25 September 1960

The Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States Senate

New Senate Office Building

Washington D.C.

Gentlemen:

On 18 June 1960 I was served a subpoena ordering me to appear to testify before your subcommittee. I appeared and gave my testimony at a public hearing on 21 June 1960. I answered all the questions that were asked me. I agreed to give your Subcommittee some additional information, and I said that I would not give you the names of those scientists who had helped circulate and gather signatures to the petition to the United Nations that I had written three years ago.

I feel strongly that a great injustice has been done to me by the subpoena and the hearing, and I now ask, as a step toward decreasing the magnitude of this injustice, that this letter, written by me and addressed to you, be attached to my testimony and included in the public record together with the testimony itself.

There are many aspects of the hearing that are unfair and unjust to me. I shall discuss only the more important of them. In my discussion I shall refer to the galley proofs of the printed transcript of the hearing (Galleys 1 HHA to 57 HHA, entitled COMMUNIST INFLITRATION AND USE OF PRESSURE GROUPS, Hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Eighty-sixth Congress, Second Session, Testimony of Dr. Linus Pauling, June 21, 1960, Part 2).

1. When I was being interrogated about the press release that I had issued on 15 January 1956, just after I had given the petition and the names of the scientists who had signed it to the Secretary General of the United Nations, I was asked the following question by your Chief Counsel, who was conducting that part of the interrogation: "You will note that in this press release, there is no list of Soviet Union signers. Were they eliminated for any particular reason?"

I answered, "There was a list of all of the Soviet Union signers in the press release as issued, and I judge that the United Nations mislaid that part. I am sure that my memory is right on this point." (Galley 12 HHA) There was then further discussion of the matter.

However, in fact, the photostatic copy of the press release to which reference was made, and which I had had an opportunity only to scan briefly, contained the names, professions, and address (Moscow) of all of the Soviet scientists, 216 in number, who had signed the petition. This photostatic copy was introduced into the record and is included in printed form in the transcript (Galleys 30 HHA to 57 HHA); the names and profession of the 216 Soviet scientists are given on Galleys 49 HHA, 50 HHA, and 51 HHA.

The Statement by your Chief Counsel, "You will note that in this press release, there is no list of Soviet Union signers", was untrue. At the time that I was asked to explain, "Were they eliminated for any particular reason?", I did not have the photostatic copy in my hands. I was not able to check the false statement preceding the question, but had to rely upon memory. On the other hand, the record shows that this photostatic copy of the press release had been in the possession of your Subcommittee for nearly three months, since 29 March 1960 (Galley 8 HHA), and you and your Chief Counsel and your Director of Research and your Chief Investigator, all of whom were present at my hearing, had ample opportunity to examine it.

Damage was done to me by your false statement and by my having been questioned on the basis of your false statement. No matter whether the false statement was made (by your Chief Counsel) through gross carelessness or through malignancy, I protest this action.

2. A letter containing an important statement damaging to me but completely untrue was introduced by you into the hearing. In fact, this letter is presented twice in the transcript: once on Galley 7 HHA and again at the bottom of Galley 7 HHA and the top of Galley 8 HHA. The letter, signed by the Assistant Secretary of State, reads as follows:

"Dear Mr. Chairman: I refer to my letter of March 23, 1960, acknowledging the receipt of a request for a list of names of the scientists who signed the Linus Pauling Petition calling for the cessation of nuclear weapons testing.

"Although the press release issued by Dr. Pauling made reference to a total of 9,235 scientist from 44 countries as having signed the petition, only a partial list was communicated to the Secretary General of the United Nations. A copy of Dr. Pauling’s press release and a partial list of petitioners referred to in the release are enclosed for your information.

"If I can be of further assistance, please do not hesitate to call upon me.

"Sincerely yours,

"William B. Macomber, Jr."

The statement made in this letter that "Although the press release issued by Dr. Pauling made reference to a total of 9,235 scientists from 44 countries as having signed the petition, only a partial list was communicated to the Secretary General of the United Nations" is false.

