Press Reports

Ratvandals and the Lenski affair

2010-04-03T23:03:00.000-07:00

== Blatant lies and talk page deletion ==

There was a lengthy section of this talk page called "blatant lies," and now it is gone. Wikipedia policy states quite clearly NOT to delete any content on the talk pages. To whoever vandalized the talk page (you know who you are), don't ever do that again. Anyway, I can't remember most of what was on this section, but what I said was that in Conservapedia's two-sentence article on Rosa Luxemburg, they said she was a terrorist. This is completely untrue. A terrorist is someone who uses fear and violence against civilians to orchestrate a response from the government or the civilians themselves. Rosa Luxemburg called herself a revolutionary, and a revolutionary is someone who organizes a mass movement of civilians to replace the government. [[User:Commissarusa|Commissarusa]] ([[User talk:Commissarusa|talk]]) 23:48, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
:First, new discussions go at the bottom of the page, not the top. I took the liberty of moving this post for that reason. Second, actually, wikipedia policy states that anything posted on the talk page that doesn't involve improvement of the article may be removed without question. Technically, I could have just deleted your comment instead of responding to it. Third, I didn't look in the article to see what you are talking about, but if Conservapedia calls someone a terrorist, then we report that conservapedia calls someone a terrorist. It is possible to then elaborate on exactly why said person is not actually a terrorist, but to say that conservapedia doesn't call her a terrorist when they actually do would be a falsehood.[[User:Farsight001|Farsight001]] ([[User talk:Farsight001|talk]]) 23:57, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

== "brusque and offensive" ==

The article states, "Lenski...felt insulted by letters and comments on Conservapedia, which he saw as brusque and offensive..." Two days ago several RationalWiki editors admitted on Rationalwiki they were responsible for the "brusque and offensive" comments. [http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Conservapedia_Talk%3AThe_Zeuglodon_Blues&diff=549493&oldid=548655] This article states,"According to an article published in the ''LA Times'' in 2007, 'From there, they (Lipson and his fellow [RationalWiki] editors) monitor Conservapedia. And—by their own admission—engage in acts of cyber-vandalism.'"

Can a neutral editor review this material to determine if it violates NPOV. (Disclosure: I am a Conservapedia sysop). Thank you. [[User:Nobs01|nobs]] ([[User talk:Nobs01|talk]]) 03:06, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
:The link to RW is to a quote from a Conservapedia "secret" cabal group. Not anything to do with what any Rationalwikians said. The Lenski affair was in 2008, actually after "Lipson" had ceased to edit at RW. Your complaints are groundless. [[User:SpeckledHen|SpeckledHen]] ([[User talk:SpeckledHen|talk]]) 05:50, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
::The words actually used by Lenski were: "rude tone and uninformed content" So amendment could be required. [[User:SpeckledHen|SpeckledHen]] ([[User talk:SpeckledHen|talk]]) 06:07, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
TY. Let me respectfully disagree. The link provided [http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Conservapedia_Talk:The_Zeuglodon_Blues#Lenski_affair] is to a discussion about leaked information from a private Conservapedia mailing list ("secret" cabal, as has been described}. A question is asked,
*'''Questioner:''' Ah, so can we say deceit was employed here, and that by some Ratwikians, hmm?
*'''First responder:''' I'd be more surprised if that wasn't true.
*'''Questioner:''' Could any of these Ratwikians comments be described as "brusque and offensive" ?
*'''Second resoponder:''' Yes, deceit was employed by RWians, and it was gratefully embraced by Andy, who now had an excuse to carry on with his obsession, despite being warned and knowing of where the signatories came from.
*'''Third responder;''' I should clarify that if people who are also members of RationalWiki decided to do this - via sockpuppetry or otherwise - it was their own doing. RW as a site doesn't condone this sort of thing; it's immature and counter-productive. Although I would be almost certain that anyone involved in doing this would have got their news from RW and the incident did highlight Schlafly's ego-centric tendencies very, very nicely. The fact is, Schlafly was an idiot to send the letter and this demonstrates that many of his inner circle has expressed their misgivings very, very clearly and were subsequently ignored.
*'''Fourth responder:''' Everyone knows we have off-site discussion groups to organize and plot our vandalism.
*'''Second responder:''' I propose we call our next secret site 'The Bible Blues'.
*'''Fifth responder: ''' More liberal deceit from a member of the vandal site cabal. As a frequent poster on the supersecretforumwherewetalkaboutdeceitz, you ought to know that Teh Bible Blues is the name for our semisupersecretforumwherewetalkaboutdeceitz. [End]
'''Summary:''' Five longtime Rationalwiki editors all admitting to direct knowledge of Ratikonalwiki editors "using deceit" to implant "brusque and offensive" material about Lenski.

The Wikipedia article states, "Lenski replied...that '''''he felt insulted by letters and comments on Conservapedia, which he saw as brusque and offensive, including claims of outright deceit."'''''

Direct evidence has now been submitted Rationalwiki editors, (as ''L.A. Times'' reporter Stephanie Simon reported, "From there [Rationalwiki], they (Lipson and his fellow editors) monitor Conservapedia. And—'''by their own admission—engage in acts of cyber-vandalism'''), have taken responsibility for comments Prof. Lenski regarded as brusque, offensive, and deceitful. This article needs to be reviewed, once again, for factual and NPOV errors. Thank you. [[User:Nobs01|nobs]] ([[User talk:Nobs01|talk]]) 07:12, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
:Wow Nobs01, assuming good faith, what on Earth are you talking about? [[User:Huw Powell|Huw Powell]] ([[User talk:Huw Powell|talk]]) 07:32, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
::Thank you. Assuming good faith, I have posted these concerns at [[Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard#Talk:Conservapedia.23.22brusque_and_offensive.22]]. Please engage with me there. Thank you. [[User:Nobs01|nobs]] ([[User talk:Nobs01|talk]]) 07:54, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
:::Firstly, of the five editors in the link you gave (myself, Armondikov, Nutty, CR and NU) only Armondikov was a significant member of RW at the time; CR had signed up, but does not appear to have participated much until late September. Secondly, I don't see any admissions that RWians inserted 'brusque and offensive' comments; as far as I know, RWian socks merely added their names to the list of people supporting Andy sending the letter. Andy, despite knowing where these signatories came from, gratefully accepted the signatures and used them to overrule several sysops who were having reservations about the idea. Also, looking through the Lenksi Dialog at CP I can't see any 'brusque and offensive' comments on the talk page, where the letter was discussed. [[User:EddyJP|EddyJP]] ([[User talk:EddyJP|talk]]) 08:41, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
::::I'm the Fifth Responder. My intent wasn't to "admit" anything but to make fun of you (nobs/RobS) and others who continue to assert there's some conspiracy. Why is this being discussed on WP again? -- Nutty Roux [[Special:Contributions/98.226.15.58|98.226.15.58]] ([[User talk:98.226.15.58|talk]]) 18:58, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Now, I'm totally confused. How on earth can someone conclude from a positive answer (which I even fail to see) to the question ''Could any of these Ratwikians comments be described as "brusque and offensive" '' that "all brusque and offensive comments were made by ''Ratwikikans''" as the sentence ''Two days ago several RationalWiki editors admitted on Rationalwiki they were responsible for the "brusque and offensive" comments.'' implies. And how does it reflect on the management of conservapedia (which is otherwise very active) ''not'' to react on these "brusque and offensive" comments? [[User:DiEb|DiEb]] ([[User talk:DiEb|talk]]) 12:52, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
The facts are correctly stated in the article
*There were "brusque and offensive" comments on the site
*Lenksi was offended by them
It is less important that not all of these comments were made by upright conservapedians, more important is that the management didn't take measures against the comments - and the commentators (at least not for their comments).
[[User:DiEb|DiEb]] ([[User talk:DiEb|talk]]) 12:52, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

:I agree. The article merely says that Lenski found many comments on CP to be offensive; it doesn't matter who made them. Anyone who edits on CP is by definition a CP editor, so any claim that the comments don't count because they were made by Rationalwikians pretending to be Conservapedians is a non-starter. Perhaps we can discuss adding a bit about Rationalwikians taking credit for some of the comments in an effort to discredit Schlafly and CP, but that might start to enter into the realm of original research. It also might plug RW more than certain editors would wish to do. -[[User:R. fiend|R. fiend]] ([[User talk:R. fiend|talk]]) 13:30, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

::We don't know which comments he found offensive. We don't know if the people at RationalWiki that imply they made some comments there actually did. Now if other editors on Conservapedia disowned those comments at the time that would be actual evidence of their not wanting to be associated with offensive comments. Wikipedia has to work with actual real documentation not conjecture. [[User:Dmcq|Dmcq]] ([[User talk:Dmcq|talk]]) 16:00, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

We do know Peter Lipson admitted to helping start rationalwiki for the purpose to engage in acts of cyber-vandalism. We do know one of Peter Lipson's first acts in RW was this screed. [http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Essay:Conservapedia_and_Fascism] We know this screed has nothing to do whatsoever with the medical qualifications Lipson represented to the ''L.A. Times'' cited in this entry. We know RW vandals have a long history of sockpuppetry to vandalize and control content of this page. We know the only link to RationalWiki is in the Peter Lipson subheading. We know Lipson certainly could fit the definition of a questionable or dubious source. We know this may be self-promotion of rationalwiki and possibly Lipson. We know Lipson is non-notable, other than his own own medical practice and Lipson being cited alongside [[Jimbo Wales]] and Dr. Lenski. That certainly is [[WP:UNDUE]] for a non-notable, dubious critic. [[User:Nobs01|nobs]] ([[User talk:Nobs01|talk]]) 23:12, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

:Lipson is not being cited as a source, the LA Times is. Lipson himself doesn't have to be notable to have this item included. I don't find the coverage undue but I suppose that's somewhat subjective. As the only critic who has started a satire site and admitted to vandalizing Conservapedia I think he deserves inclusion. [[User:Rees11|Rees11]] ([[User talk:Rees11|talk]]) 23:50, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

::I just read the LA Times bit and that allegation looks problematic just citing it. It says:
:::'After administrators blocked their accounts, Lipson and several other editors quit trying to moderate the articles and instead started their own website, RationalWiki.com. From there, they monitor Conservapedia.

