II Donald Flanders, Page 2

II Letter to AEC from Donald Flanders, and Donald Flanders Testimony

Donald Flanders at NYU

Gentlemen:

This letter is intended as a response to your letter to me. I do desire to appear before a board. I have marked my response with letters corresponding to the lettered paragraphs you sent to me.

a. The history of the relations between Alger and Priscilla Hiss and my wife and myself is as follows:

Thomas Fansler, a brother of Priscilla Hiss, was a classmate of mine at Haverford College, Pennsylvania, for two years. On my return to college in the fall of 1920, we began the friendship which has lasted continuously since then. We became classmates because he lost a year at college due to service with the Marines, while I was out two years, of which I spent three months in the Army at the SATC in Princeton, and the remainder in learning the machinist's trade in my then home town of Springfield, Vermont.

During our Junior and Senior years I met his parents and various of his siblings, including his younger sister, Priscilla. Priscilla entered Bryn Mawrcollege when I was a junior at Haverford, and during those two years I came to know her fairly well, since the circles of our friends overlapped to a considerable extent.

During the years 1922-25 I was a graduate student of mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania, living in Philadelphia. I met a classmate andclose friend of hers, Roberta Murray,, to whom Thomas Fansler became engaged in 1924. They married in July 1924.

At the senior garden party at Bryn Mawr in June, 1924, I met Roberta's sister Sara, whom I subsequently married and who is still my wife. Sara Murray graduated from Vassar in 1919, spent about two years in high schoolteaching, and had just finished nurse's training at Pennsylvania Hospitalwhen I met her, and had met Priscilla Fansler through Roberta: in 1922-24.

Sara and I became engaged in September of 1924 and were married May of 1925. We then left for Texas where I was an instructor of Mathematics in the summer at the University of Texas and a Professor of Mathematics during 1925-26 at the Texas Technological College.

PriscilIa spent 1924-25 in the graduate study of English at Yale, where she met Thayer Hobson whom she married in 1925. My wife and I spent the summer of 1926 in my wife's home in Chappaqua, New York, a Westchester suburb of New York City, and I remember our going to visit Priscilla at the home of her brother Henry Fansler in Bedford Hills a few weeks before the births of our son Peter and her son Timothy Hobson.

My family spent the academic year 1926-27 in Philadelphia, where I was an Instructor and graduate student in mathematics. I received the the PH.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1927. The next two years we spent at Princeton, where I was a National Research Fellow.

In the spring of 1929 1 was appointed Instructor in Mathematics at the Bronx Campus of New York University. In September, my family, now increased by the addition of our daughter Ellen, born in 1927, removed to New York City, From 1926 on, Thomas and Roberta Fansler had been living in New York. During this time, I do not remember that I saw Priscilla very often, Priscilla was drawn into her husbands circle of friends, I remember having dinner at the Hobson's just once.

I was on the faculty of New York University from 1929 until I came to the Argonne National Laboratory in the summer of 1948. However, I was on sabbatical leave in Denmark during 1937-38, and I was on leave at Los Alamos from 1943 to 1946, both times with my family. For the remainder of those years we lived in and near New York City- in the city itself in 1929-35 and 1947-48, and in Chappaqua for the other years.

In the spring of 1929 Thomas Fansler and his wife bought a farm in New Lebanon, New York, about 25 miles southeast of Albany and 15 miles west of Pittsfield, Mass. In the spring of 1930 my wife and I bought an adjacent farm, Save for absences, the two families have continued to occupy these places as summer residences ever since, except that my sister in-law, who has kept the farm became divorced from Thomas Fansler some time about 1940.

Priscilla Hobson was divorced from Thayer Hobson about 1928, I believe,and continued to live in New York for the next year or two. I know that we saw her occasionally during that time both in New York and in New Lebanon, I I am sure that we regarded ourselves as good friends, practically as relatives, but as often happens in a large city we did not see each other as often as might have been expected.

I am not sure when I first met Alger Hiss, but he was introduced to me

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by Priscilla. My chronology about this period is quite uncertain. I was engrossed in my work, my growing family (our daughter Jane was born in 1931, and our musical interests (my wife and I were both involved in two distinct activities, chamber music and a small choral group).

