the boys change their testimony or else things would go mighty rough for their clients, Sanders and Marvin Martin.

Mr. BRACKETT. Will you also call Mr. William Seltzer and Patrick McNally?

Mr. McNally is a public defender employed by the county of Cook, in Chicago.

Since they have been accused of subornation of perjury, I think they should be allowed to come here and testify as to whether they are in fact guilty of that crime.

Senator MUNDT. We will find that out after we talk to Mr. Connor, and take his testimony. We will know what trails to follow from that point.

Mr. BRACKETT. Do you mean you don't wish to call the other two gentlemen who have been accused?

Senator MUNDT. I didn't say that at all.

I said after we talk to Mr. Connor, we will conduct our own investigation.

Mr. BRACKETT. Your own investigation? I see.

Senator CURTIS. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask Reverend Fry another question, from this article that I referred to, in the record. In the article I referred to, we were discussing the Democratic Convention. I find this:

Meanwhile, there are organizations of black people that are prepared to do violent assault on the property and the procedures of the convention, and its personnel, too, if they get in the way.

Other organizations are thinking about initiating trouble at a series of far removed places in the city on such a scale that very few police will be available for guarding the convention.

My question is: Where did you get that information?

TESTIMONY OF REV. JOHN R. FRY, ACCOMPANIED BY COUNSEL,
WILLIAM BRACKETT-Resumed

Reverend FRY. From a wide variety of people, Senator Curtis.
Senator CURTIS. Will you name a few of them?

Reverend FRY. Many of them I do not know by name, but I would refer to what I can be helpful with.

One of the groups that I had been led to understand was going to participate in this general effort is a group of young students known as SDS.

Senator CURTIS. Which one of them gave you this information? Reverend FRY. I cannot recall specific persons.

What I want to point out is that there was nothing secret. This is simply widespread throughout the black community. This was the No. 1 topic of conversation among black people for a whole number of weeks.

Senator CURTIS. Then you say:

Other organizations are thinking about initiating trouble at a series of farremoved places.

Would you identify the organizations?

Reverend FRY. These were collections of black people.

Senator CURTIS. Street gangs?

Reverend FRY. I am simply assigning a kind of generic word, "organization," to them. I think the only major organizations I know anything about, as major organizations, Woodlawn organization, the Blackstone Rangers, were not interested in the sorts of strategy I am reporting here.

These were rather collections of 10 and 15 people who said that, "We are going to do" this or that. It was not a matter of very hard, recognized community organizations going into this.

Senator CURTIS. The impression that is conveyed in this article is that you are the champion of the black people, so I think the record, which has to be printed, should show the color of the people involved here. Annabelle Martin, the witness, is a black person, is she not? Reverend FRY. Yes, sir.

Senator CURTIS. And so are her children, the two children tried for murder?

Reverend FRY. Yes, sir.

Senator CURTIS. Commander William Griffin is a black person, isn't he?

Reverend FRY. Yes, sir.

Senator CURTIS. And Warden Moore is a black person?

Reverend FRY. Yes, sir.

Senator CURTIS. And so is George Rose?

Reverend FRY. Yes, sir.

Senator CURTIS. And Lieutenant Buckney is a black person?

Reverend FRY. Yes, sir.

Senator CURTIS. So you are not the champion of all black people, are you?

Reverend FRY. When I referred to the black community, I believe the context of the article would reveal that I was talking about a specific core community of the black poor.

Senator CURTIS. In your testimony here, and in the press conference you held over there at the press table

The CHAIRMAN. Would you yield for a minute?

Wallace Grant-is he colored?

Mrs. MARTIN. He is colored. The man who owned the store, he

knew I got it, too.

The CHAIRMAN. He is colored?

Mrs. MARTIN. He is white.

The CHAIRMAN. Is Wallace Grant white?

Mrs. MARTIN. He is colored.

The CHAIRMAN. The man who made this affidavit?

Mrs. MARTIN. Yes, he is colored.

Senator CURTIS. I have gathered, from what you have said here, and what you said in your press conference, that you intended to convey the idea that these black persons I have mentioned have systematically told untruths about you and the First Presbyterian Church.

Reverend FRY. I think that might be a misleading impression, Senator Curtis. I have denied the specific untruths that you have questioned me on.

Senator CURTIS. That is all, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Mundt.

Senator MUNDT. You had a press conference in this roon, I believe, during the rollcall immediately preceding the last one, did you not? Reverend FRY. That is correct.

Senator MUNDT. It was reported to me by some of the press men who were listening to you, or asking you questions, that you told them you believed this whole hearing, and all these allegations which are being ventilated in it, are a sort of conspiracy on the part of the Chicago Police Department, especially the gang intelligence unit, to discredit you.

Is that about what you told them in the press conference?

Reverend FRY. That is substantially correct. It was specifically the gang intelligence unit.

Senator MUNDT. How big an outfit is the gang intelligence unit? Is that two or three people, or are there a lot of people in it?

Reverend FRY. I do not know its actual size. I would certainly say it is over six, and that is all I know.

Senator MUNDT. What conceivable reason would the gang intelligence unit of the Chicago police force-they are all on the police force, are they not?

Reverend FRY. Yes, sir.

Senator MUNDT. What conceivable reason would the gang intelligence unit of the Chicago police force have for wanting to discredit an uprighteous Presbyterian preacher going about administering the Gospel?

Reverend FRY. I was, of course, stating my opinion, Senator Mundt, in the press conference.

Now I am in a very different relationship. Therefore I cannot under oath say that I know what motivations there are.

I would say, however

Senator MUNDT. I am just asking you for your opinion.

