Francis Henson
Francis Adams Henson (1906-1963) was an American political activist.
Early Life
The Henson family were aviation pioneers associated with Henson Airlines.[1]
He was sent by his family to Lynchburg College in Virginia because of its Christian atmosphere. However, by the time he graduated in 1927, he had become a socialist.[2]
Career
From 1927 to 1932, Henson worked for the YMCA in New York and Connecticut. From 1932, he was by turns executive secretary of the National Religion and Labor Foundation; organiser and co-secretary with Donald Henderson of the American League against War and Fascism, Secretary of the International Student Service in the United States, and Secretary of the Emergency Committee to Aid Refugees from Germany.[2]
According to one account which Henson wrote in the mid-1940s, he was a fellow traveler of the Communist Party from early 1933 until 1936.[2]
In the mid-1930s, Henson was a member of the left-wing Revolutionary Policy Committee of the Socialist Party of America. Along with Irving Brown he was suspected by the party's national secretary, Clarence Senior, of being a Lovestoneite plant.[3]
Robert J. Alexander records:
- Francis Henson, who was later to play an important part in Lovestoneite work in the United Auto Workers, has said that in the RPC period he did not belong to the Communist Opposition but was very sympathetic to both the official Communists and the Lovestoneites, and that he conferred quite frequently with Lovestone. He thought that he was looked upon by them as being one of "their men" in the RPC. When he would from time to time confer with official Communists and the Lovestoneites, Henson would be strongly rebuked by Lovestone and Irving Brown. Henson added that Brown was generally seen as the recognized spokesman for the Lovestoneites in the Socialist Party.[4]
In 1935, Henson became treasurer of the Committee on Fair Play in Sports, which opposed the German Olympics, and travelled to Germany to campaign against it.[5]
In early 1936, the Lovestoneite Worker's Age reviewed a pamphlet by the Revolutionary Policy Committee's successor organisation, the Revolutionary Policy Publishing Association (RPPA). It praised the position adopted by "Irving Brown, William B. Chamberlain and Francis A. Henson", suggesting that there was "little any revolutionary Socialist or Communist can find to disagree with."[6]
Henson spent a short period as campaign manager for the Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy.[5]
Henson went to work for the United Auto Workers in 1937.[5] He was one of a number of Lovestoneites brought in to support Homer Martin's leadership of the United Auto Workers, as Alexander recounts:
- Perhaps most important of all was the appointment of Francis Henson as administrative assistant to President Martin. Although he was nominally a member of the Socialist Party, Henson was a close sympathizer with the Lovestoneites and informed the writer that while serving as Martin's assistant, he was advised principally by Jay Lovestone. Henson commented that Lovestone's advice was usually good but not always followed by those in the union apparatus.[7]
Henson blamed John L. Lewis for firing him from the UAW because of his by now firmly anti-communist beliefs.[5]
In 1939 Henson moved to Washington to become a freelance writer in support of the New Deal. His most significant client was Commissioner of Education J.W. Studebaker.[5]
From 1940 to 1942, Henson worked as Washington director of Market Analysts Inc. for Sandy Griffith. His job was to use the company's polls to encourage Congressional support for more aid to Britain. Henson's later resumé listed the main client as the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies.[8][5] He was also involved in monitoring isolationist activity at the major party conventions.[9] Some of this work was carried out under the name Information Inc., a company based at Henson's address at the National Press Building in Washington.[10]
Henson and Griffith supplied Ernest Cuneo with information on the British Security Coordination front group France Forever and other intelligence.[10]
In the autumn of 1940, Griffith, Henson and Christopher Emmett ran the Non-Partisan Committee to Defeat Hamilton Fish against the isolationist New York senator Hamilton Fish.[11] Henson himself donated $200 to the campaign.[12] In a letter of 18 October 1940, he also asked Ernest Cuneo to have Walter Winchell plug the campaign in his column and on the radio.[13]
On 19 November 1940, Henson interviewed William R. Castle, a former diplomat and member of the isolationist America First Committee. Castle said after the interview, "So you are not a spy of the White Committee", to which Henson replied "If I am, I am a very open spy, don't you think?"[10]
At some time around July 1942, Henson wrote to Cuneo with material from the minority stockholders committee campaigning against Standard Oil of New Jersey over its links with I.G. Farben.[14]
In November 1942, Dies Committee investigator Robert E. Stripling reported to Congressman Martin Dies on Henson, noting he was a director of the Union for Democratic Action, and described an "amazing conspiracy" involving Sanford Griffith "to smear and discredit the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey."[15]
By the summer of the 1943, Henson was in the Army, stationed in Camp Lee, Virginia. From there he wrote to Griffith, warning him about a confrontation in Washington with J.B. Matthews, during which Matthews had attacked Griffith as a British and French agent, and warned Henson about material in the hands of the Dies Committee.[16]
On 2 October 1941, henson sent Cuneo a petition from the Committee for Irish American Defence.[17]
After the war, Henson wrote a weekly intelligence report from Washington for Cuneo in New York.[18]
Notes
- ↑ Thomas E. Mahl, Desperate Deception, Brassey's, 1999, p.220.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Thomas E. Mahl, Desperate Deception, Brassey's, 1999, p.91
- ↑ Robert J. Alexander, The Right Opposition: The Lovestoneites and the International Communist Opposition of the 1930s, Greenwood Press, 1981, p.109.
- ↑ Robert J. Alexander, The Right Opposition: The Lovestoneites and the International Communist Opposition of the 1930s, Greenwood Press, 1981, p.109.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 Thomas E. Mahl, Desperate Deception, Brassey's, 1999, p.92
- ↑ Robert J. Alexander, The Right Opposition: The Lovestoneites and the International Communist Opposition of the 1930s, Greenwood Press, 1981, p.110.
- ↑ Robert J. Alexander, The Right Opposition: The Lovestoneites and the International Communist Opposition of the 1930s, Greenwood Press, 1981, p.57.
- ↑ Thomas E. Mahl, Desperate Deception, Brassey's, 1999, p.78.
- ↑ Thomas E. Mahl, Desperate Deception, Brassey's, 1999, p.93
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Thomas E. Mahl, Desperate Deception, Brassey's, 1999, p.94. Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; name "Mahl94" defined multiple times with different content - ↑ Thomas E. Mahl, Desperate Deception, Brassey's, 1999, p.107.
- ↑ Thomas E. Mahl, Desperate Deception, Brassey's, 1999, p.107.
- ↑ Thomas E. Mahl, Desperate Deception, Brassey's, 1999, p.110.
- ↑ Thomas E. Mahl, Desperate Deception, Brassey's, 1999, p.99.
- ↑ Thomas E. Mahl, Desperate Deception, Brassey's, 1999, p.102.
- ↑ Thomas E. Mahl, Desperate Deception, Brassey's, 1999, p.101.
- ↑ Thomas E. Mahl, Desperate Deception, Brassey's, 1999, p.39.
- ↑ Thomas E. Mahl, Desperate Deception, Brassey's, 1999, p.154.
