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Roosevelt and Stalin — The Subversion of FDR’s Government by Communist Traitors and Fellow Travelers

Stalin’s Secret Agents: The Subversion of Roosevelt’s Government was written by two experienced authors and recognized authorities on the Cold War, M. Stanton Evans and Herbert Romerstein. Evans is a veteran journalist and former broadcaster, as well as the author of Blacklisted by History (2009), a biography of Senator Joseph McCarthy, and other momentous books. Romerstein was the former head of the Office to Counter Soviet Disinformation at the U.S. Information Agency and a congressional staffer of the House Intelligence Committee. These two men have collaborated in writing a magnificent and shocking exposé that has been crying out for exposure — to inform as well as to correct and augment the incomplete and distorted historic record, not to mention reveal the true moral standing of a number of Americans who betrayed the nation for a perverted and venal ideology based on lies.

The importance of this book is that it not only exposes the penetration of the U.S. government by full-fledged Soviet spies but also documents the subversion by communist “agents of influence” subservient to Stalin and the USSR high up in the FDR administration. This is a inimical tale of repeated betrayals that needed to be told well, and the authors of this book have done a magnificent job in telling it, writing in an enthralling narrative with crisp and succinct prose. Evans and Romerstein document how these “agents of influence,” which the West always considered innocent “idealists” (although not so by the KGB, which knew them for what they were, valuable Soviet agents), did as much if not more damage than full-fledged foreign spies by overtly or covertly influencing government policy from the highest levels in the U.S. government. In the case of FDR, they were, as the book documents, operating under the aegis of the President himself. Indeed, FDR had surrounded himself and suffused the executive branch of government with communists, Soviet agents, and “fellow travelers,” who did untold damage to the nation and the world.

Harry Hopkins photographed with Joseph Stalin

Perhaps foremost among these Soviet agents was presidential aide and FDR’s friend and alter ego, Harry Hopkins, who given the enormity of his influence and power has been glossed over as a Soviet agent and only reluctantly described heretofore as an “unconscious agent.”(1,2) Ideological and moral excuses have been concocted for Hopkins to be described as an “unconscious agent [of Soviet influence],” so as not to tarnish the image of FDR, a four time, popular American president, who presided over World War II and the early signs of recovery from the Great Depression.

The book delves in detailed cataloging also the treasonous activities of Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Harry Dexter White; Executive Assistant to the President, Lauchlin Currie; influential member of the Institute for Pacific Relations (IPR), Owen Lattimore; Treasury official, Solomon Adler; State Department official, Alger Hiss; Duncan Lee, a Soviet spy in the Office of Strategic Services OSS (the precursor to the CIA during the War, which became riddled with communists and severely penetrated); and many others who did the bidding on behalf of Stalin and the Kremlin at the expense of their own country. For the most part, these “agents of influence” were not publicly exposed or punished for their betrayal — some fled the country while others remain at their posts for years. Yet the mounting evidence of their treason has not been properly archived or published in history textbooks, resulting in incomplete, distorted, and perverted history.

It should be noted that the shocking revelations documented by Evans and Romerstein are consistent with the intelligence provided by Soviet defectors; disclosed in the Vassiliev papers and the Mitrokhin Archives; substantiated by the decrypted Venona transcripts; and much of it corroborated by citations in congressional committees. Among the revelations in Stalin’s Secret Agents I found most interesting were the following:

Harry Dexter White

1) How Japan, deficient and desperately in need of raw materials and oil, resources crucial to its survival, was deliberately blocked access to them by the FDR administration “war hawks,” among them Harry Dexter White. In 1941, deprived of oil and vital resources, Japan was forced to go to war and manipulated to attack not the Soviet Union but the U.S., preventing the USSR from being attacked and crushed on two fronts. Instead, the Imperial Empire of Japan massed and marched its armies southward into Southeast Asia and its air force against the U.S. and Pearl Harbor, sparing the Soviet Union and propelling America into war against the Axis Powers.(3)

