certain cities, certain areas of the country, the riots frequently, or most always, are caused by some outside agitator.

Mr. YOUNGER. I do not think that has happened in the major riots so far, sir. I think outside agitators have moved in as fast as they could. I have described the categories, that certainly Stokely Carmichael would fit my description as a racist and as a hater, and the Communists and criminals, they will move in fast.

I also said they could start a riot. I could start riot. If I had a television camera and crew, I could start a riot in any city in the country, given these conditions.

A small group of dedicated Communists could start a riot, but it just has not been necessary so far. As I say, we have enough riots accidentally to keep any of those people well satisfied.

Mr. TUCK. We have not had many of them in the past. We went through the worst depression known in history in the 1930's. People all over the country, all races, suffered financial distress and some deprivation. We did not have any rioting.

Mr. YOUNGER. You mean during the depression?

Mr. TUCK. Sir?

Mr. YOUNGER. I did not hear all that.

Mr. Tuck. During the depression of the 1930's, which was probably the worst depression this country ever experienced.

Mr. YOUNGER. On the contrary, you can get some authorities who say not only riots, but crime generally, was at the lowest level of our history during the course of the great depression.

There are all sorts of explanations for this. One is that people were out of jobs, they stayed home, and the family unit spent more time together and were more of unit than ever since. There were fewer families where the father and mother were working. For whatever reason, the fact is that crime was very low during the depression.

Mr. Tuck. I commend you also for your statement in regard to your undertaking to solve all these problems by the appropriations of public money. That amounts, in my judgment, to what appears to be blackmail. "If you don't give us so much money, we will have a riot." Mr. YOUNGER. I agree completely.

Mr. Tuck. Do you have any questions, Mr. Watson?

Mr. WATSON. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

I want to thank Mr. Younger for coming over and giving us his very forthright testimony. Certainly he has had experience in an area where they have suffered a very devastating riot.

Watts is in your district?

Mr. YOUNGER. Yes.

Mr. WATSON. I share the sentiments of the chairman of the subcommittee in calling for a firm and effective law enforcement policy and respect for the law, period, without the buts, ifs, ands, and the equivocations.

I see from your testimony, and as I listened to it, you attached a lot of blame to the TV medium for either instigating the riot or at least prolonging it or aggravating it.

Was that the situation in Watts?

Mr. YOUNGER. No.

Mr. WATSON. Since you have made that statement, I will not argue this matter, but I notice a lot of conjecture in here as to what might

be done to start a riot. Let us get down to the facts. I agree with you that you could start one, as you have outlined.

What precipitated it in Watts? Was it the TV, or what was it?

Mr. YOUNGER. No, I don't think television, and I respectfully suggest that if you check my statement again you will find, rather than a criticism of television, a concern that television is so powerful that the potential for doing great damage during the riot is there.

The Watts riot was in no way caused or prolonged by television, in my opinion. The thing that triggered it was this thing I said, the incident involving the woman.

The conditions were all there: the hot, humid weather, the area in town which was depressed; and in that connection it is interesting to note, if you have been to Watts, it is not that bad. Watts, for example, compared to Harlem, looks pretty good.

This is another thing we learned during the Watts riots. People in Harlem don't compare themselves to people in the Congo. People in Watts don't compare themselves with people in Harlem. The people in Watts compare themselves with people in Bel Air. That is where the dissatisfaction comes.

All those elements existed. Then you had a woman, a female barber, a Negro woman who had a smock on. She looked pregnant. The police officers were engaged in arresting two young men for driving under the influence of liquor.

In the course of the arrests, the crowd gathered. They were insulting and booing the police, and so forth. Somebody, as the police were leaving with these two young men under arrest, somebody in the crowd spit on one of the policemen. The policeman thought it was this

woman.

Just to show you how ironic it can be, she was not the one that spit on the policeman.

They grabbed her. They tried to pull her out of the crowd. A tug of war ensued. The rumor got started back in the crowd-they could not see what was going on-somebody said, "They are beating up a pregnant woman."

