Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America
By John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander Vassiliev
(Yale University Press, 637 pp., $35)
If one were trying to define the lowest point in the long and venerable tradition of American anti-communism, surely it came in 2003, with the publication of Ann Coulter's Treason. Coulter's "thesis" in this work of cut-and-paste-from-the-Internet history was that a straight line could be drawn between Americans such as Alger Hiss, who spied for the Soviet Union in the 1940s, and Americans such as Barack Obama, who criticized the war in Iraq half a century later. Both of these groups--along with assorted socialists, liberals, trade unionists, and pretty much anyone whom she defined as "Left"--were guilty of nothing less than treason: "Whether they are defending the Soviet Union or bleating for Saddam Hussein, liberals are always against America. They are either traitors or idiots, and on the matter of America's self-preservation, the difference is irrelevant. Fifty years of treason hasn't slowed them down."
To be fair, which in Ann Coulter's case counts as an irony, she is not the only writer to have lost her sense of proportion, and maybe even her sanity, while contemplating the exceedingly complicated history of the American Left, and in particular its extended flirtation with the Soviet Union. Madness of a different sort--or perhaps of a deceptively similar sort--also characterizes the writings of Victor Navasky, the former editor and publisher of The Nation. Navasky has written many times on the subject of Hiss and other Soviet spies, with a sense of urgency that the passage of time never diminishes. An excellent example of his thinking on this subject can be found in an article in The Nation in 1997, describing the work of historians who were just then beginning to find evidence in the Soviet archives confirming that a number of Americans, including Hiss, had indeed collaborated with Soviet intelligence. "Like crazed lepidopterists with their butterfly nets," Navasky wrote, "they wildly try to capture every fugitive document that flutters into view to pin on their post-Cold War specimen boards. Their manic goal: to prove that the forties and fifties red-hunters with whom they now identify were right all along ... [and that] the wholesale suspension of liberties that characterized the Cold War years was justifiable after all." It is a striking use of metaphor. Would Navasky use the phrase "crazed lepidopterists" to describe those who keep pursuing, say, the still-mysterious fate of Raoul Wallenberg? I don't think so.
Somewhere between these two poles--between Navasky's pathological inability to believe that there really were Soviet spies in America and Coulter's pathological inability to make distinctions between liberal Democrats and paid foreign agents--lies the remarkable work of John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr. If there is any reasonable middle ground to be found in this particularly fraught debate--and by middle I mean historically true--Haynes and Klehr have done their best to define it and to occupy it. Working for more than a decade, making the best possible use of newly released Soviet archival material, the two scholars have produced multiple books, including three learned and exceptionally sane works of history in Yale University Press's splendid Annals of Communism series.
The first of their volumes, The Secret World of American Communism, used the newly opened archives of the Comintern, the organization that ran the international communist movement, to determine the extent of Soviet funding of the American Communist Party--which, it turns out, was quite substantial. The second, The Soviet World of American Communism, also used Soviet archives, but focused more directly on the Soviet Union's ideological influence on the Communist Party of the United States, or CPUSA, which was--surprise!--even more substantial. The third, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, examined the National Security Agency's declassified "Venona" files as well as Soviet archives relevant to it. Venona was a joint American and British cryptological project that deciphered Soviet wartime cables. Among other things, the cables provided direct evidence that the Soviet Union was running a large espionage network in the United States during the 1940s--and that Alger Hiss and Julius Rosenberg were among the Soviet Union's most valued agents.
Haynes and Klehr have usually stuck to the documents, the evidence, the facts. At least in their historical works, they do not write polemically, and they have emphatically not endorsed Senator Joseph McCarthy and his analysis of American communism. In The Secret World of American Communism, they went out of their way to condemn McCarthy for having used anti-communism "as a partisan weapon." His "excesses," they note, continue to distort the debate about the history of American communism to this day. Of course, this has not prevented critics from attacking Haynes and Klehr for McCarthyism.
