When James P. Cannon returned from Moscow in 1928, where he had attended the Sixth Congress of the Comintern, he brought back one precious copy of Trotsky’s criticism of : “The Draft Program of the Communist International” and a scientific Marxist perspective for the regeneration of the world Communist movement.

When Joseph Hansen returned from Havana in 1960, where he had gone on a “fact-finding” tour, he brought back reactionary rubbish about “unconscious Marxism” and a sinister plan for destroying the Fourth International.

From the spring of 1960 on, Hansen insisted that Mr. Alan Sagner’s Fair Play for Cuba Committee be placed at the center of the political activity of the Socialist Workers Party.

Its decades-long struggle for Trotskyism was now to be repudiated in favor of unprincipled glorification of Fidel Castro. The long fought for “proletarian orientation” was now to be abandoned in favor of bankrupt single-issue protest campaigns directed toward the middle class.

Hansen turned to the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC) for two interconnected reasons. Politically, it accelerated the degeneration of the SWP and its self-liquidation as a Trotskyist party. Organizationally, the FPCC provided — as had been planned by its founders — a staging ground for agents preparing to infiltrate the SWP in order to complete its conversion into an agency of the US State Department.

The greatest danger to Hansen, as he well understood, was the International Committee — above all, its British section, the Socialist Labour League. Since 1953, the SLL had insisted on an unrelenting struggle against Pabloite revisionism.

This struggle against all efforts to liquidate Trotskyism into an appendage of Stalinism presented Hansen with a formidable political obstacle to the execution of his plans.

As an agent conspiring to liquidate the Fourth International, Hansen became the most enthusiastic proponent of an unprincipled reunification with the Pabloites. Though carefully concealing his identity as an agent, Hansen could not avoid the exposure of the revisionist political line which he advanced. He knew this would be fought and unmasked by the SLL.

Hansen’s “solution” to this problem was to demand reunification with the Pabloite forces without any principled discussion within the International Committee — of which the SWP was still a part* — on the fundamental political issues arising from the split in 1953.

Hansen knew that he could not survive, politically speaking, such a discussion. The lack of the slightest principled basis for reunification could not be concealed once the political discussion within the International Committee got underway.

Under these conditions, the recruitment of a large batch of agents into the SWP and their rapid promotion into the leadership was desperately required by Hansen.

Every war requires soldiers to fight it. Hansen’s preparations for breaking the SWP from the International Committee and Trotskyism consisted in opening the floodgates for the inundation of the SWP by agents. The work of these agents, moreover, was to be facilitated by the intake of middle-class elements recruited on the most unprincipled basis.

The point of entry for these agents from the Fair Play for Cuba Committee was to be the Young Socialist Alliance, youth movement of the SWP.

Between January and September, the foundation was laid for the complete takeover of the YSA by the police agents from Carleton College and two highly suspect YSA members working closely with Hansen in this operation.

Except for Hansen who died in 1979, all of these agents are still — some 20 years later — the principal leaders of the Socialist Workers Party.

The carrying out of this operation required the purging of the established leadership of the YSA, whose national chairman was Tim Wohlforth, which opposed the designation of Cuba as a workers’ state and which agreed with the stand taken by the SLL against an unprincipled reunification with the Pabloite revisionists.

An outline of this operation emerges in an examination of the official minutes of the Young Socialist Alliance from 1961.

By January 1961, the Fair Play for Cuba Committee had become the exclusive focus of YSA activity. Its members were instructed to join the FPCC.

YSA members were reminded in a report from the YSA National Executive Committee, dated January 25, 1961, that while “we make the point that we participate as socialists we must underscore and constantly keep in mind that in order to be effective and lasting the FPCC must remain broad and programatically based on the direct points of ‘Hands Off Cuba’ ...”

The report also complained that “we are not yet involved to the degree possible and necessary in the FPCC.”

However, as the turn to the FPCC was carried through more forcefully, definite “gains” began to be realized. For example, the minutes of the YSA National Executive Committee of January 30, 1961, report the following news:

Milwaukee: New comrade, Ed, is very actively working with Myrtle to establish a unit; is selling paper and meeting some good contacts.