The truth is that a complete list of the names of the scientists who signed the petition was placed by me in the hands of Mr. Dag Hammarskjold, Secretary General of the United Nations, at noon on 15 January 1958.

Moreover, it was known to you at the time that this letter was introduced into the testimony that the statement was in fact untrue.

Although I did not learn it until about twenty minutes later, at the time that this letter was introduced in to the hearing and during the period of twenty minutes when I was been [being] interrogated about the "incomplete" list of names of signers of the bomb-test petition there rested on your desk or under your desk, in front of me but not visible to me, a photostatic copy of the complete list of signers that I had turned over to the Secretary General of the United Nations. I know this, because the complete list was at this later time brought out and handed to me for identification (Galley 12 HHA).

It was known to you that the statement made in this letter by the Assistant Secretary of State was in fact untrue. It must have been evident to you that to introduce into the public record a letter containing this untrue statement about me would be damaging to me.

Why was this letter introduced into the public record? I answer this question by saying that it was introduced in a deliberate attempt to do damage to me by defaming my reputation and casting doubt upon my integrity.

It is evident from the later proceedings at my hearing that there was further correspondence between your Subcommittee and the Department of State or other government officials in relation to the bomb-test petition. It is evident that the falsity of the statement made in his letter to you by Mr. Macomber, the Assistant Secretary to State, was discovered by you. There must have been further correspondence in connection with the transmittal to you of the photostatic copy of the complete list of names of signers of the petition, which I had given to the Secretary General of the United Nations. Why, out of all this correspondence, was this letter selected for introduction into the hearing, and why were the other letters, which corrected the untrue statement, not introduced?

It is my opinion that the clear answer to this question is that it was known to the Subcommittee that this letter contained a false statement, made, apparently through carelessness, by the Assistant Secretary of State, and that the introduction of this false statement into the public record would do damage to me.

I have examined the transcript of my hearing with great care, and I am unable to discover any reasonable explanation of the procedure that was adopted by you in carrying on the interrogation of me other than it had been planned in such a way as to do damage to me, to tarnish my reputation, to impair my integrity.

I am greatly disturbed to be forced in this way to believe that a committee of the Senate of the United States would be guilty of evil and immoral action of this sort. But the facts force me to believe it.

I repeat: Out of the correspondence involved in the obtaining of the list of names of signers of the bomb-test petition to the United Nations, your Subcommittee selected for inclusion in the public record a letter that contained a statement, seriously damaging to me, that was known to you to be false. There was no reason for the introduction of this letter into the record except to spread upon the public record a false statement, made, apparently by error, by the Assistant Secretary of State, that would help in the effort to damage my reputation and to impair my work for peace and for an international agreement to stop for all time the testing of all nuclear weapons.

I protest this action.

3. An injustice was done to me by your procedure of introducing into the hearing the letter referred to above and a copy of my press release, with its incomplete list of names, with no intimation to me by you that at the same time you had on your desk or under your desk a photostatic copy of the complete list of names that I had turned over to the Secretary General of the United Nations. During a period of about twenty minutes I was questioned about this incomplete list, I stated several times that I had turned over a complete list to the Secretary General and that your Subcommittee could obtain a copy of the complete list from the United Nations. I was not told until later that in fact your Subcommittee had already obtained such a copy of the complete list.

Indeed, Senator Dodd, who presided at my hearing, made the following statement: "Perhaps it would help you if I remind you that this line of inquiry arises out of Mr. Macomber’s letter in which it says that the number of signatures is something different from the number that you have reported. Now, we are interested in this sort of thing and I think your answer was, in substance, that Mr. Macomber made a mistake. Well, we would like to find out, and that is why we are asking." (Galley 11 HHA.)