Their newest work, a history of Soviet espionage in America, continues their research in this same spirit, although it makes use of a different kind of source. Along with Soviet archives, FBI archives, and the Venona cables, Haynes and Klehr this time around had access also to a set of KGB operational files that have not yet been opened to Western researchers. (In what follows I use "KGB" to mean Soviet foreign espionage, even though it had other names in the 1930s.) The story of how they got access to these materials is a little involved. In a long introduction to Spies, their Russian co-author, Alexander Vassiliev, explains his complicated personal story. Vassiliev was a junior KGB officer, trained in the late 1980s. Fed up with service at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, he quit. Though he spent several fruitful years in journalism, Vassiliev's past associations were strong enough to persuade the foreign department of the old KGB--now renamed the Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR--to call on him when they needed a writer to sort through their operational files: it seems that a group of retired officers thought they could burnish their reputations and earn some money by publishing stories of their glorious exploits in the West. They hired Vassiliev to work on a book about Soviet espionage in the United States, together with the American historian Allen Weinstein. The book eventually appeared in 1999 under the title The Haunted Wood.
Though the book was successful, the project became an enormous burden for Vassiliev. Intimidated by the increasing politicization of history in Russia and then by the closing of the archives, he left the country. Angered by those who questioned his motives, he foolishly sued one of the book's reviewers. Certain of winning, he acted as his own attorney and refused to settle out of court, forgetting that London juries do not warm to former KGB officers. He lost. Finally he approached Haynes and Klehr with a proposal to share with them the extensive notes that he had made on the KGB's operational files, and to supply the real names of people whom he had concealed even from Weinstein. His notebooks--together with the Venona cables, FBI records, and other sources--form the basis of this new book. In addition, they have been made available, in their original handwritten form and in English translation, on the website of the Wilson Center's Cold War International History Project, where they can be read by all and sundry.
Perhaps this was not the best way to get hold of KGB operational files, but it is the only way there was. Naturally, questions have been raised about Vassiliev's bona fides--but the notebooks are too detailed, and contain too many obscure references to people and places that Vassiliev could not possibly have known about in advance, to have been faked. In any case, the evidence that Vassiliev's notes are both authentic and reliable lies in the text itself. Spies is not a literary work, or even a narrative history, in the ordinary sense. It is filled with facts, figures, names, and dates. Much of it consists of long point-by-point comparisons of Vassiliev's files, the FBI's files, the Venona documents, and the testimony of witnesses and defectors. Assertions are proven, and then proven again using different sources. Footnotes contain lists of multiple sources. A seven-paragraph description, for example, of the fate of Morris and Lona Cohen--a mysterious couple who worked as KGB couriers from the 1930s to the 1960s--is substantiated by eleven different books and documents. This, presumably, is the sort of work that Navasky scorns as lepidoptery, "capturing every fugitive document." It is also very powerful to read.
Aside from the more familiar stories of atomic espionage and Alger Hiss, about which more in a moment, there is much in Spies that is absolutely new. Among other things, the KGB files enabled Haynes and Klehr to identify dozens of people previously known to the FBI only by their cover names. A scientist listed in the Venona cables as "Fogel" or "Persian," who was long thought to be J. Robert Oppenheimer, turns out to be Russell McNutt, an obscure Manhattan Project engineer who at one point worked on structural designs for the uranium and plutonium processing facilities in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. At one point the FBI conducted a superficial investigation of his relationship to Julius Rosenberg, who was in fact his recruiter. They found nothing. As a result, McNutt escaped the public notoriety that accrued to Rosenberg, not to mention the death penalty. He lived out the last part of his life as the chief engineer of Gulf Oil.
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COMMENTS (33)
A fascinating review from an expert in the field. She might have ventured out on a limb and discussed its implications for security today when many young Muslims, mainly in Europe but also in America, might be persuaded to collaborate with the Jihad because only it is providing a bulwark against the Zionist enemy and the American Crusaders.
A fascinating review from an expert in the field. She might have ventured out on a limb and discussed its implications for security today when many young Muslims, mainly in Europe but also in America, might be persuaded to collaborate with the Jihad because only it is providing a bulwark against the Zionist enemy and the American Crusaders.
I don't know what Anne Applebaum wishes to nuance here, in the usual false evenhandedness between two "extremes" of Coulter and Navasky. All of those traitors were secret communists and spies and all were open Democrats, even appointed in government because of the ruling Democrats. Find me a Republican who was a secret communist spy from the 1930s-1960s. You can't. Anne Coulter is right.
