TESTIMONY OF JOHN STENHOUSE, ACCOMPANIED BY HIS COUNSEL, JACK R. CLUCK—Resumed
Mr. Tavenner. Mr. Stenhouse, we were discussing the Communist Party branch or group of which you were a member in Los Angeles. Will you give the committee, please, the names of those who were associated with you in that group?
Mr. Stenhouse. I am unable to give you the names, Mr. Tavenner. It is a long time ago, and I have been trying to remember. As I indicated to you the other day, if you give me some ideas of whom you think were present, it might refresh my memory.
Mr. Tavenner. I believe I told you that we would try to present you with a list of persons who had been identified in the Los Angeles area as members of the Communist Party, but we do not have that list with us, and we are unable to present it to you now. We may do so later in an effort to refresh your recollection.
(The witness confers with his counsel.)
Mr. Stenhouse. I am willing at any time to tell you if any particular individual in my recollection was at those meetings.
Mr. Tavenner. Will you tell the committee, please, how you became employed in the United States Department of Commerce in Washington.
Mr. Stenhouse. Well, as I indicated, after I was obliged to have my hernia operation and get out of the defense work that I had been doing I sought occupation in a number of places. And somewhere along the line somebody brought my qualifications in the Far East to Congressman Ellis Patterson, and he referred it to Henry Wallace, and the appointment was made on that introduction.
Mr. Tavenner. Did you finally become head of your Section in the Department of Commerce?
Mr. Stenhouse. Chief of the Section.
Mr. Tavenner. Was that the Section dealing with China?
Mr. Stenhouse. That is right.
Mr. Tavenner. Did your activities in the Department of Commerce have anything to do with known Communists in China?
Mr. Stenhouse. No. The work that I was doing was related to the rehabilitation of trade. We were answering the inquiries of businessmen relating to regulations and economic conditions in China and the Far East. We prepared articles for the Foreign Commerce Weekly and conducted an economic analysis of the possibilities of reopening trade.
Mr. Tavenner. Did you tell the committee that you attended Communist Party meetings in the city of Washington?
Mr. Stenhouse. That is right.
Mr. Tavenner. Was that during the entire period of time you were in Washington?
Mr. Stenhouse. I can’t be sure of the time again. But it was somewhere between the end of, I think, somewhere between the end of 1945 and the end of 1946.
Mr. Tavenner. How soon after your arrival in Washington did you become identified with the Communist Party there, and attend those group meetings?
Mr. Stenhouse. I can’t place it. I know that shortly after I got to Washington I had another serious operation, and I was busy getting adjusted to my new work. Sometime about then I joined the Federal Workers Union.
Mr. Moulder. I did not understand you. You joined what?
Mr. Stenhouse. The Federal Workers Union.
Mr. Tavenner. Was it after you became a member of the Federal Workers Union that you first began attending Communist Party meetings in the District of Columbia?
Mr. Stenhouse. I can’t be sure. I think it was.
Mr. Tavenner. Did you advance to the point of holding an office of any type in the union while you were in Washington?
Mr. Stenhouse. I was a shop steward and collected dues from 4 or 5 people. That was all.
Mr. Tavenner. Will you tell the committee, please, the circumstances under which you were approached to identify yourself with the Communist Party while you were working for the Department of Commerce?
Mr. Stenhouse. Well, again I think it was that one of the fellows in the union asked me to attend some of the similar sort of meetings that I had before. But it is possible that it was from some contact in Los Angeles. I am not sure about that.
Mr. Tavenner. Did that individual indicate that he knew you had been associated with a branch of the Communist Party in Los Angeles when he first talked to you about attending such meetings in the District of Columbia?
Mr. Stenhouse. I don’t remember whether he did or not.
Mr. Tavenner. Who was the person that contacted you in Washington?
Mr. Stenhouse. Well, again I can’t remember his name. But I have already told you who I thought it was in terms of his union function. He was a member of the grievance committee in that department.
Mr. Tavenner. Can you give a better identification of the individual than the fact he was with the grievance committee?
Mr. Stenhouse. Well, I can give you a physical description to some extent. He was a fairly short fellow and dark, dark hair.
Mr. Tavenner. About what age person was he at that time?
Mr. Stenhouse. Oh, I imagine maybe 30, 32; something like that.
Mr. Tavenner. Where did he live?
Mr. Stenhouse. I don’t know. He may have lived in Virginia. I say that because one of the houses where we met was in Virginia.
Mr. Tavenner. Was it his house?
Mr. Stenhouse. I am not sure now.
Mr. Tavenner. Was he also employed by the Department of Commerce?
Mr. Stenhouse. Yes, sir.
Mr. Tavenner. What was his position in the Department of Commerce?