I believe that Priscilla introduced Alger as her fiancée at Christmas time in 1929. I remember that we met the Thomas Fansler's and that Priscilla and Alger were married not long after we met them, while he was the secretary of Mr. Justice Holmes.

My wife and I have always been very fond of Priscilla, and we liked Alger from the start We had always felt at complete ease with them, and have discussed a wide range of topics with the complete freedom. In particular we discussed many social problems. All of us--Thomas and Roberta Fansler, Alger and Priscilla Hiss, Donald and Sara Flanders would properly be described as liberals.. At one time around 193O, Sara and I, and I Priscilla, got somewhat interested in Socialism. Sara was a duespaying member of the socialist party for a while, and I might have been if I hadn't been too busy with other things. None of us, so far as I know, certainly not my wife or I ever went in for pure Marxism. Sara's and my interest in Socialism waned after she had attended a few meetings of a local group. There seemed to be much more interest in petty internal. politics than in fundamental principles or in active campaigning. I think she dropped out after a few months.

The six of us found our companionship mutually very sympathetic and we discussed things with great freedom This does not mean that we agreed on alltopics, political or otherwise. There were certainly sharp disagreements and hot arguments. Under those circumstances, I think it would have been pretty difficult for Alger to obscure a passionate devotion to Marxist principles if he had one, (he displayed none), particularly if that devotion were so passionate that it would cause a man to behave in a manner completely contradictoryto his everyday character as revealed rather intimately in the circumstances in which I have had opportunity to observe him. As I have known him, Alger showed himself to be morally and intellectually honest, highly intelligent, and a man of goodwill. Take the matter of intellectual honesty; for example. In. all of our discussions I cannot remember that he ever intentionally used a specious argument a fault of which I think I can fairly accuse every other one of the six of us. With respect to his liberalism, I always noted that his training and his cast of mind gave him a truly conservative tinge, in the sense that he had a deep understanding of the development of society and appreciation of the worth of our institutions. From our knowledge, my wife and I agree in believing that treachery is wholly inconsistent with the Alger we now When the. Chambers allegations broke we were, and have remained, horrified and incredulous

In 1948 we came to the Argonne Laboratory. During a business trip to New York I visited them that winter. During the summer of 1949 my wife attended one day of the first trial, and had lunch with the Hisses and some of their friends Later in the summer, after the trial that ended in a hung jury, we spent a day and a night with them in Peacham.

The following summer, in 1950, after the conviction resulting from the second trial, we spent a day and a night with Priscilla in Peacham. Alger was in New York. The. day before I was to set out on my vacation, it was suggested to me that if I intended to visit the Hisses I ought to clear the visit with the proper authorities. Although I did not agree that the clearance was necessary, I did realize that I ought perhaps for my own protection to notify the authorities of the propriety of my intention so that no erroneous idea should be formed. Therefore I called the Associate Director of the Laboratory, Mr. Hilberry, told him of the suggestion and of my intention to visit Priscilla,and asked his advice. Mr. Hilberry said that he would inform and consult with the proper authorities. I heard nothing further and the visit was made as planned. I should also say that I called Mr. Hilberry not only because of his official position, but also because I had known him for many years at New York..

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university, and he knew how friendly we were with the Hisses.

We also saw Priscilla briefly in the summer of 1951 at the home of my niece, Susan Bowen and we would have seen her this summer if my daughter Ellen's illness had not forced us to call off our Vermont trip. However she did stop in to see her' sister-in-law, now Roberta Alford, in New Lebanon on her way from a visit to Alger at the Lewisburg Penitentiary, and she spent an evening at our farm. She told us abut Alger's prison life and read us a letter he had written to her recently.

My wife and I never knew the Hisses so well that we ever always knew what they were doing all the time. The total amount of time spent with Alger never really great. What I do base my opinion of him however, is the nature of our contact. Although we did not see each, other as often, as we would have liked, we did feel ourselves to be members of the same family and felt ourselves to be very close and very friendly. I felt that our relationship was, frank and unguarded . I considered him an able and fine person. I really thought that he would someday undoubtedly be a judge of the Supreme Court.

