Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Henry Wallace: an even bigger fool than Joe Biden?

He was at least arguably more dangerous. In the course of ripping apart the tiresome agitprop of Oliver Stone’s upcoming Showtime series, The Untold History of the United States, Scott Johnson at Powerline quotes from an article by Ronald Radosh that provides the context on vice president and presidential candidate Henry Wallace that is sorely missing in the cable series:
If Wallace was no radical on domestic issues, he did prove to be Stalin’s dupe in foreign affairs. The liberalism he came to espouse was that of the Popular Front, the call for an alliance between Democrats and American Communists and Socialists as the vehicle through which to advance the agenda of FDR’s expanding welfare state. As early as 1943, Wallace warned of “fascist interests motivated largely by anti-Russian bias” who were trying to “get control of our government.” These views are what endear Wallace to Stone.

So enamored of the Soviet Union was the vice president that in May 1944 he traveled to 22 cities in Soviet Siberia. There, the NKVD played Wallace for a fool. He described the slave labor colony of Magadan, which the Soviet secret police had transformed into a Potemkin village staffed by actors and NKVD personnel, as a “combination TVA and Hudson’s Bay Company."

According to his own testimony, if he had become president, Wallace would have made Harry Dexter White his secretary of the Treasury and given a position in government to Laurence Duggan. Both men were Soviet agents. As a KGB cable found in the Venona archives shows, the Soviets hoped that Duggan would aid them “by using his friendship” with Wallace for “extracting .  .  . interesting information.”
Interesting how we seem to be coming full circle: a revival of FDR’s Provider State, and a shameless defense of Stalinism.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Deborah Leigh said...Perhaps it is the spirit of Henry Wallace that is effecting Obama as he tightens the circle with whispers to Putin.

Kruschev is smiling.

RebeccaH said...

For anyone who's wondering about the new fella, the link goes to a Turkish realty site.

Michael Lonie said...

They probably have great deals on property along the Syrian border.

Paco said...

Some of my biggest fans are, er, Turkish developers.

bruce said...

I hear doing the whirling dervish is a great stress release.

I've met a few young Americans travelling the world and they all seem to have this 'Communism good USA bad' myth in their heads. It isn't even leftist, because true leftists like my friend Norm Geras are very careful not to support anything like Stalinism, and Norm is very pro-American on logical grounds, just as Chris Hitchens was.

No American leftist enthusiasm is incredibly naive and seems largely reactionary - anything but (whatever aspect of the US establishment they have issues with). Really it's just adolescent and Oliver Stone exemplifies this eternal teenage rebellion.

Anonymous said...

WONDERFUL Post.thanks for share..more wait .. …


[url=http://cheapjordans2013.loveslife.biz/]cheap jordans[/url]


[url=http://jerseys2017.html-5.me/]Cleveland Browns Jersey[/url]