The Rebuttal: Defending 'American Betrayal' From the Book-Burners (32 page)

—-------- Forwarded message ----------

From: Mark Kramer

Date: Sun, Aug 18, 2013 at 2:16 PM

Subject: Re: my posted answer to Bostom

To: Ron Radosh

Cc: John Haynes, Harvey Klehr, David Horowitz

Yes, Ed made the comment as Evans was talking, but Evans just continued
talking, evidently unaware (or at least not wanting to acknowledge) that he was
being contradicted.

Back to that preposterous story about Evans again --
that Evans raised the issue of Hopkins and "19." Not true. (See Evans
debunk it
here
.) Evans did
not
talk over Mark about Hopkins. So
what happens to the rest of the Mark Hopkins/"19" recantation story
as sourced to Harvard's Kramer?

Kramer:

I was unable to
call on Ed
because the session was already going too long and the WWICS had a
reception scheduled. As Ed and I were walking to the metro afterward, I told
him that I had wanted to have him speak but was worried that it would prompt
further comments by Evans and Romerstein. So, I just called a halt.

Worry over "further comments by Evans and
Romerstein" aside: Kramer, by his own admission, didn't call on
"Ed." Kramer was "unable to."

As John pointed
out yesterday, the focus on Ed's remarks is a red herring
and is just an
effort to divert attention from the actual substance of the matter, namely, the
reams of evidence in Vassiliev's notebooks that 19 was Duggan.
By implying that Ed wouldn't have changed
his mind after seeing all this evidence, they're insulting him
and giving
the impression that he was a blind ideologue who would cover up evidence rather
than admit he was mistaken. Ed was much too good a historian for that.
Everyone who knew him well isn't at all
surprised that he changed his mind
(I certainly wasn't, as I told him).
Best, Mark

The mind of a Harvard historian is a very complicated
place.

Take a closer look at the August 18 Kramer email.

Yes, Ed made the
comment as Evans was talking, but Evans just continued talking,
evidently unaware
(or at least not wanting to acknowledge) that he was being contradicted.

As noted above, Evans rejects in every way this
description of his behavior as untrue. Indeed, the conference video shows
Evans, in an entirely mannerly fashion, discussing Robert Oppenheimer and
related matters
 
never Hopkins at
all, and certainly not "19."

In fact, it was the late Herbert Romerstein, Evans'
co-author-to-be, who discussed Hopkins at the 2009 conference. Romerstein
invoked the renowned Soviet "illegal" spymaster Akhmerov's
description of Hopkins as the greatest spy of all (see video
here
shortly
after the 1:17 mark).

Romerstein,
however, never mentioned "19."

There is video of Eduard Mark responding to a comment
(almost certainly Romerstein's, although Mark is not specific) tagging Hopkins
as a Soviet "agent." Mark strenuously rejects such talk as
"disreputable."

Mark
doesn't mention "19," either.
(See video
here
at around the
1:29 mark.)

Could Mark's "19" recantation, as attested
to by Radosh, Haynes, Klehr and Kramer, have taken place at some other time
during the conference?

Perhaps. I haven't seen it in the hours of conference
video I've been able to watch, but maybe some segments of the conference went
untaped. (Radosh said that was the case.)

Meanwhile, however, It is hard not to notice a
difference between Mark Kramer's August 16 and August 18 emails.

On August 16, Kramer emphatically writes:

"Ron, I can definitely confirm it.

I was chairing the session, and Ed intervened when Stan Evans referred to
Harry Hopkins as No. 19.

Ed said "The Vassiliev notebooks show that this isn't true. I thought
it was, but it isn't. When I found out that I'm wrong, I'm willing to admit
it." I talked about this with Ed after the session, as he and I were
heading for the metro station."

We go from "Ed said" on August 16, to Ed
getting drowned out on Augus
t
18, and then not even called on!

Yes, Ed made the
comment as Evans was talking, but Evans just continued talking,
evidently
unaware (or at least not wanting ato cknowledge) that he was being
contradicted.

I was unable to
call on Ed
because the session was already going too long and the WWICS had a
reception scheduled. As Ed and I were walking to the metro afterward,
I told him that I had wanted to have him
speak
but was worried that it would prompt further comments by Evans and
Romerstein. So, I just called a halt.

Does this match Radosh's August 7 description?

Radosh:

At a conference on Soviet espionage held a week before his untimely death,
West’s source, Eduard Mark, publicly stated that he now acknowledged that Harry
Hopkins was not Agent 19, and that the conclusion he had reached in his 1998
article was false.”

Or Haynes and Klehr's footnote account?

Haynes and Klehr:

“During one of the question-and-answer periods and in informal
conversations at the [2009] symposium Mark remarked that the Vassiliev
notebooks had convinced him that `19’ was Duggan and he no longer held to his
1998 position.

Kramer's August 18 email continues:

As John pointed out yesterday, the focus on Ed's remarks is a red herring
and is just an effort to divert attention from the actual substance of the
matter, namely, the reams of evidence in Vassiliev's notebooks that 19 was
Duggan.

By implying that Ed wouldn't have changed his mind after seeing all this
evidence, they're insulting him and giving the impression that he was a blind
ideologue who would cover up evidence rather than admit he was mistaken.

I don't know who is implying anything about Mark's mind
except his own colleagues, who, in a matter of weeks in 2013, negated a
deceased man's 1998 paper based on vague and changing recollections. One giant
piece of the story (Evans's role) does not check out at all. Kramer's
forthright account of August 16, complete with verbatim recantation quotation,
two days later shrinks into a description of a stymied Mark, unsuccessfully
attempting to speak (that droning Stan Evans ....). Kramer himself admits he
was "unable to call on" Mark.