:::And -- by their own admission -- engage in acts of cyber-vandalism.''

::We do not know what 'they' refers to, some editors of RationalWIki, or Lipson in particular. It doesn't say it was set up to do vandalism. And it doesn't give any evidence of all this, not even a quote. have we got better evidence? Second or third hand stuff like that is very iffy. [[User:Dmcq|Dmcq]] ([[User talk:Dmcq|talk]]) 23:58, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

:::"They" obviously refers to "Lipson and several other editors" and the LA Times must be considered a reliable source, so we don't need any other evidence. [[User:Rees11|Rees11]] ([[User talk:Rees11|talk]]) 00:18, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Ty. We've made progress. This WP entry has been protected, deleted and recreated, several times since 2007 when the ''LA Times'' article appeared. At CP, we've blocked over 10,000 accounts in three years, originating with a core of about two dozen RationalWiki users, commonly dubbed "ratvandals." And Rationalwiki documents much of this history. This current version was written by these Rationalwikians.

Early last year, a story was widely disseminated about a "Conservapedia Hit List". [http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=ie7&q=conservapedia+hit+list&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&rlz=1I7ACAW_en___US352] This was allegedly a "hit list" of US Senators who were marked for assassination in states with Republican Governors. A Rationalwiki editor at some pointed admitted he was the source ([[User:Tony Sidaway]] gives a [http://lambdadelta.wordpress.com/2009/01/30/rationalwiki-parodist-owns-up-to-creating-conservapedia-hit-list-article/ good the summary of the incident]). The same vandalism has again occurred in the Lenski dialogue. Rationalwiki editers, from the site Lipson told the ''LA Times''
was created to engage in cyber-vandalism, were the source of comments Dr. Lenski regarded offensive.

Both Lenski & Lipson are cited as critics in this article. Lenski's criticism originated with ratvandals Lipson admitted was one the purposes of starting the site. Both critics are cited alongside Jimbo Wales. What's wrong with this picture? [[User:Nobs01|nobs]] ([[User talk:Nobs01|talk]]) 00:52, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

:What's your point? Lenski made it clear he thought Andy was an ignorant ass, and accused him and other editors at CP of being obnoxious morons. Whether or not some of those moron were parodists from RW is irrelevant (though certainly some were). Try as you might, you can't write this off as a Rationalwiki prank. Andy made an ass of himself, and was anxious to do so. There's no getting around that. -[[User:R. fiend|R. fiend]] ([[User talk:R. fiend|talk]]) 02:00, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

::That is not the issue under discussion here. The issue is whether or not Peter Lipson is a notable or reliable critic of CP's editorial policies. Peter Lipson is the author of this defamatory screed posted on RW. [http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Essay:Conservapedia_and_Fascism]
::[[WP:COI#Defending_interests]] states:
::*''it is unproblematic to defend the interest of the person or institution''
::meaning an ''institution'', not just a person, can be defamed.
::*''An entire article that presents as an attack piece or hostile journalism can be nominated for speedy deletion and will be removed promptly from the site.'' (Note: This entry has been deleted and recreated numerous times, each time with socks, apparently, reclaiming ownership of the article).
::Lipson's unsupported screed was posted at RW shortly after the sites creation in the timeframe of the ''LA Times'' article. Lipson has no other internet presence other than his practice of internal medicine, yet he has a celebrated ranking as an authoritive critic of CP right next to Jimbo Wales. His screed -- his real intent, has nothing to do whatsoever with the credentials cited in the ''L.A. Times'' as an authority on breast cancer. And inserting this subsection was the method used by RW to link WP to thier website. [[User:Nobs01|nobs]] ([[User talk:Nobs01|talk]]) 02:45, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

:::So it does have nothing to do with Lenski. Alright then. But anyway, as someone else said, we're referencing the LA Times, not Lipson's blog. If you want to remove all references to Lipson you can try to make that case. We can start by removing any reference to RationalWiki as a vandal site. -[[User:R. fiend|R. fiend]] ([[User talk:R. fiend|talk]]) 02:51, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

::::Agreed. That's what I'm asking. ~~I can't do it myself because of COI.~~ [[User:Nobs01|nobs]] ([[User talk:Nobs01|talk]])
::::I'm asking the subhead using Peter Lipson's name be removed; and if reference to Peter Lipson is to remain, he not be elevated as a notable and credible source on CP's editorial policy and breast cancer. The evidence shows he a partisan political critc who confesses to vandalism, and is the source of inflamitory, and defamatory misinformation. [[User:Nobs01|nobs]] ([[User talk:Nobs01|talk]]) 03:43, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
:::::No sir. The evidence merely reflects that you object to his characterization of your little fiefdom, that you like using inflammatory language to describe your opponents, and that Lipson "confessed" to wiki vandalism, which is a very special case of vandalism in general. You've vandalized RW far more often by your own definition of the word. Get over yourself. [[Special:Contributions/98.226.15.58|98.226.15.58]] ([[User talk:98.226.15.58|talk]]) 04:17, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
::'''Disclosure:''' The record will show I am also a Rationalwiki sysop. I have tried on numerous occassions to gain concensus for the deletion of Lipson's anti-Conservapedia screed for years. I've debated major points in Lipson's essay with Lipson, and he walked away from the discussion evidently because he could not maintain his position. I've had the power as a RW sysop to delete it myself, but have not done so without concensus.
::I've known virtually all of RW founders since its inception, and I probably alone among CP sysops, enjoy a civil relationship with most of them. I think many respect me because of a willingness to engage in matters of mutual importance. [[User:Nobs01|nobs]] ([[User talk:Nobs01|talk]]) 04:29, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
:::That's the strangest opinion I've ever read; since when has "despise" been interpreted as "respect"? [[User:SpeckledHen|SpeckledHen]] ([[User talk:SpeckledHen|talk]]) 06:15, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
::::Isn't there anyone, anywhere on this wiki who removes needless hate talk like above? It wasn't on-point, nor was it about the topic at hand, and lowers the level of dialog on Wikipedia even more. The failure to remove such comments is of itself a comment on the lack of standards here. --[[User:TK-CP|TK-CP]] ([[User talk:TK-CP|talk]]) 08:25, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

TK, you're to harsh to Nobs! But again, let's look at the facts:
*Lenski states in the introduction of his second letter ''I tried to be polite, civil and respectful in my reply to your first email, despite its rude tone and uninformed content. Given the continued rudeness of your second email, and the willfully ignorant and slanderous content on your website, my second response will be less polite.''
Who wrote the second letter? It's signed ''Andy Schlafly, B.S.E., J.D. '' And user Aschlafly (most probably not a RW sock, as he is the founder of Conservapedia) made some comments which may be have seen as ''willfully ignorant and slanderous'' like

*''At some point, StatsMsn, an open mind requires admitting the possibility that the data have not been made available because there is concern about what an independent reviewer may conclude from it. Are you open-minded enough to admit that possibility? It's a waste of time arguing with a closed mind, and if you won't admit at least that possibility then this discussion is unproductive”.--Aschlafly 09:00, 19 June 2008 (EDT)''

*''If I'm reading the dates on the front of this particular paper correctly, I think peer review was a mere 15 days or so. Looks to me like a rubber-stamp process for this subject matter despite making claims that were reported as being newsworthy. --Aschlafly 16:47, 19 June 2008 (EDT)''

*''Don't pretend that Lenski welcomes independent review of the data. --Aschlafly 15:15, 19 June 2008 (EDT) ''

*''In other words, you seem to be saying the latest paper was not given a thorough, independent peer review. I agree with that analysis. In fact, it probably "sailed through" without any meaningful peer review at all, despite published journal procedures claiming to require meaningful peer review.--Aschlafly 11:08, 28 June 2008 (EDT) ''

Face it: the Lenski - dialogue is a brainchild of Andrew Schlafly, who set the tone of it, too. Andrew Schlafly may have been open to encouragement from some members of RationalWiki, but he digged this hole himself. [[User:DiEb|DiEb]] ([[User talk:DiEb|talk]]) 08:55, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

:So you're not contesting the reliability of the LA Times, but rather arguing that the Lipson section should be removed because Lipson has attacked CP? I don't find that a compelling argument at all. Would you also remove the article on [[Charles J. Guiteau]]? My opinion is that the Lipson section should stay. [[User:Rees11|Rees11]] ([[User talk:Rees11|talk]]) 11:56, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
::I don't think that anyone has suggested that the Lipson section should go. It's factual as far as I can see. The only relevant discussion here has been about the Lenski letters being promoted by RationalWiki, which is obviously a red herring. [[User:SpeckledHen|SpeckledHen]] ([[User talk:SpeckledHen|talk]]) 12:30, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

:::This discussion has gone from being about Lenski to about removal of the Lipson section. (Someone seems to have a hard time staying on topic.) While I don't think the Lipson section should be removed, I wouldn't mind seeing it renamed. Lipson himself isn't terribly notable or important. Maybe the heading should read RationalWiki? -[[User:R. fiend|R. fiend]] ([[User talk:R. fiend|talk]]) 12:34, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

::::And about Lipson and the LA article again. I believe [http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/User:PalMD this] is Lipson, is this true? And if so he says he did not set up RationalWiki. Is this true or is the LA article the one we should believe? If the LA article is not right on that then have we other evidence of Lipson doing vandalism? Personally I have very little time for vandals and would like this cleared up one way or the other. [[User:Dmcq|Dmcq]] ([[User talk:Dmcq|talk]]) 13:08, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

