Interview of George Dunne

Well, you asked me how I got into this and how I got to Loyola and Los Angeles and so on. I began, actually, at St. Louis University. I don't want to go into my whole life story; I don't think that would be of great interest. I have spent some years in China. I became a Jesuit in 1926, after I graduated from Loyola College (it was then called; it's now Loyola University) in Los Angeles. I entered the Society of Jesus, Jesuit order and some seven years later I went to China. I spent four years in China, expected to remain there for the rest of my life, but I was called home after four years, the purpose was of getting a doctorate degree, intending to return to China.

Had it been your intention to get a doctorate degree, or was this suggested to you as something to do?

Well, it was suggested to me. My superiors called me home and told me, "You go get a doctor's degree." [laughter] But I had been involved before that in China, in plans for the establishment of a leadership training institute in Nanking, which was then the capital.

Leadership in the labor field or in the ecclesiastical field or...?

Leadership, well, in all fields. At that time, I was new in China, but it seemed to me evident that China was headed for disaster unless something could effectively be done to develop Chinese leadership along democratic lines in all areas: education, politics, business, and so on. So, the idea was to establish an institute in Nanking for that purpose. I was called home, the idea being that I would get a doctorate, return there, and establish that institute. So, I went to the University of Chicago; I got a doctorate degree there in 1944, I think I finally got it. By that time, of course, the war was on, 1 couldn't go back to China; so I was sent to St. Louis University to teach in and establish, actually, something called the Institute of Social Order. There is where my involvement actually began in the social problems. I landed in St. Louis in 1944, the autumn semester, and St. Louis University had just desegregated. Up to that time, as all other universities in Missouri, it had been segregated, no black students allowed.

Was it a Catholic university?

A Catholic university, a Jesuit university, but it had followed the social pattern, and the constitution of Missouri obliged all universities to segregate. I, of course, was a strong opponent of all formS of racial segregation, and while I was at the university, an effort was made to reintroduce segregation into the university. I opposed that, along with another Jesuit, Father [Claude H.] Heithaus, and it became a great-battle, attracted attention widely in newspapers and elsewhere. Actually, Father Heithaus and I, in a sense, won the battle, but we were both sort of thrown to the wolves as a result. The attempt to reintroduce segregation of the university was stopped, but I was expelled from the faculty by the president, who resented the fact that his desires had been thwarted.

May I interrupt and ask you a question so I'll understand the structure of universities? A president of a Catholic university, is he an autonomous decision maker, or would the decision to remove you from the faculty be his decision, or how is this exactly--?

Well, it was his decision, I think, but he was permitted to do it by his superior, who was a Jesuit provincial of the Missouri Province. I don't know. I have always felt it was sort of a sop to his pride: that he had been overruled by his superiors and ordered to cease and desist this effort to introduce segregation of the university, but, as sort of a sop to his pride, they allowed him to expel me from the faculty, you see. The reason he gave me was that I had written a letter, which I had, a long letter to the Missouri provincial, that's the superior of that Missouri segment of the Jesuits, in which I had protested this effort to introduce segregation and had said it would do immeasurable harm to the university's reputation if the president, Father [Patrick J.] Holloran, were allowed to get away with it. And I had also said that if he were allowed to get away with this, then I would find it difficult to see how I could continue to teach, because I was supposed to be teaching Catholic social doctrine. That was the purpose of the Institute of Social Order. And, in my judgment, racial segregation was directly opposed to what I regard as a very fundamental principle of Catholic social doctrine, and I couldn't see how in that case I could continue to teach. So, Father Holloran seized upon that. When I asked him, "What is this all about?" he handed me a railroad ticket; actually for the 4:00 train, a reservation that same afternoon to California, and he said, "Well, you wrote a letter to the Missouri provincial, you said you couldn't continue to teach." I said, "No, I didn't say that at all I said I felt I would find difficulty teaching if you were allowed to impose this pattern of segregation upon the students; but I have been told you have been forbidden to do so; therefore, I don't have any difficulties." [laughter] But, anyway, he was allowed to do it.

How did the ticket happen to be made out to California?

Well, I belonged to the California province of the Jesuit order; you see, I was only being loaned to the--

You were being sent packing home.

I was being sent back home, exactly. When I got out here, after some months up in Santa Barbara, I was assigned to Loyola University in Los Angeles. That's how I came here, you see.

Before we continue with Loyola, want to back up, if I may, for just one or two questions. Your strong stand on segregation, or desegregation--I know that you were born in St. Louis. Were you from a family that was sympathetic with desegregation? I mean, is this part of your family history? Did you have a progressive family background?

Well, I was born in St. Louis, but of a Chicago family. My family--my mother, father, brothers, and sister--were all born in Chicago. I was born in St. Louis by chance, as it were. My father was a hotel man, and he worked for old man [Tracy C.] Drake, the Drake Hotel Drake in Chicago. He was sent to st. Louis to manage the Planter's House Hotel during the World's Fair. That's how they happened to be there when I was born. But four months after my birth, they returned to Chicago, you see. So, I really didn't have any St. Louis background. My father died when I was only seven years old, and my mother then moved to California with the children. I don't recall ever discussing with her problems of that kind, racial problems, and I don't know where she got it--just chance-­ and undoubtedly she influenced me. My mother was a person with no prejudices at all, and I suppose I inherited some of that. She just was without prejudices-­ anti-Semitic prejudices, anti-black prejudices--she didn't have them. She taught school in Los Angeles for years and years until her retirement.

How about any sentiments regarding labor and organized labor? Was that part of your family background?

Not really. I wouldn't remeniber, because I was too young; but I remeniber later, years afterward, my mother showed me these newspaper clippings. No, my father was a hotel man; he was himself a member--in fact, think I still have someplace his old membership card in the union-- of the stewards. You see, he was a steward originally. I think he was the manager of the Illinois Athletic Club in Chicago, and then he got in with Drake brothers. But as a steward, he belonged to--I forget what it's called-­ the Stewards' Guild, the Stewards Association, which was a labor union. But I don't thirik he was a strong labor man. As a matter of fact, when he was manager of the Chicago Beach Hotel in Chicago, they had a strike one time, and I recall reading in the newspaper clippings that he hired. University of Chicago students to wait on tables during the strike, you see. So I don't think he was particularly a strong union man, and I would find it difficult really to say how I developed that interest, that bent, except after I became a Jesuit and began to take religion seriously and Christianity seriously and the Gospels seriously, it seemed to me that that's the direction in which they all pointed, that simply by inclination, one should be motivated all by Christian spirit. One should be sympathetic with the poor and the working people. But anyway, when I landed here at Loyola then, I began to write for Commonweal magazine, and most of my articles were on social problems, the racial problem, economic problems. I reca11 an article in Commonweal, I wrote called "The Achilles Heel of Capitalism." Another one I wrote called "Socialism and Socialism," which attracted a lot of attention in Socialist circles.

Were you yourself a Socialist?

No, but I couldn't see, and cannot even now see, any fundamental reason why there should be a contradiction between socialism and Christianity, or the Catholic church; I think they're perfectly compatible.

What was the effect of these articles?- -Were--they in line with the editorial opinion of Commonweal, or were they--?

I think so. Commonweal is published by Catholic laymen. It's not a church publication; it's not in any way controlled by the church. It's independent laymen, but it's always had the name of being a Catholic liberal magazine, you see, so--

And how about the church authorities? Did you have any--?

I had no trouble with them over those--

No trouble.

--articles, no. I met at the time--well, the Commonweal arranged it, actually. I was in New York; I had lunch with Norman Thomas at the time to discuss my article, with which he did not agree entirely. And the head of the Spanish Socialist party, I remember, who was in exile in Mexico, he didn't agree with it at all; and he wrote about a five-column criticism, published in Excelsior, a daily paper in Mexico City. I was arguing that if the Socialists, on the one side, would divest themselves of their doctrinaire dogmatism, and if the Catholics, on the other side, would divest themselves of their excessive concern about the sanctity of private property, then I see no reason why they could not collaborate, you see. Norman Thomas, and especially this Spanish Socialist leader, they didn't agree that there was any possibility of them ever getting together. But then I wrote a piece called "The Sin of Segregation, which was published in Commonweal, and quite recently I had an article in Commonweal, last February, believe Commonweal published an article of mine in which they had an introductory note in which they mentioned that article of mine, "The Sin of Segregation, which they said had been reprinted more often than any other article that had ever appeared in Commonweal. It was reprinted very many times, included in Commonweal anthologies, and so on.

Did these articles that you were doing--I'm just trying to picture your effort as a writer--were these the sorts of articles that would bring you out to make your observations and interview figures who were active in, say, a desegregation movement at the time?

Oh yes, I used to do a lot of public speaking in Los Angeles after I came here.

To Catholic groups or to civic groups?

Well, not only Catholic groups; no, to all kinds of groups. I remember speaking at a mass rally at Olympic Auditorium, where the boxing arena is and all. I spoke there one time, the place was crowded, over 15,000 people. There had been a series of fiery cross burnings in the Los Angeles area and several instances of violence to Jewish synagogues. For example, a fiery cross would be burnt on the front lawn of a white family that had sold its house to a black family, or on the front lawn of a black family that had just moved into a white neighborhood. So, several organizations--one of them was called, what, Movement for Democracy. Anyway, there were several organizations that organized this mass rally at Olympic Auditorium. They asked me if I would speak. I was one of about six speakers. Lena Horne was another one of the speakers. Pat [Edmund G.] Brown, the father of Jerry [Edmund G., Jr.] Brown, the governor, and this was before Pat became governor. He was, as I recall, running at the time, either for attorney general or district attorney of San Francisco, I forget which. I always admired him for that, because it was not calculated to win him votes. He came down from San Francisco, appeared--he only spoke, maybe, two minutes--but he had the courage to speak on that program in denunciation of racism, segregation, and so on. So I did a lot of that, of course, which, I think, gave me a bad reputation in some quarters, both in the church and out of the church. Yes, I did a lot of speaking of that kind.

But you felt no pressure from the church to desist from your activities or to change your tune?

Oh, I began to feel pressures. Yeah, I began to get pressures. For example, following this meeting I just mentioned, I was called down to the bishop's office. It had a report from some anonymous character (I don't know even who he was, but somebody, a kind of a spy, I guess), who had attended this meeting and who wrote a long report, a very biased report, giving the impression that this was a subversive meeting--Communist, subversive, and so on--which it wasn't at all. Undoubtedly there were Communists there, but it was not a Communist meeting. So I was questioned about that by the bishop's office. And that happened more than once; it happened several times. That was the same in connection with the Hollywood strike which I'll come to later. But never, at least at that time, I was never ordered to cease and desist, you see.

Were you teaching also at this time?

I was teaching, yeah.

What sorts of things were you teaching at that time?

[laughter] Well, in a way, that's amusing, because I was supposed to be teaching--and I was teaching--the state political theory course on the state and Catholic thought; but actually, I was so involved and so interested in racial segregation that my students--I occasionally meet one of them, thirty-five years later or more, and I still joke about it--most of my classes got off on a tangent, and we wound up talking about racial segregation. No matter what the subject was supposed to be, I usually wound up arguing with students about segregation, which had become perhaps my major interest at the time. I was here '46, '47; and I also wrote a play, I forget exactly when I wrote the play, called Trial by Fire, which was an interracial play, a documentary play, actually, based upon a tragedy. It happened out in Fontana, the burning of a lovely Negro family.

The burning of the family itself?

Hmm?

Of the family members themselves?

Yes, a young husband and wife and the two lovely, beautiful children were burned to death in Fontana, and it was whitewashed by the district attorney's office. He had a hearing, coroner's inquest, and whitewashed the whole thing as an accident. There was an explosion in the house. And it was an obvious whitewash. Well, I wrote a play about it, and a large part of the play, the dialogue, I took right out of the records of the coroner's inquest. Tht play was first produced here in Los Angeles at the Wilshire-Ebell Club; then it was produced widely across the United States. It was in New York, Blackfriar's Theatre for about six weeks, and Pasadena Playhouse then did it later. Then we did a showing on Sunset Boulevard, right off Vine.

I can't help but be curious. You may be surprised by my kind of naivete about the church, I know very little, but are these the sorts of things of which major church careers are built? I mean, obviously, some people--

These are the kinds of things -I would say just the opposite [laughter] --upon which prospective major careers are destroyed. [laughter] No, people who do this kind of thing normally do not advance very far careerwise in the church, but I wasn't interested in a career in the church.

What were your interests? Did you have plans to--?

I was interested in justice and in truth. I mean, that's all. It seemed to me obvious that that's what my life was all about and should be about: to defend justice. And to me racial segregation and the oppression of blacks-­ Negroes, we called them then, as they preferred then to be called; now they prefer to be called blacks--was a simple, obvious question of justice. And if Christianity, or religion, and many religions, stand for anything at all, it seems to me obvious that it should stand for justice, the defense of the poor, the oppressed, and so on. That's what I was interested in. I wasn't interested at all in what you referred to as building a career in the church, because, as I say, this is not the kind of thing that normally leads to a career in the church. Normally, it's the reverse, not necessarily always; but, churchmen, like people in other human institutions, always tend to be afraid of people who--this kind of activity, you see, it raises questions about this society. In the case of my play, Trial by Fire, an effort was made, not by the church, actually, but, I can't even remember his name now, and you probably wouldn't--what was his name? We had in California, you probably know that, whether you would remember or not, a California version of the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Yes, a state committee.