The “Ed” referred to is none other than Ed Heisler, only just beginning his career as an FBI agent in the SWP. It was to end 20 years later, in June 1980, when Heisler voluntarily exposed himself as an agent.

Heisler’s actual admission as a “Member at Large” is reported in the NEC minutes of February 20, 1961.

A sharp factional struggle had already begun in the YSA, directed against Wohlforth because of his association with the political stand of the SLL. The YSA national secretary, one Sherry Finer, had been egged on by Hansen to denounce Wohlforth for having failed to pursue the Cuban campaign with sufficient vigor.

The struggle within the YSA was only an echo of the chorus of lies and slanders that Hansen was directing against the Socialist Labour League.

An all-out effort was being made to affix the label of “sectarianism” to the SLL because it refused (1) to accept a reunification with the Pabloites which ignored discussion of the fundamental issues which led to the 1953 split and (2) to endorse the liquidationist position that Cuba was a workers’ state and that Castroism transcended the Fourth International.

Hansen’s lies were particularly grotesque considering the fact that the SWP had said the following about the SLL less than a year earlier:

Where did this magnificent movement come from? It is obviously without a trace of sectarianism or disdainful aloofness from the actual movement and life of the working class. It is popular, energetic and colorful in its public appeal.

The real secret of the strength of the SLL is its concern for the theoretical basis of socialism, its ‘preoccupation’ if you please with the ‘old disputes’ and its rejection of every attempt at light-minded improvization in the field of principle.

This is true of the SLL and its leadership as a whole, both those who came recently from the Communist Party as well as the older Trotskyist cadre. (International Socialist Review, Spring 1960.)

These words, which Hansen sorely regretted, were still remembered in 1961 by many older members of the SWP and exposed the utterly fraudulent and malicious character of all denunciations of “Healyite sectarianism.”

Hansen utilized Cuba to manufacture a case against the “sectarianism” of the SLL. Hansen’s interest in the fate of the Cuban revolution was no more real than Mr. Alan Sanger’s. Hansen wanted a cover for his criminal conspiracy against the Trotskyist movement.

Hansen was intent on removing Wohlforth from the leadership of the YSA because he already had assembled the special detachment of young agents who were to take Wohlforth’s place.

The minutes of the YSA provide definite evidence that before even being members of either the YSA or SWP, the Carleton students and their leader, Jack Barnes, had already been briefed on the progress of Hansen’s struggle against the International Committee.

The minutes show that James Robertson, present-day guru of the middle-class Spartacist sect, but then a member of the YSA NEC, was selected to make a tour on behalf of the YSA throughout the United States. Among the cities he visited was Minneapolis. He also visited Carleton College.

Attached to the minutes of May 2, 1961, was a statement entitled “A Criticism of the Robertson Tour Report,” by one John Chelstrom of the Minneapolis branch of the SWP.

It strenuously objected to the conclusions that had been drawn by Robertson. The statement reads as follows:

After Comrade Robertson had left Minneapolis, I had planned to write a report on his tour activities. In this report I had planned to commend him for his conduct here. In the light of the NEC minutes of April 18 and the tour report contained therein I can no longer do this.

Comrade Robertson still deserves to be commended for the way he conducted himself publicly here. In his public speeches and in his talks with contacts, he did very excellently. This holds true especially in his work at Carleton College. Now this is all fine, but the tour as I understand it was mainly for internal consultation. Even in that aspect I thought he did a good job — until I received the NEC minutes.

“Comrade Robertson obviously has differences with the way we are conducting our youth work here. But not once while he was here, not once did he bring these differences up in a concrete manner. He hinted all right, but that was all.

“Comrade Robertson’s report on Minneapolis and Carleton College is a mixture of misinterpretations, distortions and outright falsehoods. In fact while I was reading it I could not help but wonder if there had been some typographical error and the report from some other area had been placed under the heading of Minneapolis. When I found out that it actually was the Minneapolis report I could not help but have doubts about the accuracy of the other reports.

“Comrade Robertson passes off all the youth work done here in the past six months in part of one sentence: ‘There had been no organized YSA work for six months …’ Now from a very formalistic and narrow point of view this is true.

“One might assume from this statement, however, that the reason for this is that we have two Patloite liquidationists on the campus.

