This is an incredible find. I was actually looking for information on Ambassador Jessup's testimony to the Tydings Commitee and I stumbled on the 1953 transcript of George Seldes' testimony to McCarthy's Senate hearing. This was actually released to the public in 2003. Seldes was told he was "cleared" (although he wasn't really charged) and if you watch Part Three of "George Seldes and the American Press", he mentions an amusing story of his encounter with McCarthy after he was "cleared."
TESTIMONY OF GEORGE SELDES
[Senator Stuart Symington, Acting Chairman]
Senator Symington. Will you raise your right hand, please?
Do you solemnly swear the testimony you are about to give shall
be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so
help you God?
Mr. Seldes. I do.
Mr. Cohn. Give us your full name?
Mr. Seldes. George H. Seldes. S-e-l-d-e-s.
Mr. Cohn. Mr. Seldes, are you the author of various books?
Fourteen or fifteen. Let me read you the names of some of them
that the State Department is using in Overseas Information
Centers. Facts and Fascism, Freedom of the Press, Lords of the
Press, People Don't Know.\37\
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\37\ George Seldes, Facts and Fascism (New York: In Fact, Inc.,
1943); Freedom of the Press (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1935); Lords
of the Press (New York: J. Messner, 1938); People Don't Know (New York:
Gaer Associates, 1949).
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Mr. Seldes. Yes.
Mr. Cohn. Are you a member of the Communist party?
Mr. Seldes. No.
Mr. Cohn. Have you ever been a member of the Communist
party?
Mr. Seldes. No.
Mr. Cohn. That is very interesting.
Mr. Seldes. Who said I was?
Mr. Cohn. Who said you were? Has it ever been brought to
your attention that anybody said you were?
Mr. Seldes. Yes, [space blank] wrote a piece saying I was a
``Stalinite'' and smearing me in other ways. I got very angry
and went to a lawyer. He said it would cost me $5,000 to clear
this up, so I didn't do anything about it.
Mr. Cohn. Has Professor Budenz ever said anything about it?
Mr. Seldes. I don't know anything about him except an
article written in some magazine, probably by Wechsler or
Eugene Lyons, either Plain Talk or American Mercury magazine.
My files are locked up. He is quoted in one of these articles
against me.
Mr. Cohn. What did he say?
Mr. Seldes. I can only trust my memory. I think he said
once at a meeting of some Communists at their headquarters they
said they would like to have me editor of the Daily Worker or
some paper--as editor of something.
Mr. Cohn. Professor Budenz said you were under Communist
discipline, did he not?
Mr. Seldes. I never read that line, and I deny it.
Mr. Cohn. Do you know any Communist party members?
Mr. Seldes. Well, look, do I know them or--Well, look for
instance--I want to tell you this frankly.
Senator Symington. When you talk, talk a little slower and
remember it is being taken down and she will have to read it.
Mr. Seldes. I have ulcers and am sort of the nervous type.
I started a weekly newsletter with another man. His name on
the letterhead was Bruce Minton. I swear I had no idea he was a
Communist. He was expelled from the Communist party, I think,
1945. Before that I want to say, after I started this
newsletter, I said, ``We will run news in this which is not in
the newspapers.'' That was my only purpose in running it.
I forgot--if I know any Communists? I know Bruce Minton.
Mr. Cohn. One you can name is Bruce Minton?
Mr. Seldes. Yes, I want to say how I happened to know that.
I didn't know it until he had left my publication and was
thrown out of the party.
Mr. Cohn. Your answer is that you know now that Bruce
Minton was a Communist, but you didn't know it at the time he
worked for your publication?
Mr. Seldes. No, I didn't know it.
Dr. Matthews. He was your associate editor, was he not?
Mr. Seldes. I think he was listed as associate. We were
actually partners.
Dr. Matthews. What is his real name?
Mr. Seldes. Richard Bransten.
Mr. Cohn. Mr. Chairman, I would like to insert in the
record from the report of the House Committee on Un-American
Activities, 78th Congress, 2nd Session, the following quoted
finding of the committee:
George Seldes has a record of subservience to the Communist
party, which is unsurpassed by any other subversive agent in
this Country.
Is that the first you have heard of that?
Mr. Seldes. I got the Congressional Record. Senator Murray
sent it to me for ten years.
Mr. Cohn. Mr. Seldes, I think we will get along better if
you answer the questions. We are not interested in whether you
got the Congressional Record.
Mr. Seldes. I don't want to be antagonistic, but I have to
defend myself.
