Mr. DENNETT. It didn’t take very long after I reached Seattle before I had my first rude awakening. I was naive enough to believe that it was proper for anyone to ask any question at any time in a party meeting. But after coming to Seattle and being assigned as the district agitprop director, believing that my duty required that I should supervise the production of leaflets and propaganda which was being issued, I was naive enough to ask what were my various duties. And the answer I got from Mr. Noral was to the effect that anybody knows what that is, which left me completely in the dark.
So I turned to the nearest associate who, at that time was Mr. John Lawrie, Sr., who more or less agreed with me that it was time to get some clear definition as to what the function was. Later on when I insisted upon criticizing a leaflet which Noral had issued he accused me of being some kind of a deviationist. I had only been in the party about 3 months. I didn’t know what the term meant.
Later on he accused me of being a Trotskyite. I think he used the term “Trotskyite,” which was a term of derision. And that conflict led ultimately to my being removed as district agitprop director. As a matter of fact, if Noral had carried out his wishes at that time I would have been liquidated.
I didn’t know what he meant by liquidation then, and I think the term was used rather loosely. But he did declare that liquidation was the proper thing to do with deviators such as I at that time.
However, there was another leader in the district by the name of Ed Leavitt, L-e-a-v-i-t-t, who was the organizational secretary, and Leavitt felt that it was improper to deal with me in that fashion, and he felt that since I was a young man at that time that I should be given an opportunity to prove my worth and prove myself. And he prevailed upon the district secretariat, namely, himself, Noral, and Lawrie, to assign me to section organizer in Bellingham. It wasn’t very long before I was banished from the district headquarters and sent to Bellingham to prove myself, which I think I did.
Mr. MOULDER. Were you then being compensated?
Mr. MOULDER. Or reimbursed for your travels?
Mr. DENNETT. I was not. We just bummed our way around.