2) How some of these agents of influence in the White House, State, and Treasury Departments in the FDR administration, including such notables as Harry Hopkins, Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White and others, militated to successfully allow Stalin to seize and enslave parts of Central Europe and all of the people of Eastern Europe, among them Czechoslovakia and Poland, the very same countries for which France and England had gone to war against Nazi Germany, starting World War II. These same agents of influence, for extra measure, doomed efforts of anti-communist underground forces, not only in Poland but also in Yugoslavia, where anticommunist leader Draga Mihailovich was betrayed to the communists forces headed by Marshall Tito and shamefully executed.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), 32nd President of the United States

3) How during World War II, the U.S policy toward Stalin and the USSR was dictated by Harry Hopkins, who reminiscent of the relationship of Woodrow Wilson and Colonel Mandell House during World War I, lived in the White House during 1941-1944, as if he were a member of the Roosevelt family. Harry Hopkins summed up the policy toward the Soviet Union as “Russia…must be given every assistance and every effort must be made to obtain her friendship.”(4) This was seconded by FDR, “I think that if I give him [Stalin] everything I possibly can and ask for nothing from him in return, nobles oblige, he won’t try to annex anything and will work for world democracy and peace.”(5) To make himself more appealing to Stalin, FDR even began to distance himself from Winston Churchill, even making tasteless jokes at Churchill’s expense and making common cause with Joseph Stalin at every turn. Unfortunately, the fate of millions of people depended on this deadly, serious farce.

John Stewart Service (1909-1999), American diplomat, speaking while under investigation of being a communist, December 13, 1951. Photo credit: Granger.com

4) How Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek was deliberately calumniated, abandoned and betrayed, and how China was turned over to the communists and Mao Tse-tung by the agents of influence, particularly Owen Lattimore, Solomon Adler, Harry Dexter White, and the diplomat and fellow traveler, John Stewart Service. These men spread disinformation about alleged venal conditions in the Nationalist government, calumniated Chiang Kai-shek, and praised Mao Tse-tung. Information from defectors and the Venona files verify what Evans and Romerstein document, namely that a concerted campaign of disinformation was created and propagated by these agents of influence to tilt American opinion away from Chiang and the American government away from rendering the needed assistance to the Nationalists, while helping Mao seize control of China.

These are but four among many other interesting revelations that await the interested reader. I categorically recommend this fascinating book but warn those who deeply care about this nation that if they are hypertensive, Stalin’s Secret Agents may not be salubrious to their blood pressure. This book is essential reading and should be available in public libraries and institutions, as well as the personal library of historians of the Cold War, non-fiction espionage aficionados, and those who want to set the record straight about the FDR administration and the Cold War. I assign it 5 stars without reservation. Get this book and read it!

References

1. Andrew C, Gordievsky O. KGB — The Inside Story. HarperCollins Publishers, New York, NY, 1990, pp. 287, 350.

2. Andrew C, Mitrokhin V. The Sword and the Shield — The Mitrokin Archive. Basic Books, New York, NY, 1999, pp. 111-112, 221.

3. A full book, “Operation Snow: How a Soviet Mole in the FDR’s White House Triggered Pearl Harbor” (2012) by John Kosten, has been written about this very issue.

4. Evans MS, Romerstein H. Stalin’s Secret Agents — The Subversion of Roosevelt’s Government. Threshold editions, Simon & Schuster, New York, N.Y., 2012, p.19.

5. Ibid., p.21.

Written by Dr. Miguel Faria

Miguel A. Faria, Jr., M.D. is a medical historian, and an Associate Editor in Chief and World Affairs Editor of Surgical Neurology International (SNI). He is the author of Cuba in Revolution: Escape From a Lost Paradise (2002), and numerous articles on political history, including “Stalin’s Mysterious Death” (2011); “Stalin, Communists and Fatal Statistics” (2011); “The Political Spectrum — From the Extreme Right and Anarchism to the Extreme Left and Communism” (2011); “Violence, mental illness, and the brain — A brief history of psychosurgery” (2013), all posted at his website HaciendaPublishing.com.

