Document pulled from the State Department archives, Part 3 "State Department Loyalty Investigation", *9335.4A140. Pt 3. Excerpt from pages 1320-1324.
[DECLASSIFIED]
HEARINGS
Before a
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
EIGHTY-FIRST CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
Pursuant to
S. Res. 231
A Resolution to Investigate Whether There are
Employees in the State Department
Disloyal to the United States
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State Department Employee
Loyalty Investigation
—
Monday, April 5th, 1950
United States Senate,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Subcommittee Appointed Under Senate Resolution 231,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to adjournment on March 30, 1950, in room 318, Senate Office Building, at 10:30 a.m., Senator Millard E. Tydings, chairman of the subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Tydings (chairman of the subcommittee), Green, McMahon, and Hickenlooper.
Also present: Senator Connally, chairman of the full committee.
-o-
Senator Tydings: This morning we have before us Mr. Jones, who has come to the committee in response to a subpoena issued by the committee to testify on the matter now pending before us.
Mr. Jones, would you please stand and raise your right hand?
Do you solemnly swear that the evidence you shall give in the matter now before this committee shall be the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Mr. Jones: I do.
Senator Tydings: Give us first your name and occupation, as well as your age.
Mr. Jones: My name is Alfred F. Jones. I am presently the personal adviser to the President of the United States and the national representative of the United States of America.
Senator Tydings: And your age?
Mr. Jones: [coughs] I am formally 174 years old, Mr. Chairman. I'll be 175 years old this July.
Senator Tydings: Mr. Jones, I would like to remind you that you are under oath.
Mr. Jones: I understand that, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Tydings: Would you say more about what exactly it is you do.
Mr. Jones: As the personal adviser to the President, or as the national representative of the United States?
Senator Tydings: Both, if you would.
Mr. Jones: Sure. As personal adviser to the President, I am authorized to give to the President my honest opinions about government politics, programs, policies, international politics and relations, the state of the American people as I understand it, and anything else I deem relevant and useful to the President in fulfilling his job as the leader of the American people. As the national representative of the United States of America, I am authorized to speak on behalf of the American government to other national representatives around the world, both as I see fit and as I am often guided to speak to them by the President. I am occasionally temporarily assigned to various governmental and military positions as the situation calls for it, as determined by the President.
Senator Tydings: Is this a presidentially-appointed position, Mr. Jones?
Mr. Jones: I suppose so. I don't believe there's another soul in the world qualified for it, so there's that.
Senator Tydings: Mmhm. What sort of positions have you temporarily held?
Mr. Jones: Well, I've served in all branches of the United States Armed Forces. I've served in the FBI, the CIA, the Armed Forces Security Agency, the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives—never as a state representative though—the Department of Labor, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of the Interior—
Senator Tydings: That will suffice, Mr. Jones.
Now you said you are authorized to speak to other national representatives. Could you give the committee a small sample of those national representatives with which you frequently correspond?
Mr. Jones: I can. [CLASSIFIED], the national representative of England and selected representative of Great Britain. [CLASSIFIED], the national representative of France. [CLASSIFIED], the national representative of Japan. [CLASSIFIED], the national representative for the Canadian Confederation—
Senator Green: The Canadian Confederation has a national representative?
Mr. Jones: Yes, Senator.
Senator Tydings: Mr. Jones, do you know a man by the name of Ivan Braginsky?
Mr. Jones: I do, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Tydings: What is your understanding of his occupation?
Mr. Jones: Mr. Braginsky is the national representative of the Soviet Socialist State of Russia, and the selected representative of the Soviet Union. He was formally the national representative of the Russian Empire.
Senator Tydings: Do you have correspondence with Mr. Braginsky?
Mr. Jones: As far as he is the national representative of the Soviet Union, and the American government has an active political relationship with the Soviet Union, I am required by my position to be in correspondence with him.
Senator Tydings: Do you have correspondence with him outside of what's required by your position?
Mr. Jones: No, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Tydings: Have you had such correspondence with him in the past?
Mr. Jones: [a pause] I have.
Senator Tydings: At what time?
Mr. Jones: From meeting him, I had sporadic correspondence with him until 1918, when the United States Embassy in Moscow closed.
Senator Tydings: You said you are currently in correspondence with Mr. Braginsky—
Mr. Jones: As my position requires.