:::::Thank you very much, Dmcq. You appear to see the problem. Lipson's user page says,
::::::*''"The site seems to represent something I abhor, but attracted a large number of people of all political stripes who felt compelled to inject truth into the mix. "''[http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/User:PalMD#Who_I_Am] links to this discussionon where Lipson says,
::::::*''My politics, when I either agree or disagree with something here, are irrelevant.''' But Lipson finds a receptive audience for his politics with his defamatory screed at RW. [http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Essay:Conservapedia_and_Fascism]

::::::So, the section baring Peter Lipson's name, with the reference to him solely as a doctor of internal medicine makes no mention of his extreme, unfounded, and inflamitory political views. If the ''LA TImes'' is incorrect in stating Lipson helped start RW, his credentials have certainly been used to inspire an army of younger trolls and vandals who feel justified in attacking and vandalizing the site. And Lipson certainly was with RW from its beginnings.
::::::[[WP:COI#Defending_interests]] states:
::::::*''it is unproblematic to defend the interest of the person or institution'' Can we pleaase get some help? Thank you. [[User:Nobs01|nobs]] ([[User talk:Nobs01|talk]]) 13:51, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
:::::::As you seem to have moved on to the second part of your initial complaint, may I assume that you have no problem any longer with the sentence: ''Lenski replied again that the relevant data was already in the paper, that the "raw data" were living bacterial samples, which he would willingly share with qualified researchers at properly equipped biology labs, and that he felt insulted by letters and comments on Conservapedia, which he saw as brusque and offensive, including claims of outright deceit.'' ?
:::::::That would be a nice progress - and we could move on without the evocation of upper authorities... [[User:DiEb|DiEb]] ([[User talk:DiEb|talk]]) 15:02, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

:::::::What "extreme, unfounded, and inflamitory political views"? He butted heads with Andrew Schlafly about the whole "Abortions cause breast cancer!" thing, and that's pretty much it. And in the end, Andy prevailed in pushing his view as truth.
:::::::If you feel the need to make accusations against people, give us evidence. Or are you saying that ''"I have always been interested in how people bend the truth to suit their particular needs, so when I heard about a site called 'Conservapedia', I had to check it out. I began editing, and rapidly found my worst fears confirmed, but also some of my greatest hopes. The site seems to represent something I abhor, but attracted a large number of people of all political stripes who felt compelled to inject truth into the mix."'' is that extreme view? Is it bad to try to stop people from completely misrepresenting matters of science, religion or politics? Please elaborate.
:::::::And in what way did RW use his credentials to inspite trolls and vandals? Wha? Your accusations get more bizarre, and it's about time you provide some substance. Right now. This isn't a public forum to vent your conspiracy theories.
:::::::RationalWiki had been a place founded by disillusioned CP members, for disillusioned CP members, period. It possibly would've dropped into obscurity if certain CP sysops hadn't announced they'd send copies of silly discussions to the FBI... or if TK hadn't just [http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Conservapedia:Great_Purge randomly banned a ton of innocent accounts] around the same time. Dr. Lipson had been among the first members, just like me. Nobody of us used any credentials to lure in others or to inspire anybody to do something.
:::::::The thing that drove tons of members to us (especially after the Great Purge and once we went public with RW 2.0) was Conservapedia itself. Conservapedia sysops dictated rules, but only applied them whenever it suited them, often interpreting them in new ways or simply making up their own ones (posting them on their own ''user page'' and applying them retroactively). Another aspect that makes people assume the view that CP deserves to be vandalized is that Andy is always right by definition (see also: Jesus disproves relativity, Obama is a Muslim with mind control power, Dawkins never was a professor, etc.) and that arguing against Andy's believes or his pet projects (Lenski Affair, Conservative Bible Project) equals insubordination.
:::::::And this isn't just the view of liberal vandals - CP sysops like Philip J. Rayment or CPAdmin1 also saw these problems... and were bullied out of the group for advocating that rules should be applied consistently and for pointing out that the hostile "Follow the leader!"/"Do as I say, not as I do!" atmosphere drove people from CP to RW. Oh, and for arguing that one can be a conservative while still being in favor of gun control, in Philip's case.
:::::::Rob, you're wasting everybody's time here. You bait people with some "admission" about Lenski, then suddenly swerve over to Dr. Lipson and make wild accusations about him. Time to speak clearly: What does he do? What extreme views does he have? (Edit to add: Nevermind, I see that was ''yet'' another tangent that didn't have anything to do with anything, posted with the sole purpose of making Dr. Lipson look bad.) And what does this have to do with "brusque and offensive" comments? And please, go beyond just making assertions and accusations. This is Wikipedia, not Conservapedia. We actually would like to see sources and details. --[[User:Sid 3050|Sid 3050]] ([[User talk:Sid 3050|talk]]) 15:09, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

===''The Register''===
[Unindent] [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/20/conservapedia/print.html ''The Register article''] states,
:*''Lipson duly enlisted other disgruntled editors and started RationalWiki ''
[[User:Tony Sidaway]], a respected longtime Wikipedia contributor noted after the "Hit List" subterfuge,
:''It does not reflect well on RationalWiki that the site owners turn a blind eye ...if there are people going in and deliberately inserting the most outrageous material they can, Schlafly and his adminstrators like TK can always say, with some justice, that his site has been compromised by vandals. In this case, despite my initial feelings about the matter, TK was right and I was wrong.
Sidaway goes on,
:''I am frustrated by this culture of vandalism and parody. My history '''on Wikipedia where we have successfully overwhelmed all attempts to cause such harm''' has given me a keen appreciation of the advantages of open editing, but '''on a much smaller wiki which is apparently already subject to quite heavy infiltration by people who mean no good''', how am I to persuade the Conservapedians, as I have been trying to do, that open editing is a viable direction to take?...they are unlikely to appreciate the strength of this argument when faced with deliberate and organized attempts to embarrass them by planting parodic content.'' [http://lambdadelta.wordpress.com/2009/01/30/rationalwiki-parodist-owns-up-to-creating-conservapedia-hit-list-article/]
So Lipson is more than a medical doctor as represented in this entry, and evidently Wikipedia itself has not overwhelmed Lipson's vandals who control the content of this particular entry. [[User:Nobs01|nobs]] ([[User talk:Nobs01|talk]]) 15:29, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
:...what?
:So we've moved from Lenski to Lipson to the Hitlist now?
:Please just tell us what you would change to what in the article instead of going on endless accusation tangents. This is getting silly.
:And you think RationalWiki controls the content of this article? HA! HAAAAAAA, HAAAAAAAAAAA! Quick! Put it on Bias On Wikipedia! --[[User:Sid 3050|Sid 3050]] ([[User talk:Sid 3050|talk]]) 15:42, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

:Still not really following what you're saying. Is your beef with who founded RationalWiki? If so, it appears the Times somewhat overstated Lipson's involvement, and that he was an initial member, not founder (according to RW itself I believe). The phrasing on that as it stands seems good enough. (It certainly isn't the first time a newspaper got a detail wrong.) I don't see what your point is with the "Hit List". If it was vandalism, why did Conservapedia let it stand so long? Besides, I don't even see it mentioned in this article so I don't see how it's relevant to this discussion. Can you please just state clearly and plainly what changes you are proposing to the article? Or are you just here to complain? -[[User:R. fiend|R. fiend]] ([[User talk:R. fiend|talk]]) 15:45, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

:The Register was quoting the LA Times so it is hardly independent confirmation of the LA story. I think we have to go by Lipson's own statement since there is evidence the LA Times article is wrong in this area. I don't see how this article can credibly continue quoting the LA article, is there some wording for 'reliable sources' which state provably wrong things? At best we have the statement by Lipson that he would have been pleased if he had actually helped found RationalWiki like the Register said. [[User:Dmcq|Dmcq]] ([[User talk:Dmcq|talk]]) 16:20, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
::Thank you very much, Dmcq. I think your reading of both the ''L.A. Times'' and the ''Register'' may be correct, however there is no doubt Lipson was among the first contributors who started RW. And quoting the ''L.A. Times'' is the vehicle that has been used to provide a direct link to Rationalwiki's website. [[User:Nobs01|nobs]] ([[User talk:Nobs01|talk]]) 17:16, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

:::Rob, you are aware that this article and its author are directly approved by Conservapedia, right?
:::*Guess who provided a handy link to it on CP's article on Stephanie Simon? [http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Stephanie_Simon&oldid=202167&diff=prev YOU!]
:::*CP Main Page, September 2008: [http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page/Previous_Conservapedia_Breaking_News/Archives/September_2008#September_19 "'Palin's Entry Gives GOP Ticket Shot at Capturing the Youth Vote,' is an article in the Wall Street Journal by ... Stephanie Simon, the reporter who wrote a widely published article about Conservapedia in 2007."]
:::*CP Main Page, January 2009: [http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page/Previous_Conservapedia_Breaking_News/Archives/January_2009#January_4 "'It's an astonishing fact that year after year, the Bible is the best-selling book in America -- even though 90% of households already have at least one copy.' So writes Stephanie Simon for the Wall Street Journal, where this talented reporter seems to be after covering Conservapedia last year for the L.A. Times."]
:::And if memory serves correctly, at least one CP sysop recently paraded it around on this talk page to be call people "sysops of a known vandal site" or something. So it's beyond puzzling that you now seemingly oppose including this source. Just as it's puzzling that you oppose linking to RationalWiki, which has been namedropped and linked several times by now - often by you. I'm not endorsing or opposing you right now, mostly because I'm not sure anymore what you want or why you want it. --[[User:Sid 3050|Sid 3050]] ([[User talk:Sid 3050|talk]]) 17:53, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
::::I'm unaware of the discussions around the decision to speedy delete RW entry here, nor care to engage. My focus is on the qualifications of Peter Lipson to be cited along side [[Jimbo Wales]] in the "Reception" section after Lipson published a defamatory screed [http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Essay:Conservapedia_and_Fascism] on a website Wikipedia cites was founded by him. At a bare minimum, the Lispon section violates NPOV for not stating his political views, and only qualifies him as doctor of internal medicine. It should be unproblematic to defend an instituition defamed by Peter Lipson. [[User:Nobs01|nobs]] ([[User talk:Nobs01|talk]]) 18:44, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
:::::So you wish something that is NPOV and backed by a RS removed on the basis that the person quoted wrote something you don't like somewhere else? The source doesn't say anything about Lipson's political views, wouldn't that be OR then? -- [[User:Nx|'''''Nx''''']] / [[User talk:Nx|''talk'']] 18:56, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

