Chapter VI. The Enemy Within—Far-Left Press
“We have to influence non-Communists if we want to make them Communists
or if we want to fool them, so we have to try to infiltrate the big press, to
influence millions of people and not merely hundreds of thousands.” These
words were directed at the Communists of the world by Molotov in a memorandum in
1931. From that year on, Communist leaders, U.S.A., applied their satanic skills
to this extremely important task of infiltrating and subverting the American
press. There are 600 daily newspapers in the United States, with a circulation
of over 59 million. In addition to these dailies, there are 8,000 weekly
newspapers with additional millions in circulation.
The exposure of the Molotov memorandum was
made by Igor Bogolepov, former Counselor of the Soviet Foreign Office, who
defected from Communist at the end of World War II. In testimony before the
Senate Internal Security Subcommittee on April 7, 1952, Bogolepov said that in
the same memorandum Molotov admitted: “Only a few people who are already
Communists read the Communist papers. We don’t need to propagandize them.”
So they fixed their eyes on the “enemy press.” Infiltration of the “enemy
press” is always necessary before the Communists take over a country.
Revealing information regarding the
techniques used by the Reds in infiltrating the “enemy press” was given in a
report published by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee during 1962,
entitled “Communist Penetration and Exploitation of the Free Press.” One
section of the report deals with the Communist infiltration of the Bulgarian
press prior to the Communist revolution in that country. The strategy used in
Bulgaria was described for the Senate Committee by Dr. G.M. Dimitrov, President
of the Bulgarian National Committee for Liberation:
“…Carrying out will-prepared,
long-range plans, Soviet agents began planting Bulgarian Communists in all
non-Communist publications, principally as journalists or printers. These
Communist plants were instructed to go slow in their activities until the press
was thoroughly infiltrated. They were to become friendly with all the personnel
of the publication, from the editorial staff down to the printshop workers. They
were to study the attitudes of the key members of the staff and to gauge how
they can best be used by the Communists.
“After a Communist plant was well
established in a non-Communist publication, his first task was to create
favorable attitudes toward the Soviet Union. … Following the infiltration of
the Bulgarian press, the Soviet Embassy in Sofia began to court openly the favor
of Bulgarian newspapermen. Journalists of all convictions, even extreme
anti-Communists, were invited to lavish vodka-and-caviar parties. As these
parties became more frequent, the guests included political leaders as well. …
“The next Soviet step was to invite
prominent journalists, writers, and political leaders to visit the Soviet Union
and write about their impressions. The visitors, of course, saw only what the
Soviets wanted them to see on closely supervised guided tours. The Soviet
officials did not expect glowing praises of the Communist system in Russia by
the Bulgarian press at that time, but they sought to induce the Bulgarian
visitors to write about the struggle of Russian workers and peasants to build up
their backward economy after centuries of neglect under the Tsars. … Another
familiar Soviet theme was their great desire for peace in the world. These
tactics paid off and many Bulgarian newsmen and other prominent people, most of
the anti-Communists by conviction, actually did write favorably of their
impressions while visiting Russia.
“Partisan dinners for newsmen continued
at the Soviet Embassy in Sofia. More and more editors and publishers softened
their anti-Communist sentiments and were willing to accept leftists, and later
even known Communists, on their staffs. At the same time, the infiltration by
concealed Red agents of the Bulgarian press and publishing houses continued. …
“At the time of the Hitler-Stalin pact
in 1939, the Fascist-oriented press of Bulgaria was thoroughly infiltrated by
the Communists. The prominent anti-Nazi journalist, T. Kojoucharov, for example,
wrote in the reactionary daily, Slovo, that ‘nothing could be more
natural than the unity of Nazi socialism and Soviet Socialism’ and that this
unity would last forever. At the same time, the Bulgarian Communist
theoretician, T. Pavlov, wrote a whole pamphlet in which he presented similar
views.
“In 1944, the Soviet Union declared war
on Bulgaria without any provocation or reason and the Red Army occupied the
country without firing a shot because the allies assured the Bulgarian people
that the Soviets were coming as ‘liberators.’ One of the first acts of the
Communists upon gaining control of the country was to suspend all non-Communist
publications and to place all newsprint under strict control. Soon the country
was flooded with printed Communist propaganda with no opposition press to
answer. …
“Most non-Communist publishers and
journalists were declared Fascist or Nazi and sentenced to long prison terms by
‘people’s courts.’ Some were even executed. Among them were publishers and
editors who had harbored Communist journalists as insurance against just such an
eventuality. …”
While their tactics may vary somewhat from
country to country, the Communist conspiracy’s basic strategy in infiltrating
the enemy press in any nation is the same. In the introduction to its report on
“Communist Penetration and Exploitation of the Free Press,” the Senate
Internal Security Subcommittee warned Americans: “A free press can be lost.
Let us know and understand what happened in nations which suffered this loss.
Let us understand how and why it happened. And let us resolve that it shall not
happen here.”