That's right. And the head of it was a Senator [Jack] Tenney. Anyway, he made an effort to stop my play. He got me on the phone and told me I was being a dupe of the Communists and so on; this was Communist propaganda, because it was critical of the authorities and so on. However, the play was produced, and as I say, over several years was rather widely produced. It was never produced commercially. It was also done in Czechoslovakia, both in the theater and on the radio in Czechoslovakia, with my authorization. So that's the kind of thing I was involved in here, and then along came the big strike in Hollywood. The way I got involved in that: as I said, I used to write a lot for Commonweal, and Commonweal wrote to me, think it was right after I came here, in 1946, the editor [Edward Skillin, Jr.] wrote and asked me if I would make an inquiry into the labor situation in Hollywood, with a view to writing a piece about it for Commonweal.. At that time, there seemed to be peace in Hollywood.

Did you, by that time, know anyone in the Hollywood labor community?

No, but this is where I got to know them. I began to make an investigation, and the very first one, as I recall, I'm not sure of the sequence now, but I think the first one I talked to was someone I did know, in fact he'd been a classmate of mine in law school before I became a Jesuit. He had been a very close friend of mine. As a matter of fact, he at one time briefly worked for me. When I was in college, I also owned and published a weekly community newspaper on West Jefferson Street, called the West Jeffferson Press, and Dan worked for me for a time on that paper. His name was Daniel G. Marshall. Dan is dead now. He became a lawyer when I became a Jesuit, and among his clients, he was the attorney for the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees union, called the IATSE in Hollywood. This was when it was an honest union. Dan was its lawyer. The IATSE had later been taken over by the Chicago crime syndicate, the old Al Capone machine, headed by Frank Nitti. I went to see Dan, and Dan gave me the whole history of the takeover of the union by the Chicago gangsters. With him in our meeting was Carey McWilliams. Carey McWilliams, I think, was a lawyer, but he had become a writer more than a lawyer, and eventually, if he were a lawyer, he gave it up entirely. He later beaame an editor of the Nation magazine for many years. At this time, he was still in California and had written two or three books on social problems, the agriculture business, and so on. So, I met with Dan and Carey McWilliams and from them, especially from Dan, got a picture of the Hollywood labor situation. Dan toldme graphically just how simply the gangsters took it over. Willie Bioff, the former pimp from Chicago, had come out with two gunmen, and Willie Bioff dropped off in Phoenix, the two gunmen came on to Hollywood, and Dan said, "Each one with a violin case under his arm, containing a machine gun." They just walked into a union meeting one night in Union Hall (which then was on Santa Monica Boulevard, near Western, as I recall), just walked into the union and announced that they were taking over. They telephoned Bioff in Phoenix and said, "We've taken over the union," and Bioff came over the next day. They came down to see Dan Marshall, they wanted him to remain as lawyer, and nan refused, He wouldn't have anything to do with them; he washed his hands of the union. So then, they got George Breslin and Mike [Michael] Luddy, a very prominent, respectable law firm in Los Angeles. They hired them as lawyers for the IATSE union, and they remained lawyers all during my experience, and they may still be. I imagine Breslin must be dead by now, but I imagine the firm is still representing the IATSE. So that was the beginning of my investigation, and then I went to see Herb [Herbert] Sorrell, who was the head of the Conference of Studio Unions, and talked to him about the labor situation, and then I went to see Roy Brewer, who had succeeded Willie Bioff. Bioff was in the penitentiary by this time, and he had been succeeded by Roy Brewer, and I had a talk with Brewer. So, I talked thus to the two principal labor leaders in Hollywood and got their view of the situation and formed my own opinion of the situation.

You're characterizing Brewer and Sorrell as the two principal labor leaders?

They were--

Yeah, OK.

--in Hollywood, in the Hollywood scene.

Do you think they were recognized as such by management? Do you think Sorrell was recognized as a substantial labor leader at that time1

Well, there's no doubt. [laughter]

The first part of the strike had occurred, that's right. The CSU had already struck and settled.

They had struck in support of the set decorators.

That's right, we're already up to 1946. So, the 1945 strike is concluded by this time.

Concluded, that's right.

When in '46 are we then? Is this, this would be about the spring of '46?

I'm a little hazy now about dates. I'd have trouble giving exact dates, but it must have been early in '46.

Early '46, so Brewer had just come here, in fact, because he came here, I believe, in early '46 himself.

Well, he talked like--

Or, he may have come in '45.

I think he did, because he certainly didn't talk like somebody who was just new--

That's right. He was on the War Production Board.

--because he knew the whole situation. He said to me, among other things, he was rather bitter and angry at his own IATSE workers. He spoke of other people he was supposed to be representing and defending; he spoke about them the way you might expect to hear a management man talk about a unionist. He complained bitterly about, you know, "They always want more money, more money, more money." And he said to me, "There's not room in Hollywood for the IATSE and the CSU" (that's Herb Sorrell's group). "It's a war to the finish." So, it was clear to me that in Roy Brewer's mind it was war to the finish, and so he was ruling out any possibility of labor peace in Hollywood, which was just the reverse of the attitude that I had seen in Herb Sorrell. Herb Sorrell at that moment--the set decorators' strike having been settled--didn't see any immediate threat to labor peace in Hollywood. There was the jurisdictional dispute that the arbitral committee had handed down a decision on, but he didn't think that was a serious issue at all. So on the Sorrell part, there didn't seem to be any anticipation of labor strife. On Brewer's part, there seemed to be a determination, "There will be strife."

And did you, at this point, write your Commonweal article?

I never wrote the Commonweal article, because while I was still making inquiries--I should have gone ahead on it--the strike began, broke out--as far as I could see, rather suddenly, because I had not anticipated it. Once the strike began, I got thn so involved in the strike itself that I never got around to writing the article. I did write several articles later, in the course of the strike. I wrote at least two articles on Herb Sorrell, himself.

For whom?

For Commonweal.

Oh, this is later on, then.

Yes, it was during the strike, but I don't recall that I actually wrote an article just on the strike itself.

What kind of relationship developed between you and Sorrell? I take it it was more than one interview. How did the relationship develop?

Oh, I saw him often. I used to see Herb frequently. And then again, of course, I developed the habit of going to strike meetings every Sunday night, and I saw Sorrell there every aunday night. But I must tell you how I got into that, you see. To go back a moment, among others that I interviewed in looking for information, and we became good friends, too, was Stewart Meacham. Stewart Meacham was then the regional director of the National Labor Relations Board for Southern California. So he had been involved professionally in the '45 strike that we just spoke about, the set decorators' strike. In the refusal of management and of the IATSE to obey the orders issued by the War Labor Board after their investigation, they refused also to obey Meacham's order of the National Labor Relations Board. So he knew the whole background, and he was very concerned. Unlike Sorrell, he was very concerned about the labor situation and the danger of the threat to labor peace.

For the record, what was the nature of Meacham's NLRB award? Do you recall?

His award?

Well, what was it that Meacham had ordered the unions and the workers to do, do you recall?

It's in that brochure of mine; I have a long quotation from his finding. It was a complete vindication of the position of the set decorators in the strike, you see. And actually a condemnation of the--you see, for fifteen months, the management and the IATSE had evaded, the set decorators were without a contract. They had voted to affiliate with one of the CSU unions. This is what the management and the IATSE were unhappy about, and so for fifteen months they kept evading negotiating with them for a contract. They were perfectly within their rights in voting to affiliate with the CSU, and that's one of the findings of Meacham: that they were perfectly within their rights in doing so, and consequently management had violated its contract by evading negotiating with them, you see. So, they were ordered to negotiate with them, actually. Well, anyway, the strike began, and it dragged on. I wasn't initially involved, but one night I was attending a kind of a social gathering, and there used to be many of those in Los Angeles. I don't even remember whose home it was. I remember it was the home of a lawyer who was a black, whose name now slips my mind, although I knew him quite well in those years. He was a very active, prominent black lawyer in Los Angeles. At that meeting that night, somebody began to talk to me and told me that the strikers, the CSU people on strike, were having a rough time. He asked me if I would be willing to come to this strike meeting and cheer them up, a little morale boost, you see. And I said, "Yes, I'll be glad to, provided it was cleared wihh Herb Sorrell," who was the head of the union. I didn't want to walk in there without his authorization, of course.

In these days, when you appeared in public--again, this may be a foolish question--did you wear a clerical collar?

Yes, I did.

So it was instantly apparent that you were a church­related person.

That's right. In those days, they used to be much more strict in requiring that we wear the Roman collar. Nowadays, we're much more relaxed than that. I always wore the Roman collar. They knew who I was.

Were there a lot of Catholics among the Hollywood laboring people?

Oh, sure. I don't know how many, I've no idea how many, but there certainly were. And in the course of the strike, I met many people who themselves would tell me, "Father, I'm a Catholic," and so on. But I have no idea what the proportion was, but there certainly were.

Was there any relation at that time between the church and any of the contesting parties in the strike?

No.

For instance, Rabbi [Edgar] Magnin at some point got involved in--

Yes, and so did the Catholic church authorities get involved, but not at this point.

It was too soon for that.

At a later point.

OK.

So the strikers used to meet every Sunday night in the American Legion Stadium in Hollywood, the old boxing arena in Hollywood.

Now a bowling alley.

Is it?

I believe so.

So, I went with Herb Sorrell. They had cleared it with Herb Sorrell. It wasn't Sorrell who phoned me, somebody phoned me, maybe this person I'd talked to, and said that they had spoken to Sorrell, and Sorrell had said that I'd be welcome at the meeting. Sorrell himself later used to be fond of telling of the experience and used to say that he was quivering in his boots that night when I walked in because he didn't have the faintest idea what I intended to say. He was afraid I might get up and tell the strikers, "You're all wrong, go back to work," you see. But instead I told them in my judgment they were all right, and they should stay in there. Justice was on their side, and in the end justice always triumphs. Of course, in the end, justice did not triumph at all. They were ultimately crushed.

How long did you speak?

Oh, I don't know. I always spoke off the cuff, any­ where from ten to twenty minutes, even a half an hour sometimes.

And what kind of reception do you recall getting?

Oh, I got an enthusiastic [reception]. So I used to go back then every Sunday night and give another pep talk.

And were you teaching all during this period?

Yes, I was teaching.

And did you begin to get any kind of reaction from your superiors, either at the university or in the Catholic community generally?

I'm trying to remember now. I don't remember; no, I don't think so. At the time, my superior here, he was then the president of Loyola, Ed [Edward] Whalen (he's dead now). Undoubtedly a very good man, but I'm quite sure he was always uneasy about my activities. But as far as I recall, he never did, except once--and I can tell you about that later on--apart from that one occasion, he never directly took me to task for it, you see.

Were you the only--I don't know how to say it--activist Jesuit in Los Angeles at the time, or was this not uncommon?

No, I think I probably was about the only activist. It doesn't mean that the others were all against me, on the contrary, here at Loyola. I remember I used to come home from these strike meetings, and I had the bad habit often of dropping in the room of a Jesuit who lived next door to me and regaling him with accounts of the evening's experiences. It was Roland Reid (he's dead now)--he was a professor of biology here--and I don't think he had the faintest interest in what I was doing. [laughter] But I used to keep him awake until midnight, telling him all about it. Years afterwards, I saw how much self-discipline he had in not telling me to get out of his room and go to bed and leave him in peace.

Did you keep a journal--?

But there were others here, the younger Jesuits here, who were very interested in what I was doing. I used to talk to them quite a lot. And there were none here who, at least directly, ever took issue with me and anything like that.

How about people on the other side? The IA[TSE] or management, did they begin to talk of you as a confederate of Sorrell?

Oh yes, no question of it. They were very unhappy, and ultimately they got me ousted from Los Angeles.

Let me, maybe, just invite you to go back to before I started interrupting. You said that you started attending these meetings weekly.

Yeah, I used to attend every week and give them a pep talk. Then, I recall, one evening in which my being there resulted in a smear which, I suppose, did me considerable harm; I don't know. But one week I had a phone call from somebody in the union, I don't remember who it was now, tipping me off, warning me, as it were, that the coming meeting, Sunday night--what's his name?--[Vincente] Lombardo Toledano, as I recall, was his name. Do you remember the name?

He was the Mexican unionist.

That's right. He was the head of the Mexican Federation of Labor. I don't remember just what it was called, but that's what it was, a federation of labor. He was in Los Angeles attending a meeting here of the International Labor Office of the old League of Nations (now the United Nations). Do you know the structure of that organization? Each country is represented in the B.I.T. [Bureau International de Travail] (its offices are in Geneva, Switzerland) by a representative of the government, labor, and management. They were having a meeting in Los Angeles of the delegates of oil-producing countries, so he was automatically here as a labor representative of Mexico. While he was here, somebody invited him to come out and talk to strike meetings, and he accepted. So somebody called me up and tipped me off and told me, "I thought you ought to know this, because maybe knowing that he is there, you wouldn't want to attend." Because Toledano was reputed to be-- maybe he was, maybe he wasn't--he was reputed to be a Communist or a Communist sympathizer. I have no doubt he was perhaps a Communist sympathizer, but whether he was a Communist or not, I don't know, and I wasn't interested, because it seemed to me that it made no sense for me to refuse to attend simply because he was there. If I believed in the cause of the Conference of Studio Unions, that their cause was right and just and ought to be defended, why should I separate myself from them simply because a Communist comes along and defends us. The Communists could drive us out of everything if we ran for cover. So I went to the meeting. I think I followeid him. He spoke, and then I spoke, too. Well this led, of course, to me being smeared. Later on I was attacked by Victor Riesel--does that name mean anything to you? He was a columnist with the New York Post, but his column was syndicated all over the coun­ try. He attacked me in one of his columns, and he mentioned this. He didn't say I was a Communist or a Communist sympathizer, but he implied that I associated with Communists; and this was an example he gave: that I had appeared on the same platform with Vincente Toledano.

