The Rebuttal: Defending 'American Betrayal' From the Book-Burners (7 page)

Maybe that’s because this
“definitive study” has so little to do with my book. Further, Holloway’s
depiction of events is in fact deficient. True, Gen. Groves, for example,
consented to an export license for uranium metal; however, Holloway (at least
as quoted by Radosh) does not convey that this was done expressly because, as
Groves would tell Congress, “we were very interested in knowing if anyone [in
the US] knew how to make the metal.” Another Soviet application for uranium was
approved, Groves said, only “with the idea of smoking them out [the Soviets]
and seeing if they could get it.” Groves believed the embargo he placed on
uranium exports was holding.

Not so – although neither
Holloway nor Radosh tell this part of the story. In 1949, after Stalin exploded
an atomic bomb, former US Army Lend-Lease “expediter” Major George Racey Jordan
went public with his claim that he had shipped uranium to the Russian during
World War II, and that Harry Hopkins was personally involved. Groves had no
idea the Manhattan Project’s embargo had been broken until Jordan spoke up.
What I do in
American Betrayal
is
weigh Jordan’s testimony and reports, explain what aspects of his story have
been corroborated and what have not. I examine Congressional investigations,
histories, memoirs and the like. I pay close attention, for example, to the
case of the great Soviet defector Victor Kravchenko, author of
I Chose Freedom
, who defected from the
Soviet Lend-Lease office in Washington, DC. Jordan and Kravchenko had worked on
opposite sides of Lend-Lease during World War II, but in dramatic testimonies
before Congress after the war they would confirm relevant sections of each
other’s stories.

Radosh channeling Holloway describes
none of this. Instead, he drones on about the state of Soviet technology at the
time, which is another giant non sequitur: “bomb-grade U-235 … 0.7 percent of
natural uranium … U-238 … isotopes … mining … refining … alloys … plutonium …
Laboratory No. 2… urgent … uranium problem …”

He finally ties it all back to me.
The Soviets were having a “uranium problem,” he writes.

“Had
the Hopkins flight provided the material Diana West says gave them the material
for the bomb, all this concern would have been unnecessary.”

Surreal time again: I didn’t say
“the” (incorrect article) “Hopkins flight” gave the Soviets “the material for
the bomb.” Simultaneously minimizing my evidence while also inflating
(aggressively attacking) one detail, Radosh mixes everything up again to put
across something that is
not in my book.

My discussion is specifically
related to
“three
shipments totaling nearly three-quarters of a ton” of uranium (
American Betrayal
, p. 140). Whether this
was “the material” for “the bomb,” as Radosh hyperbolizes, it was highly
significant, particularly given the lengths to which Harry Hopkins’ Lend-Lease
went to get it, even breaking Gen. Leslie Groves’ embargo to do it.

Radosh continues:

“Technical
questions aside, in concocting her
conspiracy
theory of Lend-Lease
as a Soviet plot to help Russia win the war and build
an atomic bomb, West refuses to consider a range of
political realities that had nothing to do with Kremlin agents
.”
(Emphasis added.)

Here we go again. First, as I have
demonstrated time and again, Radosh is not a reliable source as to what I have “refused”
or not refused to consider. Second, once again, Radosh is impugning me for
failing to following the conventional consensus on “political realities that
had nothing to do with Kremlin agents.”

My book concocts nothing, and I
advance no conspiracy theory. In 1950, the US Congress was able to establish
the facts of a plan executed from within the Roosevelt administration
bureaucracies to thwart the top-secret Manhattan Project’s embargo on uranium
shipments to Stalin. That’s no theory, and it fits the definition of a
conspiracy.

Naturally, this is not covered in
Holloway, Radosh’s latest liberal professor of choice. How could it be there?
Holloway doesn’t draw from the same sources I draw from. There is no Jordan
memoir of Lend-Lease in his bibliography, no House Un-American Activities
Committee Hearings Regarding Shipments of Atomic Materials to the Soviet Union
during World War II, no life of Victor Kravchenko, the famous ex-Soviet who
defected from Lend-Lease in Washington. Like Gaddis’s book before his,
Holloway’s and my stories can’t possibly match.