:::::The section echoes what is covered by a reliable source. You seem to want to include Original Research. I admit I'm not the most active or rule-versed editor here, but I ''believe'' there is a rule against this. --[[User:Sid 3050|Sid 3050]] ([[User talk:Sid 3050|talk]]) 18:55, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

::::::There is another issue regarding the factual accuracy of the ''L.A. Times'' and ''Register'' articles; there are issues developing for the restored [[RationalWiki]] entry. surely, at a minimum we can conclude this Peter Lipson subsection is in dispute. As per my declared COI's, and WP policies in place to protect living persons and institutions from defamation, I should be able to get a neutral administrator to rehang the dispute tag in this subsection while these issues are civilly discussed and sorted out. Thank you. [[User:Nobs01|nobs]] ([[User talk:Nobs01|talk]]) 19:43, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

:::::::What, specifically, is the defamation you object to? -- [[User:Nx|'''''Nx''''']] / [[User talk:Nx|''talk'']] 19:51, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

::::::::Peter Lipson, founder of [[RationalWiki]] according to Wikipedia, is the author of this defamatory smear of Conservapedia. [http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Essay:Conservapedia_and_Fascism] [[User:Nobs01|nobs]] ([[User talk:Nobs01|talk]]) 19:56, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

:::::::::Is that "smear" located on Wikipedia? -- [[User:Nx|'''''Nx''''']] / [[User talk:Nx|''talk'']] 20:00, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

::::::::::Lipson criticism is more than that as a doctor of internal medicine, as this entry states. And we have reason to beleive, per WP:RS, Lipson likewise, is more than a doctor of internal medicine. [[User:Nobs01|nobs]] ([[User talk:Nobs01|talk]]) 20:09, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
:::::::::::This article does not state what kind of criticism RationalWiki provides. -- [[User:Nx|'''''Nx''''']] / [[User talk:Nx|''talk'']] 20:19, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
::::::::::::The article only qualifies Lipson as a doctor of internal medicine. If Lispon indeed is the founder of RationalWiki, as the ''L.A. Times'', ''The Register'' and Wikipedia all state, his second entry on his user page in Rationalwiki under "Why Am I here" outlines his defamatory screed later cut and pasted into essay form. [http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=User:PalMD&diff=prev&oldid=380] His agenda clearly is political, and not just "refuting crank science" as RW maintains. [[User:Nobs01|nobs]] ([[User talk:Nobs01|talk]]) 20:47, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

:::::::::::::I edited the Wikipedia RW article to reflect what the LA Times article actually says (IIRC, fixing such errors is allowed even with a COI): That Lipson is one of the first members of RW and that he "started" RW merely in that sense, just like Andy's homeschoolers "started" CP. (I "started" RationalWiki in the same sense, are you going to call ME the founder now?) Notice how this article doesn't say that CP was started by homeschoolers, it says that it was started by Andy Schlafly. This article also doesn't say that Lipson is the founder of RationalWiki. Lipson's RW profile explicitly says that he's not the founder of RW. Nobody on RW says that it was founded by Lipson. The Register article, the (to the best of my knowledge) only source for your claim, wrongly paraphrases the LA Times. It's just you who suddenly wants to make this personal by including Original Research to assign a completely unnecessary political label. Lipson's conflict with Andy - who has no medical training I am aware of - was over ''medicine'', not politics. --[[User:Sid 3050|Sid 3050]] ([[User talk:Sid 3050|talk]]) 20:49, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
[Unindent] TY. The changes made til now, including the renamed subhead & POV tag are appreciated. I'm taking a break for a few hours. Again, thanks to all. [[User:Nobs01|nobs]] ([[User talk:Nobs01|talk]]) 21:34, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

== Factual inaccuracies ==

The article states, "the articles about conservative politicians, such as Republican former US president Ronald Reagan, Joseph McCarthy, and former British Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher have been observed as praising their respective subjects.[13][48] "
Citations are ''Simon, Stephanie (2007-06-22). "A conservative's answer to Wikipedia". Los Angeles Times.'' [http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jun/19/nation/na-schlafly] and ''Read, Brock (March 2, 2007) "A Wikipedia for the Right Wing" Chronicle of Higher Education.'' The Brock article is a dead link but here is the original cite. [http://chronicle.com/blogPost/A-Wikipedia-for-the-Right-Wing/2875/] Neither article mentions Joseph Mccarthy. [[User:Nobs01|nobs]] ([[User talk:Nobs01|talk]]) 10:00, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

:I don't think COI guidelines prohibit you from fixing dead links and making other non-controversial edits. I fixed the url and removed McCarthy. [[User:Rees11|Rees11]] ([[User talk:Rees11|talk]]) 11:59, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

== Internet Encyclopedia Project ==

Is Conservapedia still just an ancyclopedia project, has it not moved on to be more of a political/ideological blog? [[User:KenDenier|KenDenier]] ([[User talk:KenDenier|talk]]) 12:32, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
:If you can find a [[WP:RS|reliable source]] that says that, then please put it in the article. If not, don't. if you're just wondering aloud, then please remember [[WP:FORUM|this talk page is not a forum]]. And denying Ken is futile, btw. [[User:Totnesmartin|Totnesmartin]] ([[User talk:Totnesmartin|talk]]) 13:20, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

== Commercial? ==

Why does the infobox say "Commercial: no" when it's a dotcom? [[User:Rees11|Rees11]] ([[User talk:Rees11|talk]]) 15:46, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
:Probably 'cause there's no cash transaction involved at all? "Dotcom" is meaningless. [[User:SpeckledHen|SpeckledHen]] ([[User talk:SpeckledHen|talk]]) 16:20, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

==NPOV - Peter Lipson==
I've hung the {peacock} tag in the ==Peter Lipson== section, although it refers to "article;" the alternative would be the {hoax} tag which says, "article or section." I'm not certain which to use. Thank you. [[User:Nobs01|nobs]] ([[User talk:Nobs01|talk]]) 15:53, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
:I have found the correct tag {POV-section}. [[User:Nobs01|nobs]] ([[User talk:Nobs01|talk]]) 15:59, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
::What exactly is your gripe with that section? The LA Times states
:::Dr. Peter A. Lipson, an internist in Southfield, Mich., repeatedly tried to amend an article on breast cancer to tone down Conservapedia's claim that abortion raises a woman's risk. The site's administrators, including Schlafly, questioned his credentials and shut off debate."
:::After administrators blocked their accounts, Lipson and several other editors quit trying to moderate the articles and instead started their own website, RationalWiki.com.
::The section almost completely echoes this and was a RS last time I checked. What would you change? --[[User:Sid 3050|Sid 3050]] ([[User talk:Sid 3050|talk]]) 16:07, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
:::nobs: If you could sum it up in 20 words or less I would appreciate it. And please refrain from editing the article directly except for non-controversial edits like fixing dead links. [[User:Rees11|Rees11]] ([[User talk:Rees11|talk]]) 16:18, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/20/conservapedia/print.html ''The Register article''] states,
:*''Lipson duly enlisted other disgruntled editors and started RationalWiki ''
[http://lambdadelta.wordpress.com/2009/01/30/rationalwiki-parodist-owns-up-to-creating-conservapedia-hit-list-article/ Tony Sidaway] states,
:*''It does not reflect well on RationalWiki that the site owners turn a blind eye to... people going in and deliberately inserting the most outrageous material'' [[User:Nobs01|nobs]] ([[User talk:Nobs01|talk]]) 16:23, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

::What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Are you suggesting we quote Tony Sidaway as a reliable source? -[[User:R. fiend|R. fiend]] ([[User talk:R. fiend|talk]]) 16:27, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

:::As pointed out above, the Register article incorrectly paraphrases the Times. Lipson didn't enlist anybody, and he didn't start RationalWiki. He had been an early member (from what I recall - this is three-year-old stuff), and that's it. And you once again bring up the Hitlist, which had been implicitly endorsed by CP sysops (they had edited it and didn't find fault with the content, IIRC) and had only been erased the moment someone shone the spotlight onto it. Oh, and it isn't part of the article and has nothing to do with Lipson. --[[User:Sid 3050|Sid 3050]] ([[User talk:Sid 3050|talk]]) 16:36, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
Removal of the Template tag has been reported to [[Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard#Talk:Conservapedia.23.22brusque_and_offensive.22]]. [[User:Nobs01|nobs]] ([[User talk:Nobs01|talk]]) 16:50, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

:Hmm... I didn't realize The Register story was bad when I added it (was looking at the wrong section of this talk, since it was linked from the NPOV report). If it's factually inaccurate we could note that he is an early participant, but not a founder with another reference. In any event, linking to the RationalWiki main page was pointless, so I wiki-linked to the article on RationalWiki. I'm not seeing a big POV issue in any event, just a potential factual discrepancy. —[[User:ShadowRangerRIT|ShadowRanger]] ^{([[User talk:ShadowRangerRIT|talk]]|[[Special:Contributions/ShadowRangerRIT|stalk]])} 17:30, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