Senator Tydings: Yes. If contact ended in 1918, when did it resume?
Mr. Jones: We resumed formal correspondence in 1933, when the US government formally recognized the Soviet Union.
Senator Tydings: And you've had correspondence with him ever since?
Mr. Jones: As required by my position.
Senator Tydings: You specifically said 'formal correspondence' resumed in 1933. Did you have correspondence with him between 1918 and 1933?
Mr. Jones: [a pause] I did.
Senator Tydings: And that was outside what was required by your position?
Mr. Jones: I participated in providing humanitarian aid according to the Russian Famine Relief Act of 1921.
Senator Tydings: And that was outside what was required by your position?
Mr. Jones: I was authorized by Secretary Herbert Hoover to participate.
Senator Tydings: Not- that would've been President Harding, correct?
Mr. Jones: Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Tydings: You weren't authorized by President Harding.
Mr. Jones: I was not formally authorized, no.
Senator Tydings: So you had correspondence with Mr. Braginsky outside of your authorized position.
Mr. Jones: I had correspondence with Mr. Braginsky due to my participation in the Russian Famine Relief Act, which was signed into law by President Harding.
Senator Tydings: Did Secretary Hoover come to you seeking your participation?
Mr. Jones: No, I went to him.
Senator Tydings: You asked to participate.
Mr. Jones: Yes.
Senator Tydings: And this was during a period when the United States had no formal relationship with the Soviet Union.
Mr. Jones: Yes.
Senator Tydings: And the nature of your participation was purely humanitarian.
Mr. Jones: That is correct, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Tydings: There was no political component to your participation.
Mr. Jones: Mr. Chairman, as national representative of the United States, there is always a political component to my participation in anything. The hope at the time, held by Secretary Hoover and various members of the Senate, was that the aid would serve as political leverage against the Bolshevik regime.
Senator Tydings: I see.
And how did you participate in the Relief Act? When did you have correspondence with Mr. Braginsky?
Mr. Jones: I helped organize the delivery of food and other needed supplies.
Senator Tydings: Was Mr. Braginsky involved in those proceedings?
Mr. Jones: He was not.
Senator Tydings: He wasn't?
Mr. Jones: No, he was severely ill during the course of the 1921-22 famine and unable to stand on the Russian committee appointed to oversee aid distribution.
Senator Tydings: I see.
Then, how were you able to have correspondence with him?
Mr. Jones: [a pause]
I brought food to his house, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Tydings: That's a, thoughtful gesture, Mr. Jones.
Mr. Jones: I consider myself a thoughtful person.
Senator Tydings: Did you deliver food directly to other homes during your participation in the Relief Act?
Mr. Jones: You'll forgive me, Mr. Chairman, but I'm not sure I understand how this line of questioning relates to the matter at hand.
Senator Tydings: Given Mr. Braginsky's role in the Soviet government, this committee is interested in discovering the extent of your correspondence with him.
Mr. Jones: As I stated earlier, we were in correspondence until 1918, and then from 1933 to the present.
Senator Tydings: And in 1921.
Mr. Jones: Briefly as part of the Famine Relief Act, yes.
Senator Tydings: Did you have any other unauthorized correspondence with Mr. Braginsky—
Mr. Jones: The Famine Relief Act was authorized.
Senator Tydings: Let me rephrase my question. Did you have any other correspondence with Mr. Braginsky between 1918 and 1933 outside of that which was directly authorized by the President?
Mr. Jones: I briefly encountered Mr. Braginsky during the Allied invasion of Russia in 1919, when he snuck up on me outside of a guard post in the middle of the night and held a knife to my throat. You'll understand why I participated in that encounter despite lacking presidential authorization.
Senator Tydings: [clears throat] Yes, well.
When did you first meet Mr. Braginsky?
Mr. Jones: Ah, 1790.
Senator Tydings: I will remind you again that you are under oath, Mr. Jones.
Mr. Jones: I am thus reminded, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Tydings: Mm.
In the time that you knew Mr. Braginsky up to 1918, did you have correspondence with him outside of what can be reasonably expected from your position?
Mr. Jones: Now, just so I know we're on the same page, how are you defining 'reasonably expected'?
Senator Tydings: I think for the purpose of this question I understand 'reasonably expected' to mean interactions and correspondence beyond those that relate to or inform political situations.