“Last fall we concentrated an orientation, however, an orientation which was reported to the NEC by Comrade Jim Lambrecht. This orientation, if my memory serves me correctly, was also reported in the NEC minutes.

“This orientation was basically to work through the campus Socialist Club, with the perspective of forming a YSA unit as soon as it was feasible.

“We are now in the process of reformulating this orientation in the light of new developments. But we worked hard on that campus just to get ourselves established as a tendency and we certainly don’t appreciate having our work passed off lightly. Some criticisms can be made to be sure, but please do it constructively and concretely.

“The little blurb on Trotskyist speakers is absolutely false. As a matter of fact there have been more Trotskyist speakers before the Socialist Club than speakers of any other tendency. Among them have been Jim R. (I do hope that he at least considers himself a Trotskyist), Carl Feingold and V.R. Dunne.

“In his report Comrade Robertson says: ‘My presence was the Carleton bunch’s first realization that YSA is a national organization with its own life.’

“This is completely false, completely false. Ever since they first made contact with us, we have informed them about the YSA, we got them to take subs to the paper and we made them very conscious of the YSA. They did not feel ready to form a YSA unit and to my mind, had some very legitimate criticisms of the YSA’s operations and positions.

“In the last analysis, Comrade Robertson’s tour report, is a crudely factional document which is totally irresponsible and is aimed only at serving the NEC Majority’s factional ends among them being the extension of the fight to the various areas (April 26, 1961.)”

Chelstrom reacted so vehemently because Robertson had touched a sensitive nerve in his reference to Carleton College. But it is not necessarily the case that the sensitive nerve was really Chelstrom’s.

Let us proceed to Robertson’s reply, which was attached to the same set of minutes on May 2, 1961.

The statement began as follows:

The purpose of rising to a reply to Johnny Chelstrom is not to quarrel with some of the personally insulting formulations in Johnny’s letter: e.g. ‘I do hope that he at least considers himself a Trotskyist’ etc. Johnny is young, perhaps trained in a poor school and in any case heavier abuse than he is capable of has been and will, I trust, continue to be dumped on my head.

Rather the point is that the work of the tour, both speaking and tactical consultation with comrades along the road, has been extremely fruitful.

In order to maximize the impact and gains from the tour it is of utmost importance not to leave unanswered the suggestion that the hard, demanding and successful work and the valuable interactions between the field comrades and myself has been for my part, nothing else than factionally from inspired ‘misinterpretations, distortions, and outright falsehoods.’

I knew from the beginning that wide differences in the party and with myself prominent in a minority position that an active burden and an easy weapon would be in the hands of any whose feathers were ruffled.

Now to facts: as the leading comrades in the Minneapolis YSA, i.e. Carl Feingold and others, informed me, the YSA ‘unit’ hadn’t met for six months because with a desperate crisis in the branch, it was necessary to throw all forces into saving a functioning party branch.

“Johnny had nothing to do with that decision and I’m perplexed as to why he quarrels with me for mentioning some of the consequences of that basic decision.

“Johnny writes that he’s upset because I didn’t differ with the decision while in Minnesota. In the face of the local comrades’ felt need for such a retrenchment, I was somewhat ‘doubtist’ but not in opposition as such. How could I be — in the area for only four days and besides, with no authority regarding a branch decision.

“What convinced me that formal decisions notwithstanding, something was very wrong, was when I found later from Johnny himself that no YS sales had been thought of or conducted for many months. In addition, Johnny, himself a college freshman, had not been even formally assigned by the branch to youth work.

“(And the reality matched the form: most of Johnny’s time was spent in routine activity within the party headquarters and on branch work.)

“Faced with this situation it didn’t seem to me advisable to start a quarrel; rather to try to get the comrades headed toward a resumption of YS sales and YSA activities so as not to let the favorable opportunities for action and recruitment at the University of Minneapolis slip through our fingers. Happily some results in this direction have been reported since my tour in that area.

“A small point about the ‘absolute falsehood’ of no Trotskyist speakers at the U. of M. Socialist Club prior to my speaking to six people under Socialist Club auspices: while standing with Johnny in the U. of M. Library I saw up on a bulletin board a nicely-printed Socialist Club program announcement listing a series of half a dozen assorted radical speakers. I asked Johnny if it were current and he said it was for last semester. There was no Trotskyist on the list of speakers.”

