The Debate over Soviet Espionage: What Nicholas Lemann of The New Yorker Gets Wrong
I last wrote about the controversy over the book Spies some time ago. Now, once again, it is time to turn to the ongoing debate once more. It seems that it never ends, despite the belief of some people that questions like whether or not Alger Hiss was guilty is of interest only to people over 60.
Of particular interest is the continued use of the term “McCarthyism” to describe serious historians who have concluded, based on careful research, that a lot of people accused of being Soviet agents in the 1950’s turned out to have been the real thing. This is the tactic I mentioned that was used by the writer Amy Knight in a lengthy review of their book that was in the Times Literary Supplement on June 26th.(not available on line) Knight referred in passing to the “McCarthyite style” of John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr. As Knight saw things, Haynes and Klehr were trying to retroactively punish Cold War dissenters by branding them as Soviet agents, and she wrote, “to silence those who still voice doubts about the guilt of people like Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White, I. F. Stone and others”.
The authors of Spies replied in a brief tough letter, which you can read for yourself. It is a model of how Haynes and Klehr use the facts and documents as a basis for making judgments, not ideological agendas for which they bend facts for their own purposes. As for the charge of McCarthyism against the two authors, anyone who has read their work knows that they have consistently argued over the years that to prove that evidence is what convicts people like Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White and others as spies in the court of history, is not to vindicate the campaign of the late junior senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy.
In the review of their book by Christopher Andrew, the dean of British historians of Soviet espionage, Andrew makes the following point:
As well as attracting well-deserved praise, the US edition of Spies has provoked outrage from those who claim that it smears the reputation of some American radicals. The outrage reflects the fact that, thanks chiefly to the malign legacy of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s witch-hunts, “Stalin’s Americans” remain a far more sensitive area of research than “Stalin’s Englishmen”. President Truman was right to claim in 1951: “The greatest asset that the Kremlin has is Senator McCarthy.” McCarthy ultimately did more for the Soviet cause than any agent of influence the KGB ever had. His preposterous, self-serving crusade against the “Red Menace” made liberal opinion around the world skeptical of the reality of Moscow’s intelligence offensive against the United States.
McCarthy’s antics, his scattershot attacks on liberals as Communists and some Communists as spies- when no evidence existed for his charges- allowed those truly guilty to win public sympathy by claiming that they too were simple victims of a McCarthyite witch-hunt. Nothing served their purpose better. Venona and other Soviet documents prove, for example, that the journalist Cedric Belfrage, a British subject living in America, was a KGB agent. Yet Belfrage, who started the fellow-traveling newspaper The National Guardian (which began the campaign in America to exonerate the Rosenbergs as innocent) had the gall to write a memoir decades later he titled The American Inquisition, in which he depicted the so-called era of McCarthyism as a witch-hunt against dissenters who were falsely accused of being Soviet spies.
But perhaps the most recent influential essay on what the issue of Soviet espionage is all about comes from Nicholas Lemann, a staff writer for The New Yorker and dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. It appeared in the July 27 issue of the magazine, and unfortunately, has not been made available on line for readers.
Yet, Lemann, a sophisticated and knowledgeable writer, falls into the same trap as those coming before him to largely deal with the new evidence about Soviet espionage by bringing up the bugaboo of McCarthyism. Lemann writes:
The fierce arguments about Soviet espionage are barely disguised arguments about the Red Scare of the fifties–whether it was irrational and hysterical or justified and protective. Even with the Cold War long over, the debate has bite. A book like Spies supports a conservative view: America inhabits a world full of dangerous enemies, and liberals are incapable of understanding this. President Bush’s “global war on terror” implicitly tapped into a wellspring of such conservative conviction. When Bush, in his second term as President, appointed Allen Weinstein archivist of the United States, it sent a message. Bush isn’t President anymore, but these issues have hardly been put to rest. Although Barack Obama has steered away from the hot-blooded rhetoric about America’s enemies, he knows that our political culture is, quick to charge liberals with a perilous naiveté about bad guys from abroad.
Let me dissect the above paragraph. To be candid, I discussed this issue both on the phone and via e-mail with Lemann, and he argued that I had misinterpreted what I took that paragraph to mean. I have since read it over a few times, and still find Lemann’s words wanting.
First, I do not think the argument over who might have been a Soviet agent is a disguised fight over the Red Scare. Lemann posits an either-or situation: irrational or justified. Could not the era have revealed elements of both? McCarthy and some of his supporters made false and harmful charges. (The anti-Communist editor of the New York Post, James Wechsler, was not a hidden Communist, as McCarthy charged when he brought Wechsler before his Senate sub-committee. ) But scores of people thought by many to be innocent, such as Laurence Duggan, Harry Dexter White, and William Remington—were in fact Soviet agents.