Mr. Jones: Again, Mr. Chairman, as the national representative of this country, anything I do carries a political component—
Senator Tydings: —as are likely to be understood by an onlooker unaware of your role as national representative. I define 'reasonably expected' to mean interactions and correspondence beyond those that relate to or inform political situations, as would be likely understood by an onlooker unaware of your role as national representative to be relating to politics in some way.
Mr. Jones: Trying saying that five times fast.
Senator Tydings: Please answer the question, Mr. Jones.
Mr. Jones: Well, we once met in a coffee shop in Moscow in 1886 to talk about Dostoevsky—
Senator Tydings: Russian literature?
Mr. Jones: Oh for God's sake— that was nineteen years before Russia's first revolution. Lenin had barely even started causing problems back then.
Senator Green: You seem very well-versed in early Soviet history.
Mr. Jones: Yeah, know your enemy and all that.
Senator Tydings: You consider Mr. Braginsky your enemy?
Mr. Jones: Insofar as he's currently the representative for the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union is currently the biggest threat to American freedom we've seen since we broke away from England—yes, I consider Mr. Braginsky my enemy.
Senator Tydings: Yet you personally brought food to his house in the early '20s.
Mr. Jones: Because I'm a good person and he hadn't gone completely crazy yet. Look, I'm going to be honest, I think this committee and the House Committee on Un-American Activities is a good thing. If there's communists in my government, I want them out—
Senator Tydings: Your government, Mr. Jones?
Mr. Jones: Yes, Senator, my government—I am the national representative of the United States of America. I appreciate the work this committee is doing to weed out any communists or communists sympathizers that found their way into my government, and it's frankly ridiculous that I am standing before you today giving testimony that I'm not a communist.
Senator Tydings: So you're stating for the record that you're not a communist.
Mr. Jones: I am absolutely not a communist; I've never had, nor ever will have, any affiliation with the Communist Party; I am opposed to Communist ideology and the spread of it; and think it is the single greatest threat to American liberty I have ever seen. I don't know how I can be more clear about this, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Tydings: Yet you've also given testimony today that you've had unauthorized and might I dare say rather neighborly correspondence with Mr. Braginsky—
Mr. Jones: I am a good, God-fearing Christian, Senator Tydings. Feeding the poor and the sick is something Christ Himself instructed us to do.
Senator Tydings: Yes, well—
Mr. Jones: I would also like to note for the record that this committee has so far failed to produce anything resembling tangible evidence that I might be affiliated with communists—
Senator Tydings: Outside of your correspondence with Mr. Braginsky, who is quite possibly the most dangerous communist alive after Stalin himself.
Mr. Jones: I would argue that he is more dangerous than Stalin, but that's neither here nor there. The fact remains that outside of my correspondence with Braginsky, this committee lacks any sort of damning evidence—
Senator Tydings: I would think that communicating with a man you've just stated to be a more dangerous communist than Stalin is fairly damning evidence—
Mr. Jones: [bracing hands on desk] I. Am not. A communist. Communicating with Russia is literally part of my job. And I can assure you, if I were communist, it would be really obvious, because then the entire government of the United States would also be communist!
Senator Tydings: I would ask that you not raise your voice to this committee, Mr. Jones.
Mr. Jones: I would ask that the committee not waste my Monday morning interrogating the one person in this entire country who's least likely to be communist.
Senator Green: Please restrain yourself, Mr. Jones, or we will hold you in contempt.
Mr. Jones: I have complied with the issued subpoena—despite having raised an objection to its issuing and being overruled—and I'm giving testimony; you can't hold me in contempt. That's contempt of court you're thinking of.
Senator Tydings: Mr. Jones, returning to the matter at hand—
Mr. Jones: If we must.
Senator Tydings: Returning to the matter at hand…
Were there other instances of correspondence between yourself and Mr. Braginsky before 1918 beyond what could've been reasonably expected for your position?
Mr. Jones: [sighs] Listen, Mr. Chairman. There is something I need this committee to understand, and that's this: before the October Revolution, before Mr. Braginsky lost his mind, the United States and the Russian Empire were allies. In fact, the Russian Empire was the strongest, closest ally this country had; everything short of a full military alliance. Now I understand they don't teach you all that in school any more, but that's the truth of it. This committee needs to understand that within proper historical context, my correspondence with Mr. Braginsky before 1918 is completely, reasonably expected for my position.