The story spread. It was at that moment that they started throwing stones at the police car.

Mr. WATSON. Mr. Younger, prior to that, had you noticed any agitation, and so forth, which would give rise to conditions that would permit the triggering of such a massive riotous condition?

Do you mean to tell me that you and the officers were unaware of any agitation by any group or any individual in the Watts area? Mr. YOUNGER. Certainly there is always, and there has been for years, and I am afraid there will be for years to come, agitators in every large city. Some agitate on the basis of race. Some have other causes. There was the normal activity along those lines. There were the junior-grade Stokely Carmichaels, and so forth, that were expressing dissatisfaction over various things.

But if you mean was there any increased amount of agitation, any program of fomenting violence, something that should have warned us that a riot was going to occur, I will say "no."

I will concede that a great many people in our community, after the Watts riots, said they knew the riots were going to occur, but I never heard them say that before the riots.

Mr. WATSON. In other words, you never observed or had presented to you any evidence of leaflets or pamphlets or anything else being circulated by any organization or any individual in the Watts area, trying to capitalize on this explosive situation?

Mr. YOUNGER. As I say, you will always get a certain amount of that, but there was no increased or stepped-up activity along those lines just prior to the Watts riots.

Mr. WATSON. We are not concerned, necessarily—at least I am not— about stepped-up activity.

Are you aware of any organization that was engaging in any activity in this regard prior to the riot? If so, could you name that organization? Such as RAM, the Black Panthers, or the Communist Party, U.S.A.? Do they have an office, the U.S. Communist Party, Marxist-Leninist group?

Mr. YOUNGER. They have an office of sorts, I guess, that moves around from time to time. I don't know where it is currently located. We certainly have that information in our files. I am sure they were distributing pamphlets prior to the Watts riots, just as they probably are doing today out there, but on a very small scale.

It would be a mistake, I think, because they were distributing pamphlets. They have been distributing pamphlets since I got out of high school, and it would be a mistake, I think, to assume that because they were distributing pamphlets that that had anything to do with the Watts riots.

There were no political overtones at all to that crowd that gathered around the officers when they were trying to arrest these two boys for drunk driving. That group had started the riots, started them spontaneously, because they thought the police were beating a pregnant Negro woman.

There were no political overtones or implications in it at that time. It would be simple if there were. I wish that I had evidence, and it would be a nice thing if we could blame all the riots on the Communists, the black nationalists, or something like that. Then we could all go out and round them up and solve our problems. But it is not that easy.

Mr. WATSON. In other words, you do not consider the activity of this Communist group or any other group of any consequence out there?

Mr. YOUNGER. Not in the Watts riot or the major riots we have had so far.

I say that they could start a riot in any major city. Right now they could.

Mr. WATSON. Then if they could, Mr. District Attorney, would not a part of the process of inciting to riot be the distribution of inflammatory leaflets and pamphlets? You would not tell us that they have not done that in your area, would you?

Mr. YOUNGER. I say as long as I can remember there have been Communists and other political agitators distributing leaflets and pamphlets. That is certainly true.

Mr. WATSON. Mr. D.A., I don't want to interrupt you. Perhaps we have taken this activity too lightly and that has given rise over the course of years to the explosion we had last summer back in Watts. Would that not be a reasonable conclusion?

Mr. YOUNGER. You mean taken too lightly the distribution of the leaflets?

Mr. WATSON. I mean the effect this distribution might have upon the people during a hot period, when you have, I assume, additional young people out of school, and so forth, the effect this inflammatory material might have on them.

Mr. YOUNGER. I suppose, it is a personal thing, I suppose I have been somewhat more concerned than maybe the average person. I don't think that so far as I am personally concerned I have been unmindful of the effect that these leaflets, and so forth, might have on people. I don't know if the community generally has taken it too lightly.

Mr. WATSON. A group of people who are distressed and denied various opportunities, as you say they have been, would they not be more susceptible to inflammatory leaflets of this nature?