For breaking out of the conventional
groove, from seeing beyond the blinkered liberal consensus − for
documenting everything − Radosh sees fit to smear me as “unhinged.”

CHAPTER 4

THE
AGGRESSIVELY ATTACKED DETAIL #3: TRUMAN AND VENONA

So far, the aggressive attacks on
detail and my credibility seem calculated to protect Harry Hopkins from
consideration as an agent of Soviet influence.

In this section, the attacks on my
credibility are also about protecting Harry Truman.

From what? From knowledge about
Venona. Or, rather, from the American people weighing evidence that as
president, Harry Truman received specific allegations of Soviet infiltration of
the US government and did nothing – and even elevated at least one such
person (Harry Dexter White), while the Truman White House and Justice
Department explored pressing perjury charges against a key witness to Soviet
espionage inside the US government (Whittaker Chambers).

 
This, as I argue, is a high point in the
American history of betrayal.

But I confess, on writing
American Betrayal
, I only knew the half
of it.

Finally, I can thank Radosh for one
piece of criticism that is constructive. Too bad for him, however, that as a
result I can more completely demolish this particular critique of
American Betrayal
. Having done further
research, I now find it much easier to punch through the frail edifice he has
built around Harry Truman’s purity when it comes to forbidden knowledge of
Soviet infiltration.

This particular controversy under
consideration here kicked off a decade ago when Jerrold and Leona Schecter
published their book
Sacred Secrets: How
Soviet Intelligence Operations Changed American History.
Drawing from the
recollections of a noted code-breaker and Venona program official, Oliver
Kirby, the Schecters laid out the case that Truman as president was informed
about the findings of Venona codebreakers, certainly by 1950, when codebreakers
identified Harry Dexter White and Alger Hiss as spies.

Radosh sets up his discussion on
Venona and Truman like so:

“If
Harry Truman, who became president in 1945, knew about the Venona decrypts
(first de-classified in 1995), yet failed to pay attention to the evidence they
provided of Soviet infiltration, it would bolster West’s claim that Truman was
so anxious to avoid offending Stalin that even when confronted with hard
evidence of Soviet treachery, he chose to do nothing about it.”

For the record, Radosh has already
and again attributed to me something else I didn’t write. Yes, I agree the
evidence shows Truman was informed and did nothing about Soviet intelligence
operations he learned about through the Venona project and, more important,
through the FBI.

Nowhere in my book, however, did I
write anywhere that Truman failed to act for fear of “offending Stalin.” There
were other reasons. Radosh’s sloppy habits continue.

Why is the FBI more important here
than Venona? It turns out that when I was writing
American Betrayal
I overlooked a truckload of FBI briefs and memos
that J. Edgar Hoover sent to Truman and other senior administration officials
beginning in 1945.
These FBI documents
alerted the president and his men to the presence of multiple American traitors
in the federal government. Had I included this ample FBI evidence in
American Betrayal,
which M. Stanton
Evans presents in
Blacklisted by History
,
^[11]
I could have established virtually without doubt the argument now driving
Radosh into attack-mode: Truman Knew.

The detail under aggressive Radosh
attack in this section is the former Venona/NSA official Oliver Kirby.

The Schecters recount several
meetings Kirby described or took part in.

Here are two of them in brief.

MEETING
1

The first meeting sourced to Kirby took
place on June 4, 1945, between Gen. Carter W. Clarke and Col. Ernest Gibson,
both of Army intelligence, and Truman, and it lasted 15 minutes. (That the
meeting took place has been verified.) While the G-2 officers could offer
neither specific names nor operations to the president, they brought bad news
nonetheless: As the Schecters write (source Kirby), “Clarke told the president
that… initial work on the Soviet [cable] traffic indicated large scale Soviet
intelligence operations in the United States.”

