> Thank you, Chip. This morning, checking the e-mail before going to
work,
>I read an e-mail from Ken Lawrence, whose activist creds are beyond
>reproach, attack my chatty, admittedly gossippy at times, posts to lbo
and
>Lou Proyect's Marxism list. My weak attempts at humor,at the expense of
>icons like Stokeley Carmichael (quoting the infamous position of women
in
>SNCC is...) and the question of espionage and Old Left disingenousness
>re:Rosenberg's and Hiss, (hey, Ron Radosh, is a jerk, but really, do
you
>believe Julius was "innocent"?...) I guess, make one into an accessory
to
>pulling the switch to fry Julius and Ethel (well that exaggerates Ken's
>missive
>to Lou's list on me, and I won't bore anyone with the details) but w/o
>coffee and breakfast, my mind was a bit on the defensive when I read
your
>post. Overall Ken finds I lack the gravitas to evaluate the left's
history
>and am incapable of helping , in any way, to draw lessons from the
past.
First, I ask for the forbearance of list members because I'm not ready to defend myself for reasons I'll explain later. So my remarks are preliminary, thanks.
Mike, I thought you made a good comment before that lefties should not defend the indefensible. Based on the VENONA decrypts there isn't a doubt in my mind that Julius Rosenberg illegally helped to pass atomic secrets to the Soviets.
But the pointer you gave to the National Review article squawking about Jacob Weisberg's article in the NY Times Magazine did not reassure me that all accusations against lefties are based on the VENONA decrypts, or that even based on the decrypts, the accusations are reasonable.
In particular, accusations that IF Stone was a Soviet agent, based on the VENONA decrypts, seem to me overblown. This was Weisberg's protestation that the Jonah Goldberg article in NR did nothing to dispel.
There is one single VENONA decrypt that describes the Soviet agent Pravdin's attempt to recruit Stone. And, this is pretty important, the decrypt *exculpates* Stone. Poor Stone did his best to avoid Soviet agents for fear of being compromised.
Just the fact that a Soviet agent with the nom de guerre of "Pravdin" (Truth) attempted to recruit Stone does not mean a goddamn thing. Yet, a couple of years ago, John McCarthy of the Hoover Institute used this decrypt to accuse Stone of being a Soviet agent. I read the decrypt then, confronted him on a newsgroup, and he dropped the subject without conceding, however.
What I think I detect is unfounded smears from the right wrongly based on VENONA. Either the decrypt exculpates, as in the case of Stone, or there is no relevant decrypt, or the decrypts are inconclusive.
There are several decrypts passing on info supplied by Hanson Baldwin. One could smear Baldwin too, however, the NSA is careful to point out that info provided by Baldwin to Soviet spies, was perfectly licit. Basically, one should not suspect Baldwin just because of VENONA. But this courtesy is not extended to Stone, and I suspect to other left wingers (but I haven't got that far yet).
More later. I've set myself the task of reading the whole damn thing. I'm behind because the links to the NSA web site are down -- it is an apparent problem with Qwest Communications, and hopefully the NSA will get the links restored, so that I can continue downloading the decrypts.
You can tell nobody reads the decrypts, the links have been down for days and so far as I know I'm the only one to complain.
As for Radosh, so far I see no problem. The NSA advises on their VENONA web site that Radosh will do a history based on the decrypts, and they seem to have blessed his efforts. We'll just have to wait and see what he says.
To summarize kind of: Let's not defend the indefensible, but on the other hand I don't have to take National Review's word for it. If the National Review wants to smear some dead old lefty based on the decrypts the decrypts had better be there and support the smear.
-- Consuming is dirty business, but somebody has to do it. Robert McTeer