Old traitors never die, they linger on in history

But of course, some 70+ years on when traitors are unmasked, everyone shrugs and mutters, "Alger who?" or "So what?" before changing the subject.  Almost no-one pauses to cogitate upon the possibility that if it was like that then, why wouldn't it be like that today?  Even so, a recent book [1], reviewed in The American Spectator, undertakes the unpleasant task of raking the muck that surrounded and infected the government of FDR during WWII. The authors retread the path laid bare by the Venona Project in which the American and British intelligence services combined to decrypt tens of thousands of messages sent by the various Soviet agencies.  The result was to bury a lance of truth into the Leftist myth that Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White were patriots, the Rosenbergs were innocent and that Whittaker Chambers was a liar.  It is now indisputable fact that the exact reverse was true.  Even more, the deeply unpleasant Sen. McCarthy was, in essence, right and the equally unpleasant Richard Nixon was right to defend Whittaker Chambers.  All those attending the Yalta Conference were either knowingly or unknowingly dancing like Russian puppets as Stalin jerked their strings. To be fair to Roosevelt, which he barely deserves, he was by this time in failing health and was thus well and truly in the manipulative hands of the likes of Harry Hopkins.  Thus, half of Europe was handed over, bound and gagged, to a monster.  To those, like Enoch Powell and Andrew Alexander, who maintain that the Cold War was totally unnecessary I can only suggest that 'there is none so blind as them wot is determined not to see'!  If Stalin could have grabbed more of Europe he would have done - and he worked hard enough at destabilising both Italy and France to say nothing of the Berlin blockade.

Today in the USA, the Left have no need of foreign powers to assist in their planned destruction of their democracy.  They subverted the main organs of society decades ago and thus today they have the overwhelming support of the MSM, the universities, most of the professions, a gargantuan - and growing - civil service and, via the schools, the hearts and what passes for the minds of the young.  Home run, really!

1:  Stalin’s Secret Agents: The Subversion of Roosevelt’s Government
By M. Stanton Evans and Herbert Romerstein
(Threshold Editions, 294 pages, $26)

Comments

[Tom Knott]

Not long after Stalin died one was on the banks of The Elbe playing signals games with the Soviets. I have only learned the full story within the last decade. But some of knew what the Soviet's were up to.

[dearieme]

I once saw the point made that when Truman took over he cleared out a large number of the commies. So he knew, and it's hard to believe that FDR didn't. Golly that man was a shit.

[JK]

Oh Friend David, had I known you were lying abed at night all these years worrying over this sort of thing - well ... I'd at least shortened your stress by three years.

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2009/09/my-good-friend-roosvelt.html

[Able]

"the Left have no need of foreign powers to assist in their planned destruction of their democracy"

They're still a ways behind us though.

I wonder about the real reason for such lengthy periods before allowing access to these documents (how about that 100 year (?) wait for Dunblane?). I suspect more protection of reputations (and to hide criminal/treasonous behaviour), which should never have been allowed, rather than any legitimately justifiable reasons.

[H]

No doubt Richard Nixon's honesty had some unique qualities, although in the era of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown he could be seen as no worse than some. But in every way worth mentioning he was head and shoulders above Joe McCarthy. No comparison really.

[H]

Roosevelt must have had something going for him to be so successful in domestic politics, but in world affairs he appears to have been a complete rube, at best.

[David Duff]

Tom, I wish you'd told FDR! BY the by, did you ever come across Michael Frayn, he was up to that sort of thing?

Thanks, JK, always rely on you for the unconsidered trifles of history!

Ah, 'reputation', Able, how they cling to that through thick and thin!

I'm no expert on either man, 'H', but McCarthy always struck me as deeply unpleasant - but mainly right! And Obama is copying FDR's techniques to the letter, that is, spending, spending and spending on his clientel - bit like Brown & Balls, really!

[Up2L8]

New series on the telly, FX channel, The Americans, about the very thing you wrote about, sleeper cells. The story line basically takes off early 80’s, (with some flashbacks to the sixties) during the period when Reagan gave the go ahead for agencies to quietly flush out KGB agents. Once getting through the huff, puff and fluff of the overly dramatic style of Hollywood, there was a real concern of KGB agents masquerading as American families complete with children.

Certainly agree with you DD on the mirror imaging of Obama and FDR.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a Liberal Socialist. His administration did more damage to our constitutional system of government than all the other presidents-save perhaps Wilson and Johnson, combined.
Roosevelt worked diligently to packed the Supreme Court with his Socialists and Humanists castrated lapdog judges and justices for one purpose, to legalize the Unconstitutional NEW (Socialist) DEAL, that was suggested and heavily propagandized as a SECOND BILL OF RIGHTS. And where does history show us this idea of a NEW DEAL came from? It was strongly parroted from the USSR Constitution (Articles 41-46). If the NEW DEAL was compliant with the Constitution, why promote it as a quest for a Second Bill of Rights? The Bill of Rights are all, AMENDMENTS to the United States Constitution. If an amendment is suggested, how can it be Constitutionally Compliant? It cannot. But as of this date, no Amendment has ever been ratified that grants Big Brother the authority to implement the NEW DEAL, all the legislation came from the authority of SCOTUS, only after Roosevelt padded the court.

FDR’s Second Bill of Rights http://www.fdrheritage.org/bill_of_rights.htm
USSR Constitution circa 1924 - Scroll thru, compare Articles 41 thru 46 to FDR’s Second Bill of Rights. http://www.constitution.org/cons/ussr77.txt

[David Duff]

'Uppers', thanks for the tip on the 'telly-prog', I'll look out for it 'over here'.

As for FDR et al, sometimes I feel like weeping for your country!

[Andrew Duffin]

Interesting, D.

Even I, hardened old libertarian that I am, (and have read quite a lot of history of the Stalin period) thought McCarthy was pretty much wrong in all respects, until recently when I had a few scales-falling-from-the-eyes moments while reading this: http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Spy-American-Stalins-Service/dp/0393335356
(which I thoroughly recommend).

Comintern really existed, it seems, and really did work to overthrow the West, and really was not that unsuccessful.

Scary stuff.

[Andrew Duffin]

Oh, and btw - when I read the title of your piece, I thought it was going to be about Ted Heath!

[David Duff]

Hmmmn! That sounds like an intriguing tale, Andrew, I must put it on my list. As for Ted Heath, I take your point. Despite, or perhaps because of, his good war record he was, in his way, as deluded as the Marxists who secretly worked for the Comintern.