This article may be cited as: Faria MA. Roosevelt and Stalin — The Subversion of FDR’s Government by Communist Traitors and Fellow Travelers. HaciendaPublishing.com, February 3, 2014. Available from: https://haciendapublishing.com/roosevelt-and-stalin–the-subversion-of-fdrs-government-by-communist-traitors-and-fellow-travelers.

(Stalin’s Secret Agents: The Subversion of Roosevelt’s Government by M. Stanton Evans and Herbert Romerstein. Threshold editions, Simon & Schuster, New York, 2012, 294 pages, illustrated, fully annotated, index.)

The photographs used to illustrate this book review for Hacienda Publishing came from a variety of sources and do not appear in Stalin’s Secret Agents.

An unillustrated version of this book review appears on Amazon.com.

Copyright ©2014 Miguel A. Faria, Jr., M.D.

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3 thoughts on “Roosevelt and Stalin — The Subversion of FDR’s Government by Communist Traitors and Fellow Travelers”

  1. Dr. Miguel A. Faria

    Hello Staff, Today in History, A & E Network,
    It has been 72 years and you have not corrected the historical record. Shame on you: Joseph McCarthy was right: Professor Owen Lattimore, a Chinese scholar, may not have been a full-fledged Soviet spy but, like Harry Hopkins, he was certainly an agent of influence working for the Soviets. He used his power and influence to help the Soviets and the Red Chinese. Agents of influence, as shown by Prof. Christopher Andrews and the Mitrokhin Archive, can be as harmful to a nation as a spy trading its secrets. Numerous books have substantiated Lattimore’s betrayal of America and the West and his sell out to America’s enemies. Among his deeds, he helped deliver China to Mao Zedong.* The fact that he was not mentioned in the Venona files does not prove a negative. Most of Venona remains encrypted and undeciphered, and only a small fraction of Soviet traffic (to begin with, collected over a short period of time) has been decoded. Wikipedia has also not corrected this oversight on the Lattimore page (although he is exposed in other pages such as in the traitor Lauchlin Currie’s page), not even clarified the issue to correct the historic record and arrive at the truth. In short, your article in Today in History, “Joseph McCarthy charges that Owen Lattimore is a Soviet spy (March 26, 1950 )” is incorrect. Your article denies that Lattimore was a spy or agent of influence and only a naive intellectual, who sympathized with the Soviets. Since you claim that “We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn’t look right, contact us,” I hope you correct this mistake immediately. Lattimore was a conscious agent of influence whose damage to the United States was immense with the loss of China to the communists, surpassing the damage inflicted by most Soviet spies.

    *Testimony of Stanley K. Hornbeck, February 15, 1952. U. S. Congress, Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Internal Security Subcommittee, Institute of Pacific Relations, Hearings, 82nd Congress, First Session (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1951), Part 9, pp. 3209-10.

    Sincerely,
    Miguel A. Faria, M.D., is Associate Editor in Chief in neuropsychiatry; history of medicine; and socioeconomics, politics, and world affairs of Surgical Neurology International (SNI). He was appointed and served at the behest of President George W. Bush as member of the Injury Research Grant Review Committee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 2002-2005. Dr. Faria is a Board Certified Neurological Surgeon (American Association of Neurological Surgeons; retired); Clinical Professor of Surgery (Neurosurgery, ret.) and Adjunct Professor of Medical History (ret.) Mercer University School of Medicine. He is the author of Vandals at the Gates of Medicine (1995); Medical Warrior: Fighting Corporate Socialized Medicine (1997); and Cuba in Revolution: Escape From a Lost Paradise (2002). His most recently released book is America, Guns, and Freedom: A Journey Into Politics and the Public Health & Gun Control Movements (2019). His website is https://haciendapublishing.com

  2. Smearing J. Edgar Hoover

    Main stream media (MSM) and popular culture smears: J. Edgar Hoover was a transvestite and a homosexual! He was the worlds biggest blackmailer and had files on everyone, including the sexual life of all politicians to blackmail them! And so, my Facebook friends and posters say:

    D. Englet: Carrying on in the fine tradition [of being a transvestite and a homosexual] of J. Edgar Hoover…
    F. Jimenez: J. Edgar Hoover kept records of the sexual life of all politicians to blackmail them!
    J. Wright.II: J Edgar Hoover was the worlds biggest blackmail artist, he had something on everyone.
    E. Bott: Hoover was also as corrupt as the current FBI, he collected secret files on all his potential opponents.

