Well, let me read it to you.

By the way, you didn't permit me to finish my statement.

I beg your pardon; go right ahead.

It happened one night I had bought a new radio during the war and I had a shortwave set and I turned on the shortwave and there was a voice which I had never heard but which spoke perfectly good American advocating the destruction of the Jewish people and justifying the cremation of Jews, and I was quite astonished because it was such a common American accent and I waited to the end, and it was being broadcast from Italy, and it was Ezra Pound.

I think I can be forgiven for feeling slightly perturbed about this man but I will say now, despite that, it is a difficult and hard issue to settle, and I think it's a tragic one and sometimes there are no easy answers.

Ezra Pound was a poet who, during the war, was issuing statements and was writing plays and issuing poems which were anti-Communist and which were against the interests at that time of the United States of America.

Is that not the essence of what he did? He was a propagandist, a writer; was he not?

Excuse me, sir. I had never had any knowledge of Ezra Pound's views at all, quite frankly, until I heard that broadcast and I realized that this man was a Mussolini propagandist who was broadcasting from the Rome radio.

That was in 1945?

Yes.

Before your sympathies were aroused to defend the artists, poets, and playwrights who were being brought before this committee? Now, is that not correct as a matter of chronology?

Whether that was before; yes.

Did you not write in New Masses, in effect, criticizing those who would defend Ezra Pound on the same basis that you defended the Hollywood Ten?

I would like to see the statement, if I may.

I would like to show it to you and I would like to read for the record some of the statements: "Arthur Miller, writing for the New Masses," which of course has been identified as the Communist publication repeatedly. Perhaps I had better read a good deal of it here so there will be no indication of taking anything out of context.

I trust you.

Now, with that background, and you correct me if I make a misrepresentation, Ezra Pound in 1945 was writing poems, plays, radio addresses which were anti-Communist and which were against the interest of this country, the United States of America, was he not?

There was also a war going on.

That is correct.

Here is Arthur Miller's statement in 1945:

In the belief that Ezra Pound's trial for treason is of high importance to the future direction of American letters, and poetry in particular, I should like to offer my commentary on the reaction of five poets and a critic to the Pound case in the newspaper PM of Sunday, November 25. The majority of the reactions are alarming.

Mr. Arens, I would like to make several points here which I think are of great importance.

Ezra Pound was a--in the first place, this was a time of war. He was literally and in every conceivable way a traitor and there was no question about it, I don't think, in anybody's mind. I would not now say that I share all these sentiments by any means. This is a long time ago. I don't think I would be quite as virulent about it now.

I, however, can understand quite easily how I could have felt this way. I felt this man threatened me personally. I am a Jew. He was for burning Jews and you will have to pardon my excitement at the time if that was the situation.

I want this record to show that I am not undertaking by this question to defend Ezra Pound; I am only pointing out by this exhibit what would appear to be, absent any explanation, an inconsistency at least.

Pound was convicted as a traitor and served time?

As were the 12 Communists.

May I ask him a question?

All right.

I would like, in view of the witness's strong words of denunciation of Mr. Pound for his expressions of anti-Semitism and his understandable resentment of them, did you ever subsequently, and particularly since the denunciation in the Soviet Union of Stalin, ever make a public statement denouncing the shocking evidence of anti-Semltism in the Soviet Union?

I am sorry to say that there was none. I am sorry to say something worse, that I was not shocked. This last stuff has been no great shock to me. I have had intimate evidence from a man I know who had a brother in the Soviet Union and who was, as I remember it, the editor or writer for some literary magazine there and who this man told me, I can't remember now because it's possibly 3 years ago, 4 years ago, lie had completely dropped out of sight and was no longer responding to any mail. They were two brothers.

This fellow told me that he thought that he had been the victim of purely anti-Semitic things.

Now I have ceased these kinds of statements, as I said, which were befitting the frame of mind I was in. I ceased issuing statements right and left except when I am personally involved because I found I was being tangled in stuff that I was really not prepared to defend 100 percent, and I am ashamed to say that I should have and I did feel I was not completely ignorant of this. It isn't a matter of Khrushchev. I knew this before Khrushchev.

