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From David Hunter re: Communist Speakers on State Property. 4 pages. [Memo], 9/20/1962
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From David Hunter re: Communist Speakers on State Property. 4 pages. [Memo], 9/20/1962
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Richard Nixon Presidential Library
White House Special Files Collection
Folder List
Box Number Folder Number Document Date Document Type
Document Description
60
13
09/20/1962
Memo
From David Hunter re: Communist Speakers
on State Property. 4 pages.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Page 1 of 1
September 20, 1962
Memorandum from David Hunter
Subject: Communist Speakers on State Property.
On September 19, 1962, Governor Edmund G. Brown made the following
statement during the course of his address to the State Bar Convention
in Los Angeles:
"I don't believe we should permit any subversives
to speak on our campuses. I don't see any reason
why we should give them a platform from which to
spread their poison.'
On March 21, 1961, at his press conference, Brown was asked his views
concerning some callers of that morning who were protesting the
scheduled appearance on the Berkeley campus of U.C. of Frank Wilkinson,
who had been identified under oath as a member of the Communist Party.
In reply to the question, Brown said:
"Well, my view of Mr. Wilkinson and anybody of that
nature is that he should be permitted to speak. In
the event he violates the law after what he says,
why, there are plenty of laws to take care of the
situation. But I believe in letting people speak
in connection with these things I don't believe
in prior censorship of the press, the movies, or
speakers
They had that picture, 'Operation Abolition',
on the campus last week. Now, we have Mr. Wilkinson
on the other side. We give these people -- I think we
pay too much attention to them."
On September 19, 1962, Edmund G. Brown further stated at the meeting
of the State Bar Association:
"There hasn't been a Communist speaker on a university
campus in the four years I have been Governor."
On May 16, 1960, Archie Brown spoke in Griffith Hall on the Berkeley
campus of the University of California.
Archie Brown is District Committee Chairman of the
Communist Party in charge of trade union matters.
He has been identified in the California Senate
Fact Finding Subcommittee on Unamerican Activities
as follows:
1948 Report, page 213: A co-secretary of the Labor
Commission (of the Communist Party.)
-1-
1951 Report, Page 24: On May 8 and 9, 1947,
he was a delegate to the First National
Encampment of the Communist Veterans of World
War II in Washington, D.C., and at that time
he was also Trade Union Director.
On February 22, 1961, Anne Braden addressed a noon meeting in
Dwinelle Hall on the Berkeley campus of the University of
California.
In sworn testimony on October 28 and 29, 1957,
before the U. S. Senate Internal Security
Subcommittee of the Committee of the Judiciary,
both Anne Braden and Carl Braden were identi-
fied as functionaries in the Communist Party
and responsible for the recruitment of Mrs.
Alberta Ahearn into the Communist Party. Mrs.
Ahearn was actually an under-cover FBI inform-
ant who made the sworn statement which was
published on pages 36 and 37 in the Subcommittee
document "Communism in the South".
Harry Bridges, on March 17, 1960, spoke at a noon rally in Wheeler
Hall, University of California, Berkeley campus.
On December 14, 1960, Dr. Holland Roberts spoke at noon in Wheeler
Hall.
Dr. Roberts was the School Administrator of the
California Labor School, a Communist front
organization. The Los Angeles Times on January
22, 1956, reported that Ernestine Gatewood, a
self-acknowledged Communist Party member, testi-
fied before the U. S. Subversive Activities
Control Board and identified Dr. Roberts as a
Communist. She said further that Party confer-
ences were held in the California Labor School
by Dr. Roberts. The California Senate Investi-
gating Committee on Education devoted 19 pages
of its 1959 report to his various Communist
front activities.
On March 22, 1961, Frank Wilkinson spoke in the Wheeler Hall
auditorium, U. C. Berkeley campus.
-2-
Frank Wilkinson has been identified as a
member of the Communist Party by Anita
Bell Schneider on December 7, 1956.
In July, 1948, Wilkinson appeared before
the House Committee on Unamerican
Activities and refused to answer any
questions asked by the committee.
Mr. Wilkinson was cited for contempt.
(See Page 85, House Committee on
Unamerican Activities Report 1960.)
Frank Wilkinson is identified in the 1960
Report of the House Committee on Unamerican
Activities on Page 85 as "one of the top
Communist agents assigned to the 'Operation
Abolition' campaign. "
In September, 1952, the Los Angeles City
Housing Authority (for which Frank Wilkinson
worked as information officer) authorized
its Executive Director, Howard L. Holtzendorff,
to write to Senator Hugh M. Burns, Committee
Chairman of the California Senate Fact Finding
Committee on Unamerican Activities:
"This will confirm our long distance telephone
conversation of Wednesday, September 3, 1952,
wherein this agency officially requested that
your honorable committee investigate the
public charges recently made concerning the
alleged affiliation of Mr. Frank Wilkinson,
an employee of the Housing Authority, with
the Communist Party.
"I am enclosing a copy of a letter of even date
to Honorable Edmund G. Brown, Attorney General,
wherein official request was made of that office
for an investigation of the same charges as they
relate to a possible violation of the Oath of
Allegiance which this employee executed pursuant
to chapter 8, division 4, title 1 of the Govern-
ment Code of the State of California."
-3-
The California Senate Fact Finding Committee in 1953 published
the following conclusion on Frank Wilkinson after extensive
investigation:
Page 128. "Wilkinson's Communist affiliations
apparently began when he was a student at
U. C. L. A. and continued thereafter until he
moved progressively from one Communist unit to
another. As his Party contacts broadened,
he came into contact with Los Angeles function-
aries who saw in him an idealist who could be
extremely useful as a contact with influential
non-Communist persons in Southern California and
also as an active recruiter in the housing
authority. 11
Wilkinson was later identified as a member of the
Communist Party and served a term in Federal
prison for contempt of Congress.
On February 16, 1962, Frank Wilkinson again
appeared on the University of California campus
at Berkeley, this time in a room of Wheeler Hall.
On October 10, 1960, John Howard Lawson spoke at Dwinelle Hall,
University of California at Berkeley, at 4:15 PM. He is one of
the renowned "Hollywood 10".
He is identified by the 1949 California Senate
Unamerican Activities Report as "a bona fide,
iron-disciplined Communist Revolutionary".
On November 23, 1960, John Howard Lawson appeared
on the U. C. L. A. campus under the sponsorship
of the American Civil Liberties Union to "tell
his story".
On May 1, 1961, Frank Pestana appeared in
Wheeler auditorium in U.C., Berkeley, at a
noon rally. Pestana is identified by the
California Senate Unamerican Activities
Report as being an attorney who formerly
practiced in Alameda County, where he was
connected with the professional branch of
the Communist Party in that county.
-4-