Mr. Tavenner. Was the organization Communist-dominated?
Mr. Dennett. The Maritime Federation of the Pacific top leadership had at all times some prominent Communist leaders, some persons who were Communists.
Mr. Tavenner. Can you at this time give us the names of those who occupied an official position in that organization who were known to you to be members of the Communist Party?
Mr. Dennett. One of the first ones that I knew was a man by the name of Walter Stack.
Mr. Tavenner. Did Walter Stack become very prominent in the Communist Party?
Mr. Dennett. Walter Stack was in the marine firemen’s union and exercised a great deal of influence in that organization here.
Another was Ernest Fox. Ernest Fox was a patrolman in the Sailors Union of the Pacific, and he exercised a great deal of influence in the sailors union. He was one of the original ones. When Mr. Lundeberg was the first president of the organization Mr. Fox was his right hand bower who did most of the leg work for Mr. Lundeberg at that time. Lundeberg was the first president of the Maritime Federation of the Pacific.
Mr. Tavenner. At that time was he anti-Communist?
Mr. Dennett. I think, from the stories that I have been told, that Mr. Lundeberg was thought so well of at that time that he was invited to take part and did participate in some top fraction meetings of the Communist Party in the Maritime Federation. And when he turned against the Communist Party a little bit later on that incensed the Communists so much that they looked upon Mr. Lundeberg as a potential traitor who might reveal a good deal more about them than they wished to have revealed, so that they launched many attacks upon Mr. Lundeberg for the political purpose of diverting the attention from the real reason for the attack.
I do not mean to say by that that I endorsed everything Mr. Lundeberg did, because I disagreed with most of the things he did on a straight trade-union basis on a later date. But this much about that relationship I do know, and I know that—continuing the answer to your question as to the others—the next one whom I knew who also became president of the Maritime Federation of the Pacific was a man by the name of James Engstrom.