I don't know what Anne Applebaum wishes to nuance here, in the usual false evenhandedness between two "extremes" of Coulter and Navasky. All of those traitors were secret communists and spies and all were open Democrats, even appointed in government because of the ruling Democrats. Find me a Republican who was a secret communist spy from the 1930s-1960s. You can't. Anne Coulter is right.
Daniel: Respectfully, so what?
Those two labels -- Democrat and Republican -- are handy shorthand for our political parties but do nothing to address the complexities of individuals and the choices they make in their time and context. Which might be why lots of us have no time for Ann Coulter; from where I stand she has no conception of complexity. "Liberal" equals "treason" and that's all there is to it. Two arbitrary labels with historically dynamic meanings are too broad to encompass what might lead someone to spy for an enemy.
Daniel: Respectfully, so what?
Those two labels -- Democrat and Republican -- are handy shorthand for our political parties but do nothing to address the complexities of individuals and the choices they make in their time and context. Which might be why lots of us have no time for Ann Coulter; from where I stand she has no conception of complexity. "Liberal" equals "treason" and that's all there is to it. Two arbitrary labels with historically dynamic meanings are too broad to encompass what might lead someone to spy for an enemy.
The reviewer says that the right wants desperately to tie modern liberals to the CPUSA. Not true. They can be more and more tied to Marxists however, who now openly populate the academic ranks at many universities. Remember, even Ayers and Dohrn still consider themselves small "c" communists.
It is irrelevant and a distraction to throw in references to the old Soviet Union, as if that is necessary before one can define the modern leftists here in the US. Marxists are here now, and they still openly want to destroy democratic government and install the utopia of the proletariat as they currently define it, which would result in just a totalitarian a government as any that has already existed. ... view full comment
The reviewer says that the right wants desperately to tie modern liberals to the CPUSA. Not true. They can be more and more tied to Marxists however, who now openly populate the academic ranks at many universities. Remember, even Ayers and Dohrn still consider themselves small "c" communists.
It is irrelevant and a distraction to throw in references to the old Soviet Union, as if that is necessary before one can define the modern leftists here in the US. Marxists are here now, and they still openly want to destroy democratic government and install the utopia of the proletariat as they currently define it, which would result in just a totalitarian a government as any that has already existed. A few million eggs will be sacrificed for their version of the omelette.
The only difference is that now there is no Soviet Union to be part of. We can be our own independent USSA.
Anne Applebaum is right in her contention that not all liberals are guilty of treason. For there to be a crime there has to be mens rea, guilty intent. Most liberals, however deluded, don't set out to deliberately harm their country.
On the other hand Anne Coulter is right if she is saying that “liberalism”, unless it is thwarted, will result in the destruction of the liberal political and economic order that has made America "the last best hope of mankind". Obama’s statist ideology, with its bizarre combination of Marxism, fascism and Islamophilia, is as much a threat to our country as was Communism.
Anne Applebaum is right in her contention that not all liberals are guilty of treason. For there to be a crime there has to be mens rea, guilty intent. Most liberals, however deluded, don't set out to deliberately harm their country.
On the other hand Anne Coulter is right if she is saying that “liberalism”, unless it is thwarted, will result in the destruction of the liberal political and economic order that has made America "the last best hope of mankind". Obama’s statist ideology, with its bizarre combination of Marxism, fascism and Islamophilia, is as much a threat to our country as was Communism.
Oh, I get it. Geokster. Jokester. Because really, if you and Daniel aren't joking. Well, good Lord; get some help. Get the help you need.
The fact that you and others take the likes of Anne Coulter seriously. Wow. It is so disturbing, almost surreal. But damn. It is real. And more of a menace than any domestic communism has ever been or ever will be.
Most people couldn't even tell you what The Daily Worker is.
But everybody knows these frothing Coulteresque maniacs. And sadly way, way too many people are buying into this crap.
And just like with McCarthy, we've all got to Murrow up and call it when we see it. And keep calling it. The 'big lie' has got to be r ... view full comment
Oh, I get it. Geokster. Jokester. Because really, if you and Daniel aren't joking. Well, good Lord; get some help. Get the help you need.
The fact that you and others take the likes of Anne Coulter seriously. Wow. It is so disturbing, almost surreal. But damn. It is real. And more of a menace than any domestic communism has ever been or ever will be.
Most people couldn't even tell you what The Daily Worker is.
