INVESTIGATIONS: Solid Santa Glaus

The Farm Equipment-United Electrical workers is a catch-all union built around former C.I.O. affiliates who were expelled for being dominated by Communists. It controls 325,000 workers, is now staging a strike at 15 International Harvester plants. Last week in Chicago, the F.E.-U.E. was under the scrutiny of the House Un-American Activities Committee.

The committee heard testimony linking 26 F.E.-U.E. officers with Communist Party activities. One of the 26: black-browed, Corsica-born John Toussaint Bernard, who was once (1937-38) a Farmer-Labor Congressman from Minnesota, and who once (1950) appeared in Chicago's Loop clad in a Santa Claus suit and handing out Stockholm (i.e., Communist) peace petitions. Subpoenaed by the committee, Bernard invoked the Fifth Amendment, refused to admit or deny Communist activities or sympathies. He left the stand after making a bellicose demand for the $12 owed to him in witness fees.

Outside of the hearing room 200 F.E.-U.E. pickets chanted Solidarity Forever.