Mr. Stenhouse. He was in the Balance of Payments. I am not sure of the actual name of the division. The work of that division was related to the study and report of international balance of payments.
Mr. Tavenner. Can you tell us where his office was located in the Department of Commerce?
Mr. Stenhouse. No. It was a huge building and I don’t remember what floor it was on. It was in the main building.
Mr. Tavenner. Was it on the same floor as your office?
Mr. Stenhouse. I don’t remember.
Mr. Tavenner. Can you give us his name?
Mr. Stenhouse. No; I can’t sir.
Mr. Tavenner. Were all of the members of this group employees in the Department of Commerce?
(Representative Harold H. Velde entered the hearing room at this point.)
Mr. Stenhouse. I am not sure of that. I think they were. I identified them in my mind at least with members of the Public Workers Union. And, while I was—well, I was going to say with that local. But I am not sure of that.
Mr. Tavenner. What was the number of the local?
Mr. Stenhouse. I don’t remember. I only attended about, oh, not more than 4 or 5 union meetings. I dropped out of the union around the end of 1946, I think it was. And, as a matter of fact, I was extremely busy in my work and wasn’t actually familiar with the organization of the union.
Mr. Tavenner. You were active enough in the union to be made a steward.
Mr. Stenhouse. That is right. I was a shop steward.
Mr. Tavenner. Was it your duty, as a shop steward, to represent the membership of the union in legitimate grievances?
Mr. Stenhouse. Well, we never had any. And all I did was collect dues and turn them over to another fellow.
Mr. Tavenner. Were any of the persons from whom you collected union dues members of the group of the Communist Party to which you referred?
Mr. Stenhouse. No. No; I don’t think they were.
Mr. Tavenner. Was this a mixed group, men and women?
Mr. Stenhouse. In the discussion group?
Mr. Tavenner. Yes.
Mr. Stenhouse. Yes; I think it was only men.
Mr. Tavenner. How many?
Mr. Stenhouse. Four or five.
Mr. Tavenner. Will you give us the names, if you can, of any of the members of the group?
Mr. Stenhouse. No, sir, I can’t.
Mr. Moulder. You have referred several times to the discussion group. Can you tell us what you discussed?
Mr. Stenhouse. Well, we discussed international affairs, domestic problems; we discussed articles, as I indicated before, in Communist and other publications.
Mr. Moulder. In any of these groups were you ever addressed by prominent Communist officials or leaders?
Mr. Stenhouse. In those discussion groups?
Mr. Moulder. Yes.
Mr. Stenhouse. Not that I know of. They were all people, as far as I could determine, just like myself, maybe temporarily off on a wrong track. There was never any use of fictitious names as far as I know. I didn’t use a fictitious name.
Mr. Moulder. Will you repeat over what period of time did you attend discussion groups when you were in Washington?
Mr. Stenhouse. Well, it was some time between the latter part of 1945 and 1946.
Mr. Velde. Mr. Chairman, it seems unusual to me that the witness cannot remember anybody’s name, or the name of any person who attended these meetings.
This occurred less than 10 years ago, did it not?
Mr. Stenhouse. About 10 years.
Mr. Velde. And you cannot remember the name of a single person who attended those discussion groups?
Mr. Stenhouse. No. And I have tried to do it, and I have offered to cooperate to the best of my ability with the staff of your committee, sir.
It is, as you say, 10 years ago. I have moved out into a different part of the world, an entirely different environment, new thoughts. Since I have been out here I have been working hard to establish myself economically, and I haven’t had association within that time to remind me.
Mr. Velde. Have you conscientiously tried to search your memory, to review the history of that period to determine whether you could name any persons who attended these meetings?
Mr. Stenhouse. I have, sir.
Mr. Velde. Did you say you have consulted with our staff to determine whether or not they can refresh your memory?
Mr. Stenhouse. Yes.
Mr. Velde. Of course, it still seems odd to me that you cannot remember one single person.
Mr. Stenhouse. Well, as a matter of fact, I can’t remember the names of people whom I was in much more direct contact with in those days.
Mr. Velde. You are a very intelligent person. There is no question about that. It does seem to me that you could remember someone that you went with. But can’t you remember the occasion of your first visit to one of these discussion groups?
Mr. Stenhouse. No.
Mr. Velde. Or how you happened to get to the meeting?
Mr. Stenhouse. I don’t remember where it was. It was apparently in the house of one of the members of the group.
Mr. Velde. Do you remember the physical surroundings of the meeting place? Apparently it was in a home of one of the members of the group.
Mr. Stenhouse. One of the meetings, as I recall, was in, I think it was an apartment in one of the projects over on the Virginia side.
Mr. Velde. On that occasion can you remember anyone discussing any particular legislation; for instance, legislation pending at that time?
