Names, Dates, Documents

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THE PLOTTERS (408 pp.)—John Roy Carlson—Dutton ($3.50).

Ever since his Under Cover became a surprising best-seller (TIME, Aug. 23, 1943), earnest undercoverman John Roy Carlson has kept hot on the trail of U.S. extremists, right & left. Using his pen name of Carlson* or any of several others suited to his purpose, he has applied for membership in the Communist Party and the Ku Klux Klan, listened to orations by the notorious George Van Horn Moseley and Gerald L. K. Smith, corresponded with a string of characters from the Atlantic to the Pacific, including Utah's Marilyn R. ("Jesus was NOT a Jew, but an Israelite") Allen, and Oregon's W. W. Bradley, secretary of the Federated Full Gospel Assemblies, an outfit which offers to make licensed ministers for $6 apiece.

The Plotters is as badly organized as its predecessor, and once more readers will have to make allowances for Author Carlson's enthusiasm. Though most of the book's "plotters" are boobs and fanatics in white sheets or black shirts, Carlson lists the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, etc. among the groups competing for "postwar America's most precious prize": the millions of former soldiers & sailors. But once again he cites names, dates and documents to show that anti-Catholic, antiSemitic, anti-Negro doctrines still flourish in the U.S. Author Carlson's analysis of certain veterans' organizations:

United American Veterans. Its main purpose, according to its National Adjutant, is to "combat communism." Says Carlson: the National Adjutant is Thomas Dixon, "a familiar figure in the prewar Bund and Christian Front circles."

Protestant War Veterans of the United States. Says Carlson: the guiding genius is Edward James Smythe, former Bundist and Klansman, who has denounced both the "Roman Catholic controlled" Tammany Hall Democrats and Thomas E. Dewey's "Jew-Communist controlled'' Republicans.

Christian Veterans of America. Headed by Frederick Kister, onetime America Firster and friend of Yorkville's Joe McWilliams. Its National Chaplain: Arthur W. Terminiello, Roman Catholic priest suspended by his bishop for "detrimental" activities, sometimes known as the "Father Coughlin of the South."