[Fwd: Re: Grumpy lefties and VENONA]

[Katha Pollitt]

Apsken at aol.com wrote:
> 
>     Would Katha also be shocked, shocked, to learn that an occasional red in
> the 1950s might indeed have sought to overthrow the United States government,
> despite having pleaded innocent to such charges during the Smith Act show
> trials?
>     The purpose of those trials, and the Rosenberg prosecution, were to
> criminalize radical political thought and action. The people who defended
> those cases, despite differences among themselves (read Al Richmond, Arthur
> Kinoy, and Morton Sobell; talk to them too), were fighting that battle,
> honorably and sensibly.
>     By Katha's standards, communists should have fallen on their swords in
> order to save latter-day liberals some discomfort. This is odd when you
> consider that not even the most venal of the redbaiting historians today
> claims that the Rosenbergs' trial was "fair."
> 
> Ken Lawrence

  did I say i was "
shocked, shocked" by evidence of Julius's having passed something to
Soviets? No. I didn't even say I thought Commies should have "fallen on
their swords."  I said that IF they had done so, they wouldn't be
looking deceptive now. I mean, people spent their LIVES defending the
innoccence of the rosenbergs -- the Schneirs, for example -- don't you
think they feel like a big pair of jerks to have the horrible Ron Radosh
win the debate? 

 My father was blacklisted in the l950s (he was a UE lawyer and worked
on some of the Smith Act cases), the FBI used to go through our garbage.
Arthur Kinoy was my parents' friend -- I know a lot firsthand about what
the fifties were like for CP families. Almost half a century later, it
ought to be possible to talk rationally about whether the CP made all
the right decisions about how to deal with a repressive era--like having
its members deny their politics in order to appeal to the liberals you
all claim to despise. 

  What's next?  the Stalin -Hitler pact was a great idea because (as I
was brought up to believe) it gave Stalin time to get ready for war? 

Katha