Senator Cooper. Some of these activities are certainly activities carried on by political parties. But did it ever occur to you that some of the activities which you planned, in fact which you undertook, such as infiltration into an organization, to try to seize control of it, and these methods that you used—do you consider that as in the regular spirit of our system of government?
Mr. Weissman. I would say this, sir.
Senator Cooper. Democratic system you spoke of?
Mr. Weissman. It was a question of doing something like that, or absolutely nothing at all, never getting off the ground. And while my belief would say no, of course not, this is not the way you do it, this is not the way it should be done, but it was expedient at the time to do this. And plus the fact that you certainly could not make these organizations any worse than they were. And as far as I felt, if we could bring them around to our way of thinking or my way of thinking, we could have brought them around to where they were more beneficial to the country rather than detrimental.
Senator Cooper. That is all I want to ask.
The Chairman. I noticed on the list that you had there of techniques was hangings. Now, you said—you added to that, I think, that that meant hanging in effigy, you assumed. Is that right?
Mr. Weissman. I am 100 percent sure, Your Honor, that that is what it meant. In other words, this was just ways to attract attention, and the college students are doing it all the time. It was just sort of tossing it all in a pot and then putting it down on paper.
The Chairman. Is that not provocative to violence?
Mr. Weissman. No; I think in the context that we meant it, that it was just another way of getting possibly some publicity—like if students in a university do not like their professor, for example, or if they win a football game, they will hang the opposing team in effigy, or the captain, or what have you. And it attracts a certain amount of publicity and talk.
We had to gain recognition in order to accomplish some of the goals that I had stated previously. And this is just another way. In this case, you have to consider us as young men, and effigy hanging, you know, is just part of a young idea.