Robertson’s account establishes that the SWP branch in Minneapolis was in a shambles and that the YSA was not even functioning. Neither were in any shape to conduct political interventions at Carleton College — the very campus that was to provide the SWP with its entire central leadership!

But what follows is even more extraordinary considering the subsequent development of the SWP.

Robertson continues:

“Something else which struck me as odd when at Carleton College and which I hope has no relation to the paragraph immediately above was that the Carleton group had all the party bulletins on the Cuba discussion and in the presence of a whole group of 18 students, their leader innocently asked me to fill them in on Wohlforth’s side in the dispute.

“(Johnny was there at the time and knows how quickly and properly I ‘tabled’ that until, as I put it, the people present join our organization and thereby take responsibility for political decisions.)”

Robertson’s statement irrefutably establishes that the organization of the Carleton group was a carefully prepared conspiracy.

Though not even members of the SWP and without any contact with the local YSA organization, which they did not even know was a national organization,

Barnes and his associates in Carleton had been given internal discussion bulletins of the International Committee.

Considering the fact that the SWP was always extremely worried that it might be indicted for violations of the Voorhis Act, which prohibits international affiliation of socialist organizations, it is impossible to conclude that the Carleton “bunch” had been provided these documents without instructions from the highest authority within the SWP — Hansen himself.

The documents were probably transferred to the Carleton agents by Carl Feingold, a seedy and dubious factionalist who worked closely with Hansen, eventually faded out of the Trotskyist movement altogether and reemerged in the anti-communist International Socialist Group.

Even Robertson found it “odd” that these Carleton unknowns had been given internal documents and seemed to be thoroughly briefed on the struggle being waged in the International Committee. He was also taken aback by the casualness with which the matter of Wohlforth’s position in the leadership was raised.

Those already working with Barnes at Carleton, waiting to be slotted into positions in the YSA, were his bride-to-be, Miss Elizabeth Stone 1961, and somewhat younger students: John Benson 1963, Dan Styron 1963 and Mary-Alice Waters 1963.

The veracity of Robertson’s report on the situation in Minneapolis was attested to in a letter from that branch, dated May 13, 1961, and deposited in the minutes of May 22, 1961:

Dear Comrades: In the NEC minutes of May 2, 1961, a letter from John Chelstrom of Minneapolis, dated April 26, 1961, was attacked. In this letter Comrade John C makes some criticisms of Comrade Jim R’s tour report of Minneapolis, and also made some very serious charges against both Jim’s report and Comrade Jim personally.

I do not wish to remark on Comrade John C’s letter, but I would like to make clear, in the record, that I do not agree with the position of statements of his letter and would disassociate myself with his position and his remarks.

Comrade John C was speaking for himself and his letter was written on his own initiative. Failing to mention that it was his own opinion — and was not speaking for the Twin Cities, I felt it should be noted, inasmuch as other comrades might assume otherwise. I would like to request that this letter be attached to the minutes of the NEC.

It was signed by Mike Garza, a full member of the SWP National Committee, and Tanya Garza, a member of the YSA.

It should not be assumed, however, that the Garzas were correct that the letter was written at Chelstrom’s own initiative.

It is more likely that he was urged to write it because Robertson’s report had shed some disturbing light on the nature of the Carleton chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.

With Hansen preparing to insert them into the leadership of the YSA and eventually into the leadership of the SWP, it was hardly helpful for Robertson to report that the “Carleton bunch” had no connection with the YSA and didn’t even know of its existence as a national organization.

(What struck Robertson as “odd” during his trip to Carleton must have appeared even stranger to him as he recalled the experience later on in the light of the subsequent evolution of the students he met on the campus. They were to be the handraisers for his expulsion from the SWP in 1962.

But this has not stopped Robertson from being the most slavish lackey of the SWP agents any more than Wohlforth’s rough treatment at the hands of these agents prevented him from becoming a renegade in 1974 and returning to the SWP to join hands with Hansen against the International Committee.)

The Carleton students had, in fact, been carefully briefed.