At the time that Senator Dodd made this statement there reposed on the desk in front of him or under that desk, but not visible to me, a photostatic copy of the complete list of names, and it must have been known to the Subcommittee that the statement in Mr. Macomber’s letter was false, that Mr. Macomber or someone else had made a mistake, and that, as might have been expected, I had not included in my press release all of the names of scientists who had signed the petition. The mimeographed press release, which was written to me and prepared under my supervision ant at my expense was about 75 pages long, and contained about 7,000 of the 9,235 names. These included the names of practically all signers in many countries - the United States, U.S.S.R., and others - but of only some in certain countries. These were names that in my opinion would add little of value to the press release. For example, the names of about 240 Japanese professors and other leading Japanese scientists were given, and it was stated that 900 more Japanese scientists had also signed the petition.

Senator Dodd’s statement, quoted above, was made at a public hearing at a time when it was known to the subcommittee that the statement in the letter from Assistant Secretary of State Macomber was untrue. It was unfair to me for Senator Dodd, under these circumstances, to have made this statement about the number of signatures being somewhat different from the number that I had reported.

You then introduced into the hearing a photostatic copy of the complete list of names of the 11,021 scientists who had signed the petition to the United Nations, including the supplementary list transmitted by me to the Secretary General on 3 July 1958. The difference between this complete list of 11,021 names and the press-release list is simply that the complete list contains the additional names collected after the press release had been issued and also the names that had been omitted from the press release for the sake of brevity, such as the 900 names of Japanese Scientists mentioned above. There was also some difference in order and there may have been some typing errors in the lists. However, during the hearing I was not informed of any differences between the two lists that could be considered significant, in order that I might discuss or explain these differences, except for the one matter of the names of the Soviet scientists that has already been discussed (item 1, above).

Nevertheless, the statement then made by your Chief Counsel that "There are a great many differences and I think rather than attempt to collate the two documents here, if the chairman permits, we will offer both documents for the record, and let the lists and so forth be there for comparison in case anybody wants to see. In some cases, the difference may be of no significance. I don’t know that there are many but there are some. Sometimes there are additional names, sometimes they are in slightly different order." (Galley 12 HHA)

There is no evidence whatever that anything false or misleading was contained in my press release, including the slightly abbreviated list of names of signers of the petition. I do not see any valid reason for the introduction by your Subcommittee of the press release and its rather long, though abbreviated, list of names, inasmuch as the complete list was immediately thereafter introduced into the record and no significant difference, aside from the slight abbreviation, has been indicated. Nevertheless, the introduction and discussion of the abbreviated list were done in such a way as to cast doubt upon my reliability and integrity, and I believe that this was unfair to me. I protest this action.

4. I believe that the statements made about the purpose of the hearing are unfair and unjust to me. Among these statements are the following, made at the opening of the hearing by the Vice-Chairman of your Subcommittee, Senator Dodd (Galley 3 HHA): "Thus, while the particular objective of the session today is to learn what we can from this witness respecting communist activity in connection with protests against nuclear testing, we shall also seek other information respecting Communist activity if it appears that such information might be available from this witness…There has been a very substantial amount of propaganda in connection with protests against nuclear testing, and the committee has established in previous hearings that some of the activity in this regard has been Communist-inspired or Communist-directed. . . We are interested in uncovering subversive activity, in attempting to determine whether there has been Communist participation in propaganda disseminated to the American people, and in Communist activity through front organizations."

The damage done to me by these statements about my hearing before your Subcommittee has in considerable part already been done. I may, however, diminish somewhat the further damage to me by pointing out here that in fact the hearing led to no revelations respecting Communist activity in connection with protests against nuclear testing or about Communist inspiration or Communist direction of activity in connection with protests against nuclear testing or communist participation in propaganda disseminated to the American people or Communist activity through front organizations, although I answered all questions that were asked me by your Subcommittee. Your Subcommittee failed to obtain any significant information about the matters that were said to be the reason for investigating me, but succeeded in causing great damage to me through this investigation. In my effort to diminish the magnitude of the damage to me, I now point out that nothing of significance was discovered by the investigation.

