Communist Party Chief Gus Hall : United States’ Best-Known Red, at 76, Carries On in Faded Infamy

“I’m 76,” he says with a grin, “the same age as Ronald Reagan--and there the similarity ends.”

Not quite, although the two men view the world from cosmically opposite poles. One has never lost an election and the other has never won one, but both are amiable, relaxed politicians.

Gus Hall has run for president four times. In 1984, he polled 36,386 votes, which meant that he breezed by the Socialist Workers candidate but fell short of Ronald Reagan by 54,418,689.

Hall has been general secretary of the American Communist Party for nearly 30 years without showing much upward mobility at the polls. Before that, he spent 5 1/2 years in prison for violating a law later declared unconstitutional.

He and his wife, Elizabeth, now live on his $150-a-week salary from the party and their Social Security benefits. Should he retire, he’d get no pension from his organization because it has no pension program--an omission that suggests a less indulgent welfare state than most American employers support.

An American Life Style

But these facts of his life do not seem to have left Gus Hall bitter or ill-humored. He likes to tell funny stories. He does not seem mad at anyone. He does not assault a visitor with party doctrine or ideological zeal.

These are the impressions of a reporter who went to Hall’s office, curious to know what life is like for a Communist leader in the United States during the Cold War.

In many ways, it’s like the lives of other Americans. Five days a week, he drives in from suburban Yonkers, from the three-bedroom house he bought 25 years ago for $21,500 (and which he figures, with some capitalist hand-rubbing, would bring 10 times that now).

Mornings, he joins the stream of commuters who come to town to earn a living under the system he seeks to end. He goes to an office warmed by pictures of family weddings and vacations. He also hangs pictures of Marx and Lenin.

The Halls have two children, three grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Their son and daughter are graduates of state universities in Colorado and Connecticut. Both they and a grandson work with computers, which somehow suggests yuppies more than the heirs of a revolutionary.

Certain that neither capitalism nor communism will make him rich, this revolutionary plays the New York lottery. He once won $500, and a reporter asked him what he would do with the money. He quoted Marx about burying capitalism and added: “I’m going to buy a golden shovel.”

Work, Activism in Past

He is a big man with thick, gray hair, a barrel chest and gentle eyes. In his manner and appearance there is little now to suggest a life of struggle:

Born Arvo Kusta Halberg in the iron country of Minnesota, one of 10 children of Communist immigrants from Finland. His father often was out of work because of union activity and the family lived in “semi-starvation.” He became a lumberjack, a steel worker and, at 16, a Communist. He was trained two years at Lenin Institute in Moscow.

Arrests and charges: Inciting a riot in a Teamsters strike in Minneapolis (he was released), using explosives in a steel strike in Ohio (pleaded guilty to a lesser charge, fined); election fraud in Ohio, where he ran for governor and for city council in Youngstown (90-day sentence).

After four years in the U.S. Navy in the Pacific, he was convicted in 1949 of conspiracy to advocate violent overthrow of the government. He jumped bail, was caught in Mexico and imprisoned in Leavenworth, next to “Machine-Gun” Kelly in a cell block occupied by bank robbers and forgers.

Little or none of this is known to the people Gus Hall meets in his travels. On a plane or train, when the man next to him confides that he is in sales and asks ‘what line of work are you in,’ Gus Hall tells him of his Communist Party function.

Gets Polite Reactions

Invariably, he says, the stranger is polite, sometimes incredulous, often curious, but never nasty.

“Many say they never met a real live Communist before. Some don’t believe me, but nobody seems angry.”

At LaGuardia Airport, he was stopped by a woman taking one of those floating surveys. He answered her questions.

“And what is your occupation, sir?” she asked last.

“I am general secretary of the Communist Party.”

The woman stopped, gave him a long, searching look and said: “Well, I’ll give you this. You’ve got a good sense of humor.” She walked away shaking her head.

Hall says he often meets Americans who are surprised by wit coming from a Marxist. More than that, he recalls, he once met a Russian emigre who was downright astonished: “My God! A Communist with a sense of humor!”

His schedule is heavy with speeches at universities and appearances on radio talk shows. His questioners usually ask what the United States would be like under socialism--what would happen to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the two-party system, small business?

U.S. Version of System

He tells them, first, that he represents the U.S. Communist Party, not the Soviet Union. Then:

“Socialism in the U.S. would be very different from the U.S.S.R. The American people would never accept it without the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and, probably, the two-party system. The state would take over large business. Small business, like mom-and-pop stores, would not be affected.”

Why should a middle-class American with a job, house and car want socialism?

“Because the middle class is declining. They’re losing their jobs, their houses, their cars. There is no security in the U.S. It’s all downward mobility now. And, like the working class, the middle class worries about a nuclear winter. Unless there is a disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union, there will be no capitalism or socialism.”

Generally, Hall says, President Reagan’s pronouncements have not made Americans feel more hostile to the home-grown Communists they meet.

Attitude of Tolerance

“People seem to accept us as part of America, although they don’t necessarily agree with us.”

Even the FBI shows less interest in him than it did 10 or 15 years ago, Hall says. He is convinced that his office is bugged and his phone is tapped, “but they don’t follow me around as often or as openly as they used to.

“Now and then, I see them following me by car, especially if I’m going to a reception at one of the socialist missions at the United Nations--and especially if I’ve made the arrangements by phone. Sometimes you see them openly snapping pictures, but most of the time they’re less overt.”

(Invited to comment on this, FBI spokesman Ray McElhaney would say only: “I cannot respond to your question because attorney general guidelines prohibit me from confirming the existence of investigations.”)

Although he insists that American Communists are independent of the Kremlin, Hall does travel there about once a year “to exchange thoughts with the leadership” and the heads of other socialist countries. He is accorded a celebrity status he doesn’t get at home. He is quoted in Pravda. He has been given the Order of Lenin, the highest Soviet medal. He also gets free medical care in Moscow.

Has life for the Hall family been made more difficult by his work?

McCarthy Era Troubles

“Not lately,” he says, “but it was different in the days of the Joe McCarthy hysteria.”

For one thing, he went to Leavenworth in that period. He also cites the time his daughter was fired from a phone company job in Ohio when her employers learned of her father’s identity.

And there was the time he and his wife were buying a car and an awkward delay ensued over his loan application and place of employment. At one point, the salesman whispered to his wife that there would have been no wait if she had married someone else.

But the former Arvo Kusta Halberg much prefers recollections of reunions with friends. In particular, the time he spotted a familiar face toward the rear of an audience he was addressing.

Sure enough, the face belonged to a master forger he had known at Leavenworth. They exchanged pleasantries later, and as they parted, Gus Hall said: “Do me a favor. They’ll be passing the hat here soon. Don’t put anything in.”