Mr. TAVENNER. There are no detention camp features to the bill. Mr. O’CONNELL. In the bill that was finally passed in the Senate I think Senator Kilgore and some of the other Democratic Senators offered an amendment to the bill or a provision that provided for---- Mr. TAVENNER. In conference between the Representatives of the Senate and the House, it was agreed to accept the House bill exactly as prepared and submitted by this committee, which was done. How were you employed at the time you first became chairman of this committee? Mr. O’CONNELL. I was the executive secretary of the Progressive Party in the State of Washington. Mr. TAVENNER. I believe you have told us that Mr. Robert J. Silberstein, executive secretary of the National Lawyers Guild, was one of the official family of the National Committee To Defeat the Mundt Bill. Mr. O’CONNELL. My recollection is he was secretary. I don’t want to be held to it but I am pretty sure he was the secretary of the committee. Mr. TAVENNER. Was he a person known to you to be a member of the Communist Party? Mr. O’CONNELL. No; I never knew Bob Silberstein to be a member of the Communist Party. Mr. SCHERER. I didn’t get the last answer. Mr. O’CONNELL. No; I never knew or did not know that Bob Silberstein was a member of the Communist Party and I don’t know it now. Mr. TAVENNER. Had you heard he was a member of the Communist Party? Mr. O’CONNELL. I had not heard that he was. Mr. TAVENNER. Up until this present time you have not heard? Mr. O’CONNELL. I have not heard that Bob Silberstein is a member of the Communist Party. Mr. TAVENNER. Mr. Chairman, this committee heard 2 witnesses from California in 1952, both of them attorneys at law, one of them a professor at a law university, who testified to the effect that Mr. Silberstein was a member of the Communist Party. Mr. Silberstein was subpenaed before this committee and confronted with the testimony of those two lawyers and he refused to testify on the subject, claiming that to do so might tend to incriminate him. Mr. O’CONNELL. Just for the record, Mr. Tavenner, I, of course, haven’t read all the proceedings of this committee; I have not had available to me the transcript of the hearings of the committee, what some lawyers in California may have testified about Bob Silberstein in 1952, I don’t know anything about. Mr. TAVENNER. Are you aware of the fact that the National Lawyers Guild has been cited by this committee as a Communist-front organization? Mr. O’CONNELL. Yes; I am. Mr. TAVENNER. Were you a member of the National Lawyers Guild? Mr. O’CONNELL. I am a member, have been and am now a member of the National Lawyers Guild. Mr. SCHERER. When did you last have any connection with Robert J. Silberstein? Mr. O’CONNELL. In 1950, sir. In 1950 we had occasional meetings in connection with the Mundt bill at that time and Mr. Silberstein attended those meetings and I am pretty sure he was the secretary of the organization.