Most newspapermen would protest vehemently
if you accused their profession of being Communist infiltrated. Yet, in the
years 1955 and 1956, the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee looked into
Communist infiltration of the American press and concluded that there was
“substantial evidence” of such infiltration. During January 1956, the
Subcommittee questioned seventeen newsmen in New York City, fourteen of whom had
been on the staff of the New York Times. Of the seventeen witnesses,
fourteen invoked the Fifth Amendment on questions regarding their association
with Communism. In its 1956 annual report, the Senate Internal Security
Subcommittee summarized” “The subcommittee heard the testimony of more than
a score of newspapermen during 1956. Except in a very few cases, it encountered
a wall of resistance when it presented its evidence and information for them to
reply. The resistance took the form of either a claim of privilege under the
First or Fifth Amendments or outright defiance of the authority of the
Sub-committee.”
A majority of the so-called liberal
newspapers refuse to recognize the peril of internal Communism. A typical
example of this blindness was the June 10, 1961, editorial in the Arkansas
Gazette, Little Rock. This editorial claimed that the Communist Party in the
United States as a domestic political force was a “negligible factor.” The Gazette
claimed that the Communist influence on elections in our country was
insignificant, its dogma abhorrent to the American people and repudiated by
them.
The famed columnist, Art Buchwald, in his
column of March 7, 1962, used the technique of ridicule to discredit
anti-Communist activity in the United States when he said: “Unhappily, while
there are more and more organizations being formed to fight Communists in the
United States, there are fewer and fewer Communists around to fight, and the
anti-Communist organizations are fighting among themselves over who has the
right to fight Communists.”
Some of the far-left publications, such as
Harpers magazine, actually utilize their columns to attack the Federal
Bureau of Investigation and the House Committee on Un-American Activities for
insisting that there is a Communist threat internally. In the October 1949 issue
of Harpers, there was an article by the late Bernard DeVoto entitled
“Due Notice to the FBI,” and here, in part, is what he said: “A single
decade has come close to making us a nation of common informers. The Committee
on Un-American Activities blasts several score reputations by releasing a new
batch of gossip or we find out that the FBI has put at the disposal of this or
that body a hash of gossip, rumors, slander, back-biting, malice, and drunken
invention which, when it makes the headlines, shatters the reputation of
innocent and harmless people and of people who our laws say are innocent until
someone proves them guilty in court.” Of course, this is simply vicious smear
and nothing else.
One of the newspapers that jumped all over
then-Congressman Richard Nixon and the House Committee on Un-American Activities
for exposing Alger Hiss, was the Washington Post. Even after Alger
Hiss’ conviction, the Washington Post, in an editorial on January 23,
1950, gave the following strange explanation of Hiss’ deception: “Alger Hiss
had the misfortune of being tempted to betray his country in an era of
widespread illusions about Communism and is being tried for perjury in
connection with his offense in a period of cold war when the pendulum of public
sentiment had swung far in the other direction.”
In commenting on the editorial in the May
29, 1950 issue of the Chicago Tribune, an editorial stated: “The
implication is that there was nothing shocking abut a disposition to betray
one’s country, but that the traitor had to be careful about his timing.”
As we mentioned in another chapter, from
time to time editors and publishers of far-left newspapers appear on the
platform of Communist-sponsored rallies. For instance, on June 7, 1962, a
Communist-organized united-front rally against the McCarran Act was held at
Manhattan Center, New York City. Top Communist leaders, Gus Hall and Benjamin
Davis, were among the featured speakers. Another featured speaker was Murray
Kempton, New York Post columnist. The Communists were so joyful over Mr.
Kempton’s speech that they printed lengthy excerpts from it in the June 19,
1962, issue of The Worker. Murray Kempton, in his speech, ridiculed the
FBI and told the Communists at the rally that “This country has not been kind
to you but this country has been fortunate in having you.” He also advised the
Communists that “I salute you and I hope for times to be better.”
A very famous columnist, Walter Winchell,
during the summer of 1962, resigned as columnist for the New York Mirror
and King Features Syndicate. Winchell said that his editors on the New York
Mirror had given him latitude but accused the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner
of killing all items about Communism. King Features, he charged, killed five
paragraphs about alleged Communists around the late President Kennedy, although
according to Winchell his charges had been “cleared by the Mirror’s
legal department.”
Probably the most prominent “far-left”
American newspaper which constantly attacks anti-Communist investigations is the
earlier-mentioned Washington Post. On May 22, 1950, the Washington
Post published a lengthy editorial attacking anti-Communist investigations
which stated as follows: “For weeks the Capital has been seized and convulsed
by terror…akin to the evil atmosphere of the alien and sedition laws in John
Adams’ administration.” In this one editorial, the editors of the Washington
Post referred to Congressional investigations of the internal Communist
conspiracy as “witch-hunting” twelve times. Undoubtedly this smear of
sincere Congressional investigations into Communism misled a large number of
unsuspecting Americans.
One of the most famous examples of
Communists infiltrating the newspapers is that of Carl Braden. Braden was on the
editorial staff of the Louisville Courier-Journal. His Communist
activities first came to light when he bought a house in an all-white section of
Louisville and transferred it to a Negro, Andrew Wade IV. When Wade’s family
moved in, trouble broke out. There was shooting and bombing, and racial tension
became explosive. Braden organized a “Wade Defense Committee” which, by
press, radio, and mass meeting, defended Wade’s occupation of the house. The
Commonwealth Attorney in Louisville, A. Scott Hamilton, investigated the whole
affair and came to the conclusion that Communists had planned the whole thing,
including the rioting and bombing, as a means of inciting racial hatred and
trouble.
