Basic Books has sent me a long but highly readable and at times scintillating book by an old friend, Norman Stone. The Atlantic and its Enemies is quite long — well over six hundred pages — and although Norman calls it “a history of the Cold War,” it’s much more than that, and it’s full of useful information, witty insights and some very thoughtful analysis, especially of post-war Germany, East and West.
I thought Norman might have read some of my work on West European Communism, and so I turned to the Index to check references to “Ledeen,” and found two, which turned out to be very different from what I had anticipated. They’re not about my scholarly work, but rather about my alleged activities on behalf of the Marshall Plan in 1948. “As a young CIA man of the time, Michael Ledeen said (European) films, wines and women were endlessly fascinating and stood at great contrast to the tea and cookies on offer at home,” he writes at one point, and then later on, referring to CIA involvement in the Italian elections in the spring of ’48, “activity by men such as Michael Ledeen…who knew the country well.”
For which I am most grateful, since, if Norman is right, I was a talented American agent at the age of six. Which would make me, as it were, the Mozart of American espionage.
A great deal of nonsense has been written about my imagined career as a master spy — most recently by imaginative former CIA officers with Italian last names like Giraldi and Cannistraro — but this is one of the nicest to date, and I hope it establishes a template for the future. Just think, I was a precocious six-year old, already a talented womanizer and connoisseur of wines and films, fighting communism in the streets of Europe.
So far as I know, I have never been a “CIA man” and to the best of my memory my seventh year was mostly spent in Albany, New York, with a few happy months in Pasadena, California. But my memory is imperfect, and Norman is a fine historian, and he may be right.
I sure hope so.
Dude, you were Wild Bill Donovan in knickers!
International Boy of Mystery!
Dude, you’re like a cross between Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Jack Bauer
HA! This sounds like the typical CIA double-speak that we all have come to know through sensational publication of the Left Media. Nice try but we know the truth…..
Maybe there was another Michael Ledeen?
come on micheal, admit it, everyone knows being 6 years old was just your c.i.a. cover, and that you were really a very short, small adult masquerading as a child to infiltrate kindergarten.
: ] No wonder JJA stays in touch…
Very obscure KGB files list a deep deep undercover CIA operative in Berlin code named Mozart because of his age. Barely legible footnotes indicate he was a worry to his handlers because of his indulgence in Italian wine. Several movies were made about his daring exploits but someone has managed to have them removed from the Netflix list. I say, wheels within wheels…
I am only surprised that they also did not name you as the Mossad agent responsible for 1) killing JFK, 2) blackmailing all American Christians to support Israel against their will, 3) creating Israeli hi-tech as a cover for, well, DailyKos and the rest can fill in the west. Did you not also cause the earthquake in Indonesia by planting a micro-nuke in the seabed together with Bibi and Tony Blair?
Tony Blair is a Mossad agent? Funny, he doesn’t look like one…
Junior Agent Ledeen:
“I was a precocious six-year old, already a talented womanizer and connoisseur of wines and films, fighting communism in the streets of Europe.”
Well good for you. Unfortunately, I think you missed a few undercover Pinkos and Stalinist agents right here at home in the USA.
Wouldn’t you say?
yes, bilge, i certainly WOULD say. but i was learning to read and write, which was a terrible distraction from the babes and the vino…
Michael, I hesitate to intrude on the jovial atmosphere, but this news deserves wider dissemination: http://persian2english.com/?p=11442
Dear Michael, even your innocent childhood did not deliver from lies and trumped-up charges! How terrible, Most sadly to hear such nonsense. As Brian said, maybe there was another Michael Ledeen?! Or, maybe, indeed this author HAS A BIG PROBLEM WITH HIS memory!
Michael, please tell us on your site or in a book about your political activities against communism and against Nazism and also about all summits/conferences you have been participated when you were at the age of SIX!!! Please do not forget to tell us about your intelligence activities as “KID SPY” AS AUTHOR HAS POINTED IN HIS BOOK, and about your participation in dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki although you were at the age of three or four?!
Ah, Michael, please do NOT worry about this sort of foolish authors. They are just authors of mockery and personal gossip. They are authors of the sanctimonious scandals sellers. Of course they wrote and spoke lies and trumped-up charges about you. In fact, they are just good in throwing a lies and apathy. But regarding this book “The Atlantic and Its Enemies, by Mr. Norman Stone”, in fact it is a farce and nonsense, and this author must APOLOGIZE to you, and he must reconsider in his book about your alleged activities.
Michael, I really saw in you “a great man who struggles strongly to remove entire despotic regimes and to spread freedom and democracy!
I saw in you, a great man who struggles strongly for the USA Greatness!
You are a noble man and courageous and unsanctimonious and insightful!
I am extremely proud and admiring you and the USA MUST BE PROUD HAVE YOU!
Yes, you have NEVER been a “CIA man”; rather YOU were and are still an EXPERT OF INTELLIGENCE AND FREEDOM.
GOD BLESS YOU.
Jassem Othman, was/Syrian, Poland.