Mr. YOUNGER. I believe so.

Mr. WATSON. As a consequence, should we not be more concerned about the possible effect?

I have heard some people say, well, there are only a handful of people. I can go out myself and get me a printing press and print up a hundred thousand leaflets, and if I put them in the right hands, although I am one individual, I believe it would have a rather adverse effect, so far as fomenting dissidence and discord. Would that not be a fair observation?

Mr. YOUNGER. I think that is so. I think there is no question but what this would be an effect.

I also think that there is a built-in dissatisfaction and discord in many cities in the country for a variety of reasons so that it really is not necessary for the Communists to create discord, because it already exists in ample degree in many communities.

Mr. WATSON. But they would exploit it and take advantage of it; would they not, sir?

Mr. YOUNGER. No question about it.

Mr. WATSON. That is where we do have some degree of serious concern, or should we not?

Mr. YOUNGER. I agree.

As I said before, I think the only reason we have not had some Communists or, rather, extremists start a riot is for the very simple reason that I am not being facetious when I say there has been enough to keep them satisfied. We have had enough riots to satisfy every Communist in the country. If that were not the case, I think the Communists could start a riot in any major city in the United States. Mr. WATSON. Perhaps you and I might differ on that score. I don't think the Communists are ever satisfied. I believe it is their intention to break down our system of government. I don't believe they will be satisfied until it is completed.

Mr. YOUNGER. If we have a few more summers like last summer, that could happen.

That is what I meant when I said that I think even the most extreme should reasonably have been satisfied with the trouble we had in our Nation last summer. Certainly we could not tolerate that every summer. That is obvious.

Mr. WATSON. On page 11 of your testimony you state as a fact, "The fact is, all the recent riots have started accidentally, triggered by some explainable incident."

I have heard to the contrary about Chicago. Are you aware of what triggered that, where the woman was killed by the fire truck? Mr. YOUNGER. I have heard that.

You mean the riot in Chicago was planned?

Mr. WATSON. Yes.

Mr. YOUNGER. I have heard that about every riot. I have heard that about Watts and Newark and every place else. I have not seen evidence to that effect. You may have. I have not.

I have sent members of our Bureau of Investigation to personally work with other police agencies during the course of these riots to see if we could find any evidence of a pattern that might help us predict where the next riot was going to occur, and so forth.

I have never seen any evidence to the effect that any of the major riots were deliberately started or deliberately planned.

Mr. WATSON. After they erupt spontaneously, who comes in and carries the ball in order to prolong it?

Mr. YOUNGER. The people who want riots, and that includes the Communists, the haters, and the criminals. They are there as fast as they can be, in every instance.

Mr. WATSON. Can you give us any positive evidence of Communist implication?

I am not trying to pin you down, but I just want to try to establish a

fact here. Is or is it not?

Mr. YOUNGER. I don't know how to say it any differently than I have said it.

I think in every riot in every city in the country the local police department can identify and can provide you with the names of known Communists that appear on the scene as soon as a riot starts.

I don't have that information at present, but I have received from other police departments throughout the city that type of information, people who appeared and tried to keep the riot going, tried to prolong it, and so forth, but this is again in the nature of moving it along after it started.

Mr. WATSON. You state on page 12, "This group of extremists is very small, but seems to be growing steadily."

That is based upon factual information that you have obtained in the course of your responsibilities as district attorney and directly involved with law enforcement?

Mr. YOUNGER. Yes; although I think you could base it just on the reading of the daily newspapers, the number of extremist groups that spring up and their membership.

It used to be that the Muslims were about the only group of its kind. Now they are just one of a great many of the type of group who believe in varying degrees in black power, black supremacy, and so forth.

There are a great many Muslim-type organizations now, with larger membership. That is what I base that statement on, that they seem to be growing.

Mr. WATSON. I have one final question.

On page 13, again referring back to the extremist groups, you say, "They probably are strong enough to start a riot, but they have not started one yet."

Mr. YOUNGER. That is right.