I believe that it was unjust to me for the Subcommittee to subpoena me to a hearing about subversive activity and communist participation in propaganda when the Subcommittee apparently had no reason to believe that I could provide significant testimony on these points. Contrary to the erroneous statement published on 22 June 1960 in the New York Times, I was not interrogated by you about "previous witnesses questioned on possible Communist direction of or affiliation with the test-ban movement." If your Subcommittee had information such as to cause you to believe that I could provide significant testimony on these points, I may ask why I was not questioned correspondingly. I accordingly judge that you were not justified in making the statements quoted above about the purpose of my hearing, and I protest the action of your Chairman, Senator Dodd, in having made these statements.

5. The title under which it is proposed to publish the hearing is unjust to me. The title, as given on the title page of Galley 1 HHA and repeated on Galley 3 HHA, is "Communist Infiltration and Use of Pressure Groups."

There was in fact insignificant questioning of me about any matters properly included under this title, and to have my hearing reported under this title will mislead readers of this government publication and will permit unscrupulous commentators and other people to make unjustified statements connecting me with Communist infiltration and use of pressure groups in relation to the petition to the United Nations that I wrote and circulated. At the hearing before your Subcommittee I answered every question that was asked me. I was not asked any questions about Communist infiltration and use of pressure groups in relation to the writing of the bomb-test petition to the United Nations, which originated as an appeal by American scientists urging that an international agreement be made to stop the testing of all nuclear weapons. The only questions that I was asked about Communist infiltration and use of pressure groups - and these questions too were trivial - related to names that appeared on a letter dated 1951, years before the bomb-test petition was written by me and years before the idea of an international agreement to stop the testing of all nuclear weapons had been proposed - an idea that was, of course, adopted as policy of the United States government in the summer of 1958.

I object strongly to having my testimony published by you, in a government publication, under the title "Communist Infiltration and Use of Pressure Groups," and I ask, in fairness to me, that my testimony not be published under this title, but that instead a suitable and fair title be used.

Moreover, it is stated on the title page (Galley 1 HHA) that my testimony constitutes Part 2 of the report Communist Infiltration and use of Pressure Groups. I have been told by my attorney that he has been informed by the Chief Counsel of your Subcommittee that there is no relationship whatsoever between Part 1 and me. I accordingly ask that my testimony not be published as part of a series including this Part 1 or any other report of hearings unrelated to me.

6. I am disturbed that during my hearing I was, by intimation, threatened with imprisonment by a member of your Subcommittee.

Senator Cotton said "Doctor, I am interested in your query and your apprehension about your duty, whether to disclose or decline to disclose the names of people who collected the signatures. Are you acquainted with Mr. Willard Uphaus; do you know who he is?"

I answered "I know who he is and I have a mental picture of him; I feel sure that I have met him."

I knew that Dr. Willard Uphaus was in jail because he had taken the same action before an investigating committee that I decided to take. I had decided that I could not give the Subcommittee the letters by means of which the signed copies of the petition to the United Nations were transmitted to me, because these letters would reveal to some extent the circulators of the petition, the scientists who had been active in getting other scientists to sign the petition. Dr. Uphaus refused to turn over to an investigating committee the 600 cards showing the names and addresses of persons who attended, during the years 1954 and 1955, a summer camp in New Hampshire called "World Fellowship," of which he was the director. He was committed to jail on a judgment of contempt, and he has remained in jail from 14 December 1959 to the present time (September, 1960) under sentence of one year.

In refusing to give the names to the Committee Dr. Uphaus said:

"Your honor, on January 5th [1956], I believe it was, in this court room, I said that there is no question in my life to which I have given more thought, more prayer, more consultation; no question in my life for which I have sought counsel more deeply and sincerely - religious counsel, legal counsel, the counsel of friends. Four years have transpired since that time. World Fellowship has had four successful seasons. It has brought many friendly people from different states in the United States, and from other countries in the world to Fellowship, to recreate in the pleasant environment, and to discuss the problems which mankind faces today. At no time did any guest at World Fellowship express or even suggest or intimate that there was the thought in their minds of subversion or any organized effort to overthrow the State of New Hampshire or the United States. In fact, throughout each summer it was solely the welfare of this state, and of this nation and the people in the world with which we were concerned.