Mr. Stenhouse. No; I can’t. They were very——
Mr. Velde. Can you recall the name of any individual discussing any particular item?
Mr. Stenhouse. No, I don’t.
Mr. Velde. By physical description?
Mr. Stenhouse. No. They were very informal discussions. We just exchanged ideas back and forth. Somebody had read an article out of a paper or one of the publications, and we discussed it, and that was about it.
Mr. Velde. Your impression was, however, that it was a Communist Party discussion group?
Mr. Stenhouse. Yes, that is my impression.
Mr. Velde. Did you discuss Marxism?
Mr. Stenhouse. No.
Mr. Velde. You cannot recall what you discussed except that you vaguely remember it was a Communist Party discussion?
Mr. Stenhouse. I say we were discussing foreign affairs, domestic problems. I remember at that time the question of price control was in people’s minds, and I am pretty sure that that was one of the things we discussed.
They were nothing more nor less than an attempt, from a certain viewpoint, to study and explain, if you like, the phenomena we were living in.
Mr. Velde. Have you no independent recollection whatsoever of how you happened to get into the first meeting?
Mr. Stenhouse. Except that I was invited, as far as I remember, by this fellow that I have described.
Mr. Velde. But do you remember his name?
Mr. Stenhouse. I probably saw him not more than, oh, 20 times during the whole time I was in Washington. And there were many people in Washington whom I saw every day, whose names I can’t remember.
Another thing, Mr. Congressman, we discussed the same topics from a different viewpoint with other people. And it is very hard to remember now exactly which topic was discussed at which meeting.
Mr. Velde. I am sure, Mr. Stenhouse, it is very hard to remember exactly. But certainly I think that a person of average intelligence and a fair memory could remember at least one person.
Mr. Stenhouse. If I could name them I would. And in offering to go over a list of names, I have done the best I can to cooperate with your committee.
Mr. Moulder. When you filed your application for Government employment did you file Government form 57?
Mr. Stenhouse. Yes, sir.
Mr. Moulder. Do you remember the names of the persons you gave as references on that application?
Mr. Stenhouse. Well, if form 57 requires references, I don’t—— Maybe it wasn’t form 57. I don’t want this to be misinterpreted.
Mr. Moulder. It is a standard application form required by governmental departments.
Mr. Stenhouse. I don’t recall any application in which I put references. It may be so.
Mr. Moulder. But you did make a written application setting forth your experience and qualifications?
Mr. Stenhouse. Oh, yes.
Mr. Moulder. And was there an oath on that application?
Mr. Stenhouse. Yes.
Mr. Moulder. Which you had to sign?
Mr. Stenhouse. Yes.
Mr. Moulder. And did anyone recommend you for this position to which you were assigned in Washington?
Mr. Stenhouse. Somebody recommended me in the sense that they referred my name and qualifications to Ellis Patterson.
Mr. Moulder. Do you know who that person was?
Mr. Stenhouse. I am not sure who it was. We had a large number of friends from Los Angeles at that time, and it may have been one of the people that we were active with in that Democratic campaign. I think it probably was.
Mr. Moulder. When you were made section chief, who was your immediate superior?
Mr. Stenhouse. (Name deleted.)
Mr. Moulder. Did he have anything to do with your promotion to that position?
Mr. Stenhouse. I am sure he did.
Mr. Moulder. Do you remember the names of the persons who were employed under your immediate supervision?
Mr. Stenhouse. Well, there was one fellow just prior to my promotion. (Name deleted.)
Mr. Moulder. I am not suggesting any of those persons be named in the record; I am testing your memory as to why you remember some people with whom you were associated and why you cannot remember the names of some other people with whom you were closely associated.
Mr. Stenhouse. I can remember the names of many of the people in my division because we have exchanged Christmas cards since then, and I have seen some of them since then.
Mr. Moulder. In line with Mr. Velde’s questioning regarding the first Communist Party meeting to which you referred, how did you go? By car, by bus, or by train? Was it just as you say, a short distance? How did you get there?
Mr. Stenhouse. No, I didn’t say it was a short distance. I said it was in Virginia.
Mr. Moulder. That is not far from the District of Columbia.
Mr. Stenhouse. We lived in Maryland.
Mr. Moulder. How did you travel to the place of the meeting?
Mr. Stenhouse. I suppose it was by bus because we didn’t have a car in those days.
Mr. Moulder. You went by bus over there?
Mr. Stenhouse. I say bus. I mean public transportation.
Mr. Velde. Mr. Chairman, I think we ought to make it clear we have no intention of having the public press or anyone else feel that any of the persons you mention who were associated with you in your professional work at that time are connected in any way with the Communist Party or any of its functions. We have hitherto tried to make that perfectly clear. The mere fact that you mention a name of one of your associates should lead no one to believe that he is in any way connected with it or has been connected with the Communist Party or Communist Party activities.
