HUAC AND THE KKK

...Charles L. Weltner, a Georgia Democrat...

...Shelton complained that the Committee's questions were "unethical and un-Christian...

...As Edwin E. Willis, the courtly and loquacious Committee chairman from Louisiana, said when the hearing was recessed: "Already, there have been positive results flowing from this investigation...

...Fear of reprisals was prevalent to such an extent in some communities, he said, that it was difficult to find witnesses willing to testify about Klan activities...

...The Federal Communications Commission has undertaken a study of the misuse of citizen band radios [Klan members use the radio units to communicate with each other and pass on intercepted police radio signals], and I am sure other agencies . . . will want to take action as a result of some of the facts developed by this Committee...

...The vision of conservative Southerners, with irreproachable credentials gained in fighting the "ism" and defending the "American way of life," taking on the recurring threat of the Klan seems to have appealed to the instinct for consensus so prevalent in Washington...

...O'Neill A. Jones, brother of City Judge A. J. Jones, is a Klansman...

...In the first half of its investigation, the Committee produced little that was new...

...Did they favor the war in Vietnam...

...Klansmen were asked how expert they really were on the Communist threat—or about Vietnam...

...Our hearings are far from completed at this point...

...For years the Klan, and other extremist groups, have relied on the Un-American Activities Committee for documentation of left-wing "subversion" in the United States...

...The question was one of a series asked of witnesses that day in the ornate hearing room with its chandeliers, marble columns, and velvet draperies...

...The tactics and the results of the hearings were reminiscent of other HUAC investigations, and so was another incident in the hearings...

...What HUAC has not explored yet, in any significant way, are the larger questions concerning the Klan—what and how it operates, and who and what condone and permit the Klan to flourish, when and how it will be brought under effective control...

...They struck back in characteristic fashion...

...Most of the real meaning of the role of the Klan in the life of the South has yet to be explored by the interrogators of the House Un-American Activities Committee...

...After the Klan began a reign of terror in Bogalusa, its members succeeded in dominating the city and forcing innocent people to do their bidding...

...Viola Liuzzo, had aroused the country, the Committee turned on some of the very people who had applauded its efforts the most...

...But once outside the hearing room, Shelton and other Klansmen spoke freely before the television cameras, and thus before the country...

...Shelton, as the first witness, invoked the protection of the Fifth Amendment—and the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth—in refusing to answer any questions on the ground his answers might incriminate him...

...Joe R. Pool, a Democrat from Dallas, Texas...

...It was a wonderful film, he said, but now...

...I tremble for the future of America and the liberty of its people," Shelton said, asking rhetorically, "Where will it all end...

...Today, or so the testimony indicates, Klansmen spurn the old methods of the whip and the tar brush and feathers in favor of more modern techniques—the karate chop, the jujitsu grip, and the home-made booby trap...

...They placed the problem of a Ku Klux Klan in a far larger perspective than did the HUAC investigation...

...And a case can be made for Southern Congressmen beginning, however tentatively, to examine publicly the problems of their region...

...Then, when the arrest of Klansmen following the murder of a civil rights worker, Mrs...

...And one witness was asked whether he had the legal authority to perform a wedding...

...and Chairman Willis...

...With firm action at the outset, the Klan would probably have been ineffective and recognized only as a small band of misguided and maliciously irresponsible men...

...Then Weltner asked the key question: "Was this terror inevitable...

...The sensation this time was different...

...What did they think about Communism...

...Irrelevant though they were, the questions typified the Congressional hearing...

...Once again, the corridors on Capitol Hill were filled with an army of newsmen, with banks of television cameras and floodlights, with Congressmen bearing prepared statements for the press, with the Negro and the Nazi (George Lincoln Rockwell put in an appearance), and with the casual and the curious who flock to the locale of the latest sensation...

...The so-called invisible empire of the Ku Klux Klan is no longer so invisible...

...That Klan leaders have misued money charged to their care is hardly a revelation, either...

...The Commission hearings were a model for their brilliant staff work, judicious questions, decorum and fairness, and penetrating analysis of complex problems...

...and bookkeeping...

...Yet they were hidden, anonymous, unidentified...

...After the hearing resumes early in January, it is expected to continue for another two months...

...Other Committee members note other achievements: the size of the Klan has been pinpointed, its leaders named, its Klaverns, or cells, identified, its organizational structure examined...