“If they answer in the negative, they are substantiating the claim of Ann Coulter who continually argues that liberals are incapable of understanding that America has real enemies.”
Ann Coulter often gets a bit goofy—but she is usually more right than wrong. How many center-left Democrats still exist? Do they even comprise 10% of the Democratic Party? Coulter is right to describe the vast majority of Democrats as unable to realize that America has real enemies. We are hated because of our values and not our alleged past imperialistic behavior. Sadly, few of our present day members of the Democratic Party agree with this proposition. They have instead become self-hating Americans who are convinced that our country probably well deserves to be verbally maligned and even violently attacked.
“President Truman was right to claim in 1951: “The greatest asset that the Kremlin has is Senator McCarthy.” McCarthy ultimately did more for the Soviet cause than any agent of influence the KGB ever had. His preposterous, self-serving crusade against the “Red Menace” made liberal opinion around the world skeptical of the reality of Moscow’s intelligence offensive against the United States.”
Joe McCarthy did get careless with his facts. He deserves to be taken to task. Nonetheless, one should never forget the naiveté of Harry Truman. He insisted after he left the White House some five years later than Alger Hiss was a victim of right-wing slander. McCarthy was admittedly a flawed human being, but he imperfectly forced the American public to take a look at a serious crisis. Think also about this for a minute: what would have occurred if McCarthy had remained quiet? Who would have fought the good fight?
I agree with Mr. Radosh about McCarthy. Regardless of whether he “fought the good fight”, his incoherent accusations detracted from the overall message that there actually *were* Soviet spies during the era. Taking Mr. Lemann’s extract as a starting point, McCarthy serves for historical purposes the same purpose that the Birthers do now: they both give a bad name to what would otherwise be a much more convincing position in a debate important to our country.
If I may, I believe this entire project – necessary though it may be for a true appraisal of the UN, the Manhattan Project, or the Morgenthau Plan – ultimately serves the purpose of eclipsing the real purpose of the debate: for Americans to understand the nature of Soviet Communism and Marxism-Leninism. Unfortunately even excellent historians such as Mr. Radosh appear to get bogged down in what amounts to a celebrity sqwabble.
Meanwhile, the real reason that many people cannot accept what the evidence shows Hiss did is because *those people do not accept what the Soviet Union was and did.* It is a shame, and it has wrought great damage – by the way, remember that Communists and Liberals, not Senator McCarthy, invented “McCarthyism.” That “McCarthyism” did damage is not disputable, but really – who is responsible for the extent of the damage? Ask yourself.
Mr. Radosh has no credibility of the subject of Joe McCarthy. His error ridden review of M. Stanton Evans authoritative history of the era “Blacklisted by History,” proves that beyond question. Mr. Evans responded in National Review the site of Mr. Radosh’s original crime and blew him away.
The problem with Joe McCarthy was, pure and simple, alcoholism. Well before the disease became acute and highly apparent, it was impairing his judgement and eventually destroyed same.
Had those around him arranged an intervention and had him attend “90 meetings in 90 days and don’t drink in between them”, he would have been able to expose much more actual wrongdoing and minimized inaccurate accusations. He would also have lived much longer and not died the miserable DT-plagued death he did. I’m sure he went to Heaven. He had spent his time in Hell.
McCarthy came to public attention after the dangers of Communist spying were already well known. He seemed to me that he was just after personal power. Hiss had already been outed by Chambers, and his (Hiss’)own hard-to-believe testimony. Mrs Bentley, the KGB secretary, had already testified. McCarthy only added to the black listing by the already established Red Channels, which ruined the lives of many patriotic Americans
I don’t quite know why researchers seem bent on making their views appealing to those on the left who really are incapable of seeing reality; especially since they really are the prodigy of the worldwide socialist movement which the CPUSA was the foremost offspring in the U.S. A movement that can be traced back to the French Revolution, whose offspring became the American Progressives, and finally to modern day Liberals.
Furthermore, those who style themselves as conservatives really are the only ones capable of seeing the truth of this matter. After all, which side has been consistent and correct for seventy years? As for Truman’s comments about McCarthy….McCarthy was a drunk and Truman was a child, his dealings with Stalin were even worse than Roosevelt’s….in far too many ways. Perhaps I am wrong, but I have been under the impression that his administration was as full of KBG agents and fellow travelers as Roosevelt’s.