Is this still late 1946?

I think it's still '46. But I wouldn't swear to it. You see, it was a bitter strike--if you've studied it you know that--a bitter strike. There was mass picketing; there were mass arrests of the pickets. At that time, Los Angeles had the notorious Red Squad, it was called, supposed to break up subversive meetings and that kind of thing.

Was [William H.] Parker the chief [of police] then?

I don't remember who the chief was. And I can't remember the name--I was trying to think of it this morning-­ of the head of the so-called Red Squad either. [Lieutenant Bill (Red) Heinz] He was an extreme rightist. Anyway, they arrested the pickets by the hundreds, and they actually were going to try them in batches of several hundred people. Absolutely ludicrous. Eventually, I think the courts insisted they reduce the size, but they still tried them in batches of twenty to thirty people on charges of disorderly conduct and disturbing the peace. But imagine, how can you have a trial of twenty people on that kind of a charge. It might be two people who did resort to disorderly conduct, but then all twenty would be convicted of it, you see.

Were you walking the picket line, or just appearing on the Sunday night meetings?

On Sunday night, yes.

And the rest of the week, did you have any involvement?

No, except talking to people, and I was teaching my class every day. I used to go to the union headquarters quite often and talk to them.

The CSU headquarters?

Yes.

You'd drop by, or--?

On Western Avenue near Beverly Boulevard, as I recall. Then, at one point, the CSU committee asked me if I would go back to Washington to see Bill [William] Green, who was then the head of the AF of L [American Federation of Labor]--you see, all the unions involved were AF of L unions--to see Bill Green and to try to persuade Bill Green, since they were all AF of L unions, to intervene and settle this dispute. Well, Herb Sorrell, actually, was opposed to this proposal because, as I learned afterward, he didn't think it would do any good. And it actually turned out he was right. But it was typical of the way he ran the union. It was a democratic union, and since the strike committee voted the majority to ask me to go back, he accepted that, didn't overrule them.

At this point were you any longer working on the Commonweal article, or had you abandoned that?

Well, as I say, I wrote several articles in the course of it, but I never wrote an article specifically dealing with the strike issues, except indirectly. I wrote several articles about Herb Sorrell at that time.

During this period?

During this period.

Were you any longer in contact with Brewer, whom you had interviewed, or Meacham, or any of these other people?

Well, I used to see Meacham from time to time; we had become good friends.

But were you anathema to Brewer at this time?

I was an anathema to Brewer. In fact, so much so that, so I learned, he wasn't even above making very calumnious remarks. He implied one time--not to me of course, but talking to others--that I had a homosexual relationship with Herb Sorrell, which was absolute nonsense, absolute nonsense. I'm not a homosexual and don't have homosexual tendencies, and I'm sure Herb Sorrell wouldn't either. But I mean, that's how low Brewer could stoop. But anyway, I went back to Washington, I saw Bill Green, which was, as Herb Sorrell had predicted, a waste of time. He, like Roy Brewer, too, impressed me as being anything but a labor leader. His whole mentality seemed to be that of a management man, always complaining about the trouble that the workers cause, and they're never satisfied and so on. [laughter] But in Washington I also saw Congressman [Fred] Hartley of the Taft-Hartley Bill.

When I was in Washington, I saw [Congressman Fred A.] Hartley. He was the chairman of the House Committee-­or Subcommittee, I forget which it was--on Education and Labor. They were planning an investigation of the Hollywood labor strike, but they had decided to turn it over to the House Committee on Un-American Activities. I had a long meeting with Hartley and with Congressman [Carroll D.] Kearns, who was a member of the committee.

He was a member of Hartley's committee, or of--?

Of the Hartley committee. And I persuaded them that this would be a grave mistake to let the House Committee on Un-American activities get involved in this, because this would be nothing but a red herring. That the issues in Hollywood had nothing to do with communism. These were labor issues, and consequently if an congressional committee investigated it, it should be the labor committee and not the witch-hunting Un-American Activities Committee.

Toward what legislative goal would they have been investigating Hollywood labor?

I don't know. I really don't know. I suppose just a fishing expedition to give themselves something to do and get a trip to Hollywood, I don't know. But it was on the agenda. Of course, if the Un-American Activities [Committee], that would be obviously a fishing expedition, to find communism in Hollywood as everyplace else. But I did succeed in persuading them that if anybody came out, they should come out themselves, and so they did. They sent out a one-man committee; that was Congressman Kearns of Pennsylvania. He came out, and he held meetings every day for a month down at the Federal Building downtown. (I think I discussed that in that brochure there, some of it anyway.) [Irving G.] McCann was the lawyer for the committee. The chief counsel for the AF of L also participated in it [Joseph Padway]. I can't remember his name now; he was rather elderly at the time and got into a wild fistfight with McCann in the course of one day during the hearings. A wild fistfight. McCann was a much younger man. I forget what his name was; he was the chief counsellor for the AF of L. I was on the stand all day; I testified.

When you were called, were you called as a disinterested objective witness, or were you being associated with the CSU in the public mind?

I think I could answer that this way: I was on the stand all day, and at the end of my testimony, Kearns, who was the committee (it was a one-man committee), made a statement, which I listened to later that evening on the radio here in this same building, where I was then living. On the news program, they had about fifteen minutes or twenty minutes of my testimony, and they also broadcast Kearns's statement at the end of it, in which, in effect, he confessed, when he called me to the stand, he expected me to be a biased witness. But he praised me, rather lavishly actually, for the objectivity of my testimony; so, in his mind at least, I had been an objective witness. I've gotten a bit ahead of my story because Ronald Reagan comes into it before this. Do you want me to go back and tell--?

That would be fine. Ronald Reagan, the way I understand things, came out of the army, became an alternate on the Screen Actors Guild executive board in March of '46, was elected third vice-president in the fall of '46, in the summer of '46 went with a number of actors to the AFL convention and tried to encourage the AFL to mediate, which was sort of not an AFL habit to get involved in jurisdictional matters. Was it at this point that you first heard of Reagan? What are your perceptions of Reagan? When did you first become aware of him as participating in all of this? Or in the Screen Actors Guild in general, whichever way you want to handle it.

As I mentioned, this was a very bitter strike, but the key to its solution, in my judgment, lay with the Screen Actors Guild. In my judgment--and I think I give the evidence for it in that brochure, to be documented--this whole strike had been manipulated in a conspiracy between the major producers and Roy Brewer and the IATSE union. As Brewer had said to me, and I quoted him already, "It's a war to the finish." So, he conspired with the producers to precipitate a situation in which the CSU would have no choice but to strike, then, once they were out of the studio, then freeze them out until time, attrition, and everything else simply destroyed them. That was the whole strategy. I forget the exact date, but in August '46 the AF of L had handed down a clarification of this jurisdictional decision by that three-man committee, the clarification which Sorrell thought would ensure peace in Hollywood, because it was entirely in favor of the CSU interpretation, you see. Between that date and September 24 (it was the first day of the strike), there was a series of hush-hush, very top secret meetings in Hollywood between the major producers or their representatives and the IATSE union. Brewer, himself, attended some of the meetings, not all of them, where this strategy was formulated, to force them on the issue, Brewer guaranteeing the promoters that if they forced the CSU people out on the streets, he could supply IATSE people to replace them. And he said that if the IATSE people refused to take their jobs, to work on what they called the "hot sets," he himself would force them to do so. The fact that these hush-hush meetings had taken place was revealed during this congressional hearing that I spoke about, towards the end of it. You, perhaps, are familiar with this because I tell the story in my brochure [Hollywood Labor Dispute: A Study in Irrunorality]. It was towards the end of the hearings when Congressman Kearns one day produced the minutes of these hush-hush meetings. It caused great, obvious consternation in the ranks of the representatives of the producers and the IATSE union who were there at the hearing that day, as I was. How Kearns got a hold of them has always been a matter of mystery, although it was generally thought, and very probably is true, that it was Pat Casey who gave them to him.

The producers' labor representative.

Pat Casey had been the producers' labor representative for twenty-five years. He had just been retired, just at this time. He had testified at the beginning of this hearing. He obviously knew far more than he admitted on testimony; but, and this is not in that brochure, he knew perfectly well that this thing was as a result of a conspiracy between the producers, for whom he worked, and the IATSE union, but he didn't have the courage to say so on the witness stand for, I think, rather obvious reasons: one was that he was retiring just at this time, but he would jeopardize his pension that he expected to get from the producers, and might even jeopardize his life, because this was a violent-- when dealing with the Hollywood strike, you were dealing with Chicago gangsters. In the course of the strike--as you, perhaps, know yourself--one Sunday night, Herb Sorrell didn't show up at a strike meeting. I was there. Nobody knew where he was, because he didn't show up. Well, he'd been kidnapped, as it turned out, that night at gunpoint by some of the hired gunmen of the Chicago syndicate.

Wasn't there always some question whether that was a put-up job?

A question in whose mind?

It's just a Hollywood legend, and you hear interpretations both ways.

Of course, of course, that report was spread by people on the other side as a put-up job. I don't think it was a put-up job. I don't think even Herb, who had all kinds of courage, would submit to getting badly beaten up. His face was a mass of bruises. He showed up the following Sunday night with his head bandaged and his black eyes and bruises.

He was, after all, a boxer by trade.

Oh, sure he was. Oh, of course, yes.

So he knew how to take a beating and not be mortally wounded, I'm sure.

Of course, that rumor was spread, but as I say, it was spread by the opposition, and there's no evidence whatsoever to support it. When they found him, they brought him to a hospital, so the doctors in the hospital certainly examined him. They never gave any support to this theory, no. I think he was kidnapped at gunpoint, driven up into the foothills, beaten badly, pistol whipped, and left for dead. Now, Herb used to claim-- and I was always convinced that Herb was a thorougly honest man. He didn't lie. Not that he wouldn't be above lying if he thought it was necessary for a good cause, but I always took his word for it. And as I say, I had the physical evidence, and knowing the kind of people who were on the other hand, I certainly would never put it past them. They were certainly capable of it. So, what did I start to say? I got off the track.

You started to say why you thought that the Screen Actors Guild was the key to the situation.

Oh, because Brewer had guaranteed, you see, the producers that he could replace painters, carpenters, all the rest of them. But Brewer could not replace actors or actresses. You could always get finks to wield a paintbrush or hammer a nail, but you couldn't go out in the street and pick up people to come in and replace a John Wayne or a Greta Garbo before the cameras, you see. You had to have the professional actors or actresses for that. This was before the Italian movie--what's his name?--resorted to--

[Roberto] Rossellini.

Rossellini, making pictures of people off the street. Hollywood wasn't capable of that. So if the actors and actresses would simply refuse to cross the picket line, the strike would have been settled in twenty-four hours. I made that statement one night, at the Sunday night strike meetings, and it was true. The producers, as long as they could continue to make pictures, they would be making money. But the moment the actors and actresses stopped coming into the studios to make pictures for them, they'd have to shut down, you see. That's the end of their flow of income, cash. So, I said, if the actors and actresses would refuse to cross the picket lines, this strike would be settled in twenty-four hours. I made the same statement over the radio. This brought an immediate reaction from Ronald Reagan, and this is where Reagan entered the picture. The very next night he came out here to Loyola, where I was staying, and into that parlor you just walked past through downstairs. He was accompanied by his then-wife, Jane Wyman, and by George Murphy. Now, you gave some dates a few moments ago that surprised me, I wasn't familiar with them, and my memory is hazy. I'm not quite sure now. You'd have to check books or something. I've always said that he was president of the Hollywood Screen Actors Guild at this time. As a matter of fact, my memory is hazy on that. Either he or Murphy was at the time, because I think Murphy followed him as Screen Actors president, didn't he? Wasn't Murphy--?

Well, he was the third vice-president, from, I don't know exactly, I'd say, about September '46 through March of '47.

Who was, Murphy?

Reagan.

Reagan.

Then, in March of '47, the president, [Robert] Montgomery, and a number of the other top officers resigned because of an internal SAG rule that officers with production interests couldn't be officers. At that point, there was an election within the board in March '47, and he became the president. And he remained the president of the Screen Actors Guild through about September of '52.

Now, this is Reagan.

Reagan. So he may have been--

Well, then, he must have been president the night he came here, yes.

Well, he would have been president only by March of '47.

Well, then, this must have been after March '47, because I've always had him identified in my mind as then the president of the Screen Actors Guild, and I thought Murphy was a vice-president, or something--

Murphy may well have been the vice-president. I don't know if he followed Reagan as president, but if he did, it certainly wouldn't have been until '52.

