A couple of years ago, someone in a Facebook group I belong to asked if anyone else remembered a story or rumor that went around Montclair in the mid-50s. “It was a story about a guy the ran a repair shop on La Salle Ave, who was a spy for the American Government or something like that.” It took me a while, but I found it.
Undercover Agent – Asked to Join
The tall, shapely woman said she joined the Communist Party after an FBI agent approached her and said:
Would you like to do this? There will be nothing it for you, but you would be doing your country a great service.
San Francisco Examiner April 1953
Joins Party to Help FBI in Roundup of Subversives
The tall, shapely woman was Sylvia Hill, Dickson P. Hill of the Montclair District. The Hill’s lived had three children and lived on Snake Road. Mr. Hill owned Montclair Radio & TV Service at 6127 La Salle Ave.
From the outside, they were your typical 50s family.
Dickson P. Hill said he and his wife were approached by Communists in 1944 and ask the FBI ( I think the FBI was already watching them) what they should do. The FBI told them to try to join the party so they could do the country “a great service.”
They joined the Communist party in 1945 at the request of the FBI and rose to the positions of membership chairman and education chairman receptively while serving as undercover agents.
Double Lives
Hill and his wife lived “double lives” as Communists for the FBI for about four years. He said he named more than 50 people in the Oakland-Berkeley area he had met personally and identified them as Reds. He also identified 36 organizations as Communist Party clubs during his membership 1945-1949.
December 03, 1953
Reds Call Labor School ‘Ours,’ Witness Testifies
California Labor School of Alameda County
The California Labor school presented a Russian film “One Day in Soviet Russia” with English narration.
Lectures on the ‘Roots of Fascism’
More Info:
- Reluctant Witnesses – Dec 03, 1953, San Rafael Independent
- Eight Witness Refuse to Reply – Dec 03, 1953, San Bernardino Sun
- 1500 Longshoreman Mass – Dec 03,1953 Oakland Tribune
- John Mass Refuses to Testify – Dec 03, 1953- SF Examiner
- John Mass Page 2 – Dec 03, 1953, SF Examiner
- Treufhalf Arrested – Dec 03, 1964, Oakland Tribune
- Hearings Before the Committee on Un-American Activities, House. Committee on Un-American Activities Volume 3 – Google
The End
