A day in the committee room (1963).

Martinez, Elizabeth "Betita" Sutherland

The caucus room in the Old House Office Building in Washington, where a sub-committee of the HUAC began a series of hearings on Cuba last month, looks pleasant. The room is large, light and uncluttered; two beautiful eighteenth-century chandeliers hang on the wall behind chairs where the committeemen sit in elevated semicircle. Nothing suggests to a subpoenaed witness coming here for the first time, as I was, that he may walk out of that room feeling disturbed, confused--and dirty.

HUAC today treats its witnesses far less sadistically than in the past, and isn't taken half so seriously. It has been years, I think, since anyone committed suicide upon receiving a subpoena and many people even consider being called a sort of status symbol. When I arrived May 6, several spectators in the front row were wearing "Abolish HUAC" signs. And Fred Jerome, the first witness that morning, was neither shouted at nor threatened despite his statements attacking HUAC to its face. Yet the basic nature of this committee remains unchanged. And it can still cause witnesses to lose their jobs as happened to Jerome, or damage reputations.

At 11:30 a.m. I sat down with my attorney at a table placed under the sub-committee's eyes, with committee counsel Alfred Nittle at the other end. HUAC had chosen to hold its first public hearings of 1963 on illegal travel to Cuba and pro-Cuban propaganda by Americans. I had come prepared to be quizzed on my enthusiasm for revolutionary Cuba, where I had gone in August 1961 to write a magazine article. I intended to uphold my opinions and the right to publish them. But there was little chance for this. Instead I was grilled until 4 p.m. about Americans I saw in Cuba.

The questions fell into two categories. The first constituted a grilling to make me give the names of a few Americans I admitted seeing there. I refused, not on the basis of any amendment but on the grounds of personal conscience. Chairman Edward Willis (D-La) ordered me to reply, with a warning that a contempt citation might follow. I again refused to be an informer, and we went through this routine a dozen times.

My voice sank lower and lower with each refusal to answer, and I felt more mulish than brave or noble. The truth is that after a few hours in that Washington Wonderland, a sort of fear can creep in. It isn't a conscious fear, nor a fear for oneself, but the contagion of an atmosphere so irrational that a person unaccustomed to collective madness feels dehumanized, lost. Anything but a "yes" or "no" answer, any attempt to make the committeemen understand something, only leads to more idiotic questions.

In the face of my refusal, the committee seemed frustrated and annoyed. Yet Willis became almost paternal at times, and I had the unpleasant sensation that he considered me a well-meaning but confused little woman who had let herself be duped by "those Commies." For a moment I thought I'd rather have them believe I'm a clever and dangerous subversive--or would I? The mind boggles; are these people talking English? At the same time, the committee struck me as more inept than sinister, more absurd than vicious. They didn't even know, for example, that the Medical Aid for Cuba Committee--which HUAC itself had investigated not long ago--was disbanded.

Their absurdity reached a peak when Nittle gave up the name-game and focused on a young photographer I know who had gone to Cuba legally. Nittle exhibited his passport application, in which I was named as the person to be notified in case of death; then he called attention to a later document where the young man named someone else to be notified--one "A. Spell-man." Nittle leaned forward and demanded: "Do you know why he changed from you to A. Spellman?" My mouth fell open (what possible legislation could this help produce?) but I just answered, "No." "Do you know A. Spellman?" "No." "Do you know anybody named Spellman?" Somebody in the audience muttered "Cardinal Spellman," and I smiled. "What are you laughing at, Miss Sutherland," asked Nittle indignantly.

As the questions continued, the photographer seemed to be on trial in absentia. He had made a documentary film in Cuba about sugar-cane workers. It had been shown in New York and I acknowledged having seen it. "Where?" "In a loft," I replied, glad I had forgotten the address. As one man, the committee members leaned forward with furrowed brows. "What is a loft?" Images of dark hideouts were dancing in their heads. "A loft? A loft is--well, a loft. You really don't know what a loft is?" We had come to a real impasse; it was another world.

But one result of the photographer questions wasn't amusing. To obtain an extension of his passport validation and stay longer in Cuba, the cameraman had written a letter to the State Department which he filed at the Swiss Embassy in Havana. This letter was exhibited by Nittle. On it, the Swiss official had noted that the photographer "has strong political convictions even against his own country." No evidence of such convictions was produced, but several newspapers built their reports on the hearing around that accusation. For a photographer selling his work to reputable outlets, it could be a disastrous smear.

Subpoenas will not silence non-conformists, but it does seem likely that even fewer people will be able to get passports validated for Cuba in the future. Miss Frances Knight, the director of the Passport Office who has battled against her State Department superiors for stricter control, must have been pleased. The hearing seemed tailor-made to support her attempts to restrict travel by those she suspects as Communists.

* Elizabeth came to the attention of the FBI as a result of her visit to Cuba in 1961. This account of her experience with a HUAC subcommittee investigating "pro-Cuban propaganda" in the United States was published in the National Guardian, June 13, 1963.