Senator Tydings: So there were other instances of correspondence?
Mr. Jones: Yes, Mr. Chairman, there were. It was a very different world then. Mr. Braginsky didn't go around telling other countries that their economic system was slave-based and destined to go down in flames, and that the best response was to hasten the revolution on purpose.
Senator Tydings: Mr. Braginsky said that to you?
Mr. Jones: Yes he did, Mr. Chairman, when I was in Moscow in 1918 closing down the US Embassy. You might imagine, based on the closing of our embassy, that I don't agree with his ideas. You'll find that since the communist revolution in Russia, I haven't had friendly correspondence with Mr. Braginsky.
Senator Tydings: But you have in the past?
Mr. Jones: Mr. Chairman, I have the distinct impression that you are cherry-picking what parts of my response you'll pay attention to. Yes, I had friendly correspondence with Mr. Braginsky in the past, when he was the national representative of the Russian Empire, and as I said before, given the previous relationship between the US government and the tsarist government, that makes perfect sense for the time. Given the current state of the relationship between the US government and the Soviet Union, that is not the case now; we do not have friendly relations or correspondence.
Senator Tydings: If the current relationship between our government and the government of the Soviet Union were different, would you have friendly correspondence with him?
Mr. Jones: [long pause] I'm not sure what you're asking, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Tydings: If the political situation between the United States and the Soviet Union changed such that friendly discourse was possible, would you have friendly correspondence with him?
Mr. Jones: I find it highly likely that the relationship between the US and the Soviet Union will ever reach a point that allows for friendly discourse. This is a moot point.
Senator Tydings: Be that as it may, my question still stands.
Mr. Jones: [a pause] In such a very unlikely scenario… For the peace and safety of the world, I would… have friendly discourse with him, if he would with me.
But the chances of that happening are very small, Mr. Chairman. I doubt he and I are likely to ever again have friendly correspondence outside of what's authorized by our positions.
Senator Tydings: [clears throat after a short silence] Well, I have no more questions for the time being. Senators, do you have any further questions.
Senator Connally: I think we're set, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Tydings: Thank you, Mr. Jones, for taking the time to appear before this committee. Your answers were, illuminating.
Mr. Jones: Yeah, no problem…
Senator Tydings: If we have further questions for you in the future, we'll be in touch.
Mr. Jones: I'm sure you will be.
Senator Tydings: You may be seated.
Motion to adjourn the State Department Employee Loyalty Investigation, to reconvene Tuesday, April 6th, at 9:30 a. m., all in favor—
Senators pass the motion.
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The hearings for the State Department Employee Loyalty Investigation, more commonly known as the Tydings Hearings, were a series of hearings conducted by the Senate in early 1950. They were in response to Senator Joseph McCarthy's assertion that there were "card-carrying Communists" in the State Department. The hearings were part of the wider Red Scare that occurred in the 1950s, during which any suspected association with communists could cost a person their job, their house, and their friends.
The Russian Famine of 1921 (known in Russia as the Povolzhye Famine) began in the early spring of that year and lasted through 1922, and claimed an estimated five to seven million lives. It was a result of seven years of war on Russian soil; agricultural disruption, primarily as a result of war communism and particularly prodrazvyorstka; and a severe drought which aggravated the situation to the level of a national catastrophe. While the communist government did not officially solicit or accept humanitarian aid, they established a committee of individuals with no clear Party affiliation to manage charitable donations.
The Russian Famine Relief Act of 1921 authorized the expenditure of $20,000,000 for the purchase of American foodstuffs to send to the Soviet Union. The United States was the largest contributor of humanitarian aid to the Soviet Union during this crisis, feeding an estimated ten million people. (Great Britain, the second largest contributor, fed approximately 375,000.) Secretary Hoover and others hoped that the humanitarian gesture would lead to a lasting improvement in relations with the Soviet government. President Harding and other conservatives were against the idea. When Stalin came to power, Soviet school textbooks omitted all reference to the American contribution, and it became a crime to say that the Soviet Union had ever accepted outside aid to sustain the needs of its people.
(This fic contains references to three chapters from the RusAme fanfic series The Chosen End. Those parts are extra humorous/sad if you catch those references.)