Mr. Cohn. I want to know whether this quotation was ever
brought to your attention or was my reading it the first you
ever knew about it? It is the finding of the House Un-American
Activities Committee, published in the Congressional Record and
elsewhere.
Mr. Seldes. I can't say positively because there was a
congressman who made a statement which I did read in the
Congressional Record. That I have seen. Congressman Hoffman. It
is either this or a similar statement.
Mr. Cohn. Do you agree with that statement?
Mr. Seldes. It is not true.
Mr. Cohn. Did you ever belong to the Communist cell in
Connecticut?
Mr. Seldes. Positively not.
Mr. Cohn. Have you ever attended Communist meetings in
Connecticut?
Mr. Seldes. No, sir. I have not.
Mr. Cohn. If someone said you were there, that person is
lying?
Mr. Seldes. Yes.
Mr. Cohn. Have you ever had any connection with the
following organization: American Committee for Democratic and
Intellectual Freedom?
Mr. Seldes. I don't know the names of them. My name was put
down twenty, thirty, or forty times. Some of them I have had
nothing to do with.
Senator Symington. Did you know you were a member of this
committee?
Mr. Seldes. Once in a while I would get a letterhead with
my name on something. Sometimes I would see a list. I never
gave them permission to use my name. I found that my name was
used by different committees.
Mr. Cohn. Were you editor of In Fact?
Mr. Seldes. I was.
Mr. Cohn. Did you know that was found to be a Communist
publication?
Mr. Seldes. Not according to my statement from the
Department of Justice.
[The witness handed Mr. Cohn a letter.]
Mr. Cohn. This is the Department of Justice's statement. It
was found by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. I
am asking you, Mr. Seldes, whether or not the House Committee
made an official finding that In Fact was a Communist
publication?
Mr. Seldes. That I am not aware of.
Mr. Cohn. Now, Mr. Seldes, I want to go to some of your
writings. Did you write this? I quote. This is from People
Don't Know, published in 1949, New York.
The entire world has moved to the Left-part Socialist, part
Communist, part just Left. The Right, all the way from
conservative to fascist, has been defeated almost everywhere.
The status quo and reactionary countries, such as Italy and
France, Portugal and Greece, are merely held to the Right by
American money and pressure, will go Leftward when these forces
diminish or cease.
Mr. Seldes. I wrote that probably. I don't have the book
before me.
Senator Symington. You felt that way?
Mr. Seldes. I felt that way after my trip to Europe in
1948.
Senator Symington. You felt if we didn't continue supplying
money, they would continue to go farther to the left?
Mr. Seldes. My feeling was that we should supply them.
Senator Symington. I think you may be right.
Mr. Cohn. Did you write in a book entitled Facts and
Fascism:
There is probably no greater example of mass misguidance in
American history since World War I and the present Global war
than the history of the million men of the American Legion and
its handful of misleaders.
Mr. Seldes. Yes, I probably wrote that.
Senator Symington. Why did you say that?
Mr. Seldes. Because for many years the American Civil
Liberties Union has listed the American Legion as the leading
force against liberalism and civil rights in America.
Mr. Cohn. Have you expressed any similar views about the
Catholic Church?
Mr. Seldes. I have never attacked the Catholic Church.
Mr. Cohn. Who in the Legion were you referring to? Give us
a couple of names?
Mr. Seldes. I can't remember them. I knew General Smedley
Butler very well. He discovered a group that was going to throw
out President Roosevelt and establish a Fascism dictatorship.
General Butler gave this evidence before a congressional
committee. I forget the name of the committee. There was some
big people from the Legion in this. I have a chapter on this in
one of my books.
Mr. Cohn. Did you state on Page 12:
The real Fascists of America are never named in the
commercial press. It will not even hint at the fact that there
are many powerful elements working against a greater democracy,
against an America without discrimination, etc. and many more
millions working for semi-starvation wages while the Du Pont,
Ford, Hearst, Mellon and Rockefeller Empires move into the
billions of dollars. I call all these elements Fascist.
Mr. Seldes. If it is in that book, I wrote it.
Mr. Cohn. Do you consider these appropriate works, giving a
true picture of the American-way-of-life fighting communism?
Mr. Seldes. I will answer that this way. I represented a
certain view of life and think this ought to begin with other
views. I am anti-Communist.
Senator Symington. When was this particular book written?
Mr. Seldes. 1943.
Senator Symington. In 1943 the Soviets were our allies. Do
you feel differently now?
Mr. Seldes. Positively.