::Just realized that RationalWiki itself was redirecting to this section, which makes no sense at all. I've restored an earlier version of the page which appears to be okay (if a bit overly focused on the Conservapedia rivalry). Either way, it's better that a redirect to a tiny section of a article with tertiary relevance. —[[User:ShadowRangerRIT|ShadowRanger]] ^{([[User talk:ShadowRangerRIT|talk]]|[[Special:Contributions/ShadowRangerRIT|stalk]])} 17:46, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
:::Wikipedia's article on [[RationalWiki]] accredits Peter Lipson as the founder. Can we get the {NPOV - section} tag, or a factual innaccuracy tag rehung in the Lipson section of this entry restored, please? [[User:Nobs01|nobs]] ([[User talk:Nobs01|talk]]) 17:59, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
::::The article was just restored by me, and I added the factual accuracy tag myself due to the questions raised here. I'm inclined to shorten the Lipton section and remove most of the details that you disagree with; any factual accuracy issues can be hashed out at the RationalWiki article. —[[User:ShadowRangerRIT|ShadowRanger]] ^{([[User talk:ShadowRangerRIT|talk]]|[[Special:Contributions/ShadowRangerRIT|stalk]])} 18:02, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
:::::I'm not here to defend factual innacurracies in the RW entry. It should be unproblematic to hang {NPOV - section} in this entry to defend an institution under defamatory attack by Lipson personally [http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Essay:Conservapedia_and_Fascism] Can the {NPOV -section} tag be restored, please? [[User:Nobs01|nobs]] ([[User talk:Nobs01|talk]]) 18:17, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
::::::What does an essay posted on RationalWiki have to do with Wikipedia? -- [[User:Nx|'''''Nx''''']] / [[User talk:Nx|''talk'']] 18:19, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
::::::::[[WP:COI#Defending_interests]] states,
::::::::*''In a few cases, outside interests coincide with Wikipedia’s interests.''. This, I submit, is one such case. [[User:Nobs01|nobs]] ([[User talk:Nobs01|talk]]) 18:25, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
:::::::::I believe that refers to material in a Wikipedia article. The material you object to is not on Wikipedia. -- [[User:Nx|'''''Nx''''']] / [[User talk:Nx|''talk'']] 18:29, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
:::::As a heads-up, I've [http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Conservapedia_Talk:What_is_going_on_at_CP%3F&diff=551404&oldid=551391 put up] a notice on RW to see if anybody still remembers the pros and cons for the "turn to redirect" decision. Personally, I'm really not sure about Notability, so a few extra eyes now might spare us some drama later on. --[[User:Sid 3050|Sid 3050]] ([[User talk:Sid 3050|talk]]) 18:25, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

== NPOV (March 2010) ==

First of all, I have a [[WP:COI]] in this which is why my changes to the article have been minimal. However, I've noticed that at least 75% of this article references criticism. That doesn't seem neutral to me. Anyone else want to weigh in on this? [[User:PCHS-NJROTC|PCHS-NJROTC]] ^{[[User talk:PCHS-NJROTC|(Messages)]]} 21:16, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
:...feel free to supply positive Reliable Sources? This issue had been noted since the first days of this article, and the awkward answer had been "That's pretty much all there is...". Since CP went online, the widespread reaction had been criticism. With things like the Conservative Bible Project, ''even the conservative sources'' criticized it. I'm not terribly rule-versed, so take this with a grain of salt, but NPOV doesn't mean Equal Weight. I guess [[WP:WEIGHT]] applies here? --[[User:Sid 3050|Sid 3050]] ([[User talk:Sid 3050|talk]]) 21:24, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
::I'd like to see a concrete proposal, with specifics of what is to be removed or added. [[User:Rees11|Rees11]] ([[User talk:Rees11|talk]]) 21:52, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
:::::Sid is absolutely right. WP:WEIGHT is exactly what applies. There are nearly no sources (liberal, conservative or otherwise) which discuss CP in a positive light especially within the past year. The Concerned Woman of America is pretty much the only major group that has praised the project and that was only a brief write up from two years. On the other hand, if you have reliable sources which are positive about CP we could probably work them in. --[[User:Daniel J. Leivick|Leivick]] ([[User talk:Daniel J. Leivick|talk]]) 21:56, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
::::::We have presented evidence on this page much of this criticism of CP over the past year was inserted by RationalWiki parodists in both the "Hit List" and "Lenski" incidents. [[User:Nobs01|nobs]] ([[User talk:Nobs01|talk]]) 22:23, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
:::(ec) See [[Talk:Conservapedia/Archive_12#Needs_a_POV_check]] -- [[User:Nx|'''''Nx''''']] / [[User talk:Nx|''talk'']] 21:56, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Coddling Terrorists?

2009-09-02T21:16:00.002-07:00

September 21, 1999
Coddling Terrorists?

On August 11, 1999, President William Jefferson Clinton offered clemency to members
of the Armed Forces of National Liberation (the Spanish acronym is FALN), a group devoted to
the violent pursuit of Puerto Rican independence whose terrorist acts have killed and injured
scores of Americans.

To understand the danger and gravity of President Clinton's clemency grant, it is necessary to put words around the numbers, including testimony that FALN investigators and victims gave to the Senate on September 15:

"[T]he Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and 2 United States Attorneys all reportedly advised the President not to grant leniency to the 16 terrorists." [S.J.Res 33, which passed the Senate 95-2]

"On January 24th of [1975], I was having lunch with two colleagues, Charlie Murray and Frank Connor and three clients, Jim Gezork, Alex Berger and Dave Urskind. We were seated at a table at Fraunces Tavern in Manhattan] overlooking Broad Street, about to return to work when a bomb, placed in a doorway next to our table, detonated, destroying our corner with shrapnel and debris. Jim, Alex, and Frank died terrible deaths, barely recognizable to their families. Another man, Harold Sherburne, who was upstairs at the time of the blast, was also killed. Charlie, David and I suffered multiple wounds, many of them from shrapnel. More than fifty other people sustained injuries as well." [Bill Newhall, FALN bombing victim]

"[T]heir criminal activity was not limited to indiscriminate bombing. It also included
apolitical crimes such as weapons possession and robbery." [New York Police
Department Detective Rocco Pascerella, injured by an FALN bomb on December 31,
1982]

"I suffered the loss of one leg below the knee, severe scarring of my other leg, the loss of
hearing in one ear, and the loss of my eyesight to the extent that I am no longer able to
drive. I was in the hospital for two months. I underwent six operations for my leg and
ears and received over 40 stitches to my face, ears and mouth." [Detective Pascerella]
"On the late evening of Monday, February 28, 1982, four powerful bombs detonated in
front of business institutions in New York's financial district. The FALN claimed credit
... [and] stated that their jailed comrades and members of their organization were being
mistreated in jail." [Retired FBI Special Agent Donald R. Wofford] Of the 11 inmates the
FALN identified as jailed comrades and members, President Clinton offered clemency to
nine. Eight accepted and are now free.
"[W]hat kind of message does this exercise of clemency send to the world's terrorists?
The United States military is sent halfway around the world to destroy a terrorist's camp
in a foreign nation, while at home, as wily a group of criminal terrorists as exists
anywhere in the world is released upon the strength of a hard wrought promise never to
engage in violence again. A release, it appears, that is contrary to the recommendations
and warnings of every federal agency involved in the investigation, apprehension, trial
and incarceration of this group." [Detective Pascerella]
"I don't recall ever hearing any expression of remorse, concern or contrition by any
member of the FALN for the pain and loss they caused those directly affected, or their
families, for this or any other bombing." [Bill Newhall]
Sources: CRS, Senate Judiciary Committee testimony available at
http://www.senate.gov/-judiciary/wl91599.htm, The Tampa Tribune, S.J.Res. 33 (passed 95-2).
RPC staff contact: Michael F. Cannon, 4-2946
318

The PATRIOT Act

2009-08-31T18:33:00.001-07:00

Friday, December 16, 2005
Printable FormatSenator Obama discusses the reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act.

From today's statement:

"Giving law enforcement the tools they need to investigate suspicious activity is the right thing, and the Senate showed earlier this year that it can be done with the oversight of our judicial system so we do not jeopardize the rights of all Americans and the ideals America stands for. We should not let the PATRIOT Act expire at the end of this year, but instead extend the current law for three months so that we can come to an agreement on these critical issues in Congress."

Podcast Transcript:

Hello, this is Senator Barack Obama and today is Friday, December 16th, 2005.

You know four years ago, following 9/11, this body that I serve in, the United States Senate, passed the USA PATRIOT Act in order to give our nation's law enforcement the tools they needed to track down terrorists - terrorists who possibly right now are looking to exploit weaknesses in our laws and our security and carry out even deadlier attacks than we saw back then.

All of us agree that we need legislation to make it harder for suspected terrorists to go undetected in this country. All of us agree that we need to make it harder for them to organize and strategize and get flight licenses and sneak across our borders - every single America wants that to happen.

But soon after the PATRIOT Act passed, I began hearing concerns from people of every background, every political leaning that this law - the very purpose of which was to protect us - was also threatening to violate our rights and our freedoms as Americans. That it didn't just provide law enforcement the powers it needed to keep us safe, but powers that it didn't need to invade our privacy without cause or suspicion.

Now, what's happened in Washington, of course, is that the debate as usual has degenerated into this "either-or" type debate. So, either we're in favor of protecting our people from terror or we will protect our most cherished civil liberties. That's a false choice. It asks too little of us, assumes too little about America.