But everybody knows these frothing Coulteresque maniacs. And sadly way, way too many people are buying into this crap.
And just like with McCarthy, we've all got to Murrow up and call it when we see it. And keep calling it. The 'big lie' has got to be resisted. As all do all real threats to free and open societies.
Please get your meds adjusted or get spiritual counseling or something. Right now, to use an old phrase, you're just unwitting dupes.
It is incredible that any suggestions that liberals are not traitors send Republicans into apoplectic shock. Kudos are due to Anne Applebaum, for the feat of writing her text into the commentary of its own commentary.
It is incredible that any suggestions that liberals are not traitors send Republicans into apoplectic shock. Kudos are due to Anne Applebaum, for the feat of writing her text into the commentary of its own commentary.
Wow, the left admits Hiss was a spy. About 60 years too late. If the left had run America from 45 to 1992 the way they do now there would have been a different outcoe to the cold car.
Wow, the left admits Hiss was a spy. About 60 years too late. If the left had run America from 45 to 1992 the way they do now there would have been a different outcoe to the cold car.
It's nice to hear from the "good Anne," the one who isn't trying to push us into war with Russia and/or China, the one who isn't trying to pretend that European "conservative" parties are basically Republicans with funny accents.
It's nice to hear from the "good Anne," the one who isn't trying to push us into war with Russia and/or China, the one who isn't trying to pretend that European "conservative" parties are basically Republicans with funny accents.
Please stop the lies and insinuations about Stone. He was not an agent for Soviets. At most, the had a public lunch with a Soviet embassy official who everybody knew was an agent, and talked about publicly available stuff that he was publicy publishing in his magazine articles... and he deliberately chose a restaraurant favored by J Edgar Hoover. In addition to not being an agent, he had a sense of humor.
Please stop the lies and insinuations about Stone. He was not an agent for Soviets. At most, the had a public lunch with a Soviet embassy official who everybody knew was an agent, and talked about publicly available stuff that he was publicy publishing in his magazine articles... and he deliberately chose a restaraurant favored by J Edgar Hoover. In addition to not being an agent, he had a sense of humor.
geokstr: "They can be more and more tied to Marxists however, who now openly populate the academic ranks at many universities."
Prove it. And don't just name a couple, give me some actual statistics that show there are Marxists "openly populating" the academic ranks at many universities. Personally, I have never met a Marxist, and I travel in pretty leftist circles. I'm sure there are a few Marxist professors out there, as being a Marxist does not disqualify one from teaching English to college kids, for example. But the truth is there has not been any serious Marxist group on the left for decades. Their numbers are so small as to be irrelevant. Do you really think there are any relevant Marx ... view full comment
geokstr: "They can be more and more tied to Marxists however, who now openly populate the academic ranks at many universities."
Prove it. And don't just name a couple, give me some actual statistics that show there are Marxists "openly populating" the academic ranks at many universities. Personally, I have never met a Marxist, and I travel in pretty leftist circles. I'm sure there are a few Marxist professors out there, as being a Marxist does not disqualify one from teaching English to college kids, for example. But the truth is there has not been any serious Marxist group on the left for decades. Their numbers are so small as to be irrelevant. Do you really think there are any relevant Marxists left in the US, given recent world history? Really? I constantly hear about all these Marxists who just wish to tear down our government, but I have never actually seen one. They make a great strawman for getting people to run in the opposite direction though (ie to the far right). The truth is that there are far more extreme right-wing professors out there today than Marxists. I have never met a professor who is Marxist, but I have had several as instructors who believe in "tax cuts raise revenue", trickle down economics, and all that ridiculous garbage.
bulbman says: "'liberalism', unless it is thwarted, will result in the destruction of the liberal political and economic order"
Unless we can come up with some finer definitions for all these labels, I don't see how we can even start to discuss what's wrong with them. Liberalism will kill the liberal order? Talk to me as if I'm four and tell me how that sentence makes any sense. Pop will eat itself?
bulbman says: "'liberalism', unless it is thwarted, will result in the destruction of the liberal political and economic order"
Unless we can come up with some finer definitions for all these labels, I don't see how we can even start to discuss what's wrong with them. Liberalism will kill the liberal order? Talk to me as if I'm four and tell me how that sentence makes any sense. Pop will eat itself?