Well, then he was vice-president. That confirms what I've always thought, but occasionally, I've had doubts whether he was then. But he was president, I'm quite sure now. Anyway, the three of them came. Jane Wyman-­ I think she divorced him the following year, if I'm not mistaken--contributed nothing to the discussion except her charming looks, you know. She's very beautiful and a first-rate actress, in contrast to Ronald Reagan who, in my judgment, was about a fourth-rate actor.

And not very beautiful.

And not very beautiful. But handsome in an Arrow-Collar­ad kind of good looks. And Murphy was simply about a fifth-rate actor and a moderately successful soft-shoe dancer. He learned that skill at Yale University. I don't know what else he learned at Yale, but he learned to soft-shoe dance. He contributed very little except an embarrassed smile from time to time.

So, the leader of the--

The leader, the articulate spokesman for the three was Ronald Reagan.

Was this the first time you'd ever met him?

The first time I'd met him, and I found him very articulate, as he is today. I also found that in his articulateness, he often didn't know what he was talking about, which I think is still true today. He doesn't know what he's talking about half the time. But he's very articulate, and the whole purpose-- we were together for about three hours' discussion.

In the parlor downstairs?

In the parlor downstairs. We were there until about two o'clock in the morning, as I remember. The whole thrust of his discourse was to persuade me that Herb Sorrell and the CSU and all these people were Communists, and this was a Communist-led strike and -inspired strike, and that I was simply being a dupe for the Communists.

Now, that was, in fact, the purpose of his visit, and not to try to convince you that this was nothing more than a jurisdictional dispute and that Sorrell and, perhaps, [William] Hutcheson were simply being obstinate. He was there not to make that point, but simply to make the Communist point?

Well, he made that point too, but I say the main burden of his discourse was the Communist angle. But he made that other point you mentioned. He said, and I don't question that it was true, that he and Murphy, the two of them, had made a trip back to Indianapolis, where they had discussed with the three men (I don't know whether all three of them, but at least with one or two of.the three) of that arbitration committee that had come out here to settle the jurisdictional lines in Hollywood, and that much of their decision was not bad, considering that none of them knew anything about the movie industry. One of them was [William C.] Doherty, president of the International Postmen's Union. Another was [Felix H.] Knight, president, I think, of a train­ men's union, and the third was [William c.] Birthright, president of the barbers' union. None of them knew anything about the motion picture industry, so they didn't do too bad a job; but they made this one mistake, which is the thing that the IATSE union and the producers seized upon to provoke the strike, you see. They took away from the carpenters' union the work of setting up the sets onstage, which the carpenters had always done. And everybody admitted they-had always done it.

Had they actually set up finished flats, or had they constructed the flats that the grips then set up?

If they constructed the sets off the set, then the grips carried them on the stage and set them up. But in the definition in the decision, they gave it to a union that didn't even exist--the IATSE had to create a union to do this particular type of work, which was really construction work onstage. Everybody admitted it. I remember at the congressional hearing that I spoke about, Eddie Mannix wain the stand one day (he was a general manager of MGM Studios). This is rather mean of me to tell it because it's no reflection upon Eddie Mannix that he didn't have any education. But one day on the stand, he said, "I have never denied that histrionically speaking, the carpenters have always done that work." [laughter] Histrionically speaking. Again, in the hearings, as I quote there in the brochure, all three members of that arbitration committee testified that when they handed down that decision, they had no intention whatever of taking any work away from the carpenters. It was just a mistake. But anyway, Reagan maintained, that night here, that he and Murphy had gone back there and talked to the committee, and the committee men told them that it was definitely their intention that this work should go to the IATSE union. Now, that statement was directly contradicted by all three of them in the later hearings here in Los Angeles.

Did you attempt to correct his impressions of what the "Three Wise Men" had said, or to refute his interpretation?

Well, of course, I argued against him, but not to refute his interpretation, because I didn't know myself at that time. It might well have been. But, in that case, I would still maintain that it was a mistake, you see, and therefore should be rectified, because, as I say, it was well known this had always been carpenters' work. So, if this arbitration committee had intended to take it away from them, it was obviously a mistake, and therefore it could easily be rectified by simply correcting the mistake.

Now, by the time you had this meeting with Reagan, Wyman, and Murphy, were the actors already crossing the CSU picket lines?

Oh, yes.

So, this is during the strike and crossing the picket line?

Oh, yes, this is in the height of the strike. Yeah, they were crossing the picket line, you see. Reagan could quite easily have directed them not to cross the picket line. They were simply following the directions of their officers.

How did the meeting proceed? fashion? Did it get heated? Did it break up in a friendly Was it calm and collected?

Oh, I would say it was calm and collected; yes,it was calm, I mean, I didn't get heated. I don't recall that Reagan did either, but he was very aggressive of course, as he is in his speaking today and very articulate. I remember very distinctly that when it wound up I had the very definite impression, this is a dangerous man. I remember saying that to myself. Murphy was totally harmless. He was a leading actor to Shirley Temple, as I recall. That was his chief claim to fame. But Reagan, I had a definite view, this is a dangerous man, because he is so articulate, and because he's sharp. But he can also be very ignorant, as he clearly was, in my judgment, interpreting everything in terms of the Communist threat, you see, Communist danger.

Had you ever heard him speak before?

Well, it never in the world occurred to me that he would one day be governor of one of the American states, let alone president of the United States. It never would have entered my mind, you see, I just thought--

You thought of him as a dangerous man in terms of the strike?

That and, in general, he could be a danger because of his articulateness and because he's so obsessed with the Communist-threat fear, you see.

Had you ever heard him speak in public before or ever met him before?

Not before that, no.

But you were aware of his role in general in Hollywood. I mean, he was a known figure.

Yes, but I didn't attribute to him a very great role in Hollywood except, now, in the strike it was clear that because of their position they occupied, the role they played, the actors' guild did play a key role in this, which made him very important.

Did you have any subsequent meeting, or--?

Only once, and it wasn't a meeting. I sat alongside him one day in the Federal Building during the congressional hearing. In fact, I was sitting alongside him the day that Eddie Mannix made his "histrionically speaking" remark. [laughter] That's the only other time, actually.

And what occurred in that? Did you have occasion to chat, or--?

Well, I tried to chat with him, but he wasn't very friendly actually. He wasn't at all friendly. No, I made some remarks to him from time to time during the hearings, but I got no response from him at all. He was definitely quite unfriendly.

Did you talk about your meeting with him with anyone else subsequently? Like Sorrell, or anyone like that?

I don't remember. I must have. I must have mentioned it to Sorrell, but now I just don't recall.

Do you recall any other impressions of him during the continuing course of the strike and your time here in Los Angeles?

Well, of course, from that time on my impressions of Reagan were very negative because of the key role he played in cooperation with what I regarded as one of the most sordid conspiracies in the history of American labor.

Do you think he was a part of that conspiracy, or being used by that conspiracy?

Well, that I couldn't say. It depends upon how intelligent, actually, he is. He certainly couldn't help but know the whole history of the IATSE union, you see. Now, as you know--and as I have already mentioned, I think, several times--the IATSE union had been taken over by the Chicago crime syndicate, by people like "Lucky" Luciano, Frank Nitti, [Louis "Lepke"] Buchalter-­ all these people, who had a series of meetings in Riverside and plotted taking over the IATSE union, which they did, and then they got George [E.] Browne elected the national president, and Bioff named by him to come out here and take over in Hollywood. And I mentioned how they took over the Hollywood thing. Well now, Bioff, from 1934 to '41, he and Browne were in conspiracy with the Hollywood producers, who knew perfectly well what they were doing. The producers paid them hundreds of thousands of dollars every year in return for them keeping the workers in line.

I know that in your brochure, you document that the people who held power in the IATSE following Browne and Bioff were, in fact, all international vice-presidents during the Browne administration.

Right, yeah.

But you also, I believe, in the brochure, and today, characterize Brewer as the successor to Bioff. It's true that Brewer was [Richard] Walsh's representative in Hollywood after a lapse of four years between them, but do you mean to characterize Brewer as in every way-­ I don't know what to say--the spitting image of Bioff? I mean, I realize that they held structurally the same posts: personal representative of the international president, but are you also saying that Brewer was the strong-arm man of Walsh and that he, too, was painted with the same brush as the leadership?

I would say so, yes. However, let me make myself clear. I don't mean to say that he's a spitting image of Bioff. Bioff, to begin with, was a pimp. He began his career as a pimp, making his living off prostitutes in Chicago. I don't have any evidence that Brewer was ever a pimp, and I would have no inclination to think that he was. Neither have I any evidence that during the Brewer years, the producers were still paying bribes, $200,000 a year, to Brewer, as they had been to Bioff and Browne, no. I have no evidence for that, no reason to think that was going on; but, the pattern of cooperation between the IATSE leadership and the producers had been set during the Bioff years, and this pattern of cooperation continued during the Brewer years and perhaps continues today, I don't know. I had a letter some months ago from--I don't remember his name, but I think his name was Gluckman (maybe you know him)--[Jeff Goodman]. He had the same kind of an idea that you had of writing--

Jeff Goodman?

Yeah, I think he's the one. He's a member of the IATSE, if he's the one. In one of his letters, he told me that the IATSE union still has all the earmarks of a company union controlled in collaboration between Brewer, the leadership, and the producers. He said something like this, "It seems to me the victory won by the producers and Brewer and the IATSE union back in '46, '47, the effects of it still exist." He said, "Some of the young members of the IATSE union in Hollywood, every once in a while they get restless, and every time they do, the business agents always warn them by reminding them of what happened to the CSU, 'You'd better stay in line, or that'11 happen to you.'" So, I say, the pattern of cooperation still existed.

And that Reagan would have been aware of it.

Yes, how could he not have been aware, as I was aware, for example, that all seven of the vice-presidents who had been vice-presidents during the Browne-Bioff era were still the vice-presidents.

You were aware of this sort of thing then, or later as you investigated?

Later, I imagine, when I made a study of it, yes. But it was the same, and it's always the same pattern of union leadership collaborating with management against the interests of the rank and file. That's the pattern. And I think that that's the pattern that Brewer was pursuing. As I said to you, my very first meeting with him, when he cmmplained bitterly about the complaints of the workers, "They always want more money, they're never satisfied," and so on.

I know that you only had this one other occas on to, if not meet with Reagan, at least to be in close proximity. Do you have any reason to think that he did you any harm with your own church authorities in the--?

Well,I wouldn't say Reagan did, but, of course, the other side--that is, the producers and the IATSE--succeeded in getting me ousted from Los Angeles. Now, who was directly involved in that, I couldn't say, but I know that they were. I suspect the lawyers were, Breslin and Luddy, because they were both Catholics, and Breslin in particular stood very high with the Catholic archbishop's office here. He was one of those known as a "prominent Catholic layman," you see.

I'm trying to remember if Reagan, I don't know if he is a Catholic-- Were his parents Catholic?

No, he never was. His father was a Catholic. His mother was not a Catholic. His father was an alcoholic, I believe--

He was.

--and actually, as far as religion was concerned, I think it was his mother who directed whatever religious training he had, and so he wound up not a Catholic. Now, I think he goes to the Presbyterian church.

Let me ask you one question: Exactly your intent with a particular word in a pamphlet written years ago, I don't know how clear it will be to you, but in this pamphlet, you refer to Ronald Reagan's "Rover Boy activities helped mightily to confuse the issues." What did you mean by his "Rover Boy activities"?

Well, I meant at the time, he was running back to Indianapolis, you know, to see Birthright and then coming back and saying that he had the answer to all the questions in the strike. Well, that was kind of a sarcastic remark. I wouldn't say "Rover Boy activities" now, but at that time that's what it appeared to me. I think I called it "Rover Boy" because it seemed to me--as I think I've said, the night I met with him here--that he didn't know what he was talking about. He had his facts all wrong both as to the alleged communism of Herb Sorrell and the CSU union and as to the rectitude of the jurisdictional issue. He was all wrong. So then in running around trying to solve it he impressed me as being a Rover Boy.

Do you think he was a mouthpiece for Roy Brewer, in essence?

No, that would never occur to me. No, I don't think so. No, I think he was doing a job for the producers, actually. Now, whether he was doing it with promises of payment, I couldn't prove that, but I wouldn't be surprised. I had often suspected it, because up to this time in Reagan's life, unless my memory disserves me, he was not particularly wealthy, I don't think. He was at the end or near the end of his acting career, such as it was, and it's from this period on, after having done this very effective job in the interests of the producers, that his whole success stems, from that. His wealth, I think, without making any charges because I don't have any evidence at all, but I do think some zealous student working for a PhD might do a doctoral thesis by making a study one time of where did Reagan's wealth come from. Where did it come from? He didn't make it from his acting career, certainly. I think the producers have given him a big boost. I read not too long ago in some journal, and I forget the exact figures, but it mentioned that he sold a home--I don't know where his home was--that he had bought for, what? This is not the figure, I'll say for $200,000, and that Twentieth Century-Fox bought it from him for a million and some dollars. This is the kind of thing that, in my own mind, leads me to suspect that producers rewarded him. They don't forget their friends, and Reagan was a very valuable friend in this strike to them,just as the Chicago crime syndicate doesn't forget its enemies either. You know what happened to Willie Bioff, don't you, eventually?

Were you in Phoenix at that time?

