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On August 18, 1955, Pete Seeger was a witness before the house Committee on Un-American Activities. Time and time again, Seeger defiantly refused to answer tions concerning his past or present membership in the Communist Pariy. He also declined to answer any questions concerning his affiliations with numerous Communist-front organizations. He did not invoke the Fifth Amendment; he simply and contemptuously re. fused to answer pertinent questions. He was accom. panied by Paul L. Ross as counsel. Ross has also been prominent in Communist activity for many years. (See pages 2448-2460 of the Hearings, 1955.) Among his many Communist connections, Pete Seeger has been publicly affiliated with the following Commun. ist Organizations and enterprises which are on the At- torney General’s list: American Committee for Pro- tection of Foreign Born; American Committee for Yugoslav Relief; American Youth Congress; American ... +. 34: Democracy; Civil Rights Congress; Com- mittee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy; Committee for the Negro in the Arts; Communist Party; Council on African Affairs; Jefferson School of Social Science; National Council of the Arts, Sciences and Professions; Nature Friends of America; New Masses; Voice of Freedom Committee; and Win-the-Peace Conference. Seeger entertained with his guitar and folk songs ai a. saigttiauder Folk School seminar. ‘rhe Ro Thompson The Rev. John B. Thompson was billed as seminar “noe at the Highlander Folk School Labor Day weesend affair. Thompson is dean of the Rockefeller “femoral Chapel at the University of Chicago. its Cergymen have better claims to qualification as ..1 Communist fellow travelers than John B. Froowpaon. He bas served the Communist apparatus Jong and faithfully in many capacities. it. /npson was national chairman of the American Pence Mobilization (Daily Worker, Sept. 3, 1940, p. 4) and uaional chairman of the Committee to Defend America by Keeping Out of War (letterhead, Aug. 10, 1940). These were organizations set up by the Com- niinisis Guring the period of the Stalin-Hitler Pact. On “i veo. toy that Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, the Amerncan Peace Mobilization dropped its anti-war and und chanped its name to the American People’s ‘ol+ on with Joho B. Thompson still at its head. crany before a committee set up by the Illinois ‘- }. uclatnre in 1949, John B. Thompson tried to sat tat Lhe American Peace Mobilization was merely a refiection of the general anti-war sentiment prevailing “che Laited States in 1939, 1940, and 1941. Such a cis acs. auther dishonest or incredibly stupid. The bona fJe anti-war sentiment of the American people pre- vactd sight up until the day of Pearl Harbor. The ony anti-war stand of the APM and the Communists prevailed right up until June 22, 1941, when Hitler at- iscked the Soviet Union. The bona fide American peace advocates Were ready to go to war only when the Loited States was attacked; the phony APM and Com- munist Peace advocates were ready and eager to go to war when their beloved Soviet Union was attacked. The former were America Firsters; the latter were Rus- sia Firsters. — Ten weeks before Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, the APM, under Thompson’s chairmanship, de- clared: “This is not a war to wipe out the evils of Hitlerism and tyranny ... It is a war to line the kets of corporate interests at the expense of the ples of the World.” In one of its official statements in March, 1941, the APM said: “An English victory will result in the same sort of imperialist, anti-democratic peace as will a Nazi victory.” From 1940 to 1942, John B. Thompson was head of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare, a Com- munist organization which will be discussed later. Among the many other Communist organizations with which Thompson has been affiliated, the following are on the Attorney General's list: American Committee for Protection of Foreign Born; International Labor Defense; Emergency Peace Mobilization; National Council of American-Soviet Friendship; National Coun- cil of the Arts, Sciences and Professions; and People’s Institute of Applied Religion. Aubrey Williams Aubrey Williams and the Rev. Martin Luther King were the two featured speakers at the closing session of the Highlander Folk School seminar. As president of the highly influential Southern Con- ference Educational Fund, Aubrey Williams ranks among top leaders of all-out integration. Williams was director of the National Youth Admin- istration under President Roosevelt. He also held other high positions in the New Deal. In 1945, however, the U. S. Senate rejected his appointment as administrator of the Rural Electrification Administration, after his affiliations with the Communist apparatus had been placed in the record. He is at present editor and pub- lisher of the Southern Farm and Home, Montgomery, Alabama, which has a circulation of 800,000. On March 19, 1954, Williams was subpoenaed to testify before the Senate Internal Security Subcommit- lee. In the course of his examination by committee counsel Richard Arens, Williams testified that the fol- lowing passage was a part of a speech which he had delivered in Madison Square Garden, New York City, on September 11, 1947, under the auspices of the Com- munist-comtrolled Progressive Citizens of America: 23 ec TEC. reir Tone tate Pee aeeoe n Sg ‘