Mr. Moulder. Did other employees in your section attend any of the meetings to which you have referred?
Mr. Stenhouse. No.
Mr. Moulder. In line with Congressman Velde’s suggestion the names mentioned by you in that connection will be stricken from the record.
Mr. Stenhouse. I want to make one clarification.
In regard to this matter of references, I don’t want it on the record that I didn’t give any references. If they were required I suppose I gave them. But don’t remember now who I gave.
(The witness confers with his counsel.)
Another point, Mr. Chairman, in regard to this matter of remembering the names of the people who were at these discussion groups, there were not more than 3 or 4 meetings as far as I remember. There were very few in number.
Mr. Moulder. How many meetings did you attend while you were in Washington?
Mr. Stenhouse. Three or four; at the most, five; I can’t remember exactly. They are very limited. I am trying to live back in those days and pinpoint when it could have been and where they could have been. And I can identify in a vague way three locations.
Mr. Moulder. Were you issued a Communist Party membership card at any time while you were in Washington, D. C.?
Mr. Stenhouse. I don’t think so.
Mr. Moulder. But you still refer to them as Communist Party meetings?
Mr. Stenhouse. That is what I understood them to be. I am sure in my own mind now that I was just on the fringes of this thing, that——
Mr. Moulder. Proceed, Mr. Tavenner.
Mr. Tavenner. Did you not describe the meetings in Washington as being the same type of meetings you attended in Los Angeles?
Mr. Stenhouse. I said they were similar.
Mr. Moulder. Doesn’t that mean the same type?
What difference was there between the meetings you attended in Washington and those you attended in Los Angeles?
Mr. Stenhouse. Well, I suppose one difference would be that in Washington, D. C., to the best of my knowledge, all the people present were members of the union.
Mr. Moulder. Were they also all employees in the Department of Commerce?
Mr. Stenhouse. Right.
Mr. Moulder. Were any of them employees in your immediate section?
Mr. Stenhouse. No.
Mr. Moulder. The China Section of the Department of Commerce?
Mr. Stenhouse. No.
Mr. Moulder. Do you, of your own personal knowledge, know whether any of the persons attending those meetings were members of the Communist Party?
Mr. Stenhouse. Well, they were at the meetings.
Mr. Moulder. Yes; but that isn’t my point. They were at the meetings, but do you know of your own personal knowledge whether or not they were Communist Party members?
Mr. Stenhouse. Why I don’t know how you identify that exactly. I don’t recall seeing anybody’s card. Again, there was some sort of dues payment.
Mr. Moulder. Do you recall hearing any one of them say that they were members of the Communist Party?
Mr. Stenhouse. I can’t remember now whether they did or not. I was there and I thought I was some sort of a member, and I just assumed—Maybe I shouldn’t assume it. But I just assumed they were.
Mr. Tavenner. Did you pay dues in this organization or in this group?
Mr. Stenhouse. Well, again, it was somewhat the same arrangement as before. There were books to be bought and some sort of dues arrangement.
Mr. Tavenner. To whom did you pay the dues?
Mr. Stenhouse. Well, I don’t remember who the individual was. The money was just—somebody said “Well, here are the books.” And the money was put on the table.
Mr. Tavenner. How long did you remain a member of that group or attend meetings of that group?
Mr. Stenhouse. Well, that is the question that you asked before, and, as I told you, I find it very difficult to pinpoint the time. I think I can limit it to somewhere near the end of 1945 because of the fact that I didn’t get there until June and I had the operation, and then my family came out, and we were preoccupied with getting into a house and things of that sort. And I think it was—I was out of it by the early part of 1947.
Mr. Tavenner. So that you continued until the early part of 1947?
Mr. Stenhouse. Well, I say it was somewhere in that area. And I can’t remember.
Mr. Tavenner. Will you tell the committee, please, the circumstances under which you stopped attending these meetings?
Mr. Stenhouse. Well, the Communist publications that we were studying seemed to be overready to excuse the Soviet Union and criticize our country, and this didn’t jibe with the ideas that I had had about the situation during the war. And I just stopped going and nobody ever tried to get me back in or approached me in any way.
Mr. Tavenner. You have said that you cannot recall the names of any of these people or give any more descriptive information than you have because of the lapse of time, and the fact that you are separated now by long distance from the place you were then.
Did anything occur in 1946 or 1947 which would have served to refresh your recollection as to who these individuals were?
Something that would have called this matter very definitely to your attention and would have impressed itself on your memory. Do you recall anything of an unusual character having occurred?
Mr. Stenhouse. I suppose you are referring to the fact that I was investigated or questioned by the FBI.
Mr. Tavenner. That is right.
