In the lull between its hearings on Communism in Hollywood, the House Un-American Activities Committee last week issued another report on the doings of U.S. Reds and their supporters. The theme of the report this time was "The Communist 'Peace' Offensive," and the committeemen listed more than 350 prominent U.S. citizens—scientists, artists, "an inordinately large proportion of clerics"—who had signed up for "peace/' Russian-style. Well up on the list: Oscar Winners Jose (Cyrano de Bergerac) Ferrer and Judy (Born Yesterday) Holliday (TIME, April 9).
Both Actors Ferrer and Holliday, said the committee, had "been affiliated with from five to ten" Communist-front organizations, and Ferrer was also accused of giving "open support to Communist candidates in election campaigns." Both Actors Ferrer and Holliday promptly denied all.
They had never been Communists, they said. They had never knowingly been sponsors of Communist-front groups. Said Actress Holliday, who had already signed non-Communist statements for Columbia Pictures and NBC: "In any instance where I lent my name in the past, it was certainly without knowledge that such an organization was subversive."
With the reopening of committee hearings in Washington this week, they will get their chance to make their denials on the record. Meanwhile, said the committee, it would be only too happy to correct its report in the case of anyone whose name had been used by the Communists without permission, or who had gotten out of the Red fronts when he discovered what the Reds were doing.
-Among them: Artist Rockwell Kent, Author Thomas Mann, Bishop Arthur W. Moulton (sec INTERNATIONAL).