Before Robertson even arrived at Carleton, a secret “linkage” had already been established between the Fair Play for Cuba Committee and the College.

As we pointed out in an earlier series of articles, the Dean of the College, Richard Gilman, had been carefully following the work of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.

“I knew more about both sides of the Cuba situation than anybody,” Gilman told a reporter of the International Committee. “I made it my business to find out about it. I went to New York and went to the headquarters of the FPCC and I began doing a lot of getting a lot of information on this because I felt I needed to have it to deal with the situation.”

While the good dean was learning more about the FPCC, the Carleton “bunch” was being specially tutored on the struggle against the International Committee.

As Robertson returned to New York and reported on the odd experience at Carleton, the factional situation was heating up in the NEC of the YSA.

A frontal assault was organized against Wohlforth who still controlled the majority of the NEC. Hansen arranged for the issuing of a statement by the NEC minority, dated May 18, 1961, denouncing Wohlforth for his views on Cuba.

Accusing the Wohlforth majority of “Stalinophobia,” the statement attacked Wohlforth for maintaining exactly the same position which the SWP had held for more than a year and a half after Castro’s seizure of power, i.e., that the leadership of the Cuban revolution was petty bourgeois.

The minority indicted the YSA leadership for claiming that the civil rights movement should receive as much attention as the Cuban defense work.

“The Cuban Revolution,” declared the statement, “with its developing revolutionary socialist program, has brought an important new development to the American campus.

“The YSA must be prepared to intervene in this new situation to the best of its ability. It must have a paper which can appeal to these new student elements — a paper which reflects real revolutionary vigor and not Stalinophobic armchair radicalism.

“It must be able to function on the basis of a line which enables us to participate in an important process with these young people, not a line which ignores both the new level of consciousness of those elements and the importance of the Cuban Revolution itself.”

Who were these “new student elements,” whose “new level of consciousness” was considered to be of greater importance to the SWP than the revolutionary implications of the movement of millions of black workers then engaged in bitter conflict against segregation and state violence? The students from Carleton College!

The minority’s vitriolic statement ended with a call “for the formation of a national caucus to struggle at the forthcoming plenum so that the YSA can be led by a revolutionary line on Cuba.”

All this was, from the standpoint of Marxism, politically unreal.

What made Cuba the central political issue of the period? Why, for instance, was the defense of Cuba considered so much more important than the defense of the Congo — which had been invaded by imperialist-backed troops?

Why was Castro considered to be more important than Patrice Lumumba whose assassination by the CIA was one of the foulest political crimes of the 1960s?

The Cuban question was grotesquely distorted for the purpose of advancing Hansen’s political conspiracy.

The SLL conducted a continuous defense of the Cuban Revolution, organizing meetings, demonstrations and aid to fight against imperialist threats. But it did so within the context of its defense of all national liberation movements of the oppressed against imperialism, and without trying to pin an illusory “Marxist” label on Castro.

The minutes record the rapid development of another “new element” deeply involved in FPCC work. The minutes of June 5, 1961, record the following from Milwaukee:

There are three YSAers, but Comrade Ed (Heisler) is the only one really active. He has been selling YS, distributing leaflets, getting the floor at various meetings, etc.

He and an SWPer were physically thrown out of an anti-Cuba meeting by the Red Squad. Result so far: some contacts, of whom one young couple is especially promising; and a ‘general rejection by coffeehouse, college and Unitarian youth of redbaiting and smear tactics conducted by a local neo‑fascist youth offshoot of the John Birch Society, the National Action Movement’.

The minutes also record another significant intervention against the NEC majority. It is a letter from Boston dated May 3, 1961, which calls for the holding of a YSA Convention as soon as possible because “the spirit of factionalism which plagues the YSA especially at the center must be resolved.”

The purpose of this proposal was to remove the Wohlforth majority.

The signatories of the letter were Barry Sheppard and Peter Camejo.

Their emergence into the political lime‑light at this critical point is highly suspect.

Neither had a political record to be particularly proud of. Camejo had once dropped out of the YSA after evincing pro‑Stalinist tendencies. Sheppard had been in the right‑wing of the Shachtmanite youth movement during the 1950s and had opposed Wohlforth when he began the fight to win a section of the Shachtmanite youth over to the YSA.

