Mr. TAVENNER. Mr. Walter, according to the transcript of the testimony, made this statement:

I understand you desire to make a statement concerning testimony given within the last few days in California before the subcommittee that was taking testimony out there.

Mr. DARE. Yes, sir.

Mr. TAVENNER. Then I will read from the transcript of your reply and ask you whether or not it is correct as far as you can remember.

Mr. DARE. I can only say what I read in the newspaper, that he listed a large number of names, of which mine was one, and I don't know the exact statement he made, but the implication was he named me as a Communist.

Mr. WALTER. As I recall the testimony, you are correct. He did list a great number of names of people who were in the Communist Party with him, and he was very specific that these were all people that he knew and people who had attended Communist Party meetings with him.

(At 10:20 a. m., Representative Donald L. Jackson entered the hearing room.)

Mr. TAVENNER (continuing to read):

Mr. DARE. That is not true.

Did you make that reply?

Mr. DARE. Yes, sir.

Mr. TAVENNER. At another place in the transcript of the testimony appears this:

Mr. WALTER. Are you a member of the Communist Party?

Mr. DARE. No, sir.

Mr. WALTER. Have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?
Mr. DARE. No, sir.

Do you recall those questions and replies?

Mr. DARE. Yes, sir.

Mr. TAVENNER. At another place in the transcript Mr. Walter asked this question:

The question was did anybody ever ask you to join the Communist Party?
Mr. DARE. No.

Do you recall that exchange of question and answer?

Mr. DARE. Yes.

Mr. TAVENNER. After that testimony the committee continued in its investigation regarding the statement and testimony made by Mr. Martin Berkeley regarding you, and as a result of its investigation, the testimony relating to this subject was referred to the Department of Justice for its consideration in determining whether or not prosecutive action was justified.

Subsequently, Mr. Walter received a letter from you in which appears this language:

I did a very stupid thing in asking you to take me to Washington and then testifying falsely before the committee.

This was a copy of a letter addressed to another person which you sent Mr. Walter. Is that correct, according to your recollection? Mr. DARE. That is correct.

Mr. TAVENNER. You also stated in the course of this letter:

I will tell the committee everything I know and try to make amends.
Was that contained in your letter?

Mr. DARE. That is true.

Mr. TAVENNER. To Mr. Walter?

Mr. DARE. Yes.

Mr. TAVENNER. I would like to ask you whether or not any promise or representation of any kind was made by this committee or anybody in its behalf to you to induce you to come before this committee and make any statement whatever further than that which you had already made.

Mr. DARE. None whatsoever.

Mr. TAVENNER. Is your appearance here the result of your own initiative and your own decision in the matter?

Mr. DARE. Yes, sir.

Mr. TAVENNER. Now, do you realize that the answer to any question that I might ask you might be used in a subsequent proceeding? Mr. DARE. Yes.

Mr. TAVENNER. And in spite of these things, you desire to appear before this committee and state to it all that is within your knowledge and truthfully answer all questions that are propounded to you? Mr. DARE. That is true, sir.

Mr. TAVENNER. Well, as shown from the transcript of the record, you denied before this committee that you had ever been a member of the Communist Party. Now, what do you desire to say about that?

Mr. DARE. Well, I was in New York at that time with my family, employed, and the way the news was broken to me was quite a shock. I was called in by my employer and shown a newspaper article mentioning my name, as the testimony showed.

Well, I became panicky, and realizing that if I said, "Yes, this is true," I would immediately lose my job, which I particularly did not want to do at the time, not only from my financial standpoint but I was in the midst of doing an anti-Communist show called The Crusade for Freedom, which was a nationwide telecast, and I became emotionally panicky and I thought I could brazen it through, because actually I had been so little advised that I just did the wrong thing, did the stupid thing, through fear and panic.

Mr. TAVENNER. What were the facts regarding your alleged Communist Party membership? Were you at any time a member of the Communist Party?

Mr. DARE. Yes, sir.