Carl Braden was indicted on a charge of
advocating sedition. Braden denied that he had ever been a Communist. A great
parade of witnesses testified in his defense, including his minister, the Rector
of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, writers, reporters, a professor at Indiana
University, colleagues of Braden on the Courier-Journal staff, and local
labor union leaders. But at the crucial moment in the Braden trial, the
Louisville FBI released one of its undercover agents, Mrs. Alberta Ahern, who
testified that Braden was an active secret Communist leader in Louisville. He
had recruited her, in fact, into the Communist Party. He collected dues for the
Red cell to which they both belonged. Braden was convicted and sentenced to
fifteen years in prison. Braden not only worked for the Louisville
Courier-Journal before his exposure, but he had done free-lance work for the
Toledo Blade, Newsweek magazine, Chicago Tribune, St.
Louis Globe-Democrat, New York News, and the Federated Press which
serves the Communist Worker. He was an influential member of the American
Newspaper Guild, Louisville’s Chapter, and had written articles, speeches, and
radio scripts for the AFL-CIO. When Braden’s house was searched, they found
almost a “truckload” of Communist educational and propaganda literature,
some charging germ-warfare against the United States, some branding America as
the aggressor in the Korean War.
On February 8, 1962, in the Chicago
American, columnist Irving Dillard referred to Carl Braden as simply an
“Episcopalian” and to the famous Communist, Frank Wilkinson, as a
“Methodist.” Mr. Dillard contended: “All Americans who care what happens
to liberties in our country should breathe a little easier now that these men,
Braden and Wilkinson, are again free.” Who knows how many innocent Americans
may have been deceived by the mis-information in this one column by Irving
Dillard? This one column is typical of the many editorials appearing in far-left
newspapers which deceive the American people concerning the threat of Communism
internally.
While these left-wing newspapers and
columnists befriend even known Communists, you will seldom, if ever, find
left-wing writers and the press referring to anti-Communist conservatives in any
type of complimentary language. The former pro-Castro enthusiast, Ralph McGill,
of the Atlanta Constitution is a typical far-left editorial writer. When
he refers to the conservatives or anti-Communists, he uses such terminology as
“pathetic and psychologically naked young men” or “wild and wall-eyed
radicals.”
The influence which the Communist
publications themselves have on the far-left’s daily newspapers is sobering to
any patriot. For illustration, on April 5, 1950, soon after Senator Joseph
McCarthy (Republican-Wisconsin) had begun his efforts to expose the Communist
conspiracy internally, the Communist Daily Worker wrote: “Communists
are keenly aware of the damage the McCarthy crowd is doing.” On May 4, 1950,
the term “McCarthyism” was printed for the first time in a Daily Worker
article by Gus Hall, National Secretary of the Communist Party. He wrote, “I
urge all Communist Party members and all anti-Fascists to yield second place to
none in the fight to rid our country of the Fascist poison of McCarthyism.” On
November 27, 1950, the Communist Party in Maryland and the District of Columbia
mailed out an article entitled “Unity Can Defeat McCarthyism.” The author
was Philip Frankfeld, Chairman of the Communist Party in Maryland, who was later
convicted for his Communist activities. What kind of unity was Frankfeld
speaking about? He was referring to unity of naïve, uninformed non-Communists
with the Communist conspirators to accomplish a very important objective of the
conspiracy—destroy Joe McCarthy!
On June 18, 1953, an FBI undercover agent
exposed the Communist plot to assassinate Senator Joseph McCarthy.
The December 1953 issue of the official
Communist Party organ, Political Affairs, carried an article by the
National Committee of the Communist Party entitled “Unity Can Rout
McCarthyism.” Following are quotes from this article: “The name of this
growing Fascist beast is McCarthyism…Now is a time to deal a smashing blow at
this monster. The sharp stand of the recent CIO Convention against McCarthyism
sounds the right note…The issue must be taken to the great masses of the
people…prepare them for a vast political movement that will defeat every
candidate in the 1954 elections who does not specifically repudiate McCarthyism
and all his filthy works… This situation is ripe for organized labor and its
allies, by a united smash, to rout the McCarthyism pro-Fascists…This
opportunity must not be missed.”
The April 1954 issue of Political
Affairs continued the draft program of the Communist Party written by the
National Committee of the Party. This directive to the conspirators was divided
into seven sections, and five of the seven attacked McCarthy or McCarthyism.
Section IV was devoted entirely to Senator McCarthy and was entitled, “The
Menace of McCarthyism—The Growing Danger of Fascism.” In this program the
conspirators again rated McCarthyism as their number one enemy as they exhorted
their members and dupes: “To defeat this menace is the first task of the
hour.” In the same issue William Z. Foster urged the Communists to “give
everything we have to the development of this great struggle.”
The Communist-inspired operation against a
sincere American patriot ended n a disgraceful and unjustified censure. The
Communist conspirators were in the thick of this phase of the battle against
“the Fascist poison of McCarthyism.” The Daily Worker entitled an
editorial of September 28, 1954, “Throw the Bum Out.” In it they called
Senator McCarthy the “arch-conspirator against the American Constitution.”
