COMMUNISTS IN U.S. CHURCHES

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27010, 9 April 1953, Page 9

COMMUNISTS IN U.S. CHURCHES

Evidence of F. 8.1. Agent (Rec. 10 p.m.) WASHINGTON. Apl. 7. A former counter spy within the Communist Party said today that five persons he knew as steeled, disciplined members of a secret cortimunist underground in Boston were still serving there as church ministers.

Herbert Philbrick, the agent, was called into a private session of the Senate Internal Security Sub-commit-tee to give their names. Philbrick had testified in a public session that he spent nine years as a communist all the while reporting secretly to the F. 8.1. In the last two years he was in a “deeply underground” cell made up of about 70 to 80 Bostonians of culture and distinction.

There was no doubt in the minds of anyone in the cell, he said, that they were operating under the discipline of the international Communist Party, not the American party, and were elements of a Moscow-controlled conspiracy operating outside the laws of the United States. He said that as a Christian it was a terrific shock to learn there were seven or eight hardened, steeled, disciplined members posing as ministers of the Gospel. So far as he knew, they were communists before becoming ministers rather than ministers converted to communism. Of the seven or eight, he said some had disappeared, but five were still in Boston. “They still are very active today, and still are getting away with murder,” he said. “There are indications they are having more success than anybody else in the party in victimising innocent people and promoting communist activities. The Communist Party plants and places the ministers.”