Communist Hunter Sparks Interest Canwell’s Experiences Spawn Oral History, New Play, Books

Fifty years haven’t cooled the interest in former state Rep. Al Canwell of Spokane.

He’s the subject of one of the most requested oral histories in a program operated by the secretary of state’s office.

In “Albert F. Canwell: An Oral History,” he defends his record as chairman of the state’s Communisthunting committee of 1948, and accuses prominent Spokane residents and other Americans of the ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s of being Communists or subversives.

Among his targets: Ben Kizer, a leading attorney who was once president of the Spokane Area Chamber of Commerce; Lewis Schwellenbach, a former congressman from Spokane who became a federal judge; and former U.S. Supreme Court justices William O. Douglas, Louis Brandeis and Felix Frankfurter. He labels the late U.S. Sen. Warren Magnuson “a sociopath, a man with no conscience,” and GOP Sens. Slade Gorton and Dan Evans “no more Republicans than I am a Zulu … opportunists who moved into a vacuum.”

He was given unprecedented control over the editing of the oral history and allowed to strike some portions that were critical of the committee, sources said.

Copies are available from the secretary of state’s office, in libraries around the state, and at the regional state archive at Eastern Washington University.

A three-week symposium on the Canwell hearings and academic freedom begins Thursday at the University of Washington. Drama Professor Mark Jenkins uses testimony from the hearings for his new play, “All Powers Necessary and Convenient,” which opens Feb. 4 and runs through Feb. 15.

“False Witness,” a 1969 book by former UW Philosophy Professor Melvin Rader, who was accused of being a Communist by a committee witness and later cleared, was republished this month.

The new edition has an afterward by Len Schroeter, former president of the state’s American Civil Liberties Union and an attorney for professors accused of being Communists. Rader’s account is valuable companion reading to Canwell’s oral history, and Schroeter offers a strong rebuttal to the former legislator’s view in the afterword.

Other books about the Canwell hearings include:

“Cold War on Campus,” by Jane Sanders;

“No Ivory Tower,” by Ellen Schrecker;

“Un-American Activities in the State of Washington - The Canwell Committee,” by Verne Countryman.

, DataTimes