Learning to read and write while fooling around with the babes and wine? That’s a complete waste of time. Better to remain a functional illiterate. Someone needs to get their priorities straight.
Dear Michael, even your innocent childhood did not deliver from lies and trumped-up charges! How terrible, most sadly to hear such nonsense. As Brian said, maybe there was another Michael Ledeen?! Or, maybe, indeed this author HAS A BIG PROBLEM WITH HIS memory!
Michael, really needless to say! But please tell us on your site or in a book about your political activities against communism and against Nazism and also about all summits/conferences you have been participated when you were at the age of SIX!!! Please do not forget to tell us about your intelligence activities as “KID SPY” AS THE AUTHOR HAS POINTED IN HIS BOOK, and about your participation in dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki although you were at the age of three or four?! With my biggest respect for your STRONG MEMORY, maybe you do not remember them well as the author remembers them!?
Ah, Michael, please do NOT worry about this sort of foolish authors. They are just authors of mockery and personal gossip. They are authors of the sanctimonious scandals sellers. Of course they wrote and spoke lies and trumped-up charges about you. In fact, they are just good in throwing a lies and apathy. But regarding this book “The Atlantic and Its Enemies, by Mr. Norman Stone”, in fact it is a farce and nonsense, and this author must APOLOGIZE to you, and he must reconsider in his book about your alleged activities.
Michael, I have never saw you or even met you – but whatever they wrote and spoke about you of lies and trumped-up charges – but I really saw/see in you “A GREAT MAN who struggles strongly and strongly to remove the despotic regimes and to spread freedom and democracy, especially in the terrible Mideast!
I saw in you, a great man who struggles strongly for the USA Greatness!
You are a noble man and courageous and unsanctimonious and insightful!
I am extremely proud and admiring you and the USA MUST BE PROUD HAVE YOU!
Yes, you have NEVER been a “CIA man”; rather YOU were and are still a good EXPERT ON INTELLIGENCE AND A BRILLIANT FREEDOM SCHOLAR. Yes,indeed you are one of those who bring sunshine into the lives of oppressed people, which is why WE JUST NEED PEOPLE SUCH AS DR. LEDEEN.
GOD BLESS YOU.
Jassem Othman, Syrian, Poland.
Michael, your skills when it comes to satire are undimmed with the passage of time. Bravo!
Reality can surpass fiction, but only legend can surpass reality. Enjoy the comforts of the parallel universe while you can!
The zeal you showed in dieting down to 30 pounds is an inspiration to imperialist conspirators everywhere.
Traditional history tells us that Albert Einstein, during the last 30 years of his life, worked on finding a grand unified field theory and failed miserably. That, of course, is not the truth. The truth is that he was, in fact, successful and this discovery, because of its enormous possiblities, was kept as a secret by the Global Jewish Conspiracy. One outcome of this discovery was the normalization of wormholes (warped spacetime) to be used as tunnels for time travel by those posessing the knowledge. We all know, with certainty, that Mr. Ledeen personifies the Global Jewish Conspiracy (GJC) despite his feigning of innocence. In 1969 a decision was made by the GJC and its lackey the CIA, to use Mr. Ledeen’s immense knowldge of all matters Italian (Ravioli, Chianti and intimately Sophia Loren)to retroactively help in assuring the election of a Jew lover in it’s 1948 elections. He, thus, was transported through a temporal gap as an adult to that era.
This would not be the first time that the GJC would use this technique. In 1972 the bacteria causing the bubonic plague was isolated in an elite Israeli laboratory and with the direct help of the Shin Beit temporaly transported to 14th century, which wiped out half of the population. In the year 2026 the AIDS virus was created in the same laboratory and transported back – this time by the Mossad – to 1980, which was succesfully introduced via carnal pleasure (Ledeen’s suggestion because of his intimate knowldege of Sophia).
So, Mr. Ledeen, please don’t try to fool us by claiming that you were only 6 in 1948 and not capable of such intrigue. What do you take us for? Complete idiots!
6? 006? I always wondered about that.
#Horseradish
“that Mr. Ledeen personifies the Global Jewish Conspiracy (GJC) despite his feigning of innocence.”
“So, Mr. Ledeen, please don’t try to fool us by claiming that you were only 6 in 1948 and not capable of such intrigue. What do you take us for? Complete idiots!”
Most probably, Dr. Ledeen was in 1948 at the age of 6 years and a few months, not only 6?! Indeed it’s stupidity and foolishness to talk about activities of innocent childhood at the age of six. All know that it is the age of the beginning of learning to read and write. You really are lacking to seriousness such as that author and the rest of this sort.
In fact, Dr. Ledeen is personifies the Global House of Freedom and Democracy. Dr. Ledeen is one of the Advocates and Philosophers of Absolute Axis of Good.
Most obviously Dr. Ledeen’s efforts in fighting communism was a greatly great and today this country “Poland” and the rest of middle-Europe countries are FREE countries only thanks to Americans Right-Wing and Dr. Ledeen is one of them.