Edwin E. Willis

Edwin Edward Willis (October 2, 1904 – October 24, 1972) was an American politician and attorney from the U.S. state of Louisiana who was affiliated with the Long political faction. A Democrat, he served in the Louisiana State Senate during 1948 and in the United States House of Representatives from 1949 to 1969. Willis voted in favor of various progressive measures during the course of his congressional career such as those related to the federal minimum wage, housing, education, healthcare, and poverty reduction. At the same time, however, Willis voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Biography Willis was born in 1904 in Arnaudville, Louisiana of Joseph Olinder Willis and Julia Marie Hardy, the youngest of 11 children. Willis was of Cajun French descent by varying members of his mother and father's family.

From 1926 to 1936, Willis was a law lecturer.

Willis's papers from 1949 to 1969 are conserved at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

House of Representatives

House Un-American Activities Committee Willis served on the U.S. House of Representatives' Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) from 1957 to 1968, becoming chair of the committee in 1963 following the death of Francis E. Walter.

KKK Inquiries In 1965 and 1966, Willis lead an inquiries into the Ku Klux Klan as chair of HUAC. These investigations led to seven Klan leaders, including Robert Shelton being cited for Contempt of Congress. Shelton was found guilty and sentenced to one year in prison, plus a $1,000 fine. Three other Klan leaders, Robert Scoggin, Bob Jones, and Calvin Craig, pleaded guilty. Scoggin and Jones were each sentenced to one year in prison, while Craig was fined $1,000. The charges against the others were later dropped.

Lee Harvey Oswald In 1965, the attorney for Robert Shelton of the United Klans of American, Shelton's attorney, met with Congressman Edwin E. Willis, Chair of the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), who was leading a congressional investigation into KKK activities at the time. At this meeting, the attorney told Willis that two weeks before the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy Shelton had been offered the services of Lee Harvey Oswald and that Oswald had already been involved in some bombings in Alabama.

After an FBI investigation into these claims, Assistant Director of the FBI Deke DeLoach, contacted Willis to inform him that the FBI had determined that the information Shelton had provided to him about Oswald was not factual citing testimony from an FBI informant mentioned by Shelton as having been present for this meeting that the meeting had never happened. Willis left office in 1969.