In this editorial and throughout the entire period of this time-wasting episode
in our Senate, the Communist conspirators urged their members, fellow travelers
and sympathizers to insist that the Senate vote for censure. It was a major
issue in the Communist conspiracy publications. Why? The answer is obvious. The
Communist conspirators and their sympathizers knew what they were fighting for,
but millions of innocent American victims of the Communist Party line did not
know what they were doing. Unfortunately, millions of these Americans still do
not have the vaguest notion of what all the furor was about, even though they
think they know. They think just as the Communists wish them to think.
In the May 1956 issue of Political
Affairs the Communists said, “the democratic masses finally cracked down
on McCarthy,” and that “The recent curbing of the McCarthy pro-Fascist
menace by the American people augurs well for the future.” Whose future? The
author, William Z. Foster, was certainly not speaking of the future of the
American republic which was established by our Christian founding fathers. He is
looking forward to a Soviet America and is confident of this end result in the
great struggle going on today. Upon the death of this persecuted and hounded
American patriot, the Soviet News Agency Tass said he was a “double
reactionary” who “baited and persecuted by terroristic methods anyone who
came out against the domination of a handful of billionaires.”
The word “McCarthyism,” a
Communist-coined smear word, became something horrible beyond imagination in the
minds of many Americans. Communists and their sympathizers kept up a steady fire
of smear attacks against Senator McCarthy resulting in a united effort by the
far-left to destroy “the enemy”—not Communism, but Joe McCarthy.
Among the popular magazines with large
circulations, therefore exerting enormous influence upon public opinion in the
United States, which joined in the smear attacks against Senator McCarthy, was Time
magazine. In his newspaper column of November 20, 1951, Fulton Lewis Jr.
summarized some of the choicest terminology used by Time magazine in
reporting on Senator McCarthy’s fight against Communism: “Rash-talking
Joseph R. McCarthy; pugnacious Senator Joe McCarthy; loud-mouthed; wretched
burlesque; scare-head publicity; desperate gambler; a fool or a knave;
weasel-worded statements; vituperative smear; half truths; wild charges.”
In his newspaper column of November 16,
1951, Fulton Lewis Jr. revealed a tremendous error Time magazine made in
smearing Senator McCarthy in the Gustavo Duran case. Lewis wrote: “In an
effort to smear McCarthy, Time magazine said: ‘Duran, never a Red, was
definitely and clearly anti-Communist—he worked for the United States
Government in Cuba during World War II tracking Axis and Communist agents.’
“What the editors of Time did not
know when they tried to peddle this is that McCarthy had in his files a private
memorandum from Time magazine’s Washington office that labeled Duran
exactly what McCarthy called him. And then, just to impale themselves solidly on
the hook, Time’s editors added: ‘Every word in Time’s story,
incidentally, was thoroughly checked for accuracy of fact and interpretation. It
is a policy the Senator would do well to follow.’” Mr. Lewis went on further
in his column to quote from the Time magazine memorandum which coincided
with Senator McCarthy’s charges.
In a letter to Henry Luce, publisher of
the magazine, Senator McCarthy described the Time article on the Duran
case as a “vicious and malicious lie being broadcast to millions of American
people in [a] clearly deliberate, dishonest attempt to discredit my fight
against Communism.” He went on to tell Mr. Luce, who owns the Time and Life
magazines: “If freedom of the press is to be maintained, then the editors of a
national magazine such as yours, regardless of how much they want to discredit
my fight against Communists, do owe some honesty and decency to the public.”
Perhaps the leading newspaper to parrot
the Communist Party line against Senator McCarthy was the Washington Post.
In its May 22, 1950, editorial (which was run as a paid advertisement in other
newspapers), the Post referred to “McCarthy-Goebbels-Vishinsky
technique of the lie.” In the same editorial, readers were told: “The
mad-dog quality of McCarthyism has become so apparent that its power for sowing
confusion and suspicion has probably spent its force…” This was less than
three weeks after the Communist publication coined the smear word,
“McCarthyism.”
In 1954, a series of article smearing
Senator McCarthy in the New York World-Telegram, a Scripps-Howard
newspaper, was too much for one member of the Scripps family—Mrs. William Loeb
Jr., grand-daughter of E.W. Scripps, founder of the chain. In a sizzling wire to
her brother, Charles E. Scripps, Chairman of the chain, and Jack Howard,
President of the newspapers, Mrs. Loeb said that the articles on McCarthy were
“rotten, biased journalism which would make my grandfather, E.W. Scripps, who
above all stood for integrity and fair play in the handling of news, turn in his
grave in disgust and shame.”
In his book, McCarthyism—The Fight
for America, Senator McCarthy referred to the policies of “managed news”
practiced by the rewrite desks of the large wire services—Associated Press,
United Press International, etc. The Senator wrote: “After several
experiences, there was impressed upon me the painful truth that the stories
written by the competent, honest Associated Press, United Press, or
International News Service men assigned to cover the Senate or the House might
not even be recognized by them when those stories went on the news ticker to the
thousands of newspapers throughout the country. Before being sent out to
America’s newspapers, the stories pass across what is known as a rewrite desk.