Mr. TAVENNER. Will you tell the committee, please, the circumstances under which you became a member, both as to time and place and method of recruitment into the Communist Party?

Mr. DARE. If you will bear with me, I will try. Up until 1938 I had been in show business all my life and never stayed in one place long enough to have a home, and as a result had never voted or never been interested in politics. That year I went to a show and during intermission I overheard a conversation that disturbed me very much between two men who were talking about what a good job Hitler was doing in Germany and that that was the right thing to do to the minorities over there; of course, he might be going a little too far in exterminating them, but he should confiscate their possessions and put them in concentration camps.

I turned around and saw two very normal looking, intelligent people who said it casually, and I was frightened. I intended to be married shortly and raise a family, and it preyed on my mind. I belonged to an athletic club where I spent my time playing handball, and so forth. I discussed it with some of the members there, and a couple of them said, "Well, you don't know what is going on in the world, and you should try to learn." They started to tell me things about what was going on in Germany, and how it might happen here unless people took an active part in fighting it, and I was asked to go to— they said it was a local election coming up, and if I was interested, would I go to see some of the candidates and hear what they said, and see what they were doing to fight, and if I was interested, to vote for them.

I went to a couple of meetings, and before I knew it I was a member, of the Anti-Nazi League and the Hollywood Democratic Committee, and so I became interested. Then as a result of that, I imagineincidentally, I was not active in those organizations. My participation was signing a slip and paying dues, and that was it. I didn't attend any meetings. I must have gotten on all the sucker lists, because I started to get literature through the mail, and one day a circular came asking me if I was interested in a live theater in Hollywood. Of course, I was. This was my profession, and I hadn't been employed for a couple of years. It said, "If you are interested, come to a meeting at" such and such a place. I went. I don't remember where it was. There were at least 50 or 60 people there, and I am quite sure that this was not the first meeting of the Hollywood Theater Alliance, which it later turned out to be, because there were committees functioning, and I know that I was not there at the inception of this organization.

This was supposed to be a nonprofit community venture to give employment and opportunity to young actors, directors, and so forth. It was decided by the people talking that the venture of this theater should be a musical revue, because it would involve more people. Of course, I didn't know what that meant at that time, but I do now. Volunteers were called for to assist in producing this show, and, of course, I raised my hand; this was my line of work, and I found myself on a committee with the job of producing this first show.

I had never known any of these people before, and the other people on the committee were Morley, Offner, Henry Meyers, and Jay Gorney; and we proceeded to start to work on gathering material for this show. At this meeting a gentleman by the name of Irving White came up and introduced himself to me, and said he had been a stage manager on Broadway, and said he knew me by reputation, and said he thought I could make a good contribution to this show.

Well, we started to gather material, and some time during the next 2 or 3 months Mr. Edward Eliscu was added to this committee. There were arguments about what materials should go into the show and what materials shouldn't go into the show, and one day Mr. Irving White, who had held some sort of position with the Hollywood Theater Alliance, as it now was called, came to me and said, "You just don't understand what the show should be about. You need a political education. If you are interested in fighting Mr. Hitler, you should join with the people who are doing this thing" and the sum and

substance of it was that he said, "And the Communist Party are the people that are actually doing this."

Well, I asked him the two $64 questions, "What is this I hear about the Communist Party being dedicated to the overthrow of the Government of the United States by force and violence?"

He assured me that this was not true and he could show it to me in the constitution of the Communist Party of the United States at that time.

I also asked him, "What about this talk I hear about taking orders from Moscow ?"

He said that was positively not true, that the party is independent and acted on its own.

Well, I thought it over and he kept talking to me and eventually I agreed to do this.

Mr. TAVENNER. Now, you stated that Mr. Irving White stated to you that you needed some political education.

Mr. DARE. Yes.

