Opinion ID: 1149221
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Communist Party Affiliation

Text: Jolles joined the Communist Party in 1949.    [At that time he was 21 years of age and a] student at New York University. He was a member of two different neighborhood clubs    [referred to in the Party as] `cells'   . [The first cell was an adult club. The second was a youth group of which Jolles became chairman. He was also a member of a Communist-front organization designed to lure other young people into the Communist Party.] In 1953, he voluntarily left employment in the garment industry to become a longshoreman on the New York waterfront in order further to assist the Party. He gives as his reason for the change of employment his belief that if any change toward socialism was to be made in our society, it would be brought about by the industrial worker in the basic industries. He wanted to further the cause of the workers and the Party by being directly identified with them. Financial betterment, either immediately or in the future, was not one of Jolles' purposes in going on the waterfront. In 1953 he became affiliated with a Party waterfront club of about four members which was part of a larger group of    [less than 20] members known as the Waterfront Section Committee. He became Chairman of his club in 1954, and ultimately became Organizational Secretary    of the Section, which had Party responsibility for [propagandizing] approximately 10,000 longshoremen who worked on the Brooklyn waterfront. He also worked and met with regional organizers and officials, although he held no regional position or office (the region involved included the entire New York waterfront [and was not in a policy-making position]). Jolles' activities while a Party member included    [attending Party] meetings, generally weekly; participating in support of candidates for public office endorsed by the Party; participating in demonstrations    [in accordance with] Party orders or directions including picketing of the White House in connection with the Rosenberg convictions; dissemination of Party-prepared and sponsored literature and leaflets;    [the writing of] articles in, and otherwise assisting in preparation and circulation of, The Dockers' News, a Party waterfront publication; attending the Party-supported Thomas Jefferson School of Social Studies for about a year, taking courses in [Marxist] economic theory; and attempting to persuade others to join the Party or to support its causes. His social life was also centered around his Party associates. Jolles admitted an understanding and awareness of Party philosophy, principles and aims. He testified that the Party's position in the United States with regard to force and violence, as he understood it and the position to which he subscribed, was that resort to force would be justified and used if a capitalistic minority resisted the efforts and frustrated the will of the majority to establish socialism.    Jolles    conceal[ed] his membership as a Party member from those who were not Party members. For example, he used the name `Eddie' at Party [meetings] to minimize the risk of identification. Party meetings were secret and held in private homes. When he went on the waterfront in 1953, he ceased subscribing to Communist literature to further reduce the possibility of being exposed as a Communist or identified with the movement. During his eight active years of Party affiliation, the Party was not an open political party in New York. Also, during this period the United States was involved in the Berlin blockade [] and Korean War, and the Russian intervention in Hungary took place. Jolles testified that he openly disassociated himself with and resigned from the Party in May of 1957 at a meeting of the Section of which he was Organizational Secretary. He testified that in the preceding year he had become disillusioned about the Party and its objectives, and had re-examined the Party position and his own beliefs. He cited Premier Khrushchev's speech denouncing Stalin along with the Russian intervention in Hungary, as the incidents which motivated his personal re-examination of the Party and ultimate disassociation. His wife testified that his motivating purposes for disassociation were [largely] economic, domestic and personal. His Party affiliation, and especially his waterfront employment, had caused family difficulties because of the economic sacrifice imposed and the time required away from home.    [Jolles was] requested    by counsel for the Bar and by the Board members    to disclose the names of any person familiar from personal knowledge with Jolles' activities while in the Party or who could confirm from personal knowledge that he did in fact openly resign from the Party in May of 1957. Jolles refused. He recognized that the Board had no other direct way of corroborating his testimony as to some of his Party activities or as to his disassociation.