That's why as it's come time to reauthorize this law, there have been a group of senators, including myself, working in a bi-partisan way to show the American people that we can track down terrorists without trampling on our civil rights. We want to show the American people that the federal government will only issue warrants and execute searches because it needs to, not because it wants to. In other words, what we've been trying to do is to inject some accountability in this process - to get answers and to see evidence where there is suspicion.

So, a bi-partisan group of Senators several weeks ago actually came up with a compromise piece of legislation - you had people like Russ Feingold on the left and Larry Craig on the right agree to this bill. We passed it out of the Senate unanimously. It wasn't perfect but at least it addressed some of the most serious provisions, like the so-called "sneak-and-peek" provisions, that existed in current law.

Unfortunately, the house members decided they didn't like this bill. They put some rushed legislation together that fails to address the concerns that people had about the previous PATRIOT ACT. So, just to give you a couple of examples: this legislation puts our own Justice Department above the law. When National Security Letters are issued this legislation that's been proposed allowed federal agents to conduct any search on any American, no matter how extensive or wide-ranging, without ever going before a judge to prove that the search is necessary. All they needed was sign-off from a local FBI official. That's it.

Once a business or a person received notification that they will be searched, they are prohibited from telling anybody about it; they can't challenge this automatic gag order in court. Despite the fact that judges have already found similar restrictions violate the First Amendment - the bill that is before the Senate disregards this case law and the right to challenge the gag orders.

If you do decide to consult an attorney for legal advice - you have to tell the FBI that you've done so already. This is unheard of - there is no such requirement in any other area of the law, and I don't see why it's justified here.

If somebody wants to know why their own government has decided to go on a fishing expedition through every personal record or private document, through library books they've read , phone calls they've made, e-mails that they've sent - this legislation gives people no rights to appeal the need for such a search in a court of law. No judge will hear their plea, no jury will hear their case.
And that's - that's just plain wrong.

Now, I'm happy to say that we had our first vote on this issue on the floor of the Senate today. There was a procedure that is called a "cloture vote." Cloture means that it ends debate, it eliminates the possibility of the filibuster. Those of us who thought this was a bad compromise voted against cloture, and a number of Republicans joined us and in fact cloture, which required 60 votes, did not succeed.

And so the Republican leadership is scrambling right now to figure out what they're going to do, and the White House has threatened that they are just going to let the Patriot Act lapse all together and will then blame Democrats if there is a terrorist attack prior to reauthorization of a new Patriot Act. Now that kind of rhetoric makes absolutely no sense, as you might imagine. If in fact the White House and the Republican leadership think that these provisions are absolutely vital, then you'd think that they would accept Democrats' offer to extend it for three months as we continue to work on this compromise. There's a lot of political posturing going on around this and I think that needs to end because the issues that we're dealing with here are too important to play politics with.

So, I am hopeful that we get an extension on the existing Patriot Act for three months; we can work out a compromise that ensures our civil liberties are protected; that provides for the critical judicial oversight that's at the core of most of our law enforcement processes; that still gives law enforcement the tools that they need in order to protect our homeland.

Now, having said all this let me also complain to you. As a consequence of the disorganization here in the Senate and whoever is running the ship, I am supposed to be flying over the Pacific Ocean right now - with my family - about to land in Hawaii for my vacation with my wife and kids. They have gone without me. My wife basically said, "Well, I hope you can make it, buddy" and took off. So, it looks like I'm stuck in Washington this weekend. As you might imagine, I'm not happy about this.

Despite that fact, I want to mention that I probably won't be doing a podcast until early January. I'm going to be traveling after my vacation to the Middle East, including Iraq and Israel. If the schedule and logistics allow it I'm going to try to record a podcast while I am in the Middle East. Either way I'll try to give you guys a full report when I get back.

So despite the fact that I'm feeling a little gloomy right now, the grinch has sort of stole my Christmas - he looks surprisingly like Bill Frist - nevertheless, I am hoping that all of you guys have a wonderful holiday season, a happy new year, and I look forward to talking to you soon.

Bye-Bye.

Obama Statement on the PATRIOT Act

2009-08-31T18:31:00.000-07:00

Obama Statement on the PATRIOT Act
Friday, December 16, 2005
Printable FormatFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Obama Contact: Robert Gibbs or Tommy Vietor, (202) 228-5511
Illinois Contact: Julian Green, (312) 886-3506
Date: December 16, 2005

Obama Statement on the PATRIOT Act

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) today released the following statement on the PATRIOT Act:

"Earlier this year, the Senate passed legislation to strengthen the PATRIOT Act by implementing some common sense safeguards that would protect our civil liberties while still ensuring that our law enforcement has the tools it needs to fight terrorism. This legislation would have simply required federal agents to convince a judge that a search of sensitive personal information is reasonable and somehow connected to terrorism or espionage. And if an American is told that their personal information and private records must be searched, this bill would give them the opportunity to challenge this search in a court of law. It would also require the government to notify a person within seven days when it has gone into that person's home and taken their records or possessions, as opposed to the thirty days it has now.

"Giving law enforcement the tools they need to investigate suspicious activity is the right thing, and the Senate showed earlier this year that it can be done with the oversight of our judicial system so we do not jeopardize the rights of all Americans and the ideals America stands for. We should not let the PATRIOT Act expire at the end of this year, but instead extend the current law for three months so that we can come to an agreement on these critical issues in Congress."

Stalin's speech to the Politburo

2009-08-22T13:27:00.001-07:00

Stalin's speech to the Politburo on 19 August 1939

(So far it has not been possible to provide an authorized English translation of the speech. In the mean time we will have to put up with the following somewhat faulty version that I have compiled from versions on other websites.)

This seems to be the essential content of the speech:

"The question of war and peace has entered a critical phase for us. If we conclude a mutual assistance pact with France and Great Britain, Germany will back off from Poland and seek a modus vivendi with the Western Powers. War would be avoided, but further events could prove dangerous for the USSR."

"If we accept Germany's proposal and conclude a non-aggression pact with her, she will of course invade Poland, and the intervention of France and England is then unavoidable. Western Europe would be subjected to serious upheavals and disorder. In this case we will have a great opportunity to stay out of the conflict, and we could plan the opportune time for us to enter the war."

"The experience of the last 20 years has shown, that in peacetime the Communist movement is never strong enough for the Bolshevik Party to seize power. The dictatorship of such a Party will only become possible as the result of a major war."

"Our choice is clear. We must accept the German proposal and politely send the Anglo-French mission home. Our immediate advantage will be to take Poland all the way to the gates of Warsaw, as well as Ukrainian Galicia."

"Germany grants us full freedom of action in the Baltic States and recognizes our claim on Bessarabia. She is prepared to acknowledge our interests in Romania Bulgaria and Hungary. Yugoslavia remains an open question. [...] At the same time, we must look ahead to the situation that will follow and to a possible conquest of Germany. In such a situation, we must desist Sovietization of Germany and establishing a Communist Government there. We should not forget that Sovietization would only bring about great danger, if it should shorten the war. England and France are still strong enough to seize Berlin and to destroy a Soviet Germany. We would be unable to assist our Bolshevik German comrades."

"In this way we will cause Germany to be able to wage war in the future, with the goal that England and France should not be able to threaten a Sovietized Germany. Maintaining neutrality and waiting for the right time, the USSR will presently supply Germany with raw materials and finished goods. However, we must not send so much as to weaken our economy or the power of our army. At the same time we must carry on active Communist propaganda in the Anglo-French block, and especially in France. We must be ready for the time when, in that country, the Party should quit the legal means of warfare and turn underground. We know that their work will demand great sacrifices, but we trust our French comrades. The first task will be to demoralize the army and the police. If this preparatory work is fulfilled properly, the danger to a Soviet Germany will recede. It will also contribute to the Sovietization of France."

"For the realization of these plans it is essential that the war continue for as long as possible, and all forces in Western Europe and the Balkans, with which we are actively involved, should be directed toward this goal."

"Now let us consider the second possibility, a victory by Germany. Some think that this would confront us with a serious danger. There is some truth in this, but it would be a mistake to regard the danger as so close or so great as has been proposed. If Germany should prove to be victorious, she will leave the war too weakened to start a war with the USSR within ten years at least. She will have to supervise the occupation of France and England and to restore herself. [...] Obviously, this Germany will be too busy elsewhere to turn against us. In a conquered France, the French Communist Party will be very strong. The Communist revolution will break out, and we will be able to exploit the situation and to come to the aid of France and make her our ally. In addition, all the nations that fall under the "protection" of a victorious Germany will become our allies. This presents for us a broad field of action for the initiation of world revolution."

"Comrades! It is in the interest of the USSR, the workers' homeland that a war breaks out between the Reich and the capitalist Anglo-French block. Everything should be done so that it drags out as long as possible with the goal of weakening both sides. For this reason, it is imperative that we agree to conclude the pact proposed by Germany, and then work in such a way that this war, which any day is going to be declared, will continue during the greatest amount of time. We need to strengthen propaganda work in the fighting countries, in order to be prepared when the war ends." [...]

