SUBCOMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE INTERNAL SECURITY ACT AND OTHER INTERNAL SECURITY LAWS

98381

TO THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE

EIGHTY-FIFTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

FOR THE YEAR 1957

SECTION V

DECEMBER 31, 1957

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary

UNITED STATES

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON: 1958

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

JAMES O. EASTLAND, Mississippi, Chairman

SUBCOMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE INTERNAL SECURITY ACT AND OTHER INTERNAL SECURITY LAWS

JAMES O. EASTLAND, Mississippi, Chairman

J. G. SOURWINE, Counsel
BENJAMIN MANDEL, Director of Research

SECTION V

COMMUNIST TARGET-AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES

A well-known American university president has said that the university is the fortress of western civilization. The recent advances by the Soviet Union threatening our scientific superiority make the university even more of a vital factor in the struggle of our Nation to survive. The testimony of Shigeto Tsuru and Karl H. Niebyl unfolded the story of the Communist assault on this fortress, its techniques, its instruments, its personnel, and its effectiveness.

Shigeto Tsuru testified on March 26, 1957, at which time he was a visiting lecturer at Harvard University, invited for a period of 1 year under the auspices of the American-Japan Intellectual Interchange Committee, made possible by gifts from John D. Rockefeller III to Columbia University. Tsuru is on the permanent staff of Hitotsubashi University of Tokyo. Within the United States he has attended Lawrence College in Appleton, Wis., for 2 years, Harvard University in 1933 to 1942, where he received the degrees of bachelor of arts, master of arts and doctor of philosophy. He attended summer sessions at the University of Wisconsin and occasional lectures at the University of Chicago.12 In 1946-47, he served as an economist in SCAP in Japan. When questioned about his connections with the Communist Party, Tsuru admitted "I acted like a Communist, I spoke and wrote like a Communist. But *** I never was a member, either of the Young Communist League or the Communist Party (p. 3692). He further affirmed, "I had associations with persons who were known to me as either members of the Communist Party, or at least pretty close to the Communist Party ***" (p. 3696). He declared that his present beliefs are in the direction of "democratic socialism" and "challenge" toward "Communist doctrines."

Karl H. Niebyl received an intensive education abroad including the Institute of Technology in Hanover, Germany, the University of Paris, the University of Frankfurt, Germany, and the London School of Economics. His influence has extended to a significant number of American universities, colleges, and schools. He has been a fellow and research assistant at the University of Wisconsin, instructor and assistant professor of economics at Carleton College in Minnesota, professor of economics and chairman of the graduate department of Tulane University in New Orleans, professor at the University of Texas, professor at the Blackmountain College in North Carolina, professor and department chairman at Champlain College, New York State University, chairman of the department of economics and business administration at Muskingum College, Ohio, and lecturer at the New School of Social Research in New York (p. 3761). When asked

12 Scope of Soviet Activity in the United States, pt. 57, pp. 3687-3689.

whether he had been a member of the Communist Party when he held these positions, he invoked the fifth amendment in refusing to answer. The question as to his Communist Party membership when he attended the various foreign universities received the same answer. When asked whether he had taught at the Abraham Lincoln School in Chicago, as shown by its 1943 catalog, he invoked the fifth amendment. This school has been cited as a Communist school by the Attorney General. He did the same when asked whether he had attended the Chicago Workers' School. He gave the same answer to the question as to his party membership when he was adviser on monetary and fiscal policies for the Consumer Division of OPA in 1940-41 (pp. 3763, 3764). His temporary appointment to the Office of Emergency Management was terminated on September 3, 1941, because of an "unsatisfactory report of the character investigation of Mr. Niebyl." Asked about his present membership in the Communist Party, Niebyl adhered to the fifth amendment in refusing to answer (p. 3770).

Articles by Professor Niebyl have penetrated leading American economic and scholastic journals as: Journal of the Philosophy of Science, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Current Economic Issues, American Economic Review, and the Economic History Review. He has made it his business to lecture or write for such recognized groups of economists as: The Midwest Economic Association, Sixth Annual Research Conference on Economics and Statistics at Colorado Springs, July 1940, Social Science Research Council, and the Minnesota Institute of Governmental Research (p. 3769).

Through the testimony of Shigeto Tsuru and Karl H. Niebyl the mechanism for Communist infiltration of American universities was revealed. The instruments employed included a magazine called Science and Society, pro-Communist books, study groups or circles and so-called workers' schools, synchronized and supplementing each other. The details of this process were brought out in the correspondence of Tsuru, Niebyl, and others. This correspondence was identified by Tsuru as having been left behind in his apartment in Cambridge when he was repatriated to Japan in June 1942.

Tsuru's first letter in this group, dated August 31, 1936, was written from the International House in Chicago to William T. Parry, whom he addressed as "Dear Bill." Parry has been identified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities by a former Communist college professor as a member of a Communist Party cell at Harvard University. When given the opportunity to affirm or deny this testimony, Parry pleaded the fifth amendment before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, May 19, 1953. Mr. Parry, the managing editor of Science and Society, and most recently at Buffalo University, appears to have been Mr. Tsuru's Communist Party mentor. The latter appears to have been an active promoter of the magazine from its birth, probably preferring to remain in the background because of his noncitizenship status. He admitted writing for the magazine under the pseudonym, Alfred Z. Lowe. His letter develops the theme of the magazine as "an active propaganda weapon" (pp. 3691, 3693).