Now, such emerged as the chief hatchet men used by Hansen to get rid of the YSA majority and clear the decks for the Carleton group.

The situation prevailing in the YSA National Executive Committee is described in a letter from one Sid Brown, dated May 29, 1961, who, though supporting the minority line on Cuba, felt compelled to protest the methods being used against the NEC majority.

The Minority is prostituting a correct position on the nature of the Cuban state. With a good position as a weapon they hope to extend their personal feelings as a wedge into the NEC.

It is an extremely underhanded tactic. How do you imagine comrades feel. If they favor the workers’ state position they must also condone trying to overthrow the Majority and other equally factionalistic tricks.

A special national plenum of the YSA was held on June 26, 1961. Attending as a fraternal delegate from the SWP Political Committee was Tom Kerry.

Attending as a special guest was Jack Barnes, newly graduated from Carleton College.

Although he had not known of the existence of the YSA as a national organization only a few months before, he was already being invited to attend a National Committee plenum with speaking privileges!

The plenum did not end the crisis within the YSA because Wohlforth still held a majority.

However, a motion was passed to add two more members to the NEC — supposedly to moderate the factionalism existing in the center.

It was then proposed that one of these new members should be Barry Sheppard. Wohlforth opposed this, giving the following reason:

While Barry is a good comrade and should function on the NEC, he cannot be said to be neutral, having expressed his opinion that the present majority on the NEC should be dumped. (YSA NEC minutes August 7, 1961.)

The motion to seat Sheppard on the NEC was defeated.

Less than two weeks later, Carl Feingold was seated on the NEC as the fraternal representative of the SWP Political Committee.

Feingold, who had been liaising with the Carleton students and briefing them on the progress of the struggle in the International Committee, immediately launched an attack on Wohlforth for opposing the seating of Sheppard on the NEC.

The whole purpose of this maneuver was to deprive Wohlforth of his majority as both Sheppard and the second nominee held Hansen’s position.

While Feingold was attacking Wohlforth inside the YSA NEC, a letter-writing campaign was orchestrated to have the rank-and-file denounce Wohlforth for his opposition to the seating of Sheppard.

Among the most interesting letters is one dated September 9, 1961, addressed to Sherry Finer.

The letter claimed that: “It is therefore only by accident that Comrade Wohlforth and his followers have a majority on the YSA NEC. In view of the plenum decisions, we feel that it is unprincipled for Comrade Wohlforth’s faction to attempt to maintain such artificial control of the NEC.

“We believe the addition of Comrade Barry S to the NEC would be an important step to eliminating the intense personal disputes on the NEC. It appears to us that Comrade Wohlforth’s attempt to exclude Comrade Barry S from the NEC will have the effect of continuing the unprincipled clique formations which have plagued the NEC for so long.

“How can we explain such actions to new members? We urge Comrade Wohlforth and his followers to reconsider their actions and vote to put Comrade Barry S on the NEC.”

The letter is signed by the secretary of the Chicago branch of the YSA, Elizabeth Barnes.

This factional debut by the former Elizabeth Barnes, better known to present SWP members as Betsy Stone, is but one more demonstration of the obvious behind-the-scenes work being carried out by Hansen with the Carleton College agents.

While at Carleton, Stone was not believed to have any political interests of her own, being known mainly as “Jack Barnes’ fiance.”

Only a few months before, Stone, like her future husband, had known nothing about the YSA.

But now, though having just graduated from Carleton and with virtually no experience in politics, she writes a letter presenting strong opinion on the problems “which have plagued the NEC for so long.”

How would she have known anything about such problems? Moreover, why would someone supposedly new to a political organization intervene so strongly in favor of Barry Sheppard?

Like the Fair Play for Cuba Committee itself, all of this was a set-up.

Now that the first batch of Carleton agents had been successfully infiltrated into the YSA, Hansen set them to work immediately against the International Committee.

As early as September 1961, the combination of FBI agents organized by Hansen was already in operation — and it is functioning to this day — the strange group from Carleton College plus Barry Sheppard and Peter Camejo.

*The SWP worked in political solidarity with the International Committee, being barred from formal membership by the reactionary Voorhis Act.