I was in Phoenix at that time. I lived only a few blocks away. I didn't even know that he was there. But Bioff, as you undoubtedly know, made a deal with the Justice Department in return for the Justice Department releasing him from prison (he was in a federal penitentiary back East). He agreed to sing, and he sang like a canary. He told the whole story in the federal tax proceedings against the estate of Frank Nitti. Frank Nitti was the head of the Chicago crime syndicate, he was Bioff's boss, and he committed suicide rather than face trial--you know that, I imagine. So the action was against his estate, and Bioff testified, and that's where all my knowledge of the background comes from. It's all in the court records. He told the whole history of the taking over of the IATSE union by the crime syndicate of Chicago, the whole history of the conspiracy between him and them and the producers, the whole history of the payment every year, of his dealings with Joe [Joseph] Schenck and Nick [Nicholas] Schenck. It's all in the court records, you see, and that's where my evidence, my knowledge, comes from. Now, certainly, Reagan must have been familiar with that. Of course, Reagan's defense would be that at this time that we're talking about now, of the strike, Bioff was long gone; in fact he would even claim some credit for getting him sent to pr1son. I don't think he deserves any credit. I don't think he had anything to do with it. And it is true tht he is gone; but, as I said in that brochure, and as you mentioned a little while ago, "Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose." It was the same organization; the seven vice-presidents were still the seven vice-presidents. Harry Holmden--the same guy who had been named the business agent of Local 110 in Chicago by Frank Nitti after Tom Malloy, who was the business agent, had been cut down by machine-gun bullets-­ he was still the vice-president. The same lawyers still represented them. Nothinghad changed except that Bioff and Browne were done, that's all.

Let me ask you about a couple of things chronologically. One is the interfaith had a suggestion for ending the strike. in that? that occurred committee, which were you involved

I don't recall that I was. I don't think so.

Yeah. The other was, you mentioned in Hollywood Labor Dispute that you proposed an arbitration in March of '47. To whom did you make that proposal? How did that come about?

I made that proposal at a big rally. Again, I think, at the Olympic Auditorium. I'm a little hazy on that, but it was a big auditorium downtown--I'rn pretty sure it was the Olympic Auditorium--where the CSU had a big mass rally. I spoke that night. I don't think I had even consulted Sorrell ahead of time, but I wrote my speech in which I proposed a solution and challenged the CSU to accept this arbitration, publicly challenged them, and also, at the same time, challenged the IATSE and the producers. It was in a speech I made at this big rally downtown. Herb Sorrell and the CSU accepted; they agreed. I think the proposal was that they agree in advance to accept whatever decision the arbitration committee carne up with.

The csu or all parties?

All parties.

So, it'd be a binding arbitration.

That's right. The other side had been in the habit of saying they couldn't accept anything like that because Hutcheson, the international president of the carpenters, wouldn't abide by it. So a part of my proposal was that in the event where Hutcheson refused to abide by it, CSU would agree in advance, nevertheless, to abide by it, which would be to separate themselves from the carpenters. They agreed to that, but, of course, the IATSE didn't, and neither did the producers. They just ignored it.

The CSU agreed to it at that meeting, or in a subsequent executive council of some sort?

I think that very night--well, it must have been later, but I know they accepted it, they agreed to it. Or they may even have agreed to it in advance. I don't whether I challenged them in advance, and I may I may have asked in advance, "Will you agree to not?" Somewhere along the line, they did agree Or they remember have this, or to it.

You mentioned in your report Archbishop [John J.] Cantwell's report. Were you in communication with Archbishop Cantwell, or--?

I was not, but that's quite interesting, you see, because I was going to those meetings every Sunday night, and, as I say, I was quite well aware that the archbishop's office-- you see, Archbishop Cantwell had two assistant bishops, they call them auxiliary bishmps: one is called coadjutor and the other auxiliary. The senior was Bishop [Joseph T.] McGucken, who later became archbishop of San Francisco and has now retired. The other one was the young Bishop [Timothy] Manning, who now is the cardinal archbishop of Los Angeles. Those were the two assistants. I was quite well aware that my activities in the Hollywood strike were causing a certain uneasiness down there, you see--

In the archdiocese offices?

Yes, in the office. I'm trying to remember now whether I was called down-- I'm quite sure I was called down there a couple of times.

For a reprimand, or just a discussion?

Well, discussion, yeah, but sort of an implied reprimand, I suppose. I'm just trying to remember. One of them, however, was not in connection with the Hollywood strike. It was in connection with that other mass rally that I told you about--

The segregation--

--the segregation rally, yeah, which had been described to the bishop's office as a Communist meeting, you see. Yes, I was called down again in connection with the strike, and it was also related to this you just asked me. Bishop McGucken--Archbishop Cantwell was very old and very sick at the time, so I really don't think he knew too much about what was going on--in his name, he appointed a two-man committee of clergymen to investigate the Hollywood strike. One of them was Father [Thomas] Coogan, a young priest who had a doctorate degree in labor relations, something of the sort, and he had a position in the diocese as the archdiocesan labor relations man, you see. The other one was Monsignor [John] Devlin; he was pastor of a parish, but he also had a job as a liaison man between the archbishop's office and the motion picture industry. So these two made their own independent investigation. They didn't talk to me, they never questioned me, or anything. They did their own investigating, and they came up with a report which was then issued over Cantwell's name in the archdiocesan paper, The Tidings, which in all essential respects corroborated my own position. I think they reached three main conclusions, as I recall. One was that this strike could be settled if there were goodwill on the part of the producers and the other parties involved. They particularly reprimanded the producers for their lack of goodwill. The second main conclusion was that the Communist issue was a red herring, a smoke screen. The issue involved in the dispute in Hollywood was not related to communism, it was a labor issue, which was what I had been saying all along. Now, I forget what the third conclusion was, but its in the [report]. It all corroborated my position. So when I went to the--

In essence, those were all three, because you combined two: "that the strike can be settled if all parties involved get together in a determined effort to end the struggle," and they said that the producers were taking a most negative attitude by doing little to settle the dispute; so, in fact, those were two distinct points, and then there is the Communist issue.

That's right. So that Sunday night when I went to the strike meeting as usual, I had a copy of The Tidings with me, you see. And I began my speech by saying, "I've been speaking to you now, week after week, but in doing so, I represent simply myself. My opinions I have been expressing have no authority other than my own opinion." I said, "The only one in this area who speaks authoritatively for the Catholic church is Archbishop Cantwell." Now, I said, "Here is an authoritative statement issued by Archbishop Cantwell," and I read it to them. [laughter] The next day, I was called down to the bishop's office. It was young Bishop--then, young, now he's not so--Manning, now the cardinal, who reprimanded me. This was a reprimand. And really very amusing, although at the time I don't think I laughed, because he began by saying, "Father Dunne, I must remind you that the only person in this area who speaks with authority for the Catholic church on moral issues is Archbishop Cantwell," [laughter] which was exactly what I'd said the night before, you see. Somebody had reported to him that I had gloated over the fact that the archbishop has come around to my way of seeing things. But it wasn't the case at all. Exactly what I said was exactly what he said.

Do you have any idea who the people were who were accusing you to the governing body of the church in Los Angeles?

No. There was one character whose name I wouldn't remember if I [ever knew it]--I think I did know it at one time--and I think he's the one who wrote that report on that other meeting, about the segregation meeting.

A priest?

No, no, not a priest, he was a layman, and he was head of security for Lockheed Aircraft Company here in Los Angeles, and he was a professional spy on subversive activities. I don't know whether it was a hobby or whether he got paid for it, but I know that he's the one who wrote that other report, and he probably was the one who made this report, too, about the--

It's really sad that this poor guy had to attend all these meetings that were probably very repugnant to him.

Yes, yeah. [laughter]

To spend his life doing exactly what he hated to do.

Exactly, exactly.

A spy's life is not an easy one.

I don't remember his name if I ever knew it, but I do know he was identified to me once as the head of the security at Lockheed Aircraft Company.

Was [James Francis] Mcintyre the cardinal at that time?

No, Mcintyre hadn't come yet; he succeeded Cantwell.

Oh, I see, OK, so he's not involved in this story.

He's not involved. I was involved with him later on, and, in fact, had been before I even came here.

How soon after your reprimand were you on the train again? How did that come about?

Well, that came about in a rather strange way.

Am I jumping over too many months, or is that actually--?

Well, no, I can't really remember now. I remember when I left here was September of '47, when I finally left here. It wasn't long, yes. It came fairly soon after my testimony at the congressional hearings. I was on the stand all day, and that got quite a bit of notice in the newspaper here, the Evening Herald, or the Examiner, I think it was the Herald, had one or two columns about my testimony. In my testimony, among other things, with Michael Luddy--I mean, Luddy was sitting right there at the counsel table in front of me--I had charged that he had made a shameless effort to influence my superior, who was Father Whalen, at Loyola University, to shut me up, which he actually had done.

You were talking about Luddy's report to Whalen.

About what?

Luddy's getting you in trouble with Whalen.

[laughter] Luddy, yes, he tried to get Father Whalen, who was my superior, to put the quietus on me, and I revealed that at the congressional hearing, which I'm sure didn't please him at all. It wasn't long after that that I was removed from Los Angeles, and the cir­ cumstances were, my provincial superior--you see, I belong to the California province; we're divided into different provinces, and the head of the province is called the provincial--well, he was here visiting in the house. I had a meeting with him which was quite satisfactory. He didn't have any complaints, but he cut the meeting short because, he said, "I have to go downtown, I have an appointment to see Bishop McGucken, the auxiliary bishop." So, he left. I thought everything was in fine shape, and a few days later, I got a letter from him saying, "I have found a place for you. You will report to the novitiate at Los Gatos as soon as possible."

And you didn't even know at that point that you were on your way out?

No, quite the contrary, everything seemed to be fine. What had happened was when he went down to see Bishop McGucken, Bishop McGucken had asked him to transfer me out of the Los Angeles archdiocese.

And do you believe that this was solely because of your activities with regard to the Hollywood strike?

Well, I wouldn't say solely, I would say almost entirely; but, of course, my activities, such as antisegregation activities and so on, had caused a certain uneasiness and therefore had contributed to making me a persona non grata. But it was principally the Hollywood strike, and I'm quite sure that it was the result of direct intervention by Hollywood producers and their friends in the archbishop's office. As a matter of fact, maybe a year and a half, two years later, I was in Phoenix, I eventually wound up in Phoenix, where I learned to play golf, which was the most positive thing that came oub of the whole experience. And one day, I was with another Jesuit, Father William A. Hanley, who taught me to play golf, the two of us were playing at the Phoenix Country Club, where the pro was a good friend of ours, and he used to let us have access to the course, you see. We were playing, and as we putted out on the green, I happened to look behind me and I saw coming down the fairway behind me, Clark Gable, the actor, and Eddie Mannix, the general manager of MGM, you see. So, as we started over to the next tee, I said to Father Hanley, "Wait a minute." So I waited, and Mannix and Gable putted out on the green, then they started over on the next tee, and Mannix (he was a little husky, stocky guy} was walking along on the path with his head down. So as he came along I was standing right in the middle of the path, so he almost bumped into me, you see. He looked up, and then he recognized me, "Oh, oh," he said, "what are you doing here?" "Well," I said, "I'm here thanks to you." [laughter] And he laughed, "Well, you were getting under our feet over there in Hollywood, we had to do something to get you out of there." I'm sure that that's the truth.

How did you feel about all this? Did you long to be back in the fray? Did you feel you'd been exiled?

Well, I knew I had been exiled, but I didn't have any bitter feelings about it, no.

Did you feel rebellious towards the Jesuit order for--?

Not really, I mean, you know, this was part of my education. I was learning the way human beings act in the Jesuit order, in the Catholic church, and everyplace else, in dealing with human beings. No, I don't recall. I lived then for eight months on the ocean at Santa Cruz, a place we use for a summer vacation place for our younger men. I spent about eight months there living in the woods on the ocean. I wrote a play while I was there, and I wrote several articles for Commonweal. Some of the CSU people, including Herb Sorrell, came up to see me. I came down on several occasions. I came down once--I had been active here, too, as I said, in anti-Semitic activities--

Anti-Semitic?

Anti-anti-Semitic. There was a Jewish organization here-­ there were two; there was the American Jewish Committee, that was one. They gave me an annual award one year at a dinner at, I think, the Ambassador Hotel. But then, there was another, I think it was just a local southland Jewish organization, or something like that. And when they learned, they read it in the newspaper, that I had suddenly been lifted out of Los Angeles, they were quite angry about it, and so they organized a dinner in my honor, and I came back for that. It was held in a restaurant on Crenshaw Boulevard.

Quo Vadis?

I forget the name of the place, but it was on Crenshaw Boulevard. The toastmaster was a Hollywood actor--do you remember an actor by the name of da Silva? I think that was it. He wasn't a leading man; he always played character parts, you know, the second role, the villain.

Howard.

Howard, exactly. Howard da Silva, yeah.

Yes, he costarred with Ronald Reagan in something called Juke Girl--

Oh, did he? Oh, is that so?

--which, in fact, I think is Reagan's best movie.

Oh, is that so? No, well I'd known Howard da Silva, and so he was the toastmaster, I remember. Then I came back in connection with that play of mine, Trial by Fire, too, when it was at the Pasadena Playhouse and also in Hollywood. So, I stayed here then for some weeks at a time, and I spoke, I attended again a meeting of the CSU. They were no longer meeting at the American Legion Stadium because their fortunes were pretty dimin­ ished at the time; but they had a meeting one night-- and I forget where it was, some hall--and I showed up there and got a rousing ovation from them. But that was towards the end of their life at that time.