There was nothing in our unguarded and frank contacts which ever indicated any ingredient of character consistent with the acts of espionage to which Chambers testified at the Hiss trials. Because we feel that our own observations revealed a man incapable of such acts, neither my wife or I could accept the Chambers testimony as we read it in the newspapers.

We realize that Alger has been, convicted on testimony and his conviction affirmed, but we believe that the testimony is inconsistent with our observation and knowledge of the man, as here described.

For that reason my wife solicited funds for his defense, in order to help him clear himself of the accusation For that reason, too, we would not, even though accepting the fact of conviction, withdraw our personal friendship. This is not to say that I would ever justify or condone in any way at all acts of espionage of the kind attributed to Alger. Such acts, if actually committed by a man of Alger's ostensible character, would be doubly reprehensible

b. To the best of my knowledge and belief the allegation about my wife and me in this paragraph is false. My wife and I have had no connection that I know of with the Socialist Youth League and certainly not a voluntary one. After all, we could scarcely be classed as youths, even as long as four years ago I remember seeing one copy of "Labor Action" in my apartment, and I thought it was the property of my daughter Ellen. I read one or two articles didn't think much. of them; decided that it was either a Socialist or Trotzkyite Publication (probably the latter) and let it lie. I certainly would' not give it credit for being very effective '

c. When I came to Chicago in 1948, I bought (and am still paying for) a two apartment house at 824 East 61st Place. My daughters were then attending the University of Chicago. Before we even looked for a place we asked them whether they wished to live with us or not. They both said they wanted to live with us so we looked for someplace that would be large enough for all five of us (including our younger son Steven, born in 1941. This two apartment house seemed to offer just the right possibilities. The two girls could live downstairs, we and Steve could live upstairs, and the girls could be near us but not have us in their hair all of the time (nor we have them in ours).

This arrangement lasted one year, when both girls moved out. On Ellen's recommendation we then rented the downstairs apartment to Fred and Schula Meier, who were represented as living in one room and desperately eager to get larger quarters. I am not much of a business man. I asked around as to what we ought to charge,

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and finally settled on 75 dollars a month. This was agreeable to the Meiers so they moved in.

They put their names on the mail box, along with the letters SYL, which meant nothing to me. At some time during the year I learned that these letters stood for Socia1ist Youth League, but that also meant nothing to me. It was clear that there were occasional meetings or parties downstairs, but they were never noisy. Sometimes am these occasions we would hear voices raised feebly and somewhat discordantly in song.

At Christmas my older son Peter and his recently acquired wife came to visit us from New York for a few days. My wife and I had seen her only once, and naturally desired to get to know her better. Since we did not have room upstairs the Meier's had an extra room downstairs containing one of our beds, Pete and his wife slept down there, their stay was brief and hectic and we and they saw the Meiers a number of times, and also some of their friends during that time. Once in a while after that we had cocktails with the Meiers.

d. My wife belonged, for a time to the Progressive Citizens, of America. We joined a local chapter of the Independent Citizens Committee of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions in late 1946 after our return to Chappaqua from Los A1amos. During that winter a split occurred in the ICCASP, and the ADA and the PCA were formed. We voted with our local group to join the latter, The basis of the split was the formal exclusion of the Communists. Neither my wife nor I believe that labels alone are a suitable basis for judging individuals, so we voted to stay with that group, the PCA that did not require declarations of complete freedom from Communist taint as a prerequisite for membership for everyone. Upon our removal to New York City in the fall of 1947 we did not join any local chapter, though I believe we paid dues to the national organization for that year. Some time during that winter I attended one or two session, of a conference of some sort sponsored by the national organization. I did not like the intolerant attitude of the majority of the more vocal part of the participants. In consequence we lost interest and have had no further connection with the organization.

e. Ellen met Peggy Kraft through my wife and myself. When we came to Chicago, a member of the string quartet in New York with which we had played for 19 years mentioned Peggy Kraft as a cellist of modest ability with whom we might like to play occasionally. Some time during our first year in Chicago we got in touch with her. My wife and I are not good players, but mediocre performers always prefer to play wth better performers than themselves. We did like her personally and we played with her occasionally, but we made no attempt to include her in a regular chamber music group.