    Dr. Faria replies: You may be indoctrinated fellow conservatives — D.E., J.W.II, F.J. , etc. — and don’t even know it. You believe and have been indoctrinated by the MSM and the popular culture that you decry (although you might deny it). For example, even if J. Edgar Hoover was gay, which is a smear tactic to discredit conservatives created by the left and the MSM — he was a patriot, which the present leadership in the FBI, CIA, and the Democrats, are not!

    E.B. I answered that already: And if Hoover kept records of politicians, including presidents, that was not only part of his job, but also necessary for his survival as a conservative and a patriot sworn to protect the nation from foreign and domestic enemies. When he tried to warn FDR of communist traitors and spies in his administration, FDR replied, “so what? Some of my best friends are communists”! With patriotic presidents, not to mention left-wing politicians like that, who doesn’t need protection from friends and foes alike?

    The left will try to smear anyone who fought for conservative values and the American way, and they consider a threat to their agenda. They will, like Stalin, revise and rewrite history. They have tried to discredit (and sometimes successfully) great figures of the 20th century who fought communism and their totalitarian agenda — e.g., Pope Pius XII, J. Edgar Hoover, Joseph McCarthy, Arthur Koestler (“Darkness at Noon”), David Horowitz, even Stefan Zweig (for not being a leftist Jew!) etc.

    Have you, my friend, read any books about him by conservatives, or his own book, “Masters of Deceit,” or is everything you know about him learned and absorbed from the MSM? Please think and cogitate deeply before you answer. In any event, thank you for providing this dialogue to give me the opportunity for illuminating where the left have tarnished patriots and obscure reality!

  3. During the McCarthy hearings, I was attending Philadelphia High School for Girls, a small all-academic public school for handpicked students from all neighborhoods in the City; acceptance to GHS was determined by passing Board of Education exams which we were invited to take. It’s interesting that teachers were not specially assigned; these were the early days of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers union – – perhaps they considered themselves ALL special. Our graduating class contained 90 girls, m ost from “better” neighborhoods, largely Jewish; faculty largely consisted of older teachers, overwhelmingly female, many Jewish. Most were ultra-liveral and inveighed vociferously against McCarthyism.

    Irenious Davis, one of our history teachers was considered a tough, traditionalist who stood out from the rest by her intense pro-McCarthy bent. She insisted we watch the hearings. In those days, the one and only TV was in the school library, and scheduling us all to watch all the hearings likely caused much consternation and debate amongst the faculty. In addition to that conflict, of the girls had parents involved in leftwing causes and had experienced night time visits by the FBI. In fact, Angela Lowenfels, a senior, had been denied her expected college scholarship after her father, Walter Lowenfels, a professor at Temple University, was fired from his position for political reasons. it was rumored that Angela was expelled. No official explanation was forthcoming about these events.

    Dr. Davis would sit on a wastepaper basket, shushing us, crowded into the library for the exciting hearings. We also had a classmate who daily patrolled the halls surreptiously distributing copies of MASSES AND MAINSTREAM, a popular Communist Party journal. (Ironically, this girl was eventually the indirect impetus to my involvement in the Young Socialists of America, a Trotskyist youth group formed after the so-called “Khruschev Revelations” about Stalin!) But at my age and stage, much of this turmoil was puzzling. Here were our classroom teachers, insisting to us that everything about Communism was bad yet annoyed that we were watching the anti-Communist hearings! Here were dozens of my classmates themselves involved in youth groups and social activities all favoring and supporting the “victims” of McCarthyism! Something was wrong but it took me a few years to begin to sort it out in my own mind. Many experiences – – positive and negative – – and a great deal of observation led to my final assessment of this era: McCarthy had been absolutely correct in his assessment of the wide and baleful influence of the “Reds” over every aspect of American life. It’s too bad his personal mannerisms and appearance turned many weak-minded people away from his message.

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