There, certain facts can be played up, others eliminated. For example, so often
we found in the stories about me a word like ‘evidence’ was changed to
‘unfounded charges.’ ‘McCarthy stated’ would become ‘McCarthy
shouted.” ‘Digging up evidence’ became ‘Dredging up evidence.’ In one
case, I recall the story as written on Capitol Hill was ‘McCarthy picked up
his briefcase full of documents and left.’ When the story left the rewrite
desk, it was ‘McCarthy grabbed his briefcase and stormed from the room.’”
One young reporter for the New York
Herald-Tribune, Dave McConnell, reporting on the un-American treatment given
to Senator McCarthy, wrote in his paper May 16, 1960, that the unfair treatment
of Senator McCarthy “has come as a surprise to many newspaper veterans who
cling to the old mandate that personal bias or personal opinions belong on the
editorial page and not in the news columns…The uproar in the press section
during Senator McCarthy’s testimony at one point made it difficult even to
hear what the Wisconsin Republican was telling the subcommittee.”
Of course, not all the newspapers in the
United States smeared McCarthy. From the very beginning, the New York Daily
Mirror supported Senator McCarthy. In an editorial March 16, 1950, they
referred to the investigations of Senator McCarthy as “one of the most
important events of out time…McCarthy has courage. He has facts. He knows what
he is talking about…That opposition-Senators and protectors of the State
Department would like to smear McCarthy, throw up all manner of smoke-screens to
divert attention, and achieve an eventual whitewash is not the issue—and the
people will not permit it to be made the issue…They want the mess cleaned up
in Washington. Go to it, Joe McCarthy.”
In an interview during 1950, J. Edgar
Hoover, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, commended the
anti-Communist activities of Senator McCarthy, which was ignored by most of the
large left-wing daily newspapers. Mr. Hoover said: “He is earnest. He is
honest. He is sincere. Whenever you attack subversives of any kind you are going
to be the victim of the most extremely vicious criticism that can be made.”
American newspapers and publications have
enormous power. They have the power to make or break men and organizations.
Favorable or unfavorable images of certain movements and their leaders can be
planted in the American minds without recourse to the subject.
William Randolph Hearst boasted that with
one telephone call he made the name of Billy Graham a household word and in
later years, Billy Graham admitted this. Upon hearing Billy Graham on the radio
during a little-publicized revival in Los Angeles, Hearst called his Los Angeles
newspaper and told them to “build him up.” Build him up the Hearst papers
did indeed, making Billy Graham the number one evangelist, as far as fame is
concerned, in the world today.
While it is possible for the press to
build an unknown minister into an internationally-famous personality, it is also
possible for them to picture a staunch and dedicated patriot as a dangerous,
irresponsible “hate monger,” and ruin his influence.
In the McCarthy days, some of the far-left
press actually stooped to printing outright lies about Senator McCarthy in their
determination to destroy his effectiveness as an anti-Communist crusader. On
October 19, 1951, the Post-Standard newspaper of Syracuse, New York,
published an editorial in which Senator McCarthy was accused of paying money,
through an intermediary, to a man named Charles E. Davis for forging the name of
a Communist to a telegram sent to John Carter Vincent, then United States
Ambassador to Switzerland. This editorial also accused Senator McCarthy of
framing Senator Tydings of Maryland with a fake photograph showing Tydings in
alleged conversation with Earl Browder, and made other accusations which were
vile and contemptible against the Senator from Wisconsin.
Almost one and one-half years later, on
March 5, 1953, the Syracuse Post-Standard published another editorial on
“The McCarthy Record.” This editorial stated:
“An editorial published in this space,
October 19, 1951, has been the subject of a suit for libel by Senator Joseph R.
McCarthy of Wisconsin. Since publication of this editorial the statements
therein have been subjected to careful study in the light of all the facts now
available.
“The Post-Standard in the light
of all the pertinent facts wishes in fairness to its readers to correct certain
statements that were written in good faith and in a sincere belief in their
truthfulness, but which have nevertheless proved to be untrue and unfair to
Senator McCarthy.”
The editorial went on to inform readers
that the newspaper’s investigation had shown that Senator McCarthy “had not
committed any act deserving of criticism” in connection with the so-called
Charles E. Davis forgery. It stated that the newspaper was satisfied that
Senator McCarthy was not responsible for the photographic “framing” of
Senator Tydings, and that “responsibility has been clearly fixed on another
individual who had no connection with Senator McCarthy.”
Once while visiting in Senator
McCarthy’s office, I said to my friend whom I loved dearly and who proved to
be such a great inspiration to me as a young minister fighting Communism in the
early days of Christian Crusade, “Why don’t you sue some of these people who
tell these lies on you?” As I recall, we were alone in his office. It was at
the close of the day. I was to accompany him to his home for dinner. He smiled
and pointed to a quotation which he had framed and which hung over his desk. It
was a quotation by Abraham Lincoln which simply stated: “If I were to read,
much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed
for any other business.”
There should be no question in the mind of
any patriotic American abut the enormous damage done to the cause of freedom and
Americanism by those far-left newspapers and magazines which joined in the
Communist-inspired attacks against Senator Joseph McCarthy. The only way this
damage can ever be rectified is by those periodicals launching a courageous and
vigorous campaign on behalf of the Constitutional concepts and historic
Americanism. However, it is extremely unlikely that a far-left newspaper will be
converted to Americanism in our time. The attacks, smears, lies, innuendoes,
half-truths, character assassination, guilt by association originally directed
against Senator McCarthy are now being used against anti-Communist men and
movements in 1964 who dare resist the Communist threat internally.
