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• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000800100001-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 3, 1999
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: September 4, 1967
• Content Type: REPORT

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Washington, September 4, 1967
WR 67-i5
Students of recent American political history will recall that in January 1948 following tine
amalgamation of a number of small organizations which violently opposed the United States' anti-
Communist foreign policy, the Progressive Party was founded and met in convention in Chica ,o
to make plans for a "third party" presidential ticket in the 1948 elections. Since Communists had
already infiltrated many of the organizations that formed the Progressive Party, they had :ao
,trouble capturing control of the Party itself and of the Progressive candidates, Henry Wallace and
Glen Taylor. As the campaign progressed the candidates accommodated themselves to the Com-
munist positions more and more frequently. Despite optimistic predictions for as many as 10 mil-
lion votes in November, the Progressive Party scarcely made a dent on the political scene, polling
only 1,157,172 votes out of nearly 49,000,000 cast. Of these, more than half were polled in Ncw
York State. Until the end of 1949, Mr. Wallace continued to defend the Progressive Party and his
association with it. He spoke to the 1950 Progressive Party Convention, hoping to rid it of its Com-
munist domination but soon afterwards retired from the political arena leaving the Party exclu-
sively to the Communists. By 1952 it had ceased to be a viable political entity, fielding
a Presidential ticket of unknown Communist party-liners who received only 140,000 votes.
The Quest for Power
From August 29 until September 4, 1967, Chicago is once again the involuntary host to a
convention from which another third party presidential slate may emerge. The meeting is entitled
pyRlNew Politics Convention on 1968 and Beyond." It is the first sizeable organizational gc?t-
together of the National Committee for New Politics in its effort to become the political arm of
the "New Left" and a "third force" in American politics. A partial list of "invited organization::"
includes 127 groups from 27 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico and groups oth,+r
than those invited have contacted the Convention Committee seeking delegate representation. its
was the case in 1948, the prime objective of most of the organizations represented at the Con-
vention is opposition to American foreign policy and now, particularly to American involvement
in the war in Vietnam. However, other interests are also represented. In the second issue of Neu,
Politics News, the group's publication, eighteen Negro militants injected the "black power" theme
when they wrote, "The Newark Black Power Conference was a beginning. The Chicago Nev
Politics Convention will be another stride towards forging the national unity necessary to reverse
the rising tide of racism and militarism."
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'YRGHT
Robert M. Cook, writing in the same publication, hit another key issue of the Convention
hen he said, "Our goal is to transform this society, which can only be done, I believe, by build-
ng a national social-political movement."
The Convention Committe has indicated that it will consider the possibility of presenting a
late composed of Dr. Martin Luther Kin-4 and Dr. Benjamin Spock to run as its candidates for
resident and Vice President of the United States in the 1968 elections. Other candidates have
lso been suggested to the Convention, among them: Dick Gregory, Simon Casady, Adam Clayton
owell, Senator Ernest Gruening and Professor. John Kenneth Galbraith. As alternate proposals
he Convention will also discuss support of candidates for Congressional and local offices or the
ndependent support of so-called "peace" candidates who may be running for office under other
uspices. Significantly, however, Dr. King was chosen as the Convention's keynote speacer.
King's announcement on August 17 that ,h! Southern Christian Leadership Conference would
`go all out to take a stand in voting for someone who is against the war in Vietnam," coupled with
he SCLC's resolution that "American people must repudiate the war in Vietnam" and "vote into
blivion those who cannot detach themselves from militarism," seem to indicate not only that
ing is willing to accept the role but that he will also throw whatever weight his organization may
ave behind it:
The make-up of the Convention staff, the group's National Council and the various organi-
ations to be represented also discloses representation of a full spectrum of the "New Left" and
significant group from the Old Left as well.
Among those serving on the "New Politics" Executive Board or National Council or both are:
tokely Carmichael, fresh from his trip to Havana and Hanoi, now fairly brimming with admira-
ion for all those who hate America and itching for the start of domestic guerrilla warf;tre; Lee
Webb and Paul Booth, both one-time functionaries of Students for a Democratic Society; Don
othenberg, who in 1951 was identified in sworn tesimony before the House Committee on Un-
merican Activities as a member of the Communist Party and who, when questioned about it by
he Committee in 1954, declined to answer on Fifth Amendment grounds; and Sidney Lens, who
under his real name, Sid Okun) was active for years in the Revolutionary Workers League, a
r arxist revolutionary group that looked upon Stalinists as "rightists" and upon Trotskyites as
centerists."
omething Old, Something New
/Michael Wood, Chairman of the NCNP Convention Steering Committee has been in Chicago
or several months, making Convention arranr;ements, assembling a staff and performing various
tasks connected with such an undertaking. Wood is a young, bearded former staff member of the
ational Student Association who, while on the NSA staff, disclosed to Ramparts, a leftist oriented
agazine, the subsidation of some of NSA's activities by the Central Intelligence Agency. Since the
IA is an intelligence agency functioning for the Government of the United States, it was Rarn?
arts' contention that it was subverting the student group. The purpose of their campaign was to
iscredit the Government agency.
