffering were the Communists, the Detroit civil war having provided them with an excellent laboratory, at no cost to them, for their propaganda.

The riots themselves require no description, the press and radio having given a vivid picture of the chaos and terror which lasted from June 20 to June 24, 1943. The casualties, both physical and financial, were staggering. Thirty-five persons were murdered, several hundreds seriously injured, and millions of dollars� worth of property destroyed or damaged. At long last, prominent civic, religious, and educational leaders interceded to extinguish the volcano.

This was Detroit �43.

The Communists staged a repeat showing at Peekskill, �49.

( pages 198 - 202 )

New York : Macmillan, 1951.

Chambers, Whittaker. Title Witness / Whitaker Chambers ; forewords by William F. Buckley and Robert D. Novak. Publisher Washington, DC : Regnery Pub., 2001. Description xviii, 808 p. ; 21 cm. ISBN 0895267896 Language English Note Includes index.

Stripling, Robert E. Title The Red plot against America / Robert E. Stripling ; edited by Bob Considine. Publisher New York : Arno Press, 1977, c1949. Description 282 p., [7] leaves of plates : ill. ; 23 cm. Note Reprint of the ed. published by Bell, Drexel Hill, Pa. ISBN 0405099762 Language English

Chambers, Whittaker. Title Witness / Whittaker Chambers. Publisher Chicago : Henry Regnery, 1969,c1952 Description 808 p. ; 21 cm. Language English Note Autobiographical. Includes index.

Goodman, Walter Title The Committee; the extraordinary career of the House Committee on Un-American Activities / by Walter Goodman, foreword by Richard H. Rovere Publisher Baltimore : Penguin Books, 1969, c1968 Description [xix], 564 p. : ill. ; 18 cm Language English

Goodman, Walter Title The committee : the extraordinary career of the House Committee on Un-American Activities / by Walter Goodman Publisher London : Secker & Warburg, 1969, c1968 Description ix, 564 p., [16] p. of plates : ill., ports. ; 24 cm ISBN 0436183307 Language English Note Includes index Note Bibliography: 549-550

Goodman, Walter. Title The committee : the extraordinary career of the House Committee on Un-American Activities / by Walter Goodman ; foreword by Richard H. Rovere. Publisher New York : Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1968. Description xxi, 594 p., 8 leaves of plates : ill., ports. ; 22 cm. Language English Note Bibliography: [575]-576.

Goodman, Walter. Title The committee; the extraordinary career of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Foreword by Richard H. Rovere. Publisher New York, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux [1968] Description xviii, 564 p. illus., ports. 25 cm. Language English Note Bibliography: 549-550.

Chambers, Whittaker. Title Witness / Whittaker Chambers. Publisher London : Andre Deutsch, 1953. Description 629 p. ; 22 cm. Language English Note Includes index.

Chambers, Whittaker. Title Witness / Whittaker Chambers. Publisher New York : Random House, c1952. Description [viii], 808 p. ; 22 cm. Language English Note Autobiographical. Includes index.

Spolansky, Jacob. Title The communist trail in America. Publisher New York : Macmillan, 1951. Description vii, 227 p. 22 cm. Language English

Stripling, Robert E. Title The Red plot against America, by Robert E. Stripling; edited by Bob Considine. Publisher Drexel Hill, Pa. : Bell, [1949] Description 282 p. illus. 22 cm. Language English