"Let me make one thing perectly clear! I am not a citizen of the world!".
Translation: I am more American than you!
Seems to me we are in more danger from fascist thugs than old leftist "revolutionaries" - wrapped of course in the flag and proceded by the Cross.
I'm sure the Chinese can give us a really good deal on plain brown shirts - or is black more de rigueur?
"Let me make one thing perectly clear! I am not a citizen of the world!".
Translation: I am more American than you!
Seems to me we are in more danger from fascist thugs than old leftist "revolutionaries" - wrapped of course in the flag and proceded by the Cross.
I'm sure the Chinese can give us a really good deal on plain brown shirts - or is black more de rigueur?
Just posting my thanks for this detailed, intelligent, and informative article. Pieces like this still make TNR worth reading.
I especially appreciate Applebaum's insistence on historicizing the subjects discussed in "Spies". Which does not mean "relativizing" them -- why is it so hard to understand the distinction?
I do have reservations about the Coulter-Navasky parallel. Coulter is coarse beyond description -- not much better than the radio thug Michael Savage (whom I once heard call liberals "vermin" -- in case you thought that language had died with National Socialism). In that sense Navasky had more moral gravity. But just because he was a more serious person, his ideological ... view full comment
Just posting my thanks for this detailed, intelligent, and informative article. Pieces like this still make TNR worth reading.
I especially appreciate Applebaum's insistence on historicizing the subjects discussed in "Spies". Which does not mean "relativizing" them -- why is it so hard to understand the distinction?
I do have reservations about the Coulter-Navasky parallel. Coulter is coarse beyond description -- not much better than the radio thug Michael Savage (whom I once heard call liberals "vermin" -- in case you thought that language had died with National Socialism). In that sense Navasky had more moral gravity. But just because he was a more serious person, his ideologically-induced blindness is more disturbing. I have always been troubled by the gullibility of the leftists of the Depression generation. "Anti-fascism" sanctioned moral blindness for too many for too long.
All the Soviets had to do was look to the liberal wing of the democrats. Lots of socialists-statists there who think the government should run everything. Wouldn't have been to hard to do in the 80's or in the Bush years either.
All the Soviets had to do was look to the liberal wing of the democrats. Lots of socialists-statists there who think the government should run everything. Wouldn't have been to hard to do in the 80's or in the Bush years either.
So let me see if I got this right. The most evil person in a book about American communists who betrayed their fellow countrymen is Ann Coulter?
So let me see if I got this right. The most evil person in a book about American communists who betrayed their fellow countrymen is Ann Coulter?
Good Article. But why begin and end a serious article with discussions of Coulter and Navasky? IT is as if an important analysis twentieth century political thought began and ended with a discussion of Lyndon Larouche.
Good Article. But why begin and end a serious article with discussions of Coulter and Navasky? IT is as if an important analysis twentieth century political thought began and ended with a discussion of Lyndon Larouche.
It is appropriate, but not sufficient, to deplore the loosely reasoned narrative that equates Democrats with left-wing types supporting communism, socialism and treason by aiding a foreign Communist power -- types who would be better suited to life in Cuba. What is also necessary is to generate the appropriate alternate narrative that equates Republicans with right-wing conservative types supporting fascists, religious fundamentalists, racists, gun-owning-zealots and treason by domestic terrorism -- types who would be better suited to living in the Iraq of their own creation. After all, it was Republican rightist-types who were once most associated with Hitler/Mussolini-supporters until Pear ... view full comment
It is appropriate, but not sufficient, to deplore the loosely reasoned narrative that equates Democrats with left-wing types supporting communism, socialism and treason by aiding a foreign Communist power -- types who would be better suited to life in Cuba. What is also necessary is to generate the appropriate alternate narrative that equates Republicans with right-wing conservative types supporting fascists, religious fundamentalists, racists, gun-owning-zealots and treason by domestic terrorism -- types who would be better suited to living in the Iraq of their own creation. After all, it was Republican rightist-types who were once most associated with Hitler/Mussolini-supporters until Pearl Harbor. It is now Republican rightist-types who are most associated with racism and religious fundamentalism and four AK-47's in every (white) bedroom. It is now Republican home-grown rightist-types who are most associated with blowing up federal buildings in Oklahoma or clinics in Georgia or shooting those with whom they do not agree in NY, Kansas, or Washington DC. Insofar as many (most?) believe that where there is smoke there is fire, then smoke directed to the right need be generated and widely published to politically balance smoke directed to the left. Just saying "tsk-tsk" won't suffice.
