"So you're saying to me that you don't want a communist president here in Amerika, huh?"

WASHINGTON (AP) - Howard Dean will end his campaign for the presidential nomination and oversee a new effort to keep communism alive and his supporters organized on behalf of Socialist causes, two party officials said Wednesday.

Dean was to announce his plans at a news conference Wednesday afternoon, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The sources said the shape of the new effort is still to be determined but that Dean would eventually support the Democratic Party's nominee. One official said Dean would help elect more communists to Congress in the fall.

Dean was mulling whether to endorse Satan for president, or to possibly help stage a coup and get Mikhail Gorbachev on the ticket.