> and the question of espionage and Old Left disingenuousness
> re:Rosenberg's and Hiss, (hey, Ron Radosh, is a jerk, but really, do you
> believe Julius was "innocent"?...)
Contrary to Michael's belief, I do not lack a sense of humor, self-effacing or otherwise. But when attempts at humor endorse an unthinking allegiance to the United States, and criticize those who object to such patriotic posturing as being somehow behind the curve of modernity, that is a serious problem for a socialist.
"Espionage," except on behalf of an enemy belligerent in a declared war, is a political charge, lacking independent substance. As many writers have shown, there was no atomic bomb "secret" unique to U.S. scientists. That nonsense should have been put to rest after Howard Morland published The H-Bomb Secret, if anyone still took the charge seriously so many years later.
Am I the only one who thinks it odd that spies uncovered by the relentless series of sensational allegations always consist of the same people (except for one British grandmother) who have been accused all along, ever since the testimony of Gouzenko in 1946 and Bentley in 1947? Suppose the roster is accurate; did no one else ever spy for the USSR, and were all the USSR's spies motivated by faithful political allegiance to communism?
Recent ex-left converts to the VENONA mystique who now wish to disown Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs, supposedly based on imaginative readings of intercepted coded Soviet intelligence reports and allegations of former Soviet intelligence and archives personnel, are simply capitulating to the relentless political undertow, not to any new "facts."
(If spying itself is reprehensible, where is the Radosh/Klehr outcry against those who betrayed the fSU and its allies on behalf of the imperialists, to say nothing of those who betrayed movements for freedom in the Third World?)
These pressures are precisely mimicked in Germany, where people of the left are required to disown the heroic Schulze-Boysen/Harnack anti-Nazi resistance organization because, in addition to publishing political tracts, its members infiltrated the highest echelons of the German military apparatus (Harro Schulze-Boysen was Hermann Goering's deputy) and passed its plans to the USSR -- that is, they (proudly) betrayed Germany's war plans to Stalin.
Far from being grumpy, I'm really bemused. Assuming whichever set of "facts" are most comfortable to him, what does Michael believe Alger Hiss, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, should or should not have done, and why? What government actions taken against them does he regard as legitimate, and why?
Let me disclose my secret past, and my bias: Shortly after Morton Sobell was released from prison after having served 20-odd years for espionage, he hosted a fundraising event in New York in support of work that I and others were doing in the South. Besides himself, the other generous donors in attendance were the very people who had worked tirelessly, and at great personal sacrifice, in their vain attempts to free him and the Rosenbergs. The occasion was the 25th anniversary of the Rosenbergs' execution. Those assembled were in my opinion the flower of humanity, who struggled for human betterment through some of this century's darkest days. I was certainly humbled by their invitation to speak. I regard their tormentors as beneath contempt, certainly not as subjects of jest.
Ken Lawrence