It is as fair to say that liberals are tied to Marxist ideology as to say that conservatives are tied to the ideology of the guy who just shot a guard at the Holocaust Museum today.
It is as fair to say that liberals are tied to Marxist ideology as to say that conservatives are tied to the ideology of the guy who just shot a guard at the Holocaust Museum today.
This should have been settled in 1996 if not before with the publication of the VENONA decrypts. That Anne Appelbaum might have been slow to admit Hiss was a spy might be understandable given that she is married to Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who is so obsessed with re-fighting the Nazis he has been objecting to any German attempt to set up a centre documenting post-war expulsions. Poland, of course, gained huge swathes of territory from Germany and expelled millions of German residents because Stalin demanded it and Hiss' State Department was only too eager to oblige.
This should have been settled in 1996 if not before with the publication of the VENONA decrypts. That Anne Appelbaum might have been slow to admit Hiss was a spy might be understandable given that she is married to Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who is so obsessed with re-fighting the Nazis he has been objecting to any German attempt to set up a centre documenting post-war expulsions. Poland, of course, gained huge swathes of territory from Germany and expelled millions of German residents because Stalin demanded it and Hiss' State Department was only too eager to oblige.
“The truth, of course, is that neither Coulter nor Navasky, nor any of the many others who have joined this particular battle, is really interested in history.”
Anne’s attempt at the appearance of evenhandedness doesn’t hide the old prejudices. In making the above statement, she is either not aware of Whittaker Chambers’ “Witness” or she doesn’t want others to be aware of it. It has for years been seen as toxic by the left. You could lose friends if you were seen reading it. It is, in fact, a well-written (Chambers went on to become senior editor at Time, taking it to its literary pinnacle) and compelling story from a man concerned first and last with the intersection of h ... view full comment
“The truth, of course, is that neither Coulter nor Navasky, nor any of the many others who have joined this particular battle, is really interested in history.”
Anne’s attempt at the appearance of evenhandedness doesn’t hide the old prejudices. In making the above statement, she is either not aware of Whittaker Chambers’ “Witness” or she doesn’t want others to be aware of it. It has for years been seen as toxic by the left. You could lose friends if you were seen reading it. It is, in fact, a well-written (Chambers went on to become senior editor at Time, taking it to its literary pinnacle) and compelling story from a man concerned first and last with the intersection of history and peoples’ personal lives. Chambers tells us all we need to know about “the nature of the international communist movement in the 1930s, and the extraordinary power of its ideology.” If you are interested in this topic and want an intellectually satisfying read by someone who lived the story, get “Witness.”
gdb: I feel for your sentiment, but I can't agree that meeting name-calling with name-calling is what's needed. It's all widely enough published to make me want to find an island to hide out on.
Joe put it very concisely. It just ain't that simple.
gdb: I feel for your sentiment, but I can't agree that meeting name-calling with name-calling is what's needed. It's all widely enough published to make me want to find an island to hide out on.
Joe put it very concisely. It just ain't that simple.
Steve is out of date on I.F. Stone. The latest evidence shows he was a Soviet agent with his own moniker, and he was paid: this was true in 1938-1939 at least, and possibly for some time after 1944. Read the new evidence assembled by Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes, and Alexander Vassiliev, based on Vassiliev's notes on KGB files briefly available in the 1990s and retrieved in 2002 by him from their hiding place in Russia (part of 1,100 pages of notes retrieved in 2002).
Steve is out of date on I.F. Stone. The latest evidence shows he was a Soviet agent with his own moniker, and he was paid: this was true in 1938-1939 at least, and possibly for some time after 1944. Read the new evidence assembled by Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes, and Alexander Vassiliev, based on Vassiliev's notes on KGB files briefly available in the 1990s and retrieved in 2002 by him from their hiding place in Russia (part of 1,100 pages of notes retrieved in 2002).