I would also like to address the idea that there is no evidence in VENONA that indicted certain individuals. The fact of the matter is that there are a large number of code names in VENONA that they cannot attach a real name to. In other words, there were a lot of unidentified spies then and they remain unidentified today. However, it is known from VENONA that Hollywood, the news media, the unions and government were rife with agents. Including (if I remember correctly) Bull Donavan’s OSS which became the CIA.
While Ann Coulter may seem goofy at times, it is her outrageous statements and style that brought this to the general public’s attention. She and others weighed in on this stuff because honest researchers, who knew the truth and should have been weighing in on it for years, didn’t have what it takes to stand under the heat and glare of outrage and personal attacks that would have ensued.
While I find interesting information in your comments, I also find them to be strange for anyone who would style themselves as an honest researcher. The primary reason to study history is to get the understanding of past events to make sense what is going on today. It can hardly be studied without making political assessments that may be applicable today.
Adults need to deal with the fact that messengers will often be flawed, and learn how to criticize them while spreading and perhaps refining their message. The method of the Left is to find a couple of mistakes made by some conservative icon, treat thos mistakes as “lies,” and then attach “liar” to that person forevermore like a Homeric epithet. We need to resist that method very forcefully, while not falling into idolatry or defense of the indefensible ourselves. (I’m making a general point, not accusing anyone who has commented before me, all of whom take the approach I am describing)
Let’s remind a few numbers. Mc Carthyism caused the execution of two people, under a dozen of persons were sent to jail and under two hundred government employees were fired. Let’s remind that despite being able to decrypt only a small part of Russian communications the FBI had identified several thousand different codenames for agents operating in America.
In addition, to the above, after an attempt of violent takeover of the entertainment industry by communist sympathises during which Regan was threatened to have acid thrown at his face and several battles with iron bars between communist and non-communist members of the entertainment industry (Kirk Douglas was active in the good guys side) and a number of “communist movies” dismal failures at box office Hollywood ended firing a number of communist actors, directyors and scenario writers. Except for the actors, who were easily identified by public, most of them would ned being hired again several years later.
These were the horrible crimes of McCarthysm: two dead, a dozen jailed, a few hunded people lsosing tgheir job. In the meantime, Stalin’s regime ie that regime those people were trying to duplicate in America, was, according to the lowest estimations killing an average of one million pople a year. That makes three thousand a day.
I finally finished the book ‘Spies’. It is a tough read; some of it down right boring. But what is inescapable is that the US of A was very lucky to get through the Cold War virtually unscathed.
We had many enemies amongst us at the highest levels of government, society and business.
The Left is still at this game of denial. I sure hope they wise up before we really take a fall.
Thanks for the good review and rebuttal to yet more liberal flack.
Senator Joe McCarthy, and especially his methods, are certainly worthy of criticism. However, you’d think by now that with these revelations and everything we know about the USSR, sensible people would, at least, accept the fact that Communism damaged way more lives than McCarthyism ever dreamed of.
“McCarthy’s antics, his scattershot attacks on liberals as Communists and some Communists as spies- when no evidence existed for his charges- allowed those truly guilty to win public sympathy by claiming that they too were simple victims of a McCarthyite witch-hunt.”
That’s one take. My more cynical view is McCarthyism as a meme has simply been used to help take ideology off the table. It is used today to browbeat people into not discussing the left’s ideological agenda because to do so, even in measured and sober terms, is ‘McCarthyistic’…
Conservatives can be attacked as free market ideologues in the pay of industry (we are seeing it a lot right now)… but mention that the left might be motivated by anything other than pure reason and honest social science (say by a bias in favor of public ownership or an ideological attraction to forced equality) and your a McCarthyite / nut / something bad.
Indeed.
I think, for example, one could rationally believe that members of the LAPD fabricated evidence against O.J. Simpson- who was nonetheless guilty as hell.
Mutatis mutandis. McCarthy gave McCartyism a bad name.
Slightly off topic, but one has to wonder about the course of history without McCarthy. I strongly suspect the left would have found some other demagogue on the right and used him to discredit all anti-communist activity. In that sense, McCarthy was just the best scapegoat.
John Moore #15: Very true. However, McCarthy’s alcoholism not only made him a soft target, it also lend credence to the demagoging. Had he been clean and sober, the commies would have had less success.
A quick search with Google on Mr. Lemann background convinced me that his affection for Stalinism, leftism is congenital for people of similar, Buddhist origin.