Reverend FRY. Well, it is my opinion that there is a serious misunderstanding of my role and my activity, as there is serious misunderstanding of the actual developments and the actual developments of the Blackstone Rangers.

I believe this understanding is somehow related to whatever the real motivation is.

Senator MUNDT. Do you include the State's attorney's office in the same category, as being part of this conspiracy?

Reverend FRY. No, sir. The State's attorneys have police assigned to them who work very intimately, I am led to understand, with gang intelligence units.

Senator MUNDT. Then you would agree that any evidence which we procure from the State's attorney's office should be, to the best of your knowledge, objective and accurate, and not designed to prejudice you or your work?

Reverend FRY. I would be able to judge that better after I heardSenator MUNDT. You can't do that. You can't have it both ways. Mr. BRACKETT. Are you asking him to vouch for a witness he doesn't even know?

That is the trouble with this procedure. He is being asked about things, when the prosecution witnesses are to be appearing later.

That is why I am asking him to be excluded, so he can answer his accusers after the evidence comes in.

That is the way the defense usually endorses, not to give a blanket endorsement of witnesses he doesn't know about.

Senator MUNDT. My question is as to whether or not he thinks the office of the State's attorney is involved in what he believes is a conspiracy on the part of the gang intelligence unit to do him in.

He said he believes that the gang intelligence unit was set out to prejudice his work.

I asked: "Do you believe the State's attorney's office is involved in that?"

And he said, "No."

Then I said: "To the best of your knowledge, any information which would come from the State's attorney's office, which is based upon evidence and facts available to that office, would not be part of a program to discourage and disparage you?"

Reverend FRY. With the exceptions I noted, Mr. Mundt, there are police assigned to the State's attorney's office, whom I have noted many times in close conversation with gang intelligence personnel, both in the courtrooms of Chicago and in this very Senate hearing room. The person to my left is one such.

Senator MUNDT. I have to intepret that answer as being that you feel that anybody who brings in any evidence which is derogatory to you, or your work, is involved in a conspiracy. Otherwise, each is all right-anybody who doesn't.

Conceivably, and I underline "conceivably," you could be correct, that the mayor of Chicago, and a portion of his police force, is spending a lot of public money to do you in.

I would doubt that very much.

Certainly, your implication to the press, if reported to me correctly, that they, in turn-the intelligence gang units of the police department of Chicago-are influencing the direction of this hearing, is an astounding piece of testimony.

I can't think of anybody who would like to see the political power of Mayor Daley destroyed more than Senator Curtis and me.

We are not under his direction. We would like to see him dethroned, and a Republican mayor in his place.

But we have to assume, in this country, I believe, that without some evidence you can't just state that the mayor is out to get rid of a Presbyterian preacher and the operations of his church, or that he has directed part of his police force to engage in such a conspiracy. That is a pretty farfetched allegation for me to accept.

Mr. BRACKETT. Has that allegation been made?

Reverend FRY. I have not made that allegation. I have made a statement of opinion.

Senator MUNDT. It is your opinion?

Reverend FRY. I have not made this as a hard allegation, Senator Mundt.

Senator MUNDT. You can state your opinion.

Mr. BRACKETT. If we are going to be accurate, from the press conference, the statement that he made was that the mayor of Chicago could not be unaware of what is going on.

That is not an allegation of conspiracy.
The CHAIRMAN. Just a moment.

The Chair will go along with Mayor Daley to the extent that I don't want the Democratic convention wrecked. After that, he is on his own.

Senator CURTIS. Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Let me put this document into the record, first. The writings of the reverend to which you and I referred, and from which we quoted, I want made exhibit No. 193 for reference, so it will be made part of the record.

(Document referred to was marked "Exhibit No. 193" for reference and may be found in the files of the subcommittee.)

Senator CURTIS. Mr. Chairman, I have observed counsel for the witness has repeatedly referred to the prosecution, prosecution witnesses. As a lawyer, he knows that that is incorrect.

The record should not be permitted to stand that way. We are in this investigation because the committee was following the trail of an expenditure of a million dollars in an OEO project. That is why we got into it in the first place.

That is why it led to the witnesses who have been before us.

The committee is not conducting a prosecution. We have no authority to do so. Such remarks, if allowed to stand, will prejudice our operation here and in the minds of the public.

The CHAIRMAN. The Chair acknowledges he has been very lenient in trying to give every opportunity for them to present any viewpoint they have with respect to this testimony. I have done that.

Here is a serious situation. Here is a minister of a church, wearing the cloth, found associating and consorting with a bunch of criminals. He is justifying it by his answers to the questions here.

That is what we are concerned about-taxpayers' money going to pay characters like this to teach, when they are not competent to teach, when about all they are competent to teach is not education in the sense that we speak of education, in the context that we use the term to educate people today, but about the only competence that they appear to have is to run a gang.

I have leaned over, because if there is any evidence that he can give to enlighten us on these things-implications presented from undisputed facts-that they are not correct, that it is not true, then he ought to have the right to do it.

I am not a member of the Presbyterian Church. I am a Baptist. If you were a Baptist, I would really give you some cross examination, and I don't mean maybe.

If these things that are coming out here are the facts, so that the Congress can do something about this money, not only should we know it from that standpoint, but from the standpoint of organized crime.

Here is a situation where they are taking youth into a movement, into an organization where much of the testimony shows its primary purpose is to engage in crime.

If that is true, Preacher, I would think the church and the decent citizens all over the country should resent it, and would want, when you have the opportunity to do so in your situation, if it is true, to repudiate it.

(At this point Senator Javits entered the hearing room.)