Latest pathetic attack on I.F. Stone
Commentary, a notorious right wing rag, has published a new line of attack against the legendary and brilliant journalist, I.F. Stone. Thanks to Eric Alterman for the link, and Eric does a good job in knocking it down.
My addition to Eric's response is this: There is nothing in the article in Commentary showing who Stone was talking to in the 1936-1939 period who was connected to the New York KGB office. If he was talking to Frank Palmer, who the Commentary writers describe as a "liberal," where is the evidence that Stone knew Palmer was working for the KGB in New York?
If Stone was talking with Palmer, and if he was not known to be a spy for the KGB, then it would be obvious as to why Stone did not talk about this to Eric Alterman or anyone else. And as Eric says very persuasively, there were many in the US who were trying to alert the world to the German Nazi drive for world domination, and the information Stone imparted was all open, non-classified information. That Stone chose to support the Popular Front during the mid- to late 1930s is what really drives the Commentary writers around the bend, and so the innuendo flies throughout the article.
I wish the people who keep trying to besmirch the reputation of I.F. Stone would give up the ghost. Instead, they appear to be pathologically driven as if their whole anti-Communist world will collapse if they don't finger Stone as a spy. Weird, really, since anyone who believes in an open society can see through the fatal flaws of Communism.
What angers me the most is the veneration for the odious Paul Berman, who maliciously repeated the canard about Stone supposedly being pro-Soviet Union up through the 1960s. My defense of Stone's public writings from the 1930s forward in response to Berman's New York Times Book Review of a decent on I.F. Stone are here, here and here.
posted by Mitchell J. Freedman @ 4:59 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Where to start with all that!
First, Commentary is not a right wing rag. Its one of the oldest, most well respected, and most widely read journals in the country. Its written from a neo-liberal perspective and has historically been very anti-communist. It was launched originally as a journal for anti-communist liberal Jewish voices during a time when it wasn’t popular in certain intellectual circles (think of The Nation Magazine).
Secondly, the article in Commentary is only an excerpt from an upcoming book, which you would have realized had you actually read the article. Alterman does nothing to actually dispute the material, except to say that what Stone did was not “technically” spying because it doesn’t fit the definition in Miriam Webster.
Alexander Vassiliev, one of the coauthors of the book, was a KGB agent and copied the material used in the book, these aren’t wild allegations made entirely with circumstantial evidence. The primary authors John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr are also very well respected in their fields.
Stone was a willing and covert agent for the most murderous and brutal regime of the 20th century … why you people continue to stick up for him is beyond me.
So much for the reality based community.
Mike,
I read the article and the article is woefully lacking in evidence that is credible to say Stone was a Soviet spy. If the authors left something on the editing floor or in the book, then we await that.
Commentary ceased being a respectable magazine for at least 25 years, and to call it neo-liberal for what it has published since Ronald Reagan first took office is not accurate in the least. It is a neo-con magazine in thrall with the sort of Republican ideology that was ascendant in the 1970s.
Haynes and Klehr have allowed their anti-communism to consume their work, which causes them to reach unsupported conclusions in their often prodigious research.
Your attack is really an attack on the Popular Front during the period of 1934-1939, and while it meant not ripping into the Soviets with the same gusto as complete anti-communists, it is still a far cry from being a spy. It is also a political attack on your part because it is you who wants to denigrate the definition of "spy" in Merriam Webster in order to reach your conclusion.
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