Did you have continuing contact with Sorrell the remainder of his life?

Not really, only indirectly, because Herb was not a man for letter writing. But I had contact, and still do, as a matter of fact, at least once a year with his secretary Flo [Florence] Contini. Flo Contini was Herb's secretary, a very highly intelligent woman, and I write to her at least once a year at Christmastime, and she writes to me. I've seen her a couple of times when visiting here. I intend to see her this time, too. She refuses, I understand, to make any statement about the Hollywood thing, because I think it was Gluckman, either Gluckman [Jeff Goodman] or maybe you, who, when I answered them and told them I'd be happy to collaborate but I wouldn't be in the States, I recommended to whoever it was, told them, that Flo Contini knew more about the details of the Hollywood strike than anybody in Los Angeles. So he got in touch, but he wrote to me later and told me that she was unwilling; she didn't want to go back into all that past history. But Herb, I used to hear from him indirectly through her, but I never heard directly from him.

You were eight months in Santa Cruz, and then went on to Phoenix. What did you do in Phoenix? Were you at a university?

I did ordinary parish work in a church there, and that's all, you know.

And how long were you in Phoenix?

I was active, too, in the racial field, because when I went to Phmenix, Arizona was a segregated state.

What year did you go to Phmenix?

Nineteen forty-eight.

And how long were you there?

Until '57.

I lived in Tucson from '50 to '63. That's where I grew up. It was segregated.

Did you? Well, when I went there, Arizona was segregated, the schools--

I went to segregated schools.

Yeah? Schools, theaters. In Phoenix, a Negro couldn't go to a motion picture theater, except a cheap little theater over in the black side of town. He couldn't attend the public schools, I mean with the white children. He couldn't eat in restaurants. He couldn't eat in the airport restaurant, for example.

And that continued at least through the early sixties, because I have some recollection.

Well, when I left in '57 it was greatly changed, at least in Phoenix. The schools were desegregated, the theaters were desegregated. The restaurants--the airport restaurant, particularly, was desegregated. I was very active in Phoenix in that battle too, along with Bill Mahoney who was a lawyer, and leading [figure] in the Democratic party of Arizona and later John Kennedy named him ambassador to Ghana, in Africa. I saw him just two weeks ago when I was in Phoenix for a week on my way here. He's no longer ambassador, of course; Lyndon [B.] Johnson dropped him like a hot potato because Bill had brought Arizona into the John Kennedy camp in the primaries, and Lyndon Johnson never forgot that. [laughter] Johnson didn't forget things like that.

You were there until '57.

Fifty-seven.

Did you then go on to Switzerland?

No, where did I go? I went to Rome. I was in Rome for two years. I wrote a book in Rome on the Jesuits in China in the seventeenth century, a book called Generation of Giants, and from Rome I went to Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where I was assistant to the president for international programs from 1960 to 1966. Then I left there in '66 intending to return to the California province, but I returned by way of Brazil. I had been in Brazil several times because when I was in Georgetown I brought the Peace Corps to the campus and had nine programs. I trained Peace Corps volunteers for the Peace Corps program. Three of them were for Brazil, and in that connection, I had made two trips to Brazil. And on leaving Georgetown, I had become interested in Brazil, so I went back, and I was there for nine months. But then just before I left to return to California, I was suddenly called to Europe by the general superior of the Jesuit order, Father [Pedro] Arrupe. That was in December 1967. The Vatican authorities had been discussing with representatives of the World Council of Churches, the Protestant churches and the Orthodox churches, establishing a joint committee to deal with problems of social justice in the Third World, the committee to be called the Committee on Society, Development, and Peace. My name had been suggested as a likely general secretary of that committee, so I was called over to meet with all those involved: the World Council side, Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, who was the general secretary of the World Council, and Bishop [John] Willebrands, now Cardinal Willebrands, who was the head of the Catholic delegation and whom I had already met actually. I met with them, and they seemed to approve, and so in January of '68 there was a joint press announcement from Rome and from Geneva. The pope [Paul VI], on the Catholic side and Dr. Blake on the Protestant side for the World Council were establishing this joint committee, and they were naming me the general secretary. I was head of that then in Geneva from '68 until 1971, when I had to retire because I had passed the World Council retirement age. So I retired. I didn't have any particular desire to come back to the States, and so I asked the general of the order to authorize me, if I could find a little pied-terre, where I wouldn't have much to do, if I could stay in Europe. I wanted to do some writing, chiefly. So he gave me permission, and I found a little spot in a Carmelite convent, where I have nothing to do except say mass for the nuns in the morning. And I've been there since. But I hadn't been there very long before Georgetown University, with which I had formerly been associated, phoned me. They have a program at the university, a junior-year-abroad program at the University of Fribourg, which is about twenty miles from where I am, and they were having trouble with it, and they wanted me to take charge of it. I agreed to do that, so for the last nine years that's what I've been doing. I still live in the Carmelite convent, but I commute into Fribourg two or three days a week to direct the students in their studies. And I've done a little writing, but not as much as I had hoped to do, because the students' activity has taken a lot of my time.

I always thought that this interview would have been done in Switzerland.

[laughter] Oh, well, it would have been nice.

I had the address, I was ready to go, I found it on the map. How did you come to write Hollywood Labor Dispute?

Well, I was asked to do that when I was in Phoenix. The CSU, Sorrell and the rest of them, they had been crushed, you see, and I don't know the details of this, but as I recall, they still had in mind suing the producers--and maybe the IATSE, I don't know--for damages. And Bob [Robert] Kenney--does the name mean anything to you?

Sure.

Kenney had been attorney general of the state of California, and he also was very familiar with the whole Hollywood situation. I think it was Kenney who was acting in their behalf as lawyer, and they intended to sue, as I recall, the producers. So they wrote me. I guess it was Sorrell who must have written to me, somebody wrote to me in Hollywood, and asked me if I would write the history of it that could be used as kind of a brief in the legal action. I think they must have sent me the transcript of the Nitti tax proceedings in Chicago, because I got them, and I can't imagine where else I got them unless they sent them to me.

Now, the publisher of the pamphlet--

So that was written by me for them for use in their legal proceedings, and then they published it themselves.

The Conference Publishing Company, in other words, is the Conrerence of Studio Unions.

That's right.

And there's no year of publication here on the pamphlet, do you remember what year it was?

I think it was '52.

Oh, by that time they had long ceased to be a Hollywood labor entity, but were simply hanging on as a--

That's right. And I think it was in '52, because I recall it was in '52 I was engaged in a public debate at Harvard University Law Forum in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with Paul Blanchard. I remember that instead of preparing a debate, I was anxious to finish this for the Conference people, you see. I actually didn't prepare the debate, I went back there unprepared because I had been working on this. That debate, I'm quite sure, was 1952.

I'm looking to see if there are ny questions I had. You wrote of Sorrell as "a man of entire honesty and unimpeachable integrity," did you--?

That was my impression of him, always.

Yeah, that was the question: did your opinion ever change of him or any of the other figures in this--?

No. Of the other figures in the strike I didn't have such clear definite impressions, obviously; but that was always my impression of Herb Sorrell, and I saw a good deal of him. In fact, one of those articles I wrote in Commonweal about Sorrell is largely about my impression of his character, the kind of a person he really was. And I'm quite sure Flo Contini, who was very close to him, his personal secretary, I'm sure she would endorse that view. I know she would. Which doesn't mean, as I said in that article, and I think I repeat in here, Herb was not a saint. As you said, he began as an amateur prizefighter. I think he was musclebound; so he never could have gone too far in the ring, I don't think.

I notice in reading this pamphlet--and I have read it on various occasions, the most recently this morning, or yesterday and this morning--you have a way of making inductive leaps. I don't know if jumping to conclusions is the right way to say it, but to say, for instance, that, look, these are the people who were in the IA when Browne and Bioff were around. Naturally, we can assume that if they're the same people around, it's the same sort of setup.

Yes.

That's not exactly evidence. I mean it's a strong case, but it's not evidence. I notice that occasionally that's your way of arguing.

That's based upon the theory (which I think I explicitly stated in there, it's just my point) that leopards don't change their spots over night.

But you can't take leopards into court. I don't know quite how to say that.

[laughter] No, but I think it's a valid conclusion. I mean, lacking evidence to the contrary, my assumption would be that somebody like Willie Bioff or who has worked for Willie Bioff all the years, unless there's conclusive evidence to prove the contrary, he hasn't changed. He has the same mentality he had. I see no evidence that they had changed.

Did you ever see Willie Bioff in Phoenix?

No, I didn't.

Or were you aware of each other's presence?

No, I didn't even know he was there until one day I was in the Veterans Administration Hospital, which I used to visit--part of my work there, I used to visit the patients--and talking to one of the patients, he had a copy of the Evening Gazette, the Phoenix evening paper, on his little table there. I picked it up, and there was the headline, you see. That same day, just a few blocks from where I was, Bioff had been blown to bits. I didn't even know he was living in Phoenix, living there under an assumed name. I think it was Newton, or something like that. You see, after the tax hearings, in which he squealed on the wh0le Chicago crime syndicate, he moved to Phoenix under an assumed name, as I recall something like Newton or Newson. And he was living there, I had no idea of it, of course, but the Chicago gangsters knew he was living there. He didn't fool them. So one day he walked into his garage, stepped onto the starter of his car, and was blown to bits. Then it carne out, strange how all these things come together, that he had been a friend of Barry Goldwater's. Are you aware of that?

Uh huh (positive}.

Yeah. Goldwater, of course, tried to minimize the thing by saying it was just a casual acquaintance. A casual acquaintanceship, however--as I said in an article I wrote about Ronald Reagan not long ago, but it didn't get published--included playing bridge with him in Barry Goldwater's home, also included at least one and maybe more trips to Las Vegas for a fun-filled weekend on Barry Goldwater's private plane. Then Goldwater made the astounding excuse that the reason he had cultivated this acquaintanceship, as he called it, with Bioff was because of Browne's labor expertise. He was profiting by that.

I wonder if you have any summary statement or recollection about Reagan? Since it's the putative subject.

Well, I don't know how--a summary statement--except to say that I have never had much use for him ever since my dealings with him in the Hollywood strike, because he played a key role in cooperation with what, in my judgment, were the thoroughly immoral Hollywood producers in league with the thoroughly immoral Chicago gangster outfit--at least, the union had been controlled by those gangsters and, in my judgment, was still operating in conspiratorial cooperation with the Hollywood producers to destroy what was the only honest and democratic trade union movement in Hollywood. They did this to them, and Reagan played a key role in that destruction. So I've never had any use for him ever since, and it's been difficult for me to believe that he wasn't aware of what he was doing and with wham he was cooperating. And I also have been convinced that he was re­ warded for it. I don't pretend to charge that he had a prior arrangement with the producers, that the producers agreed, "We will do this for you if you do this for us." No, I don't charge that; but as I think I said before, the producers don't forget their friends, any more than the crime syndicate people forget their enemies. They didn't forget Willie Bioff, and the producers didn't forget Ronald Reagan. He went on from that, of course, to become a close friend of a lot of wealthy millionaires who are still, I understand, his circle of close advisers, and I think this was the beginning of it. So, I've never had any use for him. I was shocked that he became governor, and even more shocked, though I wasn't surprised, finally, when he became president. I was sur­ prised when he was elected governor, which gave me a rather low opinion of the intelligence of the voting public of California, and now of the voting public in the United States. This is just a little detail, and I'm again making a big inductive leap, of the kind you refer to, but I still think that it's an interesting observation: in the Hollywood strike, the role played by the Teamsters Union. I think I described that in my brochure. They smashed the picket lines. They drove the strike breakers, including actors and actresses, through the picket lines in big buses, you see. Now, actually, the rank-and-file membership of the Teamsters Union had voted to observe the picket lines. This is documented. It came out at the congressional hearings that I mentioned. Joe Tuohy, who was a business agent for the Teamsters Union, admitted that the common report around was the rank and file had voted unanimously not to cross the picket lines. Now, under questioning, Joe Tuohy, who was a business agent, he neither confirmed nor denied that. He said he wasn't sure if it was unanimous, but he did admit it was a majority who voted to observe it. He also admitted that he had ordered them to cross the picket lines and threatened that if they didn't do so, he would bring in drivers from outside to take their jobs. As a result of that, the Teamsters smashed the picket lines. His reward for that at the hands of the producers, as I say, who don't forget their friends, as business agent, he was getting $175 salary a week. The producers then offered him a job, which he accepted the next year, 1947, in return for him having done this job for the producers, they gave him a job at $400 a week, plus $100 expense account for the first year--and I think it was a five-year, or more, contract; every year it was increased--as a so-called labor relations man, you see. Now, the interesting thing to me-­ from which I draw no conclusion, but I still say--is that the only trade union which endorsed Ronald Reagan in his campaign for the presidency is the Teamsters Union. The only one. Was this the beginning of his friendship with the Teamsters? I don't know. I think it's interesting.

I never thought of that.

He also, since he became president, appointed, or was going to appoint--I forget now who it was--this top Teamster official back in Detroit. Reagan was going to appoint him--I don't know whether he did or not, I forget--who, just at that time somebody in Detroit charged him publicly with being in league with the Mafia in Detroit. Do you remember that?

