REDS IN U.S. AIM TO DESTROY REPUBLIC, SAYS EX-LEADER

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22707, 4 August 1948, Page 7

REDS IN U.S. AIM TO DESTROY REPUBLIC, SAYS EX-LEADER

(10 a.m.) WASHINGTON, August 3. The Communist Party of America was the “fifth column of Soviet Russia,” committed to the destruction of the American Republic, said Louis Budenz, an American ex-Communist leader, yesterday.

Budenz, who renounced communism in 1945 to become a Roman Catholic, told the Senate committee which is in vestigating subversive influences in the United States Government that the Communists Party’s status was proved by three factors, 1. The party had never found any defect in the Russian policy and its leaders had to do what the Kremlin ordered at any specific moment. 2. The party for years had received direct subsidies from Moscow in the form of news. 3. Eighty to ninety per cent, of the party's leaders had been trained in Moscow.

Budenz, who is now a professor al Fordham University, New York, told Senators that ihe Communist Party operations were financed partly by dues and gifts from wealthy persons. He added that “there was a very big take from Hollywood." The Communists were also receiving funds from abroad. Leader of Secret Soviet Commission Budenz replied, “that's right” when asked if the avowed purpose of the Communist Party was the overthrow of the United States Government by force. Budenz named the late Jacob Golos as the former head of the highly secret Communist Party Control Commission in the United States —an agency which, Budenz said, was used to discipline party members and keep them in line. Budenz said that Golos was the chief contact! with the party for Elizabeth Bentley who has (testified that she got military secrets from Government officials and workers which were channelled to Moscow. Budenz estimated that possibly thousands of Communists had filtered into Federal employment. In the past he said that several score had held jobs he considered fairly lm portant while, “there have been several hundred in relatively important places," he said. In addition, the parly operated an “underground lobby” in Washington, vigorously attempting to influence Government policy. Budenz, who said he had to leave Washington that day, told reporters he was going out of the country on a confidential mission for the Government. He declined to elaborate.