Mr. Tavenner. Why present that as a reason?
Mr. O’Connell. I wanted to tell you how I knew Mr. Stone and how I happened to know him. He, of course, was a Montanan, and I knew him that way, and I knew him when I was in Congress. I think he was in the press gallery when I was in Congress for the Federated Press, if I remember correctly, but I certainly had no knowledge that Mr. Stone was a member of the Communist Party and have no such knowledge, even at this moment.
Mr. Tavenner. Mr. Chairman, I think the record should show at this point Mrs. Mary Stalcup Markward at the instance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation entered the Communist Party in the city of Washington and served there in an undercover capacity and by reason of her diligence in her work she was elevated finally to the position of treasurer of the Communist Party for the District of Columbia.
She appeared before this committee and testified and among other things identified members of the newspaper club of the Communist Party in the District of Columbia. Of those persons identified as members of that club she named John B. Stone, and when asked to give the committee her knowledge of his activities stated that he had been active within the National Committee To Defeat the Mundt Bill, and stated that, “I know Rob Hall suggested him for membership due to his activity with the Progressive Party.”
Was Mr. Stone active in the Progressive Party in Montana, when you knew him there?
Mr. O’Connell. Of course the Progressive Party—Mr. Stone was in Montana in the late twenties and early thirties and so on, when he might have been identified with the old Progressive Party of Bob La Follette and Senator Wheeler.
Mr. Tavenner. Was he active in the Progressive Party in the District of Columbia?
Mr. Scherer. I want to ask the witness the same questions I did about Silberstein. When did you last see Stone?
Mr. O’Connell. I think the last time I saw Stone was in 1948.
Mr. Scherer. Where was that?