U.S. INQUIRY INTO ALLEGATIONS OF DISLOYALTY

Wanganui Chronicle, 29 April 1950, Page 5

U.S. INQUIRY INTO ALLEGATIONS OF DISLOYALTY

WASHINGTON, April 27 (Recd 6 pm).—Mr. Earl Browder, deposed leader of the American Communist party, denied today that he had officially told Mr. Louis Budenz. that Professor Owen Lattimore was a Communist. Browder, who was testifying before a Senate sub-committee, said he knew of no Communists in the State Department. Budenz, a former editor of the

“Daily Worker,” who renounced Communism several years ago, told the sub-committee last week that Browder and other members of the Communist party had informed him that Lattimore was a member of a Communist cell in the American Institute for Pacific Relations. Browder said today he never had any contact with Lattimore. He declared that the Communists never considered It was practicable to use the institute to promote the party lines. Browder, who was deposed from the leadership of the Communist party in 1946, denied several other points of Budenz’s evidence, and said he knew Lattimore by reputation as “a person of anti-Ccmmunist views of a very profound character.” Browder told the sub-committe he had assumed that Frederick Vanderbilt field was a Communist, but had no definite knowledge that he was. Budenz has described Field, a former member of the Institute for Pacific Relations, as a man who carried Communist party instructions to Lattimore.

Senator Joseph McCarthy stated in the Senate today that Budenz had told a closed session of the Senate subcommittee investigating allegations of disloyalty in the State Department, that Haldore Hanson, a State Department official, was an active Communist. Senator McCarthy demanded Hanson’s Immediate suspension from duty. Hanson is engaged in planning work for President Truman’s programme of aid to backward countries.

Senator O’Brien McMahon, Democrat, Connecticut, a member of the sub-commiltee, later told the Senate, on behalf of all members of the subcommittee, that Senator McCarthy’s version of what Budenz had said was not correct.