Wood opened an office at 27 East Monroe Street in Chicago, the same building that houses
e Communist Party of Illinois and the Midwest offices of The Worker, the CP newspaper. rie
ired, as editor of the New Politics News, one David S. Canter of Chicago. Canter is the son of
n old time Communist Party functionary, Harry J. Canter and spent part of his youth in the
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Soviet Union. He was active for several years in Young Communist League affairs and, with Leroy
Wolins, formed Translation World Publishers, a short-lived venture in publishing pro-Soviet
propaganda books. Wolins, incidentally is also a long-time activist in Communist causes and his
latest organization, Veterans for Peace in Vietnam (see WR 66-12) will be represented at the
NCNP Convention.
Since coming to Chicago, Wood has also consulted with James West, spokesman for the Com-
munist Party of Illinois and with Louis Diskin, proprietor of the CP's publications outlet, The
Modern Bookstore. West has expressed great interest in the Convention and he and Woxi are on
a first name basis with one another.
On August 28, the New York Daily News released a news story reporting a Communist
Party plan to infiltrate and capture the New Politics Convention. According to the Deily News
story, CP organizers have been circulating word of mouth instructions to their membership to
attend the Convention and get into influential positions within its workings. At the clos of a CP
National Committee meeting in New York in June, 1967, Arnold Johnson, the Party's public rela-
tions director is said to have written to all CP districts urging their "immediate attentio.i" to the
New Politics Convention.
Johnson's instructions did not go unheeded. Among the early Convention registrt..nts were
Dorothy Ray Healey, functionary of the Communist Party in Southern California and delegates
of the Twin Ports (Superior-Duluth) Club of the Communist Party. The "Peace and Freedom"
movement in New York City has also indicated that it will attend the Convention. This is the
group that ran as its candidate for Congress in 1966, Dr. Herbert Aptheker, chief theoretician of
the Communist Party, U.S.A.
Strange Bedfellows
The National Committee for New Politics, if it hopes to achieve any size or success amon_
the "New Left" or the Old, can't be too discriminating about who or what group it accepts into
its midst. It has asked SDS and the Communist oriented W. E. B. DuBois Clubs to attend the
meeting as "observers" but many individual members of these groups will be seated as delegates
representing various local anti-Vietnam groups. The same can be said for Carl Braden's Southern
Conference Educational Fund. Braden, identified as a CP member in sworn testimony before the
HCUA in 1956, served a one year prison term for refusing to answer the Committee's questions.
Bulk copies of the New Politics News are being sent to such diverse recipients as Communist
functionaries Ben Dobbs of Los Angeles, Betty Smith of Minneapolis and Phil Bart of Cleveland
as well as to non-Communist groups such as the American Friends Service Committee in Wash-
ington, D. C., The Black Hawk County Legal Aid Society in Waterloo, Iowa and the Inter-Church
Board for Metropolitan Affairs in Columbus, Ohio.
In the same manner, while many of the individuals and groups registered for the Convention:
are well known members of the far left, the registration list also includes many who may be amont
the innocents who are intended to be drawn into movements such as the "New Politics" group.
Walter Allen, a steelworker of Harvey, Illinois, Grace Sayers, a school teacher of Southfield, Michi
gan, Jesse Burkhead, a school teacher of DeWitt, New York, Fr. Henry Atkins, an Episcopal pries,
of Indianapolis, Indiana and Henry Mar, an architect of Sacramento, California may all have faller-,:
into a trap set for them many years ago. They may believe, as the New Politics Convention wishes
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CPYRGHT
them to, that the United States is an aggressor in Vietnam, that the Viet Cong are really only na-
tionalists fighting for their freedom and that -1o Chi Minh is a fighter for his country's indepert-
dence who may be a Marxist but would be friendly if we would only let him.