It's good to see that commenters are taking seriously Applebaum's advice to not make sloppy equivocations between the past and the present to score political points
It's good to see that commenters are taking seriously Applebaum's advice to not make sloppy equivocations between the past and the present to score political points
I am stunned by the superficiality of the comments recorded here. I agree with those who complain about parallelling Coulter and Navasky. Coulter should simply be beneath the radar of a serious political journal. I did appreciate Applebaum's foray into understanding the motivations. But, above all, doesn't the glaring fragility of the purported new evidence call for comment? Notes from an ex-KGB agent who is interested in making some money from a book?
I am stunned by the superficiality of the comments recorded here. I agree with those who complain about parallelling Coulter and Navasky. Coulter should simply be beneath the radar of a serious political journal. I did appreciate Applebaum's foray into understanding the motivations. But, above all, doesn't the glaring fragility of the purported new evidence call for comment? Notes from an ex-KGB agent who is interested in making some money from a book?
So it seems that there were actually communists, in thrall to the Soviets, after all. We know that they were all recruited from the left side of the aisle. That they believed in or were seduced by the extraordinary power of the ideology. We also know that, essentially, although they no longer have allegiance to the USSR, they still hold to the basic attraction of these ideas. They are the Democratic party of Barack Obama and his Alinskyite fellow followers. Coulter may be a windbag but besides the loss of allegiance to a foreign enemy, what's changed here? The fools still believe in cloud cuckoo land and they are still basically anti-American, at least in the way it was envisioned by its fou ... view full comment
So it seems that there were actually communists, in thrall to the Soviets, after all. We know that they were all recruited from the left side of the aisle. That they believed in or were seduced by the extraordinary power of the ideology. We also know that, essentially, although they no longer have allegiance to the USSR, they still hold to the basic attraction of these ideas. They are the Democratic party of Barack Obama and his Alinskyite fellow followers. Coulter may be a windbag but besides the loss of allegiance to a foreign enemy, what's changed here? The fools still believe in cloud cuckoo land and they are still basically anti-American, at least in the way it was envisioned by its founders.
"The truth is that there are far more extreme right-wing professors out there today than Marxists."
Prove it.
"The truth is that there are far more extreme right-wing professors out there today than Marxists."
Prove it.
Posted in Washington in the 60s and 70s to write for the Montreal Star, London Observer and South African liberal newspapers, I got to know Izzy Stone quite well. Based on our extensive conversations, I know he was not a Communist, though he may have exchanged
public information with Soviet agents in the 1930s in public places, which was no crime for a journalist.
Posted in Washington in the 60s and 70s to write for the Montreal Star, London Observer and South African liberal newspapers, I got to know Izzy Stone quite well. Based on our extensive conversations, I know he was not a Communist, though he may have exchanged
public information with Soviet agents in the 1930s in public places, which was no crime for a journalist.
Coulter is busy being Coulter; making money from being outrageous. That is not a conservative monopoly.
I see no straight lines. What I do see is some sort of a "line" that runs through Henry Wallace and his followers; the ban the bomb crowd; the circa '68 radicals; the McGovernites. What unites this string is a strong suspicion that the US is not only a usual wrong-doer, but the world's consequential wrong- doer. This "certainty" is what ties them together. Needless to say, they have their counterparts on the right. I invite another reader to draw their string.
What strikes this old fool as "new" is the position of the media.
Reputations, and incomes, in the media used to be made b ... view full comment
Coulter is busy being Coulter; making money from being outrageous. That is not a conservative monopoly.
I see no straight lines. What I do see is some sort of a "line" that runs through Henry Wallace and his followers; the ban the bomb crowd; the circa '68 radicals; the McGovernites. What unites this string is a strong suspicion that the US is not only a usual wrong-doer, but the world's consequential wrong- doer. This "certainty" is what ties them together. Needless to say, they have their counterparts on the right. I invite another reader to draw their string.
What strikes this old fool as "new" is the position of the media.
Reputations, and incomes, in the media used to be made by appearing "sound", whether the journalist's perspective could be characterized as coming from the left or the right. Now, wealth, and, to a lesser extent, reputation in the media is enhanced by being a provocateur. Far from acting as a restraint on the political class, the modern media sees its role as a goad.
Looking back a long way, Henry Wallace was wrong about a lot of things. So was Bob Taft. They were misguided, but honorable. Sure glad that Harry Truman and Ike governed back then instead of them. Hope we do as well in our time.
