Bella Dodd (née Visono; 1904[1] – 29 April 1969[2]) was a teacher, lawyer, and labor union activist, member of the Communist Party of America (CPUSA) and New York City Teachers Union (TU) in the 1930s and 1940s ("one of Communism's most strident voices"), and vocal anti-communist after she had a big conversion after meeting Fulton J. Sheen, Bishop of Rochester, New York.
[3] Bella Dodd was born Maria Assunta Isabella Visono in 1904 in Picerno, Basilicata region, Province of Potenza, Kingdom of Italy, the youngest of ten children.
[citation needed] She saw Celia Lewis, Clara Richer, and Max Diamond emerge as leaders of the TU's "Red minority."
During the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), teachers volunteered for the Lincoln Brigade: Dodd names Sid Babsky and Ralph Wardlaw.
Dorothy Wallace joined the TU as "minder" for the Soviets, under her brother, vice president Dale Zysman (Party name "Jack Hardy") who had trained in Moscow.
[1][5] By 1938, Dodd resigned from Hunter College and took a full-time position in the pro-communist TU, and moved her family to Poughkeepsie to ease access to state legislators in Albany.
[1] In 1939, the Hitler-Stalin Pact undermined the TU's public position, and the Rapp-Coudert Committee started its anti-communist investigations, subpoenaing more than 600 teachers suspected of Pro-Soviet sympathies.
They wore expensive clothes, lived in fine apartments, took long vacations at places provided by men of wealth....
There were the trade union Communists who rubbed elbows with underworld characters at communist-financed night clubs, and labor lawyers who were given patronage by the Party...and now were well established and comfortable.
[1][3] Dodd succeeded Si Gerson (who was enlisting in the Army) as Communist legislative representative for the New York district, retaining an honorary TU position.
Dodd, Philip Jones, and Allen Goodwin set up a law office at 25 West 43rd Street for political outreach beyond the Party, including with the National Maritime Union.
When Moscow informed the Party of their wishes, Browder was vocally opposed by Mother Bloor, Gurley Flynn, Ann Burlak, Benjamin J. Davis Jr., and Pat Tuohy.
In Spring 1947, after Foster traveled to Europe for consultations with Moscow, the Party replaced the Daily Worker editor Morris Childs with John Gates, with Dodd abstaining from the vote.
"[1][3][6] Officially, Dodd was expelled for representing a landlord in a legal dispute with a renter, violating Party bylaws against defense of private property.
[7] On April 8, 1952, Dodd rejoined the Roman Catholic Church at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, New York City, after taking weekly instruction from Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen (whose converts also included Louis F. Budenz and Clare Booth Luce).
[1][4][8] She became an outspoken proponent for the Catholic Church and a vocal anti-communist, warning against the "materialistic philosophy" which guided public education and demoralized Americans, as well as formed the basis of both Communism and National Socialism.
[9] On March 10, 1953, Dodd testified before a televised hearing of the U.S. Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS) about covert Party infiltration of labor unions and other institutions.
The following day, The New York Times front page stated: "Bella Dodd Asserts Reds Got Presidential Advisory Posts."
[3] In 1968, Dodd made an unsuccessful run for a seat in the US Congress as the candidate of the New York Conservative Party; she lost by a significant margin.
[10] She came in last place with 3% of the vote, against Democratic incumbent Leonard Farbstein (easily reelected with 53%), Donald Weeden (Republican), Ralph Denat (Liberal), and David McReynolds (Peace and Freedom).