Mr. TAVENNER. What was the nature of his statement to you in full and what was the occasion for his making such a statement to you? Mr. DARE. Incidentally, this was around August 1938, to set the date for you. Well, I had never been interested in politics and my motive for doing anything about joining any organization was to try to prevent what happened in Germany from happening here, and while I might have been intense and eager to do something, I didn't maybe know the reasons why I was doing things, and they said, "You don't know what the forces are that are actually behind the so-called Fascist movement in America, and in order to understand that you must get an education, and in order to see that the right material went in the show, you should be able to analyze material and judge its value."

Mr. TAVENNER. Well then there was a definite connection between that conversation and the purpose of the show?

Mr. DARE. I believe so; yes.

Mr. TAVENNER. And it was in that connection that you were advised to go into the Communist Party?

Mr. DARE. That's right, sir.

Mr. TAVENNER. Were you assigned to any special group in the Communist Party?

Mr. DARE. Yes.

Mr. TAVENNER. Will you tell us about that?

Mr. DARE. Well, the first gathering I went to with Mr. White was there were about 30 people present, to the best of my knowledge, at that meeting. Again I didn't know any of them. I do remember two people who addressed us. One was John Howard Lawson and the other was a fellow by the name of Cyril. I didn't know his last name and never have seen him since.

Mr. Lawson spoke about what was happening here, and the sum and substance of it was, "You can't be an ostrich and stick your head in the sand and say it can't happen here because it happened in Germany."

This fellow by the name of Cyril spoke something about Marxism, which didn't interest me and I didn't understand it, and that is all I remember about that meeting, except that I was told that in the future that it would be broken up into smaller groups of six.

Mr. TAVENNER. Did you become a member of one of the smaller groups of six?

Mr. DARE. Yes.

Mr. TAVENNER. Where did that group meet?

Mr. DARE. The first meeting that I remember was at the home of Frank Tuttle, although he was not present.

Mr. TAVENNER. How did you receive information as to where and when the meeting would be held?

Mr. DARE. Mr. White told me.

Mr. TAVENNER. Who were present at that meeting?

Mr. DARE. A woman by the name of Jessie Burns, Tanya Tuttle, a fellow by the name of Ray Spencer, and a woman by the name of Pauline Lauber, and also Mr. Herbert Biberman.

Mr. TAVENNER. How frequently did that group meet?

Mr. DARE. I don't remember whether it was supposed to be once a week or once every 2 weeks; I really don't remember.

Mr. TAVENNER. Over how long a period of time did you meet with this group?

Mr. DARE. To the best of my recollection, perhaps 5 times maximum, although I can only actually remember 2. But I am sure I went to a couple more.

Mr. MOULDER. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. VELDE. Mr. Moulder.

Mr. MOULDER. Could you further identify the persons you have named by their occupation or the work they do?

Mr. DARE. I will think, sir. Irving White, I believe was trying to be a writer, although I don't know that, where he was, actually was, ever employed. He had some sort of a small-paying job with the Hollywood Theater Alliance for a while, I think, I am pretty sure.

Ray Spencer, I think, was also supposed to be a writer, although I don't remember that he ever worked in a studio or anywhere that he ever worked, or what he wrote.

Jessie Burns, I understood, was a reader at a motion picture studio. Pauline Lauber, I believe, was a secretary, but I am not positive. Tanya Tuttle was the wife of Frank Tuttle and was interested in the ballet theater or dancing, but I don't believe did it as a profession. Mr. MOULDER. Is that as much information as you have to identify them by?

Mr. DARE. So far as their vocation is concerned; yes.

Mr. MOULDER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. VELDE. Proceed, Mr. Counsel.

Mr. TAVENNER. Can you tell the committee how this particular group functioned, as to what their purpose was, what its chief interest was?

Mr. DARE. By this particular group you mean the Hollywood Theater Alliance?

Mr. TAVENNER. I meant this particular group of the Communist Party.

Mr. DARE. I am sorry. I was lost for a moment. Mental suggestion. Well, I remember that when I got there they were there already. A lot of lighter literature was out, and I think we read one of them about fascism in America and what was happening in Germany on that particular subject, and it was discussed. This occupied most of the meeting, so far as I remember.