Statement on Dies Backing Down

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Mr. Dies’ declaration December 12 on the reasons for his dropping the plan to have Trotsky come to the United States is absolutely false. Dies claims that he “failed to receive assurances from Mexico that Trotsky would be permitted to return to Mexico.” Nobody is obliged to furnish such assurances to Mr. Dies, who is neither the President of the United States, nor the Secretary of State, nor a consular official. The United States consul in Mexico was given full assurances in written form by the Secretaria de Gobernacion of Mexico that I may freely go to the United States and return to this country. Dies’ attempt to unload the responsibility for his change of mind upon the Mexican government is completely disloyal.

I was invited on October 12 by the Committee to appear before it at Austin, Texas, on November 12. I immediately requested two collaborators from the United States to help me locate the necessary documents, quotations, dates, to translate them into English, and so on, because I considered the role and duty of a witness in a case of such importance as very serious.

On November 2, the representative of the Committee, J.B. Matthews, informed my attorney, Mr. Goldman, that the hearings had been postponed to December between the tenth and fifteenth, but assured him at the same time that my appearance was assured “one hundred percent.” Mr. Goldman, in full agreement with me, explained to Mr. Matthews, the Chief Investigator of the Committee, that my political aims of course had nothing in common with the reactionary political aims of Mr. Dies, that the only thing I could promise was to speak the truth. I am afraid that this was the reason why Mr. Dies dropped his plan. If I wished to give this a severe but authoritative characterization, I would call it a “sordid procedure.”

Mr. Dies says that he may send an investigator to Mexico to “take Trotsky’s statement,” But I never invited his representative to Mexico, irrespective as to whether or not he presented me with an assurance that he would be permitted to return to the United States. I agreed only to make a public deposition before a Committee of the House of Representatives with the full possibility of elucidating all obscure questions through cross-examination. If Mr. Dies wishes my opinions in written form only, he can read my books.

December 12, 1939 Coyoacan, D.F.

L. Trotsky