Mr. Stenhouse. It may have recalled their names to me then, but it doesn’t now.
Mr. Velde. Did you give any names to the FBI when you were questioned?
Mr. Stenhouse. No; I didn’t.
Mr. Velde. You said it may have recalled some of the names to you at that time but it doesn’t now. If at that time it recalled the names of people with whom you had associated, why didn’t you give them to the FBI?
Mr. Stenhouse. I declined to state whether or not I had been a member of the Communist Party in Los Angeles.
Mr. Velde. Do you mean you declined to state to the FBI whether or not you had been a member of the Communist Party in Los Angeles?
Mr. Stenhouse. Yes. And, as far as I remember, he told me I didn’t have to state. I can’t be sure of that, but that is my recollection.
Mr. Velde. Of course, you don’t have to tell the FBI anything. But I am just wondering what was in your mind at that time—the reason why you did not give the FBI that information.
Mr. Stenhouse. The reason was that I had, to the best of my knowledge and conscience, done nothing hostile to the United States. In fact, I thought that I had been a very loyal and active citizen in promoting the war effort.
Mr. Tavenner. When did your employment terminate with the Department of Commerce?
Mr. Stenhouse. I got my termination notice in October, and it was effective in November of 1947.
Mr. Tavenner. What was the reason for termination of your services?
Mr. Stenhouse. It stated that I was being relieved due to a reduction in force.
Mr. Tavenner. I believe you stated then your next employment was with the United Nations. Is that correct?
Mr. Stenhouse. Yes, sir.
Mr. Tavenner. Will you tell the committee, please, how you obtained your employment with the United Nations?
Mr. Stenhouse. Well, I was trying many avenues to get employment.
Mr. Tavenner. I am referring only to your employment with the United Nations.
Mr. Stenhouse. Well, there may have been a number of channels through which I got it, but I think that it may have been through the Institute of Pacific Relations.
Mr. Tavenner. Why did you appeal to the Institute of Pacific Relations?
Mr. Stenhouse. Because I had been a subscriber to the Institute of Pacific Relations, and I knew of the Institute as one interested in far-eastern affairs. And that, amongst several dozens of business firms and organizations, seemed to be a likely place to find an occupation in the area where I wanted to be.
Mr. Tavenner. Before going to the Institute of Pacific Relations, did you have in mind that you desired to secure a position with the United Nations?
Mr. Stenhouse. No; I don’t think I did. In fact——
Mr. Tavenner. Was the suggestion then made to you by the Institute of Pacific Relations that you seek employment with the United Nations?
(At this point Representative Morgan M. Moulder left the hearing room.)
Mr. Stenhouse. I think it was suggested to me there that this commission was being formed—the commission was already in effect, but that there was this job to do on this subcommittee of trade relations and that I should contact a Dr. Lokanath. He was an Indian economist.
(At this point Representative Morgan M. Moulder returned to the hearing room.)
Mr. Stenhouse. I think that may have been the channel through which it came. I am not entirely certain. But I did contact him and got the appointment.
Mr. Tavenner. Did the person or persons with whom you conferred in the Institute of Pacific Relations know of your Communist Party membership?
Mr. Stenhouse. No.
Mr. Tavenner. Did you furnish any references to the Institute of Pacific Relations when you went there to confer on the subject of your employment?
Mr. Stenhouse. I think I probably did. You mean a sort of curriculum vitae.
Mr. Tavenner. The real purpose of my question is to find out whether or not you were recommended to the Institute of Public Relations by any person who knew you had been a member of the Communist Party.
Mr. Stenhouse. No. I went there entirely on my own initiative.
Mr. Velde. Did you know any of the defendants in the Amerasia case?
Mr. Stenhouse. No.
Mr. Velde. Had you ever met any of them?
Mr. Stenhouse. Not to my knowledge.
Mr. Velde. Do you know who it was from the Institute of Pacific Relations who first interested you in the United Nations?
Mr. Stenhouse. I was interested in the United Nations myself.
Mr. Velde. Naturally, I suppose you were. Was any one person at the Institute of Pacific Relations responsible for your employment by the United Nations?
Mr. Stenhouse. No. I went to the Institute of Pacific Relations as one of many, many sources for a new occupation. And in the office of the Institute of Pacific Relations I was told that there was this opening. So I applied to the United Nations. I have at home a file about that thick [indicating] of letters to many business firms that I wrote to and had interviews with.
Mr. Velde. Do you have any written memorandums or anything else in writing that would show your contact with the Institute of Pacific Relations at that time?
Mr. Stenhouse. I have nothing to hide about my Institute of Pacific Relations contacts. I was a subscriber to the Institute of Pacific Relations. I thought they were doing a good job of objective reporting on the Far East. I was interested in it because of my background.