...And, astonishingly, no Negroes have been called to testify...

...The revelation of Klan links to the local power structure is an example of what has been missing from the HUAC inquiry on Capitol Hill...

...He spoke darkly of a "devilish conspiracy" to smear him and the Klan, and he suggested the press should "find out who the true manipulators are behind this movement" to investigate the KKK...

...He is the author of two books: "The Bay of Pigs" and "Dusk at the Mountain," a study of Negroes in Washington, D.C...

...Indeed, even the word "Negro" has been seldom mentioned...

...Before recessing, fifty-two witnesses had appeared throughout October and November and 1,400 pages of testimony had been compiled...

...Witnesses ranged from illiterate Negro sharecroppers to mayors, judges, and university professors...

...His next door neighbor, Dewey Smith, was a member of the Klan and in close contact with the mayor...

...Why, he and the other Klansmen had been showing the Committee's film, Operation Abolition, all over the South...

...Another fact that has been amply documented by the investigation is that Klan leaders manipulate funds collected from the membership...

...The Committee's investigation of the Klan was a vivid spectacle of one American anachronism investigating another American anachronism...

...It might be argued that the very fact that the House Un-American Activities Committee has turned its attention from alleged Communists to the Klan is a measure of new maturity and national progress...

...Representative Weltner chose as his subject "The Terror of Bogalusa, Louisiana," an example of how the Klan had succeeded in placing itself in a controlling position in some Southern cities...

...What emerged from two months of inquiry was the time-tested, and well-known Klan method of instilling respect for its "Christian" order through strong-arm tactics...

...He is the man who found the "pumpkin papers" of Whit-taker Chambers...

...The mayor appointed to the Bogalusa Housing Authority a member of the Klan...

...The Committee has been a source of material which has been distributed, cited, and quoted at countless segregationist rallies in the Deep South...

...At the wit-ness table, the young man peered through horn-rimmed glasses at the long bench before him, his hands trembling noticeably as he lighted a cigarette and waited for the questioning to begin...

...In the last few sessions before the recess, an increasing number of questions were asked about the use of arms and preparations for violence...

...In that respect, probably the most important recent examination of the Klan came from outside the Committee room while the hearings were under way, and from the one Southern moderate on the panel of inquiry...

...When Shelton appeared as a witness, Representative Buchanan referred to him from the bench as "the imperial lizard...

...The Klansmen who appeared before the Committee seemed genuinely bewildered by the change...

...While it is too early to write a final assessment of HUAC's latest bid for the national spotlight and continuance as a force in American life, the preliminary outline is clear, and the findings unimpressive...

...True as this may be, it is only a limited truth, and hardly a record that warrants applause for an investigation which began last March with Committee staff work and culminated in the hearings seven months later...

...W. H. Burke, the city electrician, was to report on all activities taking place at the city hall, and Marvin Foster served as the city's liaison man for the Klan...

...While that certainly is a valid point, the same climate of fear has existed in the South when other groups have conducted investigations, most notably and recently the U.S...

...That the Ku Klux Klan trains its members in the use of weapons, or that it is associated with violence and terror, comes as no surprise...

...He couldn't understand it, Jones said...

...An early witness was a former FBI handwriting expert, Philip L. Schmitz, who had done much of the documents identification work in the Committee's investigation of Alger Hiss...

...And another Klan leader, James R. Jones, the grand dragon of North Carolina, murmured sadly during a break in the hearings in the manner of a man who has discovered his best friend has betrayed him...

...He shook his head and his voice trailed off...

...The confrontation of Klan witnesses by such an array lent a certain exquisite irony to the hearings...

...Had those elected and appointed officials of Bogalusa charged with the responsibilities of law enforcement done their duty, this tragedy could have been avoided...

...After a moment of silence, the Congressman leaned forward to the microphone, looked down sternly, and then boomed out: "Are you an adult...

...Representative Weltner went on to identify Klan members in the law enforcement agencies, the county commission, the school board, and other public bodies...

...They were even, he said with unintentional humor, "un-American...

...In view of their record so far, the Congressman from Georgia is unduly optimistic...

...That appears to have been the view taken by the White House...

...Over the years Klan leaders have been indicted and convicted for fraud and their individual organizations have crumbled, but the Klan itself has gone on and on for nearly a century...

