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ba te ee ee 7 4 -to be creat®d and make an acceptance speech at the Conference. - - ..- Te on AO NY 65-16659 oe are me at various times of visits to the White House and of informatica’ taint. in conversation with people high in the Government and referred:from tims . ete to time to these contacts as being important for the Communist Party.” HOWARD LEE was also closely connected with the Southern Conference for Human Welfare and on the Steering Committee for the Commund st Party. , =) fe. fof. 7 a vo ' fifa. are, SJ knew JOSEPH S. GILDERS from the mid' 1930's until I left for California in the spring of 1513, and through 1938 and untdd ao 1939 served_on the District Buro of District. 17.with : ERED, HENRY MALFIELD. GILDERS was known to me to be in ee “Party activities throughout the South among intellectuals, professionals, pe and others in leading positions. GILDERS frequently visited Washington and New York in 1938 a cle 1939 and often reported on people he had met at the home of CLISSORD-DURR and VIRGINIA FOSTER DURR in Alexandria, Virginia, «7% and, as I recall the substance of these reports, they were either formal” — ’ Party meetings or meetings of people consciously working with the Communist Oe. Party to advance its interest. “He also spoke of visits to the, White House” Sg - *Around the summer of 1938, the Communist Party Jeaderehtp aa eae decided to launch the Southern Conference for Human Welfare, and GILDERS, “ ROB HALL, and I worked out a strategic plan by which GILDERS should go to Hyde Park, New York, and spend a weekend as the guest of the President and Nrs. ROOSEVELT to put across the idea of a Conference with rs. ROCSEVELT, obtain her agreement to be the leading speaker, and to seek to obtain from the President a letter of greetings to the Conference that was projected. _ It was also planned that through VIRGINIA FOSTER DURR, he. should meet with +,°: | Justice BLACK and obtain his agreement to accept a Jefferson award: that: "was © ar one "Qn his return, GILDERS reported that he had spent the week end at Hyde Park but that both the President and Mrs. ROOSEVELT had been busy entertaining royalty from Europe. I do not now recall from what country, although that could easily be ascertained from a study of newspapers in the sumner of 1938. GILDERS stated, however, that he had obtained sufficient time with Mrs. ROOSEVELT, while the guest of her and the President, to obtain her agreement to speak, and that he had succeeded in having a brief talk with the President while the President was seated in his automobile on the grounds of Hyde Park. He stated that the President promised to write the letter that had been requested, Of course, it should be kept in mind that neither the President nor srs. ROOSEVELT suspected GILDENS of being an 4mportant Communist leader or 2ven suspected him being a Party member » T Py ye ae RR ee ee een ee ae don't recall the words he used, but GILD=RS himself sometimes referred to _ the President and Urs, ROOSEVELT having no suspicion of hin. er tye