Civilian Conservation Corps

2009-06-29T18:51:00.000-07:00

The Civilian Conservation Corps, or CCC was ene of the first measures passed during President Franklin D. Roosevelt's first Hundred Days. Young men were enrolled as amateur forest rangers, marsh-drainers, and the like, on projects designed to improve the countryside. The recruits were given room and board, clothing, and a dollar a day. More than two and half million of them passed through the camps of the Civilian Conservation Corps, until the program was abolished in 1942, when the men were needed for the draft. [1]
In 1973, John A. Garraty published an important article on the CCC in the American Historical Review [2] Garraty was Gouverneur Morris Professor of American history at Columbia and later general editor of the American National Biography. Yet, while a warm admirer of FDR, Garraty was compelled to note the striking similarities between the CCC and parallel programs set up by the Nazis for German youth. Both were essentially designed to keep young men out of the labor market. Roosevelt described work camps as a means for getting youth “off the city street corners,” Hitler as a way of keeping them from “rotting helplessly in the streets.” In both countries much was made of the beneficial social results of mixing thousands of young people from different walks of life in the camps. . . . Furthermore, both were organized on semi-military lines with the subsidiary purposes of improving the physical fitness of potential soldiers and stimulating public commitment to national service in an emergency.
Garraty listed many other similarities of between the economic planning of the New Deal and National Socialism. Like Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler prided himself on being a “pragmatist” in economic affairs, trying out one panacea after another. Through a multitude of new agencies and mountains of new regulations, both in Germany and America, owners of enterprises found their freedom to make decisions sharply curtailed.
The Nazis encouraged working-class mobility, through vocational training, the democratizing youth camps, and a myriad of youth organizations. They usually favored workers as against employers in industrial disputes and, in another parallel to the New Deal, supported higher agricultural prices. Both FDR and Hitler "tended to romanticize rural life and the virtues of an agricultural existence" and harbored dreams of the rural resettlement of urban populations, which proved disappointing. Characteristically for the collectivist movements of the time, “enormous propaganda campaigns” were mounted in the United States, Germany, Italy and the USSR to fire up enthusiasm for the government’s programs.
It is no wonder, then, as Professor Garraty writes, that “during the first years of the New Deal the German press praised him [Roosevelt] and the New Deal to the skies. . . . Early New Deal policies seemed to the Nazis essentially like their own and the role of Roosevelt not very different from the Führer’s.”
References
↑ FDR: The Man, the Leader, the Legacy, Ralph Raico, Future of Freedom Foundation, April 1, 2001. Retreived from The Independent Institute.org 06/17/07.
↑ The New Deal, National Socialism, and the Great Depression, John A. Garraty, American Historical Review, Vol. 78, October 1973.
Retrieved from "http://www.conservapedia.com/Civilian_Conservation_Corps"

Congress of Industrial Organizations

2009-06-29T18:49:00.000-07:00

By 1935 membership in labor unions had sunk to a low figure as a result of unemployment. There were men around the President at this time that saw the tremendous possibilities of organizing labor as a political force. An industrial union is one in which all the people engaged in a single industry are included without regard to the type of skills at which they work. The industrial union was the one great instrument by which all labor could be organized and the President was urged to promote this idea as the starting point in building up a powerful political labor movement. There were three large industrial unions at that time, John L. Lewis’s United Mine Workers (UMW), the International Ladies Garment Workers Union of David Dubinsky and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of Sidney Hillman.
Roosevelt tried to sell the plan to John L. Lewis of the UMW, and William Green, head of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Green and the AFL opposed the idea of industrial unions and refused, but under the leadership of Lewis, a new group of unions was formed called the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The Comintern directed Lee Pressman [23] of the Ware group to assume the position of general counsel[24][25] where he became known as "Comrade Big." The year 1936 was a period of furious organizing work by it among the unskilled workers of the country. As Lewis, Dubinsky, and Hillman set about organizing millions of workers they were immediately up against the problem of finding skilled organizers to promote and manage the new unions.
There had been in the United States a Communist labor organization known as the Trade Union Unity League which took its instructions directly from Moscow. It is estimated that ten or fifteen thousand Communists were in these unions. In 1934, Moscow directed the Communist party in the United States to dissolve the Trade Union Unity League unions and to march the members of those unions into the American Federation of Labor. The purpose was not to advance the cause of labor unions or to get better working conditions for the members, but to use the apparatus of the labor union as an instrument of revolution. The Communist leaders saw in the rise of the CIO a better opportunity for their own revolutionary objectives than in the AFL and instructed their members to withdraw from the AFL and go into the CIO where they achieved disproportionate influence. [26]
Lewis was interested in bringing into existence industrial unions like his own, in which he had always believed. Roosevelt was interested in bringing into American labor unions as many voters as possible and in capturing their leadership to build a powerful labor faction which could control the Democratic party and which he and his allies could control through the vast power of the government and the vast powers of labor leaders, along with the immense financial resources that so great a labor movement would have. The Communists were interested in getting into key positions as union officers, statisticians, economists, etc., in order to utilize the apparatus of the unions to promote the cause of revolution. By the early part of 1938, over three million workers had been organized. Lewis was later to split with FDR. [27][28]