Did you know it in 1952 when you signed a statement in defense of the 12 Communist traitors who were convicted in Foley Square in New York City?

That I would make a differentiation about, quite frankly. This is a question which verges on, I don't know under what law this prosecution took place.

Under the Smith law, conspiring to overthrow the Government of the United States by force and violence. That is part of the International Cominform apparatus.

I am opposed to the Smith Act and I am still opposed to anyone being penalized for advocating anything. I say that because of a very simple reason. I don't believe that in the history of letters there are many great books or great plays that don't advocate. That doesn't mean that a man is a propagandist. It is in the nature of life and it is in the nature of literature that the passions of an author congeal around issues.

You can go from war and peace through all the great novels of time and they are all advocating something. Therefore, when I heard that the United States Government wanted to pass a law against the advocacy without any overt action, I was alarmed because I am not here defending Communists, I am here defending the right of an author to advocate, to write.

Even to advocate the overthrow of this Government by force and violence?

I am now speaking, sir, of creative literature. These are risks and balances of risks.

We will have a recess of about 5 minutes.

The committee will be in order. Proceed.

Mr. Chairman, I was asking the witness a question which I would like to pursue.

Witness, counsel asked you about your protesting the prosecution of the 12 Communists in Foley Square, and you said that you had protested that prosecution and, in explanation of that action on your part, you said, "I am opposed to the prosecution of any one for advocating anything." Do you recall that you made that statement?

Yes.

You understood, did you not, that the 12 Communists were prosecuted for advocating, teaching, and urging the overthrow of this Government by force and violence through unlawful means? Now, my question is, do you mean that you would be opposed to the prosecution of anyone today for advocating the overthrowing of this Government by force and violence? I cannot draw any other conclusion.

Mr. Scherer, there is another conclusion which I would like to speak on for just one moment. The Smith Act, as I understood it and as I understand it now, does lay penalties upon advocacy.

Upon what?

Upon advocacy of beliefs or opinions, and so forth. What I felt strongly about then--

Not opinions. It does not lay any upon opinions.

I am not that close to the text of it, but my understanding of it is that advocacy is penalized or can be under this law. Now, my interest, as I tell you, is possibly too selfish, but without it I can't operate and neither can literature in this country, and I don't think anybody can question that.

I am not asking you about advocacy generally.

Yes, sir; but, sir, I understand your point.

I do not understand yours.

I was trying to make it clear, sir. My point is simply that, if there is a penalty upon advocacy, what my protest was about was that idea taking hold so that people could say depending upon the ideas ruling the society at any particular time would depend the liberty of advocacy of any particular idea at any time.

In other words, if advocacy of itself becomes a crime, in my opinion, or can be penalized without overt action, we are smack in the middle of literature and I don't see how it can be avoided. That is my opinion. That is, where I can understand yours, I ask you to understand mine.

We are not talking about literature. These 12 Communists were on trial for advocating the violent overthrow of this Government by force and violence.

Does your theory or your belief carry so far as for you to sit here today and say that you are opposed to prosecution of anyone who today would advocate, teach, and urge the overthrow of this Government by force and violence, limiting it to that? Let us leave literature out of that.

You see, you are limiting it to that.

Let me put it quite simply. If a man were outside this building and telling people to come in and storm this building and blow it up or something of that sort, I would say "Call out the troops." There is no question in my mind about that. That is advocacy, but in the Smith Act, as I understand it, it is applicable and can be applied, given a sufficient public backing, to literature.

Now, in my opinion, that cannot be equated with the freedom of literature without which we will be back in a situation where people as in the Soviet Union and as in Nazi Germany have not got the right to advocate.

Let us go into literature. Let me ask you, do you believe that today a Communist who is a poet should have the right to advocate the overthrow of this Government by force and violence in his literature, in poetry or in newspapers or anything else?