No, that one slipped by me.

That's since he became president. I don't know whether he went through with that appointment or what the final result of the accusation was.

The observation about the picket lines, I've never heard anyone make that observation before, and it's of course very interesting.

About the picket lines? Yeah.

No, you know, drawing any connection between Reagan and the Teamsters then and Reagan and the Teamsters now (which is very well known).

Yeah, I don't know whether it was the beginning of it, but I think it's interesting. In the Hollywood strike they were on his side; they were driving some of the actors and actresses through the picket lines. That's why I just don't have any confidence in Ronald Reagan, never have had. I think he's interested in money and in people who have money. I don't think he has any real interest in--of course, I can't help but be affected by my recollection always of those 9,000 or 10,000 working people out on strike, most of whom were ruined over the years that followed. Not any more, but for quite some years afterwards, I would run into somebody in almost any place in the country, back East, in Washington, New York, just happen to run into somebody who would tell me that they had been victims of the strike in Hollywood, members of the CSU, and now they're working some job back East. Many of them lost their homes; they were crushed. Quite some years later, when I was in Washington, at Georgetown University, I received a letter from somebody whom I didn't even know, I don't now even remember his name, but he identified himself, he said he had been in the Hollywood strike, and he told me that he had attended an election meeting of George Murphy, when he was running for senator, a job which to my amazement he was elected. Anyway, he was giving an election speech up in Salinas, where the lettuce strike was on. He was giving a speech up there to the lettuce producers. He would naturally be on their side, that's where you'd expect him to be. This was to a meeting of Catholics, maybe in some Catholic parish up there, I don't know. But this fellow was in the audience, so he heard it. In the course of it, Murphy made some remarks along these lines, "I'm a Catholic, too,.. because, you see in the Salinas lettuce strike, the strikers, Cesar Chavez's (whom I met just two weeks ago. He came down to Phoenix; I was brought over there to perform a wedding. A couple of crazy people in Arizona paid my way over and back just to marry them. She, the woman in the case, is a great friend of Cesar Chavez, and Cesar Chavez came over for the wedding, he and his wife, both of them.) But anyway, in all of Chavez's organizing activitis and strikes in the agriculture area, not all Catholic priests, but many Catholic priests have been his principal supporters. Monsignor George Higgins of the Catholic Conference in Washington is one of his chief supporters, and so that undoubtedly is why Murphy brought in this reference to the fact. He said, "You know, I'm a Catholic too." And he said, "You can't follow along with everything that every priest says. You know, some years ago, when I was down there in Hollywood, there was a priest down there," and he made a gesture, "you know, he was 'a little bit off' down there. He never lasted any length of time any place. He got moved from house to house because they couldn't keep him." That was me! [laughter] So this fellow heard him, and he wrote me a letter (he found out where I was), and he quoted just what Murphy had said. Well, at this time, Murphy had been elected and he was in Washington, so I sent him a letter on official University of Georgetown stationery, Office of the Vice-President. [laughter] I asked him, "Exactly what did you mean by this gesture you made, and what did you mean by this remark that I didn't last anyplace?" I'd been about six years at Georgetown at that time. Of course, I got no answer.

That's about how long he lasted in the Senate, too.

Yeah.

Do you think that he came to that meeting with Reagan and Wyman because he was a Catholic? Do you think that's why he was selected to come along?

That never occurred to me; I thought he came because he was vice-president of the Guild. That's what I assumed, but it could have been. He might have felt that would influence me. He seemed to be embarrassed the whole time, maybe that was why, I don't know. He didn't have much to say. He did make a few remarks corroborating what Reagan had said about their visit back to Indiana­ polis to see--

Birthright?

Yeah. I went to Indianapolis, too. I don't think I mentioned that to you. Yes, after I had made that trip to Washington, I then went to New York, mainly to see Jackie Robinson play baseball with the [Brooklyn] Dodgers. And when I was testifying later at the congressional hearing, McCann, the attorney for the IATSE, was trying to insinuate that I had taken money from the Conference. He quizzed me about my expense account, so I said yes, the Conference paid my fare back there and so on, but the only entertainment that I spent was three dollars and a half for a seat in the Yankee Stadium to see Jackie Robinson play for the Dodgers. [laughter] And in New York, that's where I met Victor Riesel. I was told by Father Ben Massey, who was the labor editor for America magazine--he said, "Victor Riesel doesn't agree with you on the Hollywood strike situation." I said, »I know he doesn't. That's because he's a friend of Matthew Levy, who's the attorney for the IATSE union, and had been attorney for the local in New York, which was under control of 'Lucky' Luciano, the gangster," and I said, "I know he doesn't agree with me." So Father Massey said, "Would you be willing to meet with him?" I said yes. So I had breakfast with Riesel. He came to the hotel where I was staying, and we had breakfast next morning, discussed the Hollywood situation. I thought it was amicable, a friendly talk, and, yes, we agreed to disagree. I mean, we just didn't agree. He timed it perfectly. The day that I was called to testify at the congressional hearing, his whole column was devoted to me. And the whole column was a smear, you see, not directly saying, because I could have sued him for libel, but insinuating that I was running around with Communist subversives. He mentioned that there are five or six Catholic priests in the United States who are quite active for labor and things like that. But I was the only one who, in addition to that, ran around with Communists. He mentioned the Toledano appearance. The whole thing was an effort to discredit me at the very time that I testified.

Prior to your testimony.

Then, on the way out from New York, I went to Indianapolis. I met John Kennedy by chance, too, on the way out. When I got off the New York Central train in Chicago (this is of no importance, but it's interesting in my life), there was a radio announcer, I forget his name now, who in those years had a daily program. He used to meet the New York Central and buttonhole people who were newsworthy in one way or another and interview them right there on the platform. So, I don't know how he knew who I was, and what I'd been up to, but anyway, he knew that I was in the news, so he buttonfuoled me as I came along. Right behind me was this young man whom he also buttonholed, John Kennedy, it was his finst term in Congress. And he introduced him to me. But I think Kennedy (you know, he was a Catholic, of course, and a great friend of Cardinal [Richard J.] Cushing) I think he was always suspicious or leery of the Catholic clergy. [laughter] And I think the Roman collar sort of put him on guard because he was very aloof, very distant that time. Then I went from there to Indianapolis, and I met with Birthright, I think it was Birthright, one of the three. I had a long meeting with him, and I verified what I had already been convinced, that the whole thing was a mistake on their part.

This was prior to the Reagan visit to Indianapolis, or after?

No, this was after the Reagan visit. This has nothing to do with the Hollywood strike, but it might interest you, because I did mention earlier, you asked me about being checked or reprimanded by my superior. There was only one other time when Father Whalen did, and it has nothing to do with the Hollywood strike, but I think it's still interesting. [laughter] You may remember, I forget the year, but it was a year when there was a big Jewish migration from Europe after the war into Palestine, when the British were still politically in control, and the British were trying to stop them. Do you remember they used to stop boats filled with Jewish--

Who was trying to stop them?

The British, the English.

Oh, the British were trying to stop them.

Yeah, they stopped boats and used to take them off and put them in concentration camps on Cyprus island, and things like that.

It must have been '46 or '47.

Yeah, it was after the war. So, anyway, some people in Los Angeles organized, again, one of the big mass rallies of protest, again at the Olympic Auditorium. The chairman of the organizing committee was [ ] Rosenthal, very wealthy man, active in politics. Actually, he was one of the powers behind the throne of Governor [Earl] Warren, a Republican, a staunch Republican. So anyway, they called me and asked me if I would be one of the two speakers. The other speaker was to be-- what was his name? Cripps, I think. No, that wasn't it. [Bartley C. Crum] But he had been sent to Palestine by President Truman to make a study of the situation and advise Truman on what American policy should be vis-a-vis the British, you see. Then he wrote a book about it, Behind the Silken Curtain, something like that. He was to be the other speaker, and they asked me to be the second speaker. Well, I said I couldn't speak on the political situation, because I didn't know enough about it, I wasn't an authority on it. But I would be glad, if it were acceptable to them, to give a talk on anti­Semitism. So they accepted that. So I prepared a speech on anti-Semitism, and I think it was two days before the meeting was to take off. I came to my room here in the building, and I found a note under my door, unsigned, but it said, "You must not give that speech you were planning to give tomorrow night," or whenever it was.

Real cloak and dagger stuff.

Yeah. So I came into the fathers' recreation room with this in my hand, and I said to one of our fathers, Father Vic White (who is long since dead), I said, "Do you recognize that handwriting?" And Father Whalen, the superior, was sitting right there, reading the morning paper. And he said, "Yeah, that's Father Rector's hand­writing." So I said, "Father, is that your handwriting?" "Oh, yes." Well, I said, "What's the meaning of this? Why mustn't I give that talk tomorrow?" I don't want to denigrate him, because he was a very good man, probably a saint, I don't know. He was very good to the poor and generous, but also, I think wrong on almost every public position he ever took. (1936, I'm going back now, I was down at Loyola High School, he then was the superior; and I remember on the eve of the elections of '36, he came bustling into the fathers' recreation room. He just got word from New York, "It's a landslide, sweeping the country." [Alf] Landon was sweeping the country. [laughter] Next morning, Landon won two of the forty-eight states.) But anyway, good Father Whalen. I said, "What's this for?" He said, "You mustn't give that talk." He said, "John Farrow says that meeting is organized by left-wing elements, Communist elements.'' He said, "Take an airplane to Chicago, tell them you were called out of the city." I said, "I certainly won't take an air­plane to Chicago. If you tell me I must not give the talk, I won't give the talk, but I'll have to tell them why," I said, "because I've been ordered not to give it. But I'm not going to tell them I've been called out of the city, although I wouldn't mind a trip to Chicago." The note had said, ''You mustn't give that talk," and it also said, "Telephone John Farrow," such and such a number. So I said to him, "Why should I call John Farrow? What does John Farrow want to talk to me about?" That's when he told me, "Well, Mr. Farrow says that the meeting is organized by all the left-wing elements," and so- on.

Who is this John Farrow?

He was a big movie director in Hollywood, do you remember?

Oh, Farrow.

Mia Farrow's father. I said, "The chairman of this meeting is Rosenthal, who is a staunch Republican, the power behind the throne of Governor Warren." But anyway, then I called Farrow, not immediately, but I called him, and I said, "Father Whalen tells me that you want to speak to me. What do you want to speak to me about?" "Well," he said, "it's about that meeting you're speaking to tomorrow night." I said, "Well, I'm not speaking at that meeting." "Oh, you're not?" I said, "No, thanks to you, Father Whalen has forbidden me to talk." "Oh," he said, "I didn't intend that. I simply wanted to invite you to have tea with me and the British consul." I knew he was doing a job for the British consul. He was a British subject himself, you know, from Australia. And I said, "No, thanks to you, I'm not with them." "Well, I'm sorry to hear that." But he said, "Maybe we could have tea anyway." And I said, "No, sometime later perhaps, but not at the moment." So then, of course, had to tell the committee. So then they telephoned Father Whalen and tried to get him to change his mind, but he wouldn't change his mind. So then they asked him if at least I could send a telegram to the meeting, and of course he said yes. So they told me, "Father Whalen said you can send a telegram." [laughter] So--I'm sure it wasn't what Father Whalen expected--I sent a 500-word telegram to the meeting, which Eddie Cantor read. I wasn't there, but my mother was there, and she reported it. But poor Eddie Cantor had a hard time with it because about 90 percent of it was simply a long quotation from an essay by Charles Peguy, the Frenchman who wrote many essays on anti-Semitism, and he had a very peculiar literary style, distinctively his own. He had a habit of writing short sentences, often without a verb, and repeating them and sometimes reversing the order of the words. Cantor, who wasn't accustomed, had an awful time, so they tell me, reading it so it made sense.

Reading that?

This Howard da Silva,that you mentioned a little while ago, bold me one time--this was before this dinner, long before; it was when I was involved both with my play and uhen the Hollywood strike--when I was out in the Hollywood strike, of course, Farrow was on the other side. And da Silva told me that one time he was having an argument on the set (he was in a picture that Farrow was directing, I guess), and they got arguing about me and Farrow said that, "Well, I'm told"--I'm sure it's Father Whalen who told him, because he was a close friend of Father Whalen--"that we won't have to worry much longer about him because he's being sent back to China." [laughter]

What is that point that we should have included yesterday?

Well, it has to do with Pat Casey. Do you know who Pat Casey was?

Yes, he was the negotiator for the producers.

He was the labor relations man for all of the major producers, reporting to Joe Schenck directly, for twenty­ five years. He testified at that one-man congressional committee investigation that I talked about yesterday, but of course, hdidn't reveal lots of things he could have revealed--partially, probably, because he didn't want to jeopardize his pension on retirement (he was about to retire). But one day, during the hearings, he told me that he would like to talk to me privately; so we had a rendezvous at the Wilshire Country Club, to which I assume he belonged, he was a member. So I met him at the Wilshire Country Club, and he took me out on the veranda, where they had tables, and he led me to the table farthest away from anybody from overhearing us. Then after eliciting from me a promise that I would not reveal what he said to me, and would not mention this meeting with me, he proceeded to tell me that my view of the origin and nature of the strike in Hollywood was absolutely correct. That is to say, that the strike had been deliberately promoted, manipulated, by the producers, together with the IATSE leadership in order to force the CSU out, and then keep them out of the studio. He said this was a definite conspiracy on the part of the producers and the IATSE union, and he gave me facts in support of that, their secret meetings, and so on. Which was a complete corroboration of the position that I had taken--

Why do you think he revealed all this to you?

