COMMUNISTS IN U.S. CHURCHES

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27011, 10 April 1953, Page 9

COMMUNISTS IN U.S. CHURCHES

CAUTION ON EVIDENCE OF F. 8.1. AGENT (Rec. 7 p.m.) WASHINGTON, April 8. Senate investigators spoke somewhat warily today of how far they intended to go in following up the sworn testimony of Herbert A. Philbrick, a former counter-spy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in which he claimed that five Boston ministers of religion were members of a communist cell. The chairman of the sub-committee which heard the evidence (Senator William Jehner) said that the subcommittee had made no decision on the extent, if any, to which its inquiry into communist influences in education would branch out to encompass the clergy. Senator Jenner said that before the sub-committee made public the names of ministers supplied by Philbrick in a secret session, it would check all the evidence it could obtain and question such persons in secret to find out what they had to say about his testimony. He said it was possible that the sub-committee would, at some future date, go to Boston for a hearing about the communist underground cell described by Philbrick. Senator R. C. Hendrickson said he felt the sub-committee should check further on Philbrick’s testimony, and if the communist connexions of the five ministers could be established they should be publicly named in fairness to other ministers in Boston.