"Today, your Honor, the Bill of Rights is a part of my life - and I wish to uphold it. I today wish to uphold the Constitution of the State of New Hampshire, which says specifically that we are guaranteed the right of conscience. I am proud to uphold the Constitution of New Hampshire today. And, your Honor, I do not feel that in this instance what I regard as loyalty to God and to the Bible - this abhorrence of bringing innocent people into public scorn and even possibly the loss of a livelihood - I do not today regard this as out of relationship to my own loyalty to my country, and I stand solidly upon the Constitution of the United States and upon the Bill of Rights. I am strengthened by the opinion of the minority of the United States Supreme Court which held that the investigation was held for the sake of exposure. I am helped by that finding when it says that I and World Fellowship have not violated constitution law; that we were merely meeting there to discuss problems of economic, religion and society, so in this instance today my loyalty to God is not in contradiction with my loyalty to this state and this country, because I do not feel that I am standing against the law of my land. It is not defiance of the order of Court; it is standing in the presence of historical law; it is standing in the presence of moral law; it is standing in the presence of our heritage. I hope to see the day, your Honor, when the laws - either federal or state - that inquire into the thoughts of men and women and interfere with their free and peaceable assembly will be declared unconstitutional. I repeat that I stand upon the basic historic moral foundations of our democracy and of our country, and upon my conscience.

"Let me indicate that in addition to finding this strength in the minority opinion of the Supreme Court, I must indicate to you that what I do is not something - does not grow out of something that occurred to me yesterday or the day before or the first hearing of the Attorney General; it grows out of sixty-nine years of living; it grows out of the influence of a grandfather - a minister; it grows out of Christian parents; it grows out of a long, long life in the church, and it is in this tradition that I stand today - this tradition found in Judaism, in the early church, and at various times in the history of the people, that it is mean and contemptible to bring innocent people into public scorn and into possible loss of livelihood. This is seated deeply in the Old Testament. It is seated deeply in the early life of the church - and it appears again and again. My source is not only the Bible and what I know about religious history; my source today is the July, 1957 issue of Theology Today, in which Professor George Williams, Professor of Church History at Harvard University, pointed out more clearly to me than I have ever seen before, that to bring innocent people into public scorn, into difficulty, into embarrassment, into the headlines of the papers, would be in violation of this great historic tradition.

"Your Honor, it is not my purpose here today to be defiant or to be stubborn, or to be contentious or to put myself above the rulings or the courts. And I might remind you that the courts have changed their opinions over the years. It is not that. So therefore, your Honor, before God and before my friends here, I can do nothing else than to say no."

I know, when Senator Cotton asked me his question, that the action that Dr. Uphaus had taken and that had led to his incarceration in the common jail was almost identical with the action that I was to be led by my conscience to take. I know that if the law were perfect and were to be applied equally to Dr. Uphaus and me, then I too would have to go to jail. And I knew that I would not go to jail gladly. I hoped that my spirit would be strong enough to permit me to follow the dictates of my own conscience and the example of Dr. Uphaus.

I did not need to have Senator Cotton’s reminder to me of the consequences of the act that I contemplated, his veiled threat of imprisonment.

I consider this veiled threat, this intimation of the fate that awaited me if I did not conform to the demands of the Subcommittee, to be unworthy of the Senate of the United States of America. My respect for Senator Cotton would be greater than it now is if he had said straightforwardly that for me to refuse to give the Subcommittee the information demanded by it might lead to my citation for contempt of the Senate and to a prison sentence. I prefer straightforward statements of fact to veiled threats and attempted intimidation. I prefer the forthright search for the truth to the sort of trickery and misrepresentation that in my opinion has been revealed by the proceedings in my hearing before your subcommittee.

Again I present my plan that in the interests of justice and fairness to me this letter be included in the published report of my hearing before your Subcommittee, and that the report be published under some more accurate title than the title used in the printed galley proofs.

Respectfully yours,

Linus Pauling: jh