While I was in Washington, D. C., I went to several Institute of Pacific Relations meetings and discussion groups. It was only natural that that should be one place where I would go to find out if there was any firm or any organization that was associated with the Far East who would be interested in my background.
Mr. Velde. Of course, I don’t want to cast any reflections on the individual members of the Institute of Pacific Relations or any others you have contacted, but I do feel it would be valuable to the committee if you would make available the various letters you used when applying for jobs in order that we might search our records. Would you be willing to make those available?
Mr. Stenhouse. Do you want me to tell you the names of the people in the Institute of Pacific Relations?
Mr. Velde. No. I am not particularly anxious for that. Again, I want to say if you do mention names of persons in the Institute of Pacific Relations, it should be no reflection upon them whatsoever because you, as a former Communist, contacted them.
I am interested in finding out who you contacted or who in the Institute of Pacific Relations recommended you for a job with the United Nations.
Mr. Stenhouse. I haven’t been asked that question.
Mr. Velde. I ask you that question.
Mr. Stenhouse. If you want to know who it was in the Institute of Pacific Relations who I think gave me the information, I am very frank to tell you that it was Mr. Carter.
Mr. Velde. Do you know his first name?
Mr. Stenhouse. Edward C.
Mr. Velde. Was he in his office at the time you went to the Institute of Pacific Relations?
Mr. Stenhouse. Yes, sir.
Mr. Velde. What did he do to promote your appointment in the United Nations?
Mr. Stenhouse. He may have contacted Dr. Lokanath, for all I know. I think he possibly did.
Mr. Velde. Did you get recommendations from members of the Institute of Pacific Relations other than Mr. Carter?
Mr. Stenhouse. No.
Mr. Velde. Did you have recommendations of any kind other than the Institute of Pacific Relations?
Mr. Stenhouse. Yes.
The chief of my division gave me a very fine recommendation. A colleague who was in the China legal section gave me a very fine recommendation.
Mr. Velde. Did either Mr. Carter or the chief of your division know that you were a member of the Communist Party?
Mr. Stenhouse. No; they did not.
Mr. Velde. What type of formal application did you make for the position you sought and afterward obtained in the United Nations?
Mr. Stenhouse. I don’t recall now any formal application. I have in my files a letter of appointment, but I don’t recall a formal application.
Mr. Velde. Proceed, Mr. Counsel.
Mr. Tavenner. After accepting the position with the United Nations, were you sent on a project to China?
Mr. Stenhouse. Yes, sir.
Mr. Tavenner. Before your selection for that project, were you interviewed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation?
Mr. Stenhouse. Not to my knowledge.
Mr. Tavenner. When was it you were interviewed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation at which time you refused to advise them as to your previous Communist Party membership?
Mr. Stenhouse. Well, I think you gave me the date of that the other day. I had forgotten it.
Mr. Tavenner. Don’t you remember it?
Mr. Stenhouse. No; I don’t. But you said it was in 1946, and I think it probably was.
Mr. Tavenner. So before you were selected for the position in the United Nations and, particularly for this project in China, you had refused to give information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation as to whether or not you had been a member of the Communist Party?
Mr. Stenhouse. Well, that is true, some nearly 2 years before. By the time I had applied for the position in the United Nations I didn’t consider myself to be whatever it was I had been before.
Mr. Tavenner. And no governmental agency, after the FBI came to see you, ever made any inquiry until the present time?
Mr. Stenhouse. Well, that is not so.
Last September I was called by a Treasury representative, and he told me he wanted to ask me some questions. So I met him at my home and he started to ask me about the sort of work I did and whether I ever did much traveling. And in the course of that discussion I told him that I had been in Washington, D. C. I told him quite frankly what I had been doing.
Mr. Tavenner. Did you tell him you had been a member of the Communist Party?
Mr. Stenhouse. No. He didn’t ask me.
Mr. Tavenner. Was that the first time you had been questioned along this line?
Mr. Stenhouse, Yes. But he did ask me a question did I know a certain individual in Washington, D. C. And the name of the man was——
Mr. Tavenner. I would suggest that you not mention the name in public. The committee, I think, would want to know privately.
Let me ask you this:
In seeking that information from you, did it have any connection with the Communist Party?
Mr. Stenhouse. I don’t know what his intentions were at that time.
Mr. Tavenner. I think, Mr. Chairman, under those circumstances, we should not ask him to state the matter in public when we have no idea what it is he is talking about.
(The witness confers with his counsel.)
Mr. Stenhouse. You asked me if I had ever been questioned.
Mr. Tavenner. I mean questioned about communism in a Federal agency and regarding the matters under discussion here.
Mr. Stenhouse. I beg your pardon. I thought you meant had I ever been questioned by an agency of the Government in the interim.