Senator Symington. Are you writing any more of this kind of
stuff?
Mr. Seldes. I have written stuff of a completely opposite
nature. May I explain that more fully? May I volunteer some
information?
Mr. Cohn. Go ahead.
Mr. Seldes. I was thrown out of Russia in 1923. When I
worked for the Chicago Tribune--I worked for them for ten
years--I accused the Russians of force and violence, of the end
justifies the means, of terrorism, denial of civil liberties,
and I smuggled out some news they didn't like, which was true,
and was thrown out of Russia. I conducted a campaign against
Moscow--against Russia for many years.
In 1936 I was sent by the New York Post to cover the war in
Spain, and the war in Spain, I found only two countries
helping--the Republic of Mexico and Russia, and because of
that--and I thought the war of Spain was justified, the war
against Mussolini and Hitler. The only troops were Italian and
German. I felt sympathetic in their helping to save the Spanish
Republic, although they didn't succeed in doing it. Well, I was
sympathetic for that reason, although I objected to their
methods, which never changed. Later on we were in the war.
Well, then Russia was our ally. After the war was over I found
that the Moscow methods were even worse than ever before and I
began writing a series of articles against Moscow. The result
was that many of my readers, whom I realize must have been
Communists, canceled subscriptions. My magazine was thrown out
of the Prague bookshops, I suppose you have heard of them, and
actually it was to some part due to this Communist attack on
the publication that we, had to suspend--that we went under.
Mr. Cohn. We have this 1949 writing of yours which I read
to you before, ``The entire world has moved to the Left-part
Socialist, part Communist, . . .'' Let me go on.
The status quo and reactionary countries, such as Italy and
France, Portugal and Greece, are merely held to the Right by
American money and pressure, will go Leftward when these forces
diminish or cease. Nothing is more important in history than
this Leftward trend of the world. Etc.
Right above this you say people in this country don't
understand Russia. It is misrepresented, lots of bad things
said which are inaccurate, and so on.
Mr. Seldes. I say that about Russia? I'd like to see that.
I was very anti-Russian when I wrote that.
Mr. Cohn. How about this:
This volume and this author agree with Dr. George T.
Robinson who said that ``Never did so many know so little about
so much.''
Then you quote Dr. Robinson in making that remark as
referring to all American's misunderstanding of Russia. You go
on to say:
Curiously enough, two years later when the ``preventive
war'' crowd was riding high and William Christian (sic) Bullitt
was screaming madly for the use of the atom bomb to destroy
Russian civilians--``atomize the Russians'' was the battlecry--
and the Churchill policy of ``containment'' of ideas (as well
as nations) had become the paramount policy of the Truman
administration, a survey made by Princeton University showed
that 38,000,000 Americans of voting age ``don't know at all
what kind of government Russia has.''
The Robinson structures can be applied not only to Russia
and the Eastern nations--against which the West, and most
notably the United States has hung not an iron but a newspaper
curtain of suppression and silence--but also to China and all
of Asia; in fact to most of the world.
Do you think that is anti-Russian?
Mr. Seldes. Well, in a way, ``yes.''
Mr. Cohn. I would love to know how.
Mr. Seldes. I will tell you why. May I explain myself?
Mr. Cohn. Yes.
Mr. Seldes. I think in fighting Russia we have to be very
careful and tell exactly what the situation is there. We must
not make mistakes, say things that aren't true. If they catch a
great writer saying something about Russia which isn't true,
you lose your point.
Mr. Cohn. How do you feel about the Korean war?
Mr. Seldes. Now, I wish you could get my copies of In Fact.
It was the Korean war which was largely responsible for the
Communist sabotaging or destroying my publication. A lot of
people wrote and said, ``How do you feel about the Korean
War?'' I replied that I was running a newspaper--news that
isn't printed elsewhere--the truth. I don't express opinions
except in books. The Korean war is obviously the Communist
attack. The Communists are the aggressors and we are right.
After that I got a lot of cancellations. I was 100 percent for
the Koreans, our side of the Korean War.
Mr. Cohn. When was the last issue of In Fact published?
Mr. Seldes. October 1950.
Dr. Matthews. Have you written or published anti-Catholic
books?
Mr. Seldes. I have never written what I called anti-
Catholic books. One of my books was the choice of the Catholic
Book of the Month Club. \38\
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\38\ George Seldes, The Vatican: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (New
York: Harper & Brothers, 1934).
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Dr. Matthews. Was it on the Catholic Church?
Mr. Seldes. Yes, sir.
