Mr. TAVENNER. Do you mean to tell us that you didn’t know that Tom Rabbitt had been identified as a member of the Communist Party? Mr. O’CONNELL. I knew, for instance, in the press and the press reports, and from information given to me that various people in there had said that Rabbitt and others were members of the Communist Party. Mr. TAVENNER. Then we cannot rely on your statement of this morning and yesterday when I asked you whether or not you knew that Tom Rabbitt, or had heard that Tom Rabbitt was a member of the Communist Party when you were dealing with him in the pension union and in the work of the Progressive Party? Mr. O’CONNELL. Now, I said, and if my testimony is that I had not heard, I want to change it, but I said I did not know of my own knowledge and my testimony is that I did not know of my own knowledge and even today I do not know of my knowledge that Rabbitt is a member of the Communist Party. As I understand it, he has not admitted that he is. I think according to your report he refused to testify and invoked the privilege of the fifth amendment as far as he was concerned. Mr. TAVENNER. Didn’t almost the same witnesses identify William Pennock as a Communist Party member during those same hearings? Mr. O’CONNELL. That is correct. Mr. TAVENNER. So what is true with regard to Mr. Rabbitt, is true with regard to Mr. Pennock? Mr. O’CONNELL. My testimony is that I didn’t know of my own knowledge that they were members of the Communist Party. Mr. VELDE. You stated you did have a suspicion that they were members of the Communist Party at the time you were dealing with them in the pension union. Now, will you tell this committee upon what you based that suspicion? Mr. O’CONNELL. Largely, I was decidedly surprised when I heard the testimony of many of the people who testified in the Canwell hearings. I was surprised by Kathryn Fogg who, for instance, was a Democratic leader in South King County whom I knew real well. I didn’t dream she was a member of the Communist Party or had been one. When she came and testified that she had been a member of the Communist Party and had met in meetings I was certainly surprised. And H. C. Armstrong---- Mr. VELDE. When did you first suspect that Rabbitt and Pennock were members of the Communist Party? Mr. O’CONNELL. Well, the first suspicion that I had was actually around the period of time of those hearings out there. Up to that time it had been my job as executive secretary of the Democratic Party, I had to cover the whole State of Washington. I went around on tours and trips and speaking schedules and so on, and my contact with Rabbitt and Pennock largely during the first 2 years I was out there, 1945 and 1946, really was when I would come in to talk to a meeting of the King County Democratic Central Committee that they were sitting on as delegates, Democratic delegates from the 35th Legislative District.