Radosh, contending these findings
weren’t available in mid-1945, decides that this proves Truman was wholly
innocent of Venona in mid-1945. Even if this were true, what, to coin a phrase,
difference does it make? Not knowing in mid-1945 doesn’t render Truman
permanently ignorant of Soviet infiltration for the rest of his administration
– and certainly not after we recall the numerous, detailed memos that
began coming his way a few months later from the FBI.

Radosh, however, insists that my
discussion of the motivation behind Truman’s many years of inaction – his
partisan political motives, for example, and other possible motives first
raised by the Schecters, and so cited (but, in the Alinskyite tradition of
isolating a target, transferred by Radosh to me alone) – is completely
invalid. He calls it a “fanciful indictment,” as if Truman’s knowledge of
Soviet espionage activities inside the US government somehow remains frozen in
June 1945 along with, erroneously represented, my discussion.

Odd.

Odder:
Once again, this is not what I
wrote in my book.
I never attempted to pin my analysis to a 15-minute
briefing in 1945, but rather to Truman’s entire time in office.

MEETING
2

This is the most significant meeting
involving Kirby that the Schecters relate.

“West,” Radosh writes, “then shifts
the time frame five years forward” – almost as though there is something
suspect is doing so. Radosh now cites my reliance on “an interview” Kirby gave
the Schecters in the late 1990s. (In all, the Schecters interviewed Kirby on
three occasions. Kirby also gave the Schecters his handwritten notes on this
meeting.) Radosh writes: “Kirby told them that both Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter
White were `positively identified’ in decrypts in 1950, and that he brought
this information to General Omar Bradley.”

For the record, there is an
important temporal corroboration for Kirby here, as I put it on p. 165 of
American Betrayal:

[Kirby]
later told the Schecters that in 1950, Harry Dexter White and Alger Hiss were
both “positively identified” as Soviet agents by Venona codebreakers, a date
Robert L. Benson and Michael Warner affirm in their Venona study.”

Notice how Radosh omitted the Benson and Warner confirmation
of this date in his retelling of the Kirby tale (above). This is the same methodology
he employs throughout. Better to leave the “yellow journalism” impression of
“an interview” on the fly that I rely on with no additional confirmation.

Just to pile on, also remember what Truman had already heard
about Hiss and White beginning in 1945 from J. Edgar Hoover.

American
Betrayal
on the 1950 Kirby account continues:

“Kirby
himself claimed to have brought this information to the attention of General
Bradley, White House point man, as noted, on Venona. Kirby said, “When Bradley
called me back later he said, “The President was most upset
and agitated by this. Bradley reported
President Truman’s words, ‘That G—— D—— stuff. Every
time it bumps into us it gets bigger and bigger. It’s likely to take us down.’”
The Schecters add, “Kirby said there was no doubt the President understood.”

American
Betrayal
again:

“In
other words, President Truman took in and grasped revelations that, according
to Soviet secret cables, the most senior-level, trusted, and powerful U.S.
government officials had been working on behalf of the Soviet Union, and then
he, as president,
did nothing about it.
Suddenly, Truman’s domestic
anti- Communism program starts to look like a giant act of misdirection. …

Radosh’s misleading comment:

“
Once
again, West shows that she does not know how to evaluate the reliability of a
source or assess the evidence produced. The Schecter interviews with Kirby
occurred nearly a half century after the events alleged to have taken place.”

The passage of time doesn’t negate
the recollections of a source, and Kirby, as a former key intelligence official
charged with briefing the few members of the US government who were permitted
Venona information, appears to have to be a solid source. Ten years ago, when
the Schecters first published these findings about Truman, columnist Robert
Novak reinterviewed Kirby and found him and his story completely credible.
(More on that below.)