If they do, they should recall the words of Henry Wallace, while campaigning for the Progres-
sive Party in October 1948. Wallace was talking of the Chinese Communists but how familiar the
words sound today. He attacked Chiang Kai-shek as a dictator and accused Mr. Truman of giving
him arms to shoot down innocent students and make war on a large part of the Chinese population.
He said, "There are no Russian planes dropping Russian bombs on the villages of China," and,
when asked if we should not oppose Communism in Asia, Mr. Wallace said, "There are c )nfiicting
reports on how Communistic the so-called Chinese Communists are. Although some of them prob-
ably believe in a dilute form of Marxism, mos. or them undoubtedly want to achieve some freedom
from the tyranny. of the warlords and the greed of the landlords."
So, in Chicago on Labor Day weekend, some of the bearded faces are new, some of the groups
of idealists and dreamers are new and the Convention insists that the politics are "New" but some
of the faces are old and it is painfully obvious that the Party line has not changed a bit.
WILLIAM K. LAMBIE, 'R.
Research Director
EDITORIAL STAFF
Editor-in-Chief .................................John M. Fisher
Associate Editor and Secretary,
National Strategy Committee .................Anthony Harrigan
International Politics Editor. . .............. Dr. James D. Atkinson
Economics Editor........................ Dr. Lev E. Dobriansky
Foreign Editor ............................... Frank J. Johnson
National Editor ...................................William Gill
Research Director ........................William K. Lambie, Jr.
Associate Editor, Radio Producer ...................John F. Lewis
News Editor .............................. Edgar Ansel Mowrer
Chief, Washington Bureau ..................... Lee R. Pennington
Strategy and Military Affairs Editor..........Dr. Stefan T. Possony
Law & Space Editor......... Rear Admiral Chester Ward, USN (Rat.)
Associate Editor .......................... . .... DeWitt S. Copp
Associate Editor .............................. Michael J. Ward
OFFICERS
resident .................................... John M. Fisher
. iior Vice President ......................... Kenneth M. Piper
.c President ............................ Stephen L. Donchess
::e President .................................John G.Sevcik
ca President ................................ Russell E. White
sr:cretary-Treasurer ............................ Cyril W. Hooper
Robert W. Galvin, Chairman
Loyd Wright, Co-Chairman
General Paul D. Adams, USA (Rat.)
Lieutenant General Edward M. Almond,
USA (Rat.)
Barnett Archambault
Dr. James 0. Atkinson
Lloyd L. Austin
General Mark Clark
Charles S. Craigmile
Adn.iral Robert L. Dennison,
Henry Duque
Wade Fetzer, Jr.
Patrick J. Frawley, Jr.
Fred M. Gillies
Vice Admiral Elton Waiters Grenfell, USN (Rat.)
Clifford F. Hood
COMMITTEE
Wayne A. Johnst?in
William H. Kend-Al
General Curtis E Le May, USA= (Rat.)
A. B. McKee, Jr.
Admiral Ben Morsel!, USN (Rat.)
Dr. Robert Morris
Or. Stefan T. Possony
General Thomas S. Power, US.,F (Rat)
Vice Admiral W. A. Schoech, t1SN (Rat.)
General Bernard A. Schriever, USAF (Rat.)
Major General Dele 0. Smith, (USAF (Rot.)
Admiral Felix B. Stump, USN (Rat.)
Dr. Edward Telle:
Rear Admiral Chester Ward, U 'N (Rat.)
General Albert C. Wedemever, USA (Rat.)
Major General W A. Worton, USMC Ret.)
EDITORIAL CONSULTANTS
Karl Baarslag Rev. Daniel Lyons, S.J.
Dr. Anthony T. Bouscaren Dr. Gerhart Niemeyer
Dr. Anthony Kubek
oe American Security Council Washington Report is published weekly by the American Security
:,ncil Press. It reporta on national and international developments altacting the nation's security
the information of the Council's over 3500 member companies and institutions. Annual sub-
y>tion rate $12.00. Additional copies available at 25Q each postpaid for non-members and
,-i, postpaid for members.
Dr. T. L. Sian
Duane Thoiin
Stanley 1. -racy
Copyright @'J 1967 by American Security Council. 1.11 rights re-
served except that permission is granted for reprodue ion in whole
or in part if context is preserved, credit given and tvao copies are
forwarded to the American Security Council Exam uLive Oiices_
,-
xe.:utive Offices and Research Center: 123 North Wacker Driae, Chicago Illinois 60606
: RICAN SECURITY COUNCIL " E
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