Does that sound like this?

Radosh, August 7:

Eduard Mark, publicly stated that he now acknowledged that Harry Hopkins
was not Agent 19, and that the conclusion he had reached in his 1998 article
was false.”

Radosh, circa June 13:

Were Mark still
alive, I'm certain he would have conceded the point.

And the moral of this story?

Pity the poor facts in the hands of historians.

* * * * *

Here is my email exchange with John Earl Haynes of
August 16, 2013

1)

Dear John Haynes,

I am currently engaged in the task of a rebutting a
lengthy book review, "McCarthy on Steroids," which includes many
insupportable allegations
 
even
anecdotes, sources, arguments that are not to be found in my book.

Just so you know, contrary to the editors' note that
sits above the review at FPM, if you have seen it, I didn't refuse to reply to
this review, I refused to reply at FPM due to the fact that the editor had
earlier removed from the website a positive review of my book. My rebuttal will
run elsehwere.

Anyway, that's just one awkwardness to overcome before
I ask you my question.

In the review, Radosh repeats that I
"attack" you and Harvey Klehr and other historians and your
scholarship. I assure you, I did no such thing, nor would I ever want to do any
such thing. If this weren't so deadly serious, it would be laughable. But none
of this is laughable.

The matter I would like to ask you about concerns the
following statement from the review.

Radosh writes:

"At a conference on Soviet espionage held a week
before his untimely death, West’s source, Eduard Mark, publicly stated that he
now acknowledged that Harry Hopkins was not Agent 19, and that the conclusion
he had reached in his 1998 article was false."

I have not yet been able to find evidence of this.

The link Radosh provides is a conference schedule. I
found the 2009 paper on Hiss by Mark, but it does not contain such a statement.
I have watched almost all of the 3-hr, May 20, 2009 conference video provided
by the Wilson Center and haven't yet heard such a statement from Mark. I notice
also that as recently as your January 2013 statement on the Duggan/19 issue,
you write "on the matter of Venona 812 he [Mark] and I disagreed."

Unfortunately, Mark is not with us to settle the
matter of whether in 2009 he publicly stated, as Radosh writes, "the
conclusion he had reached in his 1998 article was false."

Any information or leads you might be able to provide
on this matter would be appreciated.

Best wishes,

Diana West

2)

On Aug 16, 2013, at 2:42 PM, John Haynes wrote:

Dear Ms. West:

Ed Mark was a colleague and friend of mine. He often
stopped by my office at the Library of Congress (I'm now retired) to discuss
our mutual interest in espionage and Cold War history.

When Klehr and I were preparing our Venona book, Ed
was working on his essay on Venona 812 and "19." We discussed the
message a number of times, and Ed even asked Klehr and I to comment on his
draft. We told him that while we were impressed by his argument, we still
thought the evidence was too weak to sustain his conclusion. Ed was confident
and went ahead with his essay. In our Venona book, however, Klehr and I, while
making note of Ed argument, continued to regard "19" as unidentified.

There was no acrimony between us on this matter, we
simply disagreed. Indeed, when Alexander Vassiliev's notebooks came into our
hands, our regard for Ed's historical skills was such that he was one of the
specialists we gave copies to a year before the notebooks were made public.
While Klehr and I were preparing an overall book on the notebooks, what became
our 2009 book Spies, these specialists prepared articles focused on particular
subjects. In Ed's case it was Alger Hiss, and his 2009 paper, later an article
in the Journal of Cold War Studies, was based on Vassiliev's notebooks.

As for the "19" matter, there is ample
material in Vassiliev's notebooks on "19." He was Laurence Duggan.
Klehr and I have a long section in Spies about Duggan and note his cover name
as "19." (He also had other cover names.) Although Ed was focused on
the Hiss matter in the run-up to the 2009 symposium, when I gave him the
notebooks I mentioned to him that there was material on "19" in the
notebooks. This was not a total surprise to Ed. In 1999 Weinstein and
Vassiliev's book, The Haunted Wood, had come out and there were references in
it to Duggan with the cover name "19" in the 1930s. Ed and I had
discussed that when The Haunted Wood, came out. Ed's assumption/hope was that
"19" was Duggan only in the 30s and his conclusion about "19"
in 1943 was still possible. Once the notebooks were available, however, it was
clear Duggan retained that cover name until August 1944.

When I gave Ed the notebooks I assumed he would review
the entries on "19" even though he was focused on Hiss We were both
busy in this period, me with getting Spies ready and Ed with his Hiss essay,
and when we met we were usually discussed Hiss, a major concern to both of us.
"19" never came up. At the symposium Ed did mention briefly in one of
the Q&A sessions that he no longer held to his view that "19" was
Hopkins. I remember the remark but don't specifically remember at which session
it was, but Professor Mark Kramer of Harvard's Cold War Center remembered Ed's
remark very clearly, that it was at a session of the symposium he chaired, and
that he and Ed had a further discussion of the matter when they walked together
to the Metro after the symposium ended. Kramer says Ed said that the material
in the notebooks convinced him that he had been wrong (never an easy thing for
a historian to say, at least not for me, though I have done so). But then Ed
died unexpectedly shortly after the symposium, so he never published anything
on his changed view.

Frankly, Ed's remarks in 2009 do not strike me as very
central to the issue of who was "19." Vassiliev's notebooks establish
without equivocation that "19" in Venona 812 was Duggan. I regret
that this has become a point in contention, but Klehr and I have firm views on
this and will be posting an essay laying out the evidence is that "19"
was
 
Duggan and not Hopkins. Of
course, Hopkins could not be "19" and still be a Soviet agent. While
we do not totally dismiss that possibility, in our view the evidence is
insufficient to make that assertion.