From the Library: American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character, by Diana West

Last updated on: November 7, 2013 at 11:13 pm by Jane the Actuary

From the Library: American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character, by Diana West 2013-11-07T23:13:00-06:00 Jane the Actuary

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

So I didn’t actually finish this book, but it sat on the bookshelf for too long after checking it out from the library and now it has to go back tomorrow.

The bottom line of the book is that communists — both actual KGB spies and just communist sympathizers — penetrated the highest reaches of the US government, especially during FDR’s presidency. What’s more, American politicians and American media ridiculed those who tried to expose them. Basically, McCarthy was right — there were communists under every bed. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the degree of communist penetration of the American government has been made ever-more clear by the opening of Soviet archives, but McCarthy and other anti-communists are still treated as a joke, or as persecutorial witch-hunters.

Flipping through, in the immediate WWII and post-war period, she attributes the extraordinary degree of American support of the USSR through lend-lease (astonishing quantities of material sent there), and the American willingness to allow the Soviets to take over Eastern Europe, as well as sending back 2 million Russian labor conscripts to the USSR (when we knew they were headed straight to the Gulag and probable death), to this communist influence. Of course, this is where everything gets a bit speculative.

Then she ties this all to the current situation with Islam — deeming the “denialist” attitude that Islam is the Religion of Peace and ignoring Koranic commands to fight for domination as equivalent to the denial of the danger of communism and communists, and, in the introduction to the book, she says that the latter caused the former. I haven’t gotten far enough to see how she develops this argument, and if she’s credible.

But here are some bits and pieces that are startling:

She says that Soviet Lend-Lease had top priority, superseding not just the supplies to the British but also American military needs (p. 44). 200 fighter planes were diverted from Singapore to the Soviet Union, “sealing the fate of Singapore” which fell on February 15, 1942.

After the Soviet Union fell, Vladimir Bukovsky writes, a “Nuremburg trial” exposing the crimes of the communist regime, should have occured to truly move Russia to being a free and democratic country — but the West pressured Yeltsin not to have such trials or open archives:

The reason he had to say no was the enormouse pressure he felt from the West not to have such a trial. I’ve seen the cables he received from all over the world, mostly from Russian embassies, explaining that local politicians and governments were against any trials or disclosures of crimes of opening of archives . . . Because of the documents I recovered [in Soviet archives], we now understand why the West was so against putting the communist system on trial. It is not only that the West was infiltrated by the Soviets much deeper than we ever thought, but also that there was ideological collaboration between left-wing parties in the West and Soviet Union. (p. 53)

On Whittaker Chambers: “Officialdom was enraged not by the dnager posed by Hiss, a Soviet military intelligence agent ‘continuously since 1935,’ but by Chambers for testifying to the danger” (p. 63).

She mentions another book, rehabilitiating McCarthy: Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America’s Enemies (2007), by M. Stanton Evans. During the course of his research, he found that “on many occasions he discovered that some person or persons unknown had preceded him on this document hunt to delete the record” (p. 69) — in other words, falsifying history to protect individuals or protect the idea that anti-Communists were loonies.

Anyone read this book all the way through? What do you make of it? If you take her research at face value, what do you do with it? How, if at all, does it change the way you view the situation in the year 2013?

Uncategorized

Previous Post

November 7, 2013

A short -- and completely unresearched -- history of nonmarital childbearing

Next Post

November 7, 2013 What is marriage, anyway?

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Actuarial/Retirement Issues Politics Uncategorized

Select a Month September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 December 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 August 2021 June 2021 April 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which people attacked Israel at Rephidim and were defeated as Moses held up his hands?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Moabites Philistines Midianites Amalekites