I think it in early 1950 that we sold our 1938 Dodge Sedan to her for $100. It had had a new motor installed in the summer of 1948, but its body had suffered severely from a fire in the fall of 1949. The sale resulted from a chance conversation.

In the course of our acquaintance we became aware that her political thinking was unorthodox, but political discussion was not an important part of our social intercourse, which was mainly devoted to music. We knew of Ellen's participation in the Art classes, but it would never have occurred to us to interfere. As far as we were concerned, the Art classes seemed to be good, and seemed to develop Ellen's artistic talent.

Ellen has given me the following: "I joined Peggy's art class right after' meeting her. I soon became aware that, although she might not be a communist, she was certainly working for many causes they supported, and agreed with them in most respects. However, she is a most extraordinarily good art teacher. The classes were on art, not politics. I disagree with her politics but I shall always be grateful for the opportunity of learning art from her.

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b, c, and f. I should say something about my knowledge of Ellen's connection with the SYL and Marxism generally. I believe that it was in the summer of 1950 that Ellen talked with me about her interest in Marxism. If I remember correctly, she informed me that she was interested in Marxism and that she intended to become an active member' of SYL and attend classes on Marxism during the coming winter. She asked whether I felt that this would be prejudicial to my position. I believe that I responded that I did not think that she would find Marxism the universal panacea that it claims to be, that I did not believe that her course of action would or should be prejudicial to my position, and that even if it were, it was her decision not mine, and that she should make her own decision. In saying this I am sure that I was influenced by my conviction that she was fundamentally sound enough escape becoming a fanatical convert, and by my further conviction that this is the best manner in which to handle this sort of parent-child problem. Ellen was about 23 years of age at this time. I know that she was active for some political organization or organizations during at least part of that winter, for she told us of making posters and writing articles. Some time in the spring she met her present husband, who assures me she had nothing to do with SYL for over a year now He says that at least one of her articles was very unfavorably received because, it did not conform to orthodox Marxism. My faith in her and in my handling of the matter seems to have been justified.

It was at the time of my conversation with Ellen that I learned that my daughter in law, Rochelle Flanders, was interested in. the SYL. I believe that it was at the time of the above talk that I learned that SYL was a Trotzkyite organization. I further learned that my daughter-in-law had had some sort of SYL business that she transacted during her visit to us at Christmas. I think that I knew at the time of her visit that she had known Fred Meier before in New York. At, any rate, I had known from my first acquaintance with her that she seemed to be an interested Marxist in her views Marxism and Freudianism are intellectual hobbies of hers and these are subjects on which we have agreed to disagree. In spite of what I consider her aberrations, I love her dearly. My son, Peter, who is studying choral conducting at the Julliard School in New York, is rather completely uninterested in politics Just this fall he told me that he had once had a brief flurry of activity in the Harvard Liberal Club during his senior year, had voted for what he later felt to have been a probably Communist dominated faction, which in any case he ultimately felt to be inferior to the ousted faction, and had dropped his interest in such matters after burning his fingers in this way.

g. I do not remember the specific incident, but assume that it occurred. Sara is an active and forthright person. She often writes to senators an congressmen. Allowing for a certain amount of exaggeration; the phrase used was, I believe, intended to express our concern. over the extension in a democracy to a large body of citizens of procedures which seem justified only in the case of the relatively few people employed in sensitive government positions.

I deem that items a - g cited in the "letter of notification" fall' under category B of derogatory information, 'as defined' in "Personnel Security Clearance". Accordingly "the extent of activities, the attitudes, or convictions of the individual must be weighed in determining whether a presumption of risk existed. It is my contention that in the light of my response to these .allegations such a presumption of risk does not exist.

In conclusion, I think I can affirmatively say that I am a completely loyal and trustworthy citizen, else I would not contest the matter but would resign. I believe that my work, my character, my attachment to democracy, my

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scientific standing, discretion and my professional value to the laboratory should serve to dissipate any question raised in you letter to me.

Sincerely yours,

Donald Flanders

Testimony of Donald Flanders at Atomic Energy Commission hearing.

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