Well, I don't know. I forget now the chronology, exactly when this conversation occurred; but, as I said in that brochure [Hollywood Labor Dispute] and as I think we talked about yesterday, you know, he is probably the one who revealed to Congressman Kearns that those secret meetings had taken place and who provided Kearns with their minutes. Do you remember that?

Yes.

And at the time it caused a great furor, a commotion, in the camp of the producers and the IATSE, and there was much speculation. The notes of those meetings had been taken down by Victor Clark, who was one of the representatives of the producers, as I recall. But they were private notes, they were not official notes of the meeting; but they apparently were in Pat Casey's files, and the common opinion was that it was he who had tipped Kearns off to their existence and had provided Kearns with these notes. Now at the time the same question was asked by lots of people: Why would he have done that? One of the answers that some people gave, it was only speculation, was that he was angered because, you see, Pat Casey was a Catholic--

I was going to ask you that.

The speculation was that he had done this because he was angry at the producers for the way they had snubbed Archibishop Cantwell. Do you remember the archbishop's office had asked the producers, the CSU, and the IATSE to meet with the archdiocese's representative?

Was that the so-called Interfaith Committee?

No, this was independent of that.

Oh, I see.

I think it's in my brochure there. The CSU had come-- I think Herb Sorrell himself, if I remember correctly-­ and I'm not quite sure--I'd have to look in the brochure again--but I think Brewer came, or his representative; but the producers snubbed the whole meeting. They didn't send anybody; they didn't show up. The speculation was that this was an affront, and this insult to the archbishop so angered Pat Casey that it led him to reveal these secret meetings. It might have been the same thing that motivated him to tell me. Or, it might simply have been, and this is a fact, that Pat Casey, despite the fact that he was the producers' employee, and despite the fact that he was fully aware of all the years of conniving between Willie Bioff, Browne, and the producers, he always had a warm feeling for Herb Sorrell. He respected Herb Sorrell. They were always good friends. It may be simply that he was retiring anyway, that he was fed up with the machinations and the concealment of the truth by the other side, so he wanted me at least to know that my faith in Sorrell and the CSU position was justified.

I can't help but see some similarity between this and confession. I mean, I'm not a Catholic, and don't understand confession, but it sounds almost in the nature of the confession. Do you think there's anything to that?

I wouldn't think so. I mean, it's possible of course that he was bothered in conscience by the fact that he had not revealed what he knew about the situation, and consequently maybe this was an excape mechanism, a way of him to sort of assuage his conscience for having concealed a lot of truths that he knew by telling me. I don't know; that's possible.

That is an interesting--

I think, you know, basically Casey was probably an honest man working for a lot of crooks, actually, but at the end of his career anxious sort of to set the record straight, at least for some people. He still was unwilling to get on the witness stand and testify to all of these things.

Do you know if, as the years went by, I don't know how--

Oh, excuse me, I want to add one word, you see I promised him I would not reveal this meeting, and I never did, that's why you won't see that meeting mentioned in my brochure.

Right.

I don't think I ever told anybody about it. But now Pat Casey is gone, and I see no reason any longer to conceal the fact that I did have this meeting with him, that he did completely support my view, and the view and the contention of the CSU, that the strike had been deliberately manipulated by the producers and the IATSE.

Do you know if Pat Casey continued during the remainder of his lifetime to reveal little by little what he knew?

No, I don't; I don't think so. At least I've never heard that he had done so. In fact, I don't know--I probably once knew, but I forgot--what the future held for him, how long he lived after that. I've forgotten when he died. You probably know that.

No, I don't as a matter of fact, I was going to ask you.

No, I don't know anything about it. But it's just that one incident that I think ought to be in the record, too.

Here's something that occurred to me: As you described your feelings about segregation and racism, it occurred to me that that is indeed the period that brought Hubert Humphrey to national prominence. After all, what you believed was not too much different from what at that time the most progressive edge of the Democratic party was supporting. Isn't that correct?

That's true.

So that ultimately there was no reason to perceive it as any more radical than the Democratic party in general, or am I interpreting that correctly?

[laughter] Personally, I don't think there was ever any reason for considering us radical, I mean, obviously people did.

Yes, people did; that's just the point.

And that's because in those days, the McCarthyism era, any position that was, in my view, soundly democratic-­ or, if you want, liberal--...was regarded as radical, Communist, subversive, and so on. You find people even today who take the same attitude. They condemn anything that's generally progressive or liberating as a Communist­ inspired movement.

Right.

Today the positions that I held then which were regarded as radical, today in society, and certainly in the Catholic church, for example, are generally held. That's the thing that amuses me now: the positions that thirty-five, forty years ago were not supported by the generality of the Catholic clergy--and by the Jesuits, for example--today these are accepted doctrines. It's now held, for example, at least theoretically and officially, that, and I'm quoting, "Social justice is an integral part of the Gospel." Those are words used by the synod of bishops several years ago. Now, forty years ago, that was a position that was generally challenged. There were many people who maintained that questions of social justice and so on had nothing to do with the Gospel. Today, the position is completely reversed, which means the positions that I held forty years ago, which then were regarded as being out of line and radical, are today the accepted position.

Let me ask you another question. Well, it's not really similar, but you had mentioned a number of incidents, one in which you were instructed that only Archbishop Cantwell spoke for the church locally, another where Father Whalen had passed along a note not to speak. Is there an element to this that it would be unseemly for a rather junior member of the clerical community to gain more attention than the more senior members? Could you be sort of threatening other people's careers, in essence?

Oh, I doubt that. I mean, that never occurred to me. That's a possibility, but I have no evidence to support that that was a motivation. Well, there is, I suppose, on the part of those who have responsibility for the church in any diocese, or anyplace, always to be sensitive and fearful that priests like myself, speaking out of turn, as they regarded it, might cause problems and difficulties for the official church by alienating important people in the community, things of that sort. I mean, after all, the Hollywood producers, who in my judgment, for the most part--I don't condemn them all-­ were among the most amoral people in this country, were nevertheless very powerful in this community. They exercised power even on the churches and the chancery offices. So, when a young priest comes almng (I was then young, fairly young) and injects himself into these affairs, giving offense to these powerful and wealthy people, that, I suppose, inevitably, causes certain tremors in the offices of the heads of the church. They like to have good relations with people who have power and wealth in the community. After all, when Archbishop Cantwell died, not long after I was expelled from the diocese, one of the honorary pallbearers at his funeral was Louis B. Mayer, head of MGM. I've mentioned this before in print, and I think it's in the article I published a few years ago about Charlie Chaplin; but it's amusing, and at the same time I think it's revealing: Lena Horne--you know who Lena Horne is?

Sure.

I appeared with her more than once for some of these rallies, these anti-Ku Klux Klan rallies, and so on. But I first met Lena Horne in connection with that play of mine, Trial by Fire. Someone got the script to her, and she was so interested in it, she would have wished to play the leading role in the play, even though the leading feminine role was much below the main role, which was a masculine role. She liked it so much she wanted to play in it, but she was prevented from doing so by her contract with MGM. I met with her in her home. She was ill in bed at the time. She'd been to the dentist and was recuperating from the dental work. With her was a man whom she later married, the musical director of MGM--I forget his name [Lennie Hayton]. Anyway, on that occasion she told me, in explaining that she was forbidden by her contract to perform any dramatic roles, at that time, the studios were prepared at most to feature a Negro in a role like Stepin Fetchit, you know, a stupid, ignorant role, or as a musical comedy star, which she was, a beautiful voice and so on. But they were not yet prepared to permit blacks, or Negroes, to play dramatic roles. So there was a clause in her contract that forbade her to accept any dramatic roles. In telling me about that, she told me about her first meeting with Louis B. Mayer. She was invited to the MGM studio, and in typical studio fashion they had a luncheon for her in her honor, which was to terminate in the signing of her contract. She was seated alongside of Louis B. Mayer, the grand mogul of the MGM studio. In the course of the luncheon, she suddenly felt some fingers crawling up her silk-stockinged leg underneath the tablecloth and underneath her dress. So she said to Mr. Mayer very coolly, "I'm sorry, Mr. Mayer, but I don't sleep with white men." [laughter]

Oh no.

Whereupon, like a spider falling off a wall, the fingers fell off her leg.

Oh my goodness.

Well, I've often thought of that when I recall that not long after that, Louis B. Mayer was one of the honorary pallbearers at the archbishop's funeral. [laughter]

There was one further question. It's not so much in response to a specific thing you said, but in response to trying to synthesize all we had talked about. It seemed to me that often you had been in the position of standing firm against civil authority and civil custom, but you willingly accepted church authority when they said, "You mustn't do this," or "You're leaving town." Even though you had taken the boldest of positions in terms of civil matters, you did accept as legitimate church authority. Is that paradoxical, somehow, or could you explain that to me?

Well,I don't think it's paradoxical. Of course, one would have to have a view about the position with regard to authority. You say I took a firm position on civil violations, but I took a firm position on those vis-a-vis the church, or even: the Jesuit order. For example, my activities in St. Louis University, along with Father Heithaus, in opposition to segregation: the antagonist, if you want to call it that, in that case was the Jesuit order, my own religious order. In other words, I wasn't simply fighting against a civil authority, I was taking a position against the Catholic authority and the Jesuit authority: it was a Jesuit president of the university [Father Patrick J. Holloran]. But, of course, I could take that position, but in a question of final obedience, if I had been ordered to cease to hold the position I held vis-a-vis segregation, I would have refused because that's not within the authority of my religious superior, and I think he would have to recognize that himself. But, at the same time, I recognize that my religious superior did have authority to remove me from the faculty if he wanted to. So I obeyed, under protest. For example--I don't know whether I mentioned this incident or not--before the final battle, early in my short career at St. Louis University, I had given a very brief radio talk one day. I had been asked to give a talk on a regular religious program in St. Louis University. The man in charge used to ask different members of the faculty to give a little six-minute talk. It was a religious program, and I had been asked by him to give a talk--a homily, if you will--on the eleventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. Well, as soon as I again read the eleventh chapter, it seemed to me that it was a clear condemnation of any form of racial discrimination, and so that's what I talked about. I called attention to the fact that the whole pattern of racial segregation in St. Louis was, in my judgment, clearly opposed to this teaching of the Acts of the Apostles, which is part of the Christian gospel. Well, the president of the university, I was called down to his office, I think the very next day if I remember. He was quite exercised about this because he said he had been receiving telephone calls from people who had heard this program, St. Louis people, who were very angry that I had made these statements. So he ordered me in any future talks I gave, and this was while I was in St. Louis, he ordeied me not to discuss the racial question. Well, now, recognized that he had the authority as my superior in the society to forbid me to preach at all, so I obeyed him. But I protested it, and I appealed it to the man who at that time was the number-one Jesuit in this country, who was what we call the assistant to the general in Rome for the American Jesuit provinces. I appealed this decision to him, and he came to St. Louis and I had a talk with him. My argument was that I recognized that my superior had the authority to withhold from me authorization to preach at all, but I said, "If I'm authorized to preach, I challenge his right to forbid me to preach a specific doctrine. In my judgment, racial segregation is a violation of what is a Christian doctrine." So I was willing to obey him because he had that authority, but under appeal.

What was the outcome?

Well, the outcome didn't change very much. Of course, the man that I appealed to--well, we had a long discussion, and he took the position, which really shocked me, because he was a man that I had just the contrary impression of, he took the position that we have to accept, we have to go along with the social attitudes of the society in whiah we live. We can't challenge these well-established social positions, you see, which was just the contrary of my position. I was persuaded that that's what our life was all about, that we were called by our very profession to do exactly that, to challenge well-established positions of the society in which we live, as often as those positions run counter to the fundamental beliefs that we shared. So we just disagreed, that's all. Then I quoted what I thought at the time--I later found out that I was probably mistaken--was a direct quotation from Pope Pius XI: the quotation was that "Negroes have equal rights in the church, and must know they have equal rights." So I asked him if he agreed with that. He was a man who would not have admitted to disagreeing with the pope, so he said, "Well,of course, I agree with that," but he said, "but what do you mean by equal?" which I thought was a wonderful remark. [laughter] Equal rights, but some people have more equal rights than other people apparently. So, it's just that that kind of mentality is one that I don't share and never have shared and don't understand, but it exists.

When you were expelled from Los Angeles, did you have any inclination to not accept that order? How do you feel about that?

No, I was never so inclined. I have as a Jesuit, as all Catholic members of this order, I have a vow of obedience, so I obey. I am not bound to obey an order to do something which is wrong, but I recognize that as a member of the church, a member of a religious order, I have obliged myself to obey, as long as I am not ordered to do something that I regard as sinful. You know, if I had been ordered to defend segregation, to support it, I would have refused; but orders to leave Los Angeles and to move to another house, this is part of our way of life. We go where we are sent. So, I had no inclination to refuse to go or to challenge that order to go. No, I never did.

That was something that I didn't fully understand, and that was why I had wanted to simply ask you and be sure that I did understand and didn't misconstrue. Those were, in fact, the things that I wanted to follow up with. At least, that's what's occurred to me so far.