...When they could not elicit answers about Klan activities, Committee members began to ask about other areas far removed from the Klan...

...When the Committee hearings began, Appell, the chief investigator, spoke of a climate of fear in the South which had hampered the inquiry...

...In its initial phase, the Committee, sitting as a five-man subcommittee during the investigation, focused attention almost entirely on Klan leaders and minor members, with the burden of the questioning directed to finances HAYNES JOHNSON is national affairs reporter for The Washington Star...

...The group investigating the Klan is composed mostly of a cross section of traditional HUAC types—John H. Buchanan, a Goldwater Republican from Alabama...

...But from the standpoint of a meaningful examination of the Ku Klux Klan in America, or of an inquiry which would produce effective legislation, the investigation was hampered from the start by the nature of the adversaries...

...Were they high school dropouts...

...We are also considering, of course, the recommendation of contempt citations," he said...

...There has been no exploration of links between the Klan and politics or, more important, between the Klan and Southern community leaders—the bankers, the judges, the merchants...

...The Klan has always thrived on terror and fear...

...Their acting counsel and chief investigator is Donald T. Appell, whose credentials in "un-American" activity are equally unassailable...

...What did they think of Adolf Hitler...

...The mayor of that city, whether willingly or not, became subject to the influence of the Klan," Weltner said...

...From the standpoint of publicity, of a guaranteed front page position or an assured spot on the Huntley-Brinkley and Walter Cronkite prime time each night, it was a natural...

...Willis, who has presided over the hearings in a benign, fatherly manner, says the Committee intends to submit sections of its hearing transcripts to the Internal Revenue Service, the Federal Communications Commission and the Veterans Administration for "appropriate action...

...Charles L. Weltner, the young Atlan-tan who has served as a spur for the present investigation, delivered a speech on the floor of the House in which he gave a trenchant exposition of the problem of the Klan in the South...

...A salesman for the Red Bird Ice Cream Company, owned by Mayor Cutrer—Mike Moody—is a member of the Klan...

...Of these, only Weltner voted in favor of the 1964 Civil Rights Act...

...Robert M. Shelton, the dour imperial wizard of the largest of the Klan organizations, the United Klans of America, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, set the theme for all his followers...

...There has been only a cursory examination of Klan infiltration into law enforcement agencies, and local and state governments...

...John M. Ashbrook, a conservative Republican from Ohio...

...Once again, the House Un-American Activities Committee was conducting a widely-heralded investigation, and the setting and the scene, the manner and the techniques, stirred the ghosts of the past...

...No Southern ministers, editors, or lawyers who have taken a stand for moderation on the racial issue and have tried to lead their communities or states out of the past have appeared to describe what they know of the Klan...

...Despite such rriticism, the members of the Committee all have voiced satisfaction with their investigation to date...

...There have been no witnesses to testify to their sufferings at the hands of the Klan...

...They saw in the investigation by HUAC another manifestation of the power of the Communist movement in America...

...The prosecuting attorney for the city, Robert Rester, who is duty bound to prosecute whatever crimes are committed in Bogalusa, is a member of the Klan...

...Civil Rights Commission's landmark hearings on voting and law enforcement problems in Mississippi last winter...

...He gave a careful account of how the Klan became allied with political, civic, and business leaders and then through three basic techniques— secrecy, terror, and intimidation—began to infiltrate legitimate functions of government...

...The Committee indulged in some of its old free-wheeling habits...

...The questioning on Klan activities went back to events in the mid-1950s and to long-forgotten, inconsequential quarrels among rival Klan groups in North and South Carolina...

...Such comments won the headlines, while the silence of the Klansmen on the witness stand frustrated a Committee whose roots are nourished by printer's ink and the bright lights of the television cameras...

...in its own way, HUAC has contributed to the inflammatory climate in which the Klan thrives...

...For many, it had an irresistibly piquant twist: this time HUAC was taking on the Ku Klux Klan...

...What were their views on fascism...

...Representative Weltner has said that he feels the worth of the hearings will be to tell the truth about the Klan, and the truth, "amply imparted to the people, will be an effective remedy...

...After guffaws from the crowd, Buchanan explained that it was a "slip of the tongue"—a slip he repeated on several occasions before the television cameras outside...