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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (July 12, 1959)
Family Weekly July 12, 1959 '-, v .; . j -v- v" ' . ,- w.a'. "..jpiwu.-"..1" . rt'jj. .Mm', i in mri R2J ON may 7, 1959, in a hot and crowded hearing room in Chicago's Federal Court House, I put the finger on the leading Communists in the Midwest men who are working to destroy your liberty and mine. Thus ended my 15 years of living a lie as a spy for the FBI in the United Packing house Workers Union and the Communist Party of America. For 15 years, my family and I took abuse from people who were once our friends. I accepted this as part of the job I had enlisted for. But my family had to live with it in confusion and bitterness. They couldn't know what I was doing, and they suffered because of it. I'm more proud of them than I can express for their faith in me through out those trying years. I hope, somehow, to make it up to them now. My work as a spy started when I was elected joint chairman of District 1 of the United Pack inghouse Workers of America. I had been employed at Armour and Company for almost 20 years, and was a junior craftsman in the boiler shop when I was elected to Union office. - As a Union member, I had been aware of Com munist activity. I knew that Union meetings were rigged and that members who objected were threatened and shoved around that is why I wanted to be elected, so I could do something about it. But I had no real idea of how much the Com munists had taken over until I became a Union officer myself. . ' S 1 Ji! 'Oflir' WIT : . I'M: t "Jam V ',w ,.-- i TVW : teji- .--Jt-ii jsat-X. . - -. I 3 Jti.te&X J2S&&OTM taiS : ,-.:: y. .. &(B0(Bil ' UB-ffCB ffWD0 During my first year in office, the International sent in teachers from Chicago's Abraham Lincoln School (this name is typical of the way Commu nists operate, always hooking up with something unshakably right and good) to see that we were properly indoctrinated. All the Union officers and stewards were given the word the Communist word. Then I was sent to represent my district at an interstate meeting where the Party line was laid down to us; we were to object individually and as a group to U. S. Government action in sending our armed forces island-hopping against Japan instead of opening a second front in Europe to relieve Russia. By that time, I'd had it. I saw that these people were more interested in supporting Russia and in ternational Communism than in their own country so I called the FBI and told them I had some information for them. At the time my oldest boy, Joe, Jr., was with the Navy in Alaska. My wife', Antoinette, and my other seven children (six girls and one boy) were at home in the five-room apartment on Chicago's South Side where we've lived for 26 years. I told the FBI everything I'd seen and heard. I said I'd be glad to testify to these things, and name names. That's when they asked if I would be willing to join the Communist Party, take part in their program, and report their activities to the U. S. Government. I agreed without much hesita tion. My reasons were simple enough. I'd been too young to fight in World War I and too old in World War II; here was a way I could help. The FBI warned me that complete secrecy would be necessary if I was to be useful to them and escape the fate that befalls discovered spies. This was the most difficult part of all for me, and I finally did confide in my wife some years later but never to my children or anyone else. Soon after I enlisted as a spy, I became a full fledged, card-carrying member of the Commu nist Party. My FBI contacts had told me not to appear too eager to let the Communists approach me. That took a few months. A man called George who was one of the top men in both the Interna tional Meat Packers Union and the Communist Party of America sought me out one evening after a Union meeting. "You're the most intelligent worker in the Dis trict," he told me. "We need men like you in the Party. Would you like to join?" I asked for a few days to think it over, then agreed to join. Along with 25 other men and women, I took an oath to "serve the Communist Party of America." I rose steadily in the ranks. Some years back, I had been recording secre tary of a Union local, and I knew this officer has access to all minutes, letters, and other confidential data. So I always sought this job in my Commu nist associations and I usually got it. Thus I was able to tell the FBI in great detail what was TIMES, NEW THE vjuwrr ; i Dim KngUShHO TojH posoT m rade as l"1"!"" rd9 were going on inside the Party. Most of my contacts with them were by phone, usually from my apart ment where I had a private line. Periodically I would submit written reports covering a number of phone conversations. I was paid a small fee for this, but it was not a primary consideration. I was attending three types of meetings regu larly: Union meetings; meetings of front organiza tions that were Communist-dominated; and actual Party meetings. About this time, Antoinette got involved, and I had to tell her part of the truth. Because of my Party connections, a woman Party organizer in vited my wife to a Communist meeting. Antoinette was understandably confused, and asked me what to do. I told her to go, bring home whatever litera ture they gave her, and turn down any future in vitations on the grounds that her family required all her time which it did. "You're liable to hear many bad things about me," I told her. "Don't believe them. I can't tell you why right now; I can only ask you to believe in me and believe that what I'm doing is good and right." - Few of our friends or acquaintances knew of my activities, and things were fairly normal for all of us until 1944, when a Polish newspaper which was widely read in our neighborhood carried a picture of me on its front page with a. story naming me as a Communist and identifying me as being involved in a plot to turn the Polish govern- 6, MA 8 Not out slide: fearj It the: .ctwlti By JOSEPH A. POS iconic A ment over to Russia. The whole thing was fantastic except for what they said about my being a mem ber of the Communist Party. That was true. I hadn't yet seen the story when I was return ing from work the day it appeared. I stopped in a restaurant in our neighborhood for a cup of coffee and a few words with the proprietor an old friend. There were two men and a woman sitting together inside, and I saw them whisper and point at me as I came in. Then, before I could even sit down, the woman came over to me, called me a filthy name, and hit me in the mouth. That was my first indication of what was going to happen again and again in the years ahead. It took all my will power to keep from protesting, from striking back. Later, when I saw the newspaper, I understood why the woman had hit me. My family was silent that night at dinner. They didn't look at me, and everyone finished and left the table quickly. That nicht as I went to bed, I thought: "This is the way it's going to be if you stick it out. Make up your mind to that or get out right now." I couldn't quit. The war was still on, and I saw this as my part in it. So I got deeper and deeper into Communism. The Party considered me so promising that I was sent to a Workers' School from which I actually graduated as valedictorian of my class! For weeks, right in Chicago, they pumped us full of hate for America and capitalism, and ad miration for the Russian system! When it was all over, George came to see me again and said: "Joe, if it ever comes to war with Russia, you have one of the most important jobs of any of our people. You can help tie up the whole meat-packing industry, and that's going to hurt real bad. You've got to be ready to do it fast when the right time comes." This was my high period with the Commies. I was attending eight or ten meetings a week and reporting volumes of information to the FBI. But I made the mistake of getting over-eager. Even dedicated Communists aren't supposed to be as anxious to attend meetings as I was particularly meetings that weren't involved in the specific work I was doing. George called me in one day and asked me why I had passed up a Union District meeting to attend a front-organization affair at a Chicago high school the same night. I think he accepted my explana tion, but I realized I would have to be much more cautious. At any rate, George asked me to help organize a Communist-front organization which I'll call here the Committee for Preservation of National Rights. I was made treasurer which was later to get me in trouble with the Party again. At home, things were uncomfortable. The chil dren said little to me, but I could see the reproach in their eyes. They were customarily greeted with, (Continued on page 6) i: r- if. V i r. 4 Family Weekly, July 12. 1959 Family Weekly, July 12, 1959