As a "moderate" conservative, I find the views of Krauthammer, Applebaum, Douthat et al of interest. I have no time for or interest in the likes of Limbaugh, Hannity or Beck. Will a "moderate" liberal among the readership step forward and identify media personalities he or she finds persuasive and those they find over-the-top?
"It is as fair to say that liberals are tied to Marxist ideology as to say that conservatives are tied to the ideology of the guy who just shot a guard at the Holocaust Museum today."
It is the conservatives, particularly the fundementalists, who are the strongest supporters of Israel. Look at Obama and Carter - the 2 American presidents who are closest to the Palestinians.
"It is as fair to say that liberals are tied to Marxist ideology as to say that conservatives are tied to the ideology of the guy who just shot a guard at the Holocaust Museum today."
It is the conservatives, particularly the fundementalists, who are the strongest supporters of Israel. Look at Obama and Carter - the 2 American presidents who are closest to the Palestinians.
From Klehr-Haynes-Vassililev, re: I.F. Stone
The first mention of Stone comes in a KGB New York station report of April 13, 1936. It mentions “Pancake (Liberal’s lead)—Isidor Feinstein [as Stone was then known], a commentator for the New York Post.” “Liberal” was Frank Palmer, who was part of the same New York community of pro-Communist radical journalists. He had also been an agent of the KGB New York station for several years. This note indicated that Palmer had suggested his bosses look at Isidor Feinstein. The New York station further reported in May 1936: “Relations with Pancake have entered the channel of normal operational work. He went to Washington on assignment for his ... view full comment
From Klehr-Haynes-Vassililev, re: I.F. Stone
The first mention of Stone comes in a KGB New York station report of April 13, 1936. It mentions “Pancake (Liberal’s lead)—Isidor Feinstein [as Stone was then known], a commentator for the New York Post.” “Liberal” was Frank Palmer, who was part of the same New York community of pro-Communist radical journalists. He had also been an agent of the KGB New York station for several years. This note indicated that Palmer had suggested his bosses look at Isidor Feinstein. The New York station further reported in May 1936: “Relations with Pancake have entered the channel of normal operational work. He went to Washington on assignment for his newspaper. Connections in the State Dep. and Congress.” By stating that its relationship with Stone had entered “the channel of normal operational work,” the KGB New York station was reporting that Stone had become a fully active agent. Over the next several years, documents recorded in Vassiliev’s notebooks make clear, Stone worked closely with the KGB."
"Normal operational work."
It is an argument from desperation to argue that Vassiliev's notebooks are somehow fakes. Anne Applebaum in her article above has a good scholarly discussion showing the evidence that they are not.
I don't read Navasky a lot. I don't know what Navasky believes or does not believes about Soviet spies. But if Applebaum was going to use her quote from Navasky as an illustration of "Navasky's pathological inability to believe that there really were Soviet spies in America", she should have picked a quote from Navasky that stated, or at least implied, that there were no Soviet spies in America.
I don't read Navasky a lot. I don't know what Navasky believes or does not believes about Soviet spies. But if Applebaum was going to use her quote from Navasky as an illustration of "Navasky's pathological inability to believe that there really were Soviet spies in America", she should have picked a quote from Navasky that stated, or at least implied, that there were no Soviet spies in America.
For Daniel. Name one Republican who spied for the Soviets? OK. Robert Hanssen, Republican, FBI agent and bestest buddies with Antonin Scalia and Robert Novak, fellow members of the DC chapter of Opus Dei. Have a nice day.
Coulterites are perhaps the most ignorant people in the world who aren't actual newborns.
Applebaum has the line of the month in this review.
If there is any reasonable middle ground to be found in this particularly fraught debate--and by middle I mean historically true--Haynes and Klehr have done their best to define it and to occupy it.
For Daniel. Name one Republican who spied for the Soviets? OK. Robert Hanssen, Republican, FBI agent and bestest buddies with Antonin Scalia and Robert Novak, fellow members of the DC chapter of Opus Dei. Have a nice day.
Coulterites are perhaps the most ignorant people in the world who aren't actual newborns.
Applebaum has the line of the month in this review.
If there is any reasonable middle ground to be found in this particularly fraught debate--and by middle I mean historically true--Haynes and Klehr have done their best to define it and to occupy it.