In December 1960 the Communists of the
world were told in Moscow by the Communist dictators to step up their activities
against anti-Communists in the United States. Edward Hunter, psychological
warfare expert (and one of the ten most effective anti-Communist voices in
America today), testified before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee July
11, 1961, concerning this Moscow directive against United States
anti-Communists. Mr. Hunter said that it was planned in Moscow that the American
news media would be used by the Communist International to discredit the
anti-Communist movements in the United States. Indeed, immediately following the
Moscow 1960 meeting, American far-right newspapers and publications began their
vicious attacks against the so-called “radical right” or the anti-Communist
movements of America.
Guilt by association? Sure, the far left
will use guilt by association to discredit the anti-Communist cause. In the
February 9, 1962, issue of Life magazine, Keith Wheeler, author of a
smear article against the anti-Communist movements of America, pulled a shabby
trick of including anti-Communists and Nazis together in the far-right
classification. He wrote: “The far-right ranges all the way from the
respectable conservatism of a Barry Goldwater to the vicious lunacy of the
American Nazi Party.” This is a typical example of the satanic deception
perpetrated under the false theory of Communism and Nazism as opposite extremes,
when all the time Communism and Nazism share the Socialist foundation.
Newsweek, Look, Time,
New York Times, Washington Post, Atlanta Constitution,
every star of the far left, parrot the Communist Party line against the
anti-Communist or conservative movements in the United States with amazing
continuity. As Ed Hunter said before the Senate Committee on July 11, 1961:
“The players know only the conductor in front of them and he may be totally
ignorant of who selected the music, arranged the program, and why. The
extraordinary orchestration (against the anti-Communist movements) that preceded
and appeared in leading American newspapers and magazines…is in full accord
with the new ‘unity line’ of the Red Manifesto…” Edward Hunter also
pointed out during his testimony that during these smear drives against
anti-Communists, “Few in the wolf pack know why they are barking.” This is
true in the case of non-Communist Americans following any phase of the Communist
Party line. As Jesus said when facing the ordeal of Calvary, “Father, forgive
them, for they know not what they do.”
By April 1962 the smears against the
anti-Communist organizations were so successful that Gus Hall wrote in the
Communist publication Political Affairs that there was a “mass upsurge
against the ultra-right which started with our statement ten months ago that
warned of this danger and outlined [a] tactical approach for the mobilization of
the democratic forces to oppose this menace.” He assured fellow Red
conspirators that “this fanatical Fascist-like fringe of the ultra-right will
be pushed back into its lair.”
In the June 23, 1962, issue of the Portland
Reporter, Philip Hager wrote that Americans are standing in line “waiting
their turn to lash out at the extremists of the right.” Non-Communist
Americans are practically lined up to attack not the Communist conspirators but
opponents of the Communists. The attacks on the anti-Communist movements are so
vicious and unfair that Edward Hunter commented in our Weekly Crusader,
June 15, 1962: “In my thirty-five years in journalism I have never read or
seen so much sheer dishonesty and outright faking outside of the Communist press
as I have been witnessing in the newspaper and air coverage of the
anti-Communist movement.”
The attacks against me personally and
against Christian Crusade started on January 1, 1962 when that much-publicized
“champion of all liars,” Drew Pearson, triggered the smear attach against me
by accusing me of “flamboyant hate preaching.” The words of Senator Richard
Russell of Georgia on the floor of the Senate May 19, 1950, explains the Pearson
phenomenon: “Drew Pearson uses the freedom of the press for political
blackmail…It would be impossible for any Senator to attempt to add to Mr.
Pearson’s statute as the Prince of Liars…”
If any American wants to know the
effectiveness of any minister, writer, broadcaster, or politician against the
Communist conspiracy, all he has to do is read faithfully the Communist
publications. If you are an effective anti-Communist, you will be smeared
mercilessly by the Communist press. If your statements aid and abet the cause of
Communism, you will be applauded continuously by the Communist press. The
Communists hold Walter Lippman in high regard. In a column in The Daily
Worker, November 24, 1957, A.B. Magil praised Mr. Lippman as “one of the
wisest of contemporary capitalist political philosophers.” An article in the
November 10, 1962, issue of the West Coast Communist newspaper Peoples World
referred to James B. Reston of the New York Times as being “as
knowledgeable and informed a correspondent as there is in the nation’s
Capitol” and as “a responsible journalist.” When the Communists speak in
such complimentary terms of a writer, we can be sure that the writer so praised
is not putting out much in the way of facts which would be harmful to the
Communist cause.
On August 20, 1961, The Worker
reported favorably on the Portland Daily Reporter as follows: “Born as
a weekly strikers’ publication in February 1960, it grew in one year to a
daily paper with an avowed ambition to be a liberal independent daily. In the
face of incredible handicaps it survived…the first daily newspaper that has
been started in the United States in fifteen years.” The Worker article
pointed out that stock of this paper was owned by some 6,000 shareholders in
forty-six states, including Oregon’s United States Senators, Wayne Morse and
Maurine Neuberger, the State Attorney General, the Mayor of Portland, and White
House Advisor, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. The Communist writer states that Senator
Morse was instrumental in obtaining Associated Press service for the newspaper.