RADOSH
GETS CONFUSED

Radosh continues:

“Even
worse, Kirby’s account is third-hand. He claimed that General Clarke told him
this at some unspecified time, and acknowledges that he himself was not present
at any meeting between Truman and Bradley. Nor is there any documentation to
show that such a meeting ever took place.”

Uh-oh. Ronald Radosh has just mixed
up two meetings separated by five years into one mess.

Kirby’s account of his 1950
conversation with Bradley is not third-hand. It is first-hand. He had the
conversations with Bradley himself. As far as “no documentation” goes, the
Schecters cite Kirby’s handwritten notes for this same meeting.

Radosh is wrong again.

The Radosh mix-ups don’t stop. I
would certainly let this next one ride but it includes another slap at
my
credibility.

MEETING
3

Radosh writes:

“Kirby
told the Schecters that Clarke had long conversations with Bradley and
Secretary of Defense James Forrestal about Venona. But contrary to West’s
claim, Kirby acknowledged to the Schecters that
he had no notes of this meeting.
There is
nothing in either Bradley’s or Forrestal’s own papers
that would
corroborate Kirby’s story. (Emphasis in the original.)

Not in my book.

Let’s be real #1: I actually didn’t
write about such a Forrestal meeting as Radosh describes, so there is no
“claim” I made regarding it.

Let’s be real #2: Is Radosh saying
he has searched Bradley’s and Forrestal’s “own papers” to see if there is
anything in them to corroborate Kirby’s story? Or is he just … saying?

Let’s be real #3: Radosh writes
about Kirby telling the Schecters that “Clarke had long conversations with
Bradley and Secretary of Defense James Forrestal about Venona.” But he’s wrong.
It was
Kirby
who had the long
conversations with Bradley and Forrestal! Clarke isn’t even part of this
anecdote – at least not in the Schecters’ book.

Maybe Plokhy? Maybe Gaddis? Maybe
Rees?

What the Schecters actually write is
this: “However, Kirby, who worked for General Clarke, and had long, thoughtful
conversations with General Bradley and Secretary Forrestal on VENONA, is
certain the president was informed and was part of the dialogue.”

I will conclude this belabored
section by noting that this line of Radosh attack is just a bullying and very
confused version of an already heated exchange over the same material from the
Schecters’ book − what Truman knew about Venona and when he knew it
− that took place ten years ago. Back in 2003, the combatants were Haynes
and Klehr on the Radosh side, with the late Robert Novak taking the Schecters’
and, by extension, my side today.

In the 2003 exchange − which,
for the record, is footnoted in my book on p. 372 in another example of my
not
disregarding “the findings of the sources she does rely on
when they contradict her
yellow journalism conspiracy
theories,” as I have been so falsely accused of doing − Novak wrote:

“The
heart of the dispute is the account by a living witness to these long ago
events. Former National Security Agency officer Oliver Kirby told the Schecters
and confirmed to me how the "Venona material was presented to Truman by
General Omar Bradley. …

“While
Klehr and Haynes call Kirby's account `highly unlikely,’ none of his
recollections is contradicted as they claim. Kirby's assertions that Truman
knew are based on notes he made at the time he worked on Venona, contradicting
the Klehr and Haynes dismissal of Kirby's recollections `fifty years after the
event.’
The highly praised work by Haynes
and Klehr on Venona was based primarily on documents supplied and edited by the
government.”
(Emphasis added.)

Come
to think it, this government-handout aspect to the Venona cables is an
excellent point to keep in mind.

Novak:
“As serious historians, they would have benefited had they conducted interviews
with living participants in the Venona affair rather than engage in unfair and
unwarranted attacks on the Schecters and me.”

Not to mention Kirby.

The record the Schecters preserved
by interviewing Kirby is at least as debatable today as it was ten years ago,
and it should be possible to do so without being smeared for, as Radosh writes
yet again, promoting a “vast conspiracy theory.”