Larry Andrews

Larry Andrews was among the four dissident employees of the American Humane Association who broke away from that organization in 1954 to found the National Humane Society, which was later renamed to the Humane Society of the United States. (The other HSUS co-founders were Fred Meyers, Helen Jones, and Marcia Glaser.)

During his years with HSUS, Andrews was known for being a field operative, meeting with local animal shelters and training humane society officials. He was also the first HSUS leader to widely promote to use of HSUS-branded educational materials at the local level.

In May 1956, Fred Myers (HSUS's Executive Director) was called before a U.S. Senate subcommittee to answer charges that he was a member of the American Communist Party. (A colleague of Myers from his days as a newspaper union organizer had testified that Myers invited him to at least one communist meeting during a labor-organizing conference.) In his own testimony, Myers forcefully denied any connection to communism—even though he had worked for at least three government-designated communist "front" groups before he entered the humane movement, and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner by the Soviet premier himself during a 1946 tour of Russia.

The following month, Larry Andrews resigned from HSUS in protest of what he would later describe as Myers' "perjury," assuming the leadership of the Arizona Humane Society. He finished out his term on HSUS's board of directors, however, formally severing ties with that organization in April 1958. Three other HSUS board members also resigned with him.

Less than one month later (in May 1958), Andrews wrote a damning four-page letter to the lead counsel of the U.S. Senate subcommittee that had heard Myers' indignant testimony. In the letter, he made six specific accusations of perjury against Myers, writing that his motivation for coming forward was “my conviction that Myers is a communist and hence an enemy of our country … [and] that unless he is exposed and dismissed from his position, he will continue to dupe sincere, but gullible persons of wealth in the humane movement.”

Andrews' letter also criticized Myers for allowing a man named David Weingard serve as the financial auditor for both HSUS and the American Humane Association. In the 1940s, long before Myers entered the animal protection movement, he and Weingard had worked together at Russian War Relief (Weingard was its executive director, Myers its PR director). The federal government would later determine that Russian War Relief was substantially controlled by the Soviet Government and the KGB.

Larry Andrews eventually left Arizona to move back east, taking a position as the Washington, DC director of the National Anti-Vivisection Society.