Mr. Tavenner. Of course, we are not interested in whether you have been interrogated by someone in a Government department on matters not at all related to the functions of this committee. I understand you to say you have not been.
(The witness confers with his counsel.)
Mr. Stenhouse. The reason I thought you might be interested in it was that he did ask me a question which related to the Institute of Pacific Relations. And since it related to that, I thought that the committee should know about it.
He asked me if I had ever known (name deleted).
And first I couldn’t remember the name. But then he said, “Well, didn’t you ever go to a luncheon in Washington, D. C., sponsored by the Institute of Pacific Relations?”
And then I remembered that I had, along with several hundred or so other people, gone to such a luncheon.
Mr. Tavenner. Mr. Chairman, this being a matter about which we have no knowledge at all, I believe we are getting into a field that should not be explored in public without some investigation on our own part.
Mr. Moulder. Mr. Tavenner, will you step up here, please?
(Mr. Tavenner confers with the chairman.)
Mr. Stenhouse. May I make one concluding remark as to that last testimony?
Mr. Moulder. At this time the name you mentioned will be stricken from the record until further investigation can be made of your last testimony.
Mr. Stenhouse. Well, this individual, I may say, addressed a large group of people in what was substantially an open meeting, and reported on——
Mr. Tavenner. Mr. Chairman, in light of your ruling, I suggest we not go into that matter at all until the committee staff has had an opportunity to investigate the witness’ last testimony.
Mr. Moulder. Yes.
Mr. Stenhouse. Mr. Chairman, may I make one concluding statement in regard to my last remarks?
When the man who was questioning me heard my report he then asked me why I was changing jobs. And I said I had no intention to change a job. And he said, “Did you apply for a job with the Treasury Department?”
And I said, “No.”
And he said, “Well, do you know another John Stenhouse?”
And I told him I did.
Mr. Tavenner. Will you tell the committee, please, the purpose of the project on which you were sent to China?
Mr. Stenhouse. I think I have already stated that. Do you want me to repeat it, sir?
Mr. Tavenner. Yes.
Mr. Stenhouse. It was to study and report on the rehabilitation of trade in the Far East.
Mr. Tavenner. And that necessitated your travel in what part of China?
Mr. Stenhouse. The headquarters were in Shanghai.
Mr. Tavenner. Did you spend all of your time in Shanghai?
Mr. Stenhouse. No. I was in Nanking—well, while I was with that particular commission I spent all of my time in Shanghai.
Mr. Tavenner. When was it that you went to Nanking?
Mr. Stenhouse. After 3 months with the Economic Commission I then was with the Food and Agriculture Administration, and the Food and Agriculture Administration had an office both in Shanghai and in Nanking. And it was my duty, as administrative assistant, to supervise both offices.
Mr. Tavenner. Will you state the dates you were stationed in Shanghai, and the dates you were in Nanking?
Mr. Stenhouse. I can’t do it. I was back and forth.
Mr. Tavenner. Will you state the dates which divided your time between the two places?
Mr. Stenhouse. I think maybe there is a mistake in my previous testimony as to dates.
Could the recorder——
Mr. Tavenner. Rather than to take the time to look that up, if you give us what you consider to be the correct dates now, we will understand if that is different from what you stated before that you are thereby correcting the date.
Mr. Stenhouse. I think I went to Shanghai in April—April, May, June, with the Commission. And then June, July, August, or something like that, with Food and Agriculture.
Mr. Tavenner. Of what year?
Mr. Stenhouse. 1948.
Mr. Velde. Were you a member of the Communist Party at that time, Mr. Stenhouse?
Mr. Stenhouse. No, sir.
Mr. Tavenner. Will you define your duties in the various assignments you held while in China?
Mr. Stenhouse. Well, on the Commission it was research and analysis and reporting, and I wrote a report on the problems of reestablishing interregional trade in the Far East. And it was published by the United Nations—not under my name, but incorporated in a much larger volume.
Mr. Tavenner. Will you identify the volume and the article for the use of the committee?
Mr. Stenhouse. It must have been published. I suppose it was published in 1949 probably.
Mr. Tavenner. Under what caption?
Mr. Stenhouse. I don’t remember that. It was published by the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East as a subsidiary agency of the United Nations. But my material wasn’t any single article. It was incorporated with a lot of other material by a lot of other people.
Mr. Tavenner. In other words, your article was used as source material in the preparation of a report by the United Nations. Is that what you mean?
Mr. Stenhouse. Yes.
Mr. Tavenner. During your assignment in China were you required to confer with known members of the Communist Party?
Mr. Stenhouse. No.
Mr. Tavenner. Or Communists?
Mr. Stenhouse. Well, I want to be frank here, but, first of all, I would like you to tell me in the context of Chinese people what the definition of a Communist is.