If this is the first newspaper to be started in our nation in fifteen years, it
is a tragic commentary on the state of the public mind in the United States that
it has to be a paper which rates so highly with the Communist conspirators.
In the December 23, 1962, issue of The
Worker, the Detroit Free Press was applauded by the Communists
because the Detroit paper had attacked the House Committee on Un-American
Activities, During October 1961, The Worker rated a news account in the Cleveland
Plain Dealer newspaper as a “straight-forward news story.” From time to
time the Christian Science Monitor has been praised by The Worker,
including a complimentary editorial on the front page of The Worker, May
22, 1962.
One of the publications that the
Communists attack most frequently is Barron’s Business and Financial Weekly.
In one editorial, November 4, 1962, Barron’s was attacked by the
Communists because the publication had called “for a purge of all those in the
government who advocated a lessening of world tensions, and hinted at a
nation-wide witch hunt against peace advocates.” Of Barron’s, The
Worker said that this menacing, Hitler-like demand is not being made by a
Birchite, but by a leading spokesman for big business.
The Chicago Tribune is high on the
list of Red enemies among United States newspapers. An article in The Worker
of October 15, 1961, attacked the Chicago Tribune for printing
anti-Communist editorials, as follows: “No right-wing inspired story emanating
from the offices of Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond or from the prolific press-agentry
of the House Un-American Activities Committee or from the weekly Manion Forum of
the air…escapes the Chicago Tribune’s news hawks. They all get
printed and in great length…” In an article in The Worker, January
14, 1962, the Communists attacked the Chicago Tribune as follows: “The Chicago
Tribune has a long and odious record. For a century it has poisoned
America’s atmosphere.”
There is little or no criticism in the
Communist press for such publications as Look and Newsweek.
Within one hour after the assassination of
John F. Kennedy in Dallas on Friday, November 22, 1963, the Communist press in
Moscow was blaming the anti-Communist and conservative forces of the United
States for the death of the President. This, therefore, became the Communist
Party line. The Communist press itself denied any Communist connections with Lee
Harvey Oswald, the President’s assassin. The pro-Communist press in America
shifted the blame to the anti-Communists in another way—the premise of some of
the far-left critics is that certain anti-Communists in Dallas had created such
an atmosphere of hate for President Kennedy by maintaining consciously or
unconsciously [that] he and certain of his decisions were soft on Communism,
that a Communist on whom the government had been very soft had killed the
President. In other words, a hardened Communist killed the President because the
President was criticized by some anti-Communists. The mind to which this logic
makes sense, especially in view of the fact that there is absolutely no evidence
to prove their position and all the evidence is against it, is a mind which is
in the grip of powerful illusions or a mind which is just passing on, without
evaluating, the gossip which it has heard. Some liberals went so far as to
suggest that since the President had to be killed, it was a shame that some
anti-Communist didn’t take his life. The twisted logic of these illusionists
is further illustrated in the fact that their great outcry is against the right
and not against the Communists. The official Party line is that the
anti-Communist elements of America are to blame. By the “right,” they have
reference to all active anti-Communists who call for a firmer stand against
internal and external Communism. It is quite obvious why the Communists blame
the anti-Communists. Anything in their non-moral outlook is truth if it can in
some way advance the Communist Party and discredit their opposition.
Here are some examples of non-Communists
parroting the Communist Party line by blaming the right-wing elements of the
United States. On November 23, the New York Herald-Tribune carried an
article on page eight on “Dallas, Long a Radical’s Heaven.” Of course,
Oswald was born in New Orleans, had lived some in New York, and had been in the
USSR for several years. He had been a Communist in his thinking from about
fifteen years of age. Thus, whether Dallas had been a haven of so-called radical
right-wingers or not had nothing to do with making Oswald a Communist. He was
not a product of Dallas or America, but of Karl Marx. (However, in all fairness,
we should point out that on the same day this article was carried in the Herald-Tribune,
another columnist, Stuart H. Loory, wrote in the same paper that the politicians
in the nation’s capital “were only too eager to believe” at first that it
had been done by someone on the far-right wing.)
Newsweek magazine, who, with Look
magazine, is constantly in a battle for first place in the far-left publication
race, in its issue of December 9, 1963, was still blaming the right-wing for
“creating an atmosphere of violence.” In the same publication, Newsweek
reported on Castro’s reaction to the death of Mr. Kennedy and headed the
report: “The Grief Of A Foe.” Castro is a Communist. He deceived Cubans and
many others into thinking that his revolution was not communistic. He has
executed many people. He hates the United States. He had more than once called
for the death of Kennedy. Really, isn’t it a bit too much to believe that
Castro was filled with such grief as Newsweek magazine suggests?
Drew Pearson wrote a column shortly after
the death of Mr. Kennedy claiming that President Kennedy was a victim of a hate
drive by people on the right, such as the editor of the Dallas Morning News,
Robert Dealey. He called the assassination “Dallas’ answer” to the
President’s plea for good will and reason. He quoted an Arizona editor that
“the hatred preachers got their man. They did not shoot him: they inspired the
man or men who did it.”
