Communist activities in the peace movement (Women Strike for ...

2188 COMMUNIST ACTIVITIES IN THE PEACE MOVEMENT
organization of which, from pubhshed reports, you are the recognized
leader. These hearings have also been particularly directed to the
Metropolitan New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut section of
Women Strike for Peace movement.
The committee has no evidence of Communist Party membership,
or activity in support of front groups or of pro-Commimist sympathies
on your part, and this we wish to emphasize.
However, several of the witnesses who have already been heard by
the committee and who have occupied leadership positions in the
New York section of this movement have refused to divulge certain
pertinent information about their organization, its formation, its
leadership, and its activities.
The committee believes that you, as a leader of the movement and
as a patriotic American citizen, will cooperate in this inquiry. I
wish to make it clear that the committee is not interested in your
beliefs or opinions and will not make inquiry into them. It is concerned
only with factual information relative to the subject under
inquiry.
With that introductory statement, would you please state the date
and place of your birth?
As to the date of your birth, you may simply state that you are
over 21 years of age, if you wish.
Mrs. Wilson. Thank you. I don't mind telling you. I was born
in 1916 in New York City.
Mr. NiTTLE. Would you relate the extent of your formal education?
Mrs. Wilson. Yes. I completed high school in London in 1934
and in the autumn of that year I went to the Slate School, which is
the Art Department of London University. There I spent 4 years.
Mr. NiTTLE. Are you the leader or coordinator of a movement
known as Women Strike for Peace, which has its headquarters at
1822 Massachusetts Avenue, NW., Washington 6, D.C.?
Mrs. Wilson. It is rather a hard question to answer. People like
to call me leader. I regard it as more a term of endearment or, shall
we say, an honorary title. I think I can best qualify it in this wa}'.
It was as a result of my initiative that this grassroots movement
sprang into bemg.
Mr. NiTTLE. The New York Times of November 22, 1961, quoted
you as follows: "I think it's about tune I stop being head of this. We
have many excellent volunteers. I just happened to be the starter."
Apparently at one time you did refer to yourself as being the head
of Women Strike for Peace?
Mrs. Wilson. I think we were all kind of groping for what to call
me, largely because the press wanted an answer to this, and I have been
given various titles such as coordinator, leader. We knew I wasn't
the president. We didn't have an organization.
But I think I better just assume the honorary title, although I
have no special function. We are really all leaders, you Imow.
Mr. NiTTLE. And I am judgmg by what you say that the New
York group would be under its own steam and the leaders of that
group would not be controlled by you as the "head" of the national
movement. Is that right?
Mrs. Wilson. Well, nobody is controlled by anybody in the Women
Strike for Peace. We do have, however, communication with each
other constantly, and I can explain how we do that later if you would
like me to.