Kenneth Goff
Oliver Kenneth Goff claimed to be a former member of the Communist Party [1936-1939] turned Christian. In 1939 he volunteered to give testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee about supposed firsthand knowledge of a major Communist conspiracy to take over America. This began a long career of giving testimony before different government bodies and public speaking engagements on the ‘Red Menace.’ In hindsight it is obvious that much of what Goff claimed could not have been true, but he was considered ‘the’ expert by many government officials for the next several decades.
Many people’s careers and reputations were ruined by Goff’s claims of inside knowledge about their involvement in Communist organizations. He especially targeted religious leaders and urged church goers to investigate their own pastors and send the details of anything suspicious to him. [see Traitors in the Pulpit, 1946] By the 1950’s the Reverend Goff’s politics and religious writings had begun to lean to the far-right. He took up the causes of anti-Semitism and neo-Nazism and supported a wide assemblage of extreme right-wing organizations.
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In a 4/25/50 Goff speech at Stillwell Hotel in Los Angeles, Goff claimed that there were about 140,000 dues paying members of the Communist Party USA and about 5 million sympathizers. However, in the 5/50 issue of his Pilgrim Torch, magazine page 6, Goff stated that there were “nearly 500,000 dues-paying Communists in America.”
According to FBI, there were 43,200 CPUSA members in 1950.
FBI HQ file 62-80382, serial #5 (8/8/50 SAC Denver to J. Edgar Hoover) reported:
“Goff is generally regarded as a border-line psychopathic case and has been associated with Rev. Harvey Springer of Englewood CO for some time. Springer is known to the Bureau as a religious opportunist who had some connections with Gerald Winrod and similar characters in the past.”
In a 11/7/51 speech to Rotary Club in Sioux City IA, Goff claimed that there were 160,000 teachers who were CP members or CP party line followers in the U.S. and he claimed that he based his statement on a Dies Committee report.
On 11/21/50, the House Committee on Un-American Activities Clerk, John W. Carrington, responded to an inquiry about this Goff assertion from Frank W. Hubbard, Research Director of the National Education Association, as follows:
“Dear Mr. Hubbard: I have your letter of 11/17/50 concerning the statement made at a Rotary Club meeting that there were some 160,000 communist teachers in the United States. We have made a careful search of the files, records, and publications of this Committee and have failed to find that such a statement had ever been made to the Committee.” [HQ 62-80382, #1; 11/21/50 letter from John W. Carrington to Frank W. Hubbard]
In a 1/13/61 speech in San Diego to “Conservative Americans”, Goff stated there were 16,000 teachers and 8,000 clergymen in America who are dues paying members of the CPUSA or fellow travelers. Referring to his battle with Communists he said:
“They’ve thrown me under a train – that’s why I have a wooden leg. I’ve been fired at three or four times, they’ve tried to poison me.” [San Diego Union, 1/14/61; “Speaker Emphasizes Communist Threat” by Rip Manning].
In a July 19, 1946 fund-raising letter for Goff’s organization, Christian Youth For America, Don Lohbeck of Christian Nationalist Crusade, wrote that:
“As a penalty for leaving the Communist Party, the Reds pushed him [Goff] under a train and he lost one leg.”
In his 1948 book, Confessions of Stalin’s Agent, (pages 61-62) Goff claimed that he lost his leg when Communists pushed him under an electric railway train in Sheboygan WI.
However, a 5/30/52 letter from Gerald L.K. Smith to Conde McGinley (publisher of anti-semitic newspaper, Common Sense) stated that:
“Now for a super confidential mild warning! Kenneth Goff has caused me a lot of trouble. He is a born troublemaker. He even journeyed all the way to Tulsa and St. Louis…to undermine my staff…His account of his personal experiences is not correct. He did not lose his leg fighting the Communists. He lost his leg in a childhood accident.”
Also: in November 1961, the Denver FBI field office received a letter from someone who pointed out that “a thorough search of hospital, police and county sheriff records” was made and “no one can find any record of such an accident.” In addition, a long-time agent of the railway denied that such an accident ever occurred. [Denver 105-123, serial #151, 11/6/61 incoming letter to FBI field office]
In March 1963, a Congressman contacted the FBI to inquire into Goff’s assertion that fluoridation of water supplies was part of a communist plot. A Bureau memo discussing the matter states:
“Our files do not indicate evidence substantiating the charges that fluoridation is part of a communist plot…Of course, the fluoridation controversy has been nationwide and the communist element has often been injected into it principally by right wing extremists.” [HQ 62-80382, #149, page 2; 3/13/63 memo from D.C. Morrell to Mr. DeLoach].
The same serial states:
“Bufiles indicate that in 1952 Goff was considered to be a borderline psychopathic case.”