A Communist shot the President: therefore,
anti-Communists in Dallas are to blame. A man who learned his hate, not in
Dallas, but elsewhere, and mainly from Marxism, murdered the President; so
Dallas is guilty. However, even James Reston of the New York Times had to
admit: “All the evidence to date indicates that the right-wing had nothing to
do with the death of Kennedy and that the deed could have been done in New York
just as well as in Dallas.” It is indeed frightening then to contemplate the
editorial in the Wall Street Journal which was reported in the
Congressional Record December 3, 1963: “In their obsession with the far-right,
some people seemingly refuse to believe that the deranged killer was a man of
the far-left.”
Of course, the AFL-CIO Executive Council
had to join in with these attacks on the anti-Communist movements as always. On
November 26, the AFL-CIO Executive Council said: “Hatred—blind, bitter,
savage hatred—is on the rise in America There is the hatred exemplified by the
John Birch Society and the followers of General Walker. There is the hatred of
the fanatical Communist. There is no choice among them, for hatred in any form
is evil.” To classify members of the John Birch Society or friends of General
Walker with the Communist party is an evil and vicious thing. There may be some
members of the John Birch Society who hate and there may be members of the
AFL-CIO who hate. Perhaps the Executive Council of the AFL-CIO is guilty of
hatred—hating the John Birch Society and General Walker. However, hate is an
official doctrine of the Communist conspiracy, but hate is not an official
doctrine of the conservative right-wing organizations. Why didn’t the AFL-CIO
say something about the black racist, Malcolm X, who indicated after the death
of Kennedy that he was glad that the President had been shot?
Ralph McGill of the Atlanta
Constitution immediately wrote an article on the “Harvest of Psychopathic
Hate” in which he did not make one little reference to the extreme left, but
most of it dealt with racial violence and those whom he viewed as extremists on
the right. He made no specific reference to the fact that the man who killed the
President was a Communist.
As we read these irresponsible charges
against the anti-Communist elements of America by the left-wingers, the
following question is raised in our minds: “Can this outpouring of accusations
against those whom the far-left label the ultra-right be an indication of hate
on the part of some of these accusers?”
In a speech before a convention of
broadcasters, former Florida Governor Leroy Collins indicted the so-called
Southern right-wing extremists for the death of the President. Senator Mansfield
in his funeral eulogy called for “the strength to do what must be done to
bridle the bigotry, the hatred, the arrogance and the iniquities and inequities
which marched in the boots of a gathering tyranny to that moment of horror.”
Not a word about the bigotry, hatred, arrogance, iniquities, and inequities of
Communism. Are we afraid to pinpoint on Communism the responsibility for the
murder of the President, lest we offend the feelings of some Communists? Must we
talk about sinners in general, or haters of the far-right specifically, lest the
real criminal, Communism, be exposed in its brutal nakedness?
In attack after attack, leaders of the
far-left single out the right-wing for criticism, but there was not a word about
Communism, which was responsible for the murder of the President, from the lips
of these liberal political, religious, and educational leaders. What lamentable,
warped logic: Communism killed the President; therefore it is the fault of
someone else. One on the left murdered the President; therefore, the right is
responsible. We wonder if some of those who talk so much about hate being the
cause of the President’s death without implying that it was Communist hate,
but rather insist it was rightist hate, may not, by their irresponsible
statements, be stirring up the hate and violence of some people. Almost
immediately after the death of the President, Senator John Tower, a conservative
opponent of the administration, began to receive threatening phone calls. His
wife had to go into hiding.
The Chicago Tribune reported that
Senator Barry Goldwater “has been stunned and shocked by the number of abusive
letters and telegrams which he has received since the death of President
Kennedy.” There has been an outpouring of satanic abuse such as he has never
seen in his life.
Hate did kill the President, but it was
not the hate of which some in their illusions, some in their blind and bitter
sorrow, and some in their shallowness, have spoken. It was the hate which is an
inherent part of Communism which killed the President.
Thank God there are here and there
patriotic newspapers that are faithfully presenting the pro-American and
anti-Communist positions. Such newspapers as the Chicago Tribune, Dallas
Morning News, Chattanooga News-Free Press, Omaha World-Herald,
Tulsa World, Tulsa Tribune, St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Jackson
Clarion-Ledger, Shreveport Journal, Amarillo Daily News, Borger
News-Herald, San Diego Tribune, and many, many others are worthy of
the support and respect of the American people. Only by reading responsible
dailies such as those mentioned above and truth magazines such as Christian
Crusade, Weekly Crusader, Christian Beacon, Human Events,
National Review, American Opinion, Dan Smoot Report, etc.,
can the floodtides of Communism be dammed in the United States.
One of America’s best authorities on the
Communist conspiracy is Dr. J.B. Matthews, former chief investigator for the
House Committee on Un-American Activities and for the McCarthy Committee. In his
excellent book (which I recommend to every student of Americanism), called Odyssey
of a Fellow Traveler, Dr. Matthews stated:
“Hate is at floodtide in the world
today, a hate born of the doctrine that man is arrayed against man in an
irreconcilable conflict of classes. It is a hate more deep rooted and terrible
than that of international war…
“However much Communists might prefer to
be the only political group immune to all criticism and however much they may
attempt to enforce this immunity with vituperation, it is important that the
critics of Communism employ the restraint of civilized emotions, a fine sense of
balance, and perhaps above all, their sense of humor while proceeding fearlessly
to the work of criticism.”