Mr. Tavenner. Living in China as long as you did, you probably should understand that.
Mr. Stenhouse. That is very difficult. The longer you live in China the harder it is to do it.
Mr. Velde. Were you conferring with the economic leaders in China when you were on this assignment with the United Nations?
Mr. Stenhouse. Yes.
Mr. Velde. Was China under Communist domination at that time?
Mr. Stenhouse. It certainly wasn’t.
Mr. Velde. When was this?
Mr. Stenhouse. 1948.
Mr. Velde. At that time then you didn’t actually know whether you were dealing with Chiang Kai-shek forces or the Red forces?
Mr. Stenhouse. At that time, Mr. Congressman, Shanghai was still under the Nationalists, and we dealt with officials of the Nationalist Government.
Mr. Velde. Then you certainly wouldn’t expect them to be Communists.
Mr. Stenhouse. I wouldn’t expect it, but there were many, I suppose—from what I know now—there were Communists in Shanghai at that time.
Mr. Velde. As leaders in the Nationalist Government?
Mr. Stenhouse. Well, the reason why I asked for the definition was we are always running into this problem of what is a Communist.
Mr. Velde. There was nothing wrong in you conferring with Communists at that time; understand that.
Mr. Stenhouse. I want to answer the question.
Mr. Velde. Or with Nationalists either. That was part of your duties.
Mr. Stenhouse. I asked for the definition because one of the men who was a consultant—and I didn’t appoint him—to the group that I was working with was the chief of the Foreign Exchange Department of the Bank of China.
Mr. Velde. Do you recall his name?
Mr. Stenhouse. Yes. Chi Chio Ting.
Mr. Velde. You certainly do have a good recollection as to some of these people, and you fail to recollect other people, chiefly Communists, with whom you were associated.
Mr. Stenhouse. China is my field. I remember him because he was related to an area that I have since had contact with. And I remember him, too, because shortly after—I think it was shortly after I left Shanghai or while I was still there—he went over to the Peking Government. And, as far as I know, that is the only contact that I had in Shanghai with anything that you could call a Communist. And I don’t know that he was.
Mr. Velde. Certainly I am sure, as Mr. Tavenner has very well stated, that you, being acquainted in China, would certainly have a lot better knowledge of communism in China than probably any of us here would. I would like to ask if you recognized any of those associated with you on the United Nations Commission in China as being what you consider Communists?
Mr. Stenhouse. The answer to that question is “No.”
This particular individual was acting only in the capacity of a consultant. And I don’t think he was actually a member of the United Nations. We were consulting with him and people like him because we were concerned with finance and foreign exchange and so on.
Mr. Tavenner. Mr. Chairman, may I suggest that if the committee desires to go into the Chinese phase of that matter carefully that it be done at some other time. I believe, with the witnesses we have here, we would not be able to complete the work that is outlined if we attempt to go into that matter now. Besides, I think it is a matter we should discuss with the witness, at least preliminarily, before attempting to have a public hearing on it.
Mr. Stenhouse. I would be very happy to do that.
Mr. Velde. Let me say this, Mr. Chairman: I am disappointed at the witness’ lack of memory concerning his early Communist associations and his inability to identify the members of the group with which he associated. However, I do feel that the information the witness possesses would be valuable to this committee, and he certainly should be given an opportunity to refresh his memory on any of these aspects as much as possible.
I would suggest our staff immediately prepare, or start an investigation into the matters related here today so we might hold a future hearing to secure more valuable information than we have today. And in that connection I would suggest that the subpena to this witness be continued until some future date.
Mr. Moulder. Mr. Stenhouse, the subpena which was served upon you will remain in full force and effect until you are otherwise notified, or notified to appear here as a witness before this committee in further open session.
Mr. Stenhouse. Mr. Chairman, may I make a short statement?
Mr. Moulder. You will not be entitled to make a statement. You mean you want to ask a question?
Mr. Stenhouse. I just wanted to refer once more to this matter of remembering the names. There were not more than 5 of these meetings. They occurred in a context where I was discussing the same sort of subjects in many different groups with many different individuals with many different points of view. As I said before, I cannot remember the names of people with whom I was in daily contact at that time.
I have moved out of that part of the country. I have very few associations with it. It is entirely impossible for me to drag names out of the air.
If the committee or its staff will be able to submit names to me I will do my best to say whether or not I can remember those people.
Mr. Moulder. That is the purpose of continuing in force and effect your subpena. And you are now temporarily excused as a witness.
(Whereupon the witness was temporarily excused.)
Mr. Moulder. Call the next witness, Mr. Tavenner.
Mr. Tavenner. Mr. Dennett.
Mr. Moulder. The name of the witness?
Mr. Tavenner. Mr. Dennett.