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

2054 COIMMUNIST ACTIVITIES IN THE PEACE MOVEMENT
Mrs. Freed declined, under the fifth amendment, to affirm or deny
committee information that she had been a member of the Communist
Party Carpet Shop Branch of Yonkers, N.Y., and that meetings of
that branch had been held in her home in 1954. She claimed constitutional
privilege in declining to affirm or deny committee information
that she had attended a Westchester County convention of the
Communist Party in January 1957. She also invoked the fifth amendment
when asked if she was currently a member of the Communist
Party.
Another witness who appeared at the committee's public hearings
on December 12 was Mrs. Anna Mackenzie of Westport, Conn., a
graduate of Vassar College.
Mrs. Mackenzie testified that she was proud to have worked in the
Women Strike for Peace movement but insisted that the WSP was
not "an organization" and that she was therefore not a "member" of it.
The committee's investigation had disclosed that this witness had
been in charge of publicity for the sendoff demonstration for the
Women Strike for Peace delegation to the April 1962, 17-nation disarmament
convention at Geneva. Mrs. Mackenzie claimed all constitutional
privileges, excluding the self-incrimination clause of the
fifth amendment, in refusing to say whether she had written or disseminated
three items of WSP publicity which were entered into the
record of the hearings.
The witness repeatedly said that she was excluding the self-incrimination
clause of the fifth amendment, while claiming other constitutional
protections as her basis for not answering questions about her
role in WSP publicity.
Mrs. Mackenzie was confronted with information regarding her
Communist Party membership during the 1940's, but continued to
exclude the self-incrimination clause of the fifth amendment and
refused to state whether she had ever been, or was currently, a member
of the Communist Party.
Miss Elizabeth Moos of New York City, holder of an A.B. degree
from Smith College and an M.A. degree from Columbia University,
also appeared before the committee during its public hearings on
December 12. She testified that she had attended meetings of the
Metropolitan branch of the Women's International League for Peace
and Freedom, but denied that she had been a leader of the group.
She acknowledged that she had been director of the Peace Information
Center for a brief period when it existed 12 years earlier. This
organization was officially cited by this committee in 1951 as having
been under the directorship of "Elizabeth Moos, an identified Communist,"
and by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee in 1956 as a
Communist front. It had assumed as its principal task the circulation
of the World Peace Appeal, also known as the Stockholm Peace Appeal,
which was issued in March 1950 by the Communist-controUed
Permanent Committee of the World Peace Congress at a meeting in
Stockholm, Sweden, just 3 months before the Communist attack on
South Korea.
Miss Moos admitted having attended the World Peace Congress
held in Paris in April 1949 and cited as Communist by this committee
in 1949 and by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee in 1956.
The committee counsel cited the fact that, as a result of the World
Peace Congress of April 1949, a gathering known as the American