Evening star., 1962-01-03
Disputed Film
Is Explained
By House Unit
BY the Associated Press

BY the Associated Press
The House Committee on Un-
American Activities has issued
a point-by-point reply to %
charges and criticisms that had
been made against its film,
Operation Abolition"
The film depicts unruly
crowds at a three-day hearing
the committee held in San
Francisco in May, 1860. The
disturbances eliminated on
Friday, May 13, with police
turning fire hoses on the crowd,
many of them students, and
dragging some of them bodily
out of San Francisco's City
Hall.
Criticisms of the film, put
together from television news
footage, range from a charge
that it is distorted or falsified
to an accusation that the film
was turned over to a private
company which is selling the
movie at a profit.
Yesterdays report was the
second the committee has issued
to reply to criticisms of the
film. The first report, issued in
october, dealt mainly with an
effort to prove that the San
Francisco riot was Communist
instigated, which some of the
students involved disputed.
Error Admitted
The new report deals with
one of the most widely repeated
criticisms of Operation Aboli-
tion"-to the effect that it dis
torts the truth by saying Harry
Bridges was escorted out of City
Hall by police just before the
riot occurred.
The report comedies this was
a factual error in the film and
that the union leader actually
was escorted out after the riot.
1t says this error was corrected
in a shortened version of the
film issued last spring.
The report adds: "A distor-
ton, as distinguished from an
error, is a deliberate, calculated
effort to present a false or mis-
leading picture or account of
an event. The incorrect two
words in the narration of the
Bridges incident are no more
than a minor error. They are
not a distortion"
AS to the charge that the film
was turned over to a CONNER
cial firm which is selling it for
profit, the report said that after
legally obtaining the footage by
subpoena of San Francisco TV
stations, the committee con-
tacted several Washington firms
with a view to having it made
into a documentary movie.
Financing Explained
The report said Washington
Video Production, Inc, offered
TO produce the film at no cost
in the hope that selling it at
500 a copy would reimburse
the company for production
cost.
The film, the report said,
was an unexpected success and
so far 1900 copies have been
sold which would amount to
$130,000 in gross sales. The re-
port added that the company
used the profit to produce a
shortened, half-hour version
which sold for 500.
washington Video Produc-
tions, however, has never
charged the royalty normally
associated with such show
ingS," the report said.
To an accusation that the
film distorted the truth by
splicing together out = of Sc =
quence events which took place
at different times and on diff
ferent days. the report said:
Lack of film footage of GER
tain events which took place
in the course of the San Fran
cisco demonstrations and riots
made it necessary to use
some film shots out of sequence
in order to convey a true pic
ture of what actually hap
pened."
The report concludes that
"the Communist Party, in
typical fashion, has efficiently
capitalized on the considerable
number of attacks made on the
film by uninformed or ire
Sponsible non-Communists."