New Deal

2009-06-29T18:47:00.000-07:00

The New Deal was the name coined by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, for the socialistic programs he conducted throughout the Great Depression. This program had three aspects: relief, recovery and reform. It sought to provide immediate relief for the millions of unemployed. Roosevelt believed the New Deal would aid in recovery and reform in hopes of ending the Great Depression.
Contents[hide]
1 Economic planning
2 Collectivism
3 100 Days
4 National Recovery Act
5 Civilian Conservation Corps
6 Declining exports
7 Unemployment
8 Crash of 1937
9 See also
10 References
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Economic planning
As the Depression set in, terms like “planned economy” and “national planning” became the watchwords of the day. [1] They had been used by theoriticians for years and popularized by best-selling writers like George Soule and Stuart Chase, who lauded the Soviet Gosplan (central planning), asking plaintively, “Why should the Russians have all the fun of remaking a world?” The most prominent of the Brain Trusters and the man often considered the chief ideologist of the “first New Deal” (roughly, 1933–34), was Rexford Guy Tugwell. Tugwell was a follower of the school of thought known as Institutional Economics, founded by the eccentric writer on economics, Thorstein Veblen. His official position was assistant secretary of agriculture, that is, second in command to Henry A. Wallace, but his influence extended far beyond that. In 1927, Tugwell traveled to the Soviet Union and observed through scientific economic planning the Soviets were able to “carry out their industrial operations with a completely thought-out program.” “The future,” he announced, “is becoming visible in Russia.” Tugwell scorned the free market as anarchical, an uncoordinated muddle of hopelessly conflicting aims and purposes. It would have to be replaced by national planning, or technocracy, another shibboleth of the day, implying rule by the technical experts and managers, [2] like himself.
The National Recovery Act (NRA) and the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) were plans to take the whole industrial and agricultural life of the country under the wing of the government, organize it into vast farm and industrial cartels, as they were called in Germany, corporatives as they were called in Italy, and operate business and the farms under plans made and carried out under the supervision of government. This is the complete negation of liberalism. It is, in fact, the essence of fascism. Fascism goes one step further and insists this cannot be done by a democratic government; that it can be done successfully only under a totalitarian regime. At the time fascism was not defined as anti-Semitism. It was a word used to describe the political system of Italian Premier Benito Mussolini. Roosevelt adopted the Italian model merely because at the moment it seemed politically expedient.
Collectivism
There was a peculiar affinity between the New Deal and the European dictatorships that on occasion extended even to fascism and national socialism Early on, FDR referred to Benito Mussolini as “the admirable Italian gentlemen,” stating to his ambassador in Rome, “I am much interested and deeply impressed by what he has accomplished." Mussolini, in turn, was flattered by what he saw as the New Deal’s copying of his own corporate state, in the National Recovery Act (NRA) and other early measures. Even Hitler had kind words at first for Roosevelt’s “dynamic” leadership, stating that “I have sympathy with President Roosevelt because he marches straight to his objective over Congress, over lobbies, over stubborn bureaucracies.”
What linked the New Deal to the regimes in Italy and Germany, as well as in Soviet Russia, was their fellowship in the wave of collectivism that was sweeping the world. In an essay published in 1933, John Maynard Keynes observed this trend, and expressed his sympathy with the “variety of politico-economic experiments” under way in the continental dictatorships as well as in the United States. All of them, he gloated, were turning their backs on the old, discredited laissez-faire and embracing national planning in one form or another.
It goes without saying that the New Deal was a much milder form of the collectivism. In all of the national planning schemes, government gained power at the expense of the people, with the leaders seeking to impose a philosophy of life that subordinated the individual to the needs of the community—as defined by the state.
100 Days
Roosevelt gathered around himself a Brain Trust, supposedly made up of the "best and the brightest" minds. How the Republic had survived for nearly a century and half without this new innovation was openly speculated. Why the previous Democratic President, Woodrow Wilson, who remains the only PhD to have ever occupied the Presidency, didn't think of it, still remains a mystery.
Shortly after his election FDR forced the Congress to scrap minimum wage and maximum hour legislation which the Senate had already passed. [3]
In May 1933, the Thomas Amendment to the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) was passed, giving the president the authority to increase the money supply by $3 billion in unbacked bills and to reduce the value of the gold dollar by up to half. In June, a supine Congress delivered to FDR the joint resolution he had requested, forbidding private debtors to fulfill their obligations in gold and relieving the government of its own sworn obligations. [4]
National Recovery Act
In 1933 Italian Premier Benito Mussolini was a towering figure. Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, [5] President of Columbia University and Nobel Prize for Peace, said of fascism, it is as a “form of government of the very first order of excellence”; and found it “safe to predict that just as Cromwell made modern England, so Mussolini would make modern Italy.” [6] Chariman Sol Bloom of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U. S. House of Representives, suggested Mussolini was a great man and had something the United States government might well look to for imitation. [7] What they liked particularly was his corporative system. Mussolini organized each trade or industrial group or professional group into a state supervised trade association. He called it a corporative. [8] These corporatives operated under state supervision and provided economic planning of production, quality, prices, distribution, labor standards, etc. The National Recovery Act, or NRA as it came to be called, provided that a corporative system in America for each industry should be organized into a federally supervised trade association. It was not called a corporative. It was called a Code Authority. In Nazi Germany such government run planning authorities built on the Italian model were called industrial cartels. This was the same as fascism. [9] These code authorities could regulate production, quantities, qualities, prices, distribution methods, etc., under the supervision of the NRA. Anti-trust laws forbade such organizations. Roosevelt had denounced Hoover for not enforcing these laws sufficiently. Now Roosevelt suspended the anti-trust laws and compelled men to combine.
The NRA Act provided an appropriation of $3,300,000,000 which the President was given to be spent at his own discretion. He had a sum of money equal to what the government spent in the prvious ten years outside of discretionary spending. Roosevelt decided how it should be spent and where. If a congressman or senator needed an appropriation for his district, instead of introducing a bill in Congress, he went to Roosevelt to ask for it. All over the country, states, cities, counties, business organizations, institutions of all sorts wanted projects of all kinds. Instead of going to Congress they went to the President.
Roosevelt asked Clarence Darrow to head up a national recovery review board. The Darrow Committee's report stated, "We have here a body not only perfectly equipped to exercise monopolistic control, but endowed with extraordinary powers incompatible with the ideals heretofore entertained in a free country. . . In proportion as the authority of government sanctions regulation by industrial combinations, the inevitable tendency is toward monopoly with the elimination of the small business ." [10]
In the twenty-three months that NRA was on the Statute books, the average number of workers involved in strikes and lockouts and the number of days of idleness and lost productivity per month resulting were approximately four times as large as during the six months before NRA. After NRA was declared unconstitutional, both the number of workers involved in industrial disputes and the number of days lost declined.[11]
Donald Richberg, former Counsel and later Administrator of NRA admitted candidly, "Yet step by step through the diabolical logic of events the NRA became the apparent exponent and protector of 'price fixing' - that hateful objective of that most hated ogre, a big business monopoly."[12]
This blank check legislation led to the subservience of Congress and the rise of bureaucracy. Under the Constitution, Congress alone can write laws. The executive branch only enforces the law. But Congress now began to pass laws that created large bureaus empowered to make regulations or directives with a wide range of authority. Under these laws the executive bureau became a quasi-legislative body authorized by Congress to make regulations which had the effect of law. This practice grew until Washington was filled with a vast array of bureaus that were making laws, enforcing them and actually interpreting them through administrative law courts set up within the bureaus, abolishing on a large scale the separation of powers between executive, legislative and judicial processes.
Civilian Conservation Corps
The inner affinities of the New Deal with the continental dictatorships is well illustrated by one of the first measures passed during FDR’s first Hundred Days and was a program that was one of FDR’s favorites, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).
Young men were enrolled as amateur forest rangers, marsh-drainers, and the like, on projects designed to improve the countryside. The recruits were given room and board, clothing, and a dollar a day. More than two and half million of them passed through the camps of the Civilian Conservation Corps, until the program was abolished in 1942, when the men were needed for the draft.
In 1973, John A. Garraty published an important article on the CCC in the American Historical Review [13] Garraty was Gouverneur Morris Professor of American history at Columbia and later general editor of the American National Biography. Yet, while a warm admirer of FDR, Garraty was compelled to note the striking similarities between the CCC and parallel programs set up by the Nazis for German youth. Both were essentially designed to keep young men out of the labor market. Roosevelt described work camps as a means for getting youth “off the city street corners,” Hitler as a way of keeping them from “rotting helplessly in the streets.” In both countries much was made of the beneficial social results of mixing thousands of young people from different walks of life in the camps. . . . Furthermore, both were organized on semi-military lines with the subsidiary purposes of improving the physical fitness of potential soldiers and stimulating public commitment to national service in an emergency.
Garraty listed many other similarities between the New Deal and National Socialism. Like Roosevelt, Hitler prided himself on being a “pragmatist” in economic affairs, trying out one panacea after another. Through a multitude of new agencies and mountains of new regulations, both in Germany and America, owners and managers of enterprises found their freedom to make decisions sharply curtailed.
The Nazis encouraged working-class mobility, through vocational training, the democratizing youth camps, and a myriad of youth organizations. They usually favored workers as against employers in industrial disputes and, in another parallel to the New Deal, supported higher agricultural prices. Both FDR and Hitler “tended to romanticize rural life and the virtues of an agricultural existence“ and harbored dreams of the rural resettlement of urban populations, which proved disappointing. Characteristically for the collectivist movements of the time, “enormous propaganda campaigns” were mounted in the United States, Germany, and Italy (as well, of course, as in Russia) to fire up enthusiasm for the government’s programs.
It is no wonder, then, as Professor Garraty writes, that “during the first years of the New Deal the German press praised him [Roosevelt] and the New Deal to the skies. . . . Early New Deal policies seemed to the Nazis essentially like their own and the role of Roosevelt not very different from the Führer’s.”
Declining exports
From 1932 to 1935 the volume of imports of crude foodstuffs increased 41% and of manufactured foodstuffs 49%. The volume of Agricultural exports from the United States declined. [14]
The following table gives the volume of imports in 1932 and 1935 for important agricultural products.
Agricultural Imports
Before Roosevelt
3 years into 'relief' efforts
Commodity
1932
1935
Wheat
3,000 bu.
27,439,000 bu.
Corn
344,000 bu.
43,242,000 bu.
Oats
59,000 bu.
10,107,000 bu.
Barley
None
4,840,000 bu.
Rye
None
9,643,000 bu.
Rice
19,074,000 lb.
53,457,000 lb.
Barley malt
52,533,000 lb.
320,6 23,000 lb.
Hay
13,858 tons
67,171 tons
The quantities of individual commodities exported declined as follows:
Agricultural Exports
Declines 3 years into
Commodity
New Dealism
Cotton
33%
Unmanufactured tobacco
4%
Wheat
99%
Flour
491%
Meat products
19%
Lard
82%
In the summer of 1933 New Dealers paid farmers under the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) to plow up 10,500,000 acres of growing cotton, or 25% of the total acreage. The Bankhead cotton Act of 1934 set a limit OF 10,000,000 bales of cotton to be marketed by farmers from the 1934 - 1935 crop.
In the fall of 1933, the AAA destroyed 6,200,000 pigs and 220,000 mother sows were slaughtered in the AAA's effort to raise prices at a cost of over $30,000,000. The total live weight of the pigs and sows slaughtered was 443,69.7,348 pounds. Of this only 97,064,159 pounds of food products were obtained-the rest was converted into inedible grease or fertilizer.
Unemployment
Unemployment increased 163% over the average of what it had been in 1930 by the third year of the New Deal. By contrast, recovery was well underway in Great Britain, with an increase of only 1.1%.
United States
Great Britain
Unemployment (1930 average)
4,770,000
1,993,951
Unemployment February 1936
12,550,000
2,016,578
Percent increase
163 % [15]
1.1% [16]
Crash of 1937
By 1937, the Government's own statistics were showing that 23.8% of the Workforce was either unemployed, or underemployed. The term for the human suffering at the hands of government planners was "wastage." According to the Brain Trusters own statistics, of "100 Per Cent Manpower," 23.8 were "Per Cent Wastage." [17] After four years of "government solutions," contemporaneous reports were stating "much of the unemployment in 1937 was due to a decrease in the number of jobs available." [18]
The 1937 - 1943 Depression was longer in duration than the 1929 - 1932 crash, the result of massive government intrusion into the private economy which stunted growth. Manufacturing demand stimulated by WWII led to the 1943-1949 recovery, where finally, in 1949, the New York Stock Exchange recovered to the level it had been at 1929.
Many New Deal reforms were unpopular and criticized. In 1948 President Harry Truman ran on a reformed New Deal platform called the Fair Deal, which was regarded largely as an admission the New Deal had not been fair.
See also
New Ordeal
References
↑ FDR: The Man, the Leader, the Legacy, Ralph Raico, Future of Freedom Foundation, April 1, 2001. Retreived from The Independent Institute.org 06/17/07.
↑ The Managerial Revolution, James Burnham, Indiana University Press, Bloomingham 1966.
↑ The Roosevelt Myth], John T. Flynn, Fox and Wilkes, 1948, Book 2, Ch. 3., The Forgotten Deprssion.
↑ The New Ordeal, Freeman Tilden, The North American Review, v. 239, February 1935, p. 131-7.
↑ Axis (1936-1943), TIME magazine, Sep. 20, 1943,
↑ What To Do With Italy?, John G. Wright, From Fourth International, Vol.4 No.10, October 1943, pp.308-311.
↑ John T. Flynn, As We Go Marching, Doubleday, 1944, p. 70.
↑ The New Deal and Corporatism, Prof. Emeritus Gene Smiley, Marquette University, Presented at the Committee for Monetary Research and Education,October 19, 2006,
↑ The Roosevelt Myth, John T. Flynn, Fox and Wilkes, 1948, Book 1, Ch. 5.
↑ Special and Supplementary Reports of Darrow Committee, appointed by the President, released May 20, 1934. [1]
↑ Bureau of Labor Statistics, United States Department of Labor.
↑ Donald R. Richberg, The Rainbow, Garden City : Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1936, pg. 31.
↑ The New Deal, National Socialism, and the Great Depression, John A. Garraty, American Historical Review, Vol. 78, October 1973.
↑ Publications of United States Department of Commerce.
↑ American Federation of Labor.
↑ League of Natione, Bulletin of Statistics.
↑ Population and the Pattern of Unemployment, 1930-1937, Rupert B. Vance and Nadia Danilevski, The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 1. (Jan., 1940), pp. 27-43.
↑ Population and the Pattern of Unemployment, 1930-1937, Vance and Danilevski.
Retrieved from "http://www.conservapedia.com/New_Deal"

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

2009-06-29T18:43:00.001-07:00

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the 32nd president of the United States of America, following Herbert Hoover and preceding Harry Truman. Roosevelt was a member of the Democratic Party. He was elected four times and served a few months longer than 3 terms, from 1933-1945, the longest any one man has been president of the United States. He was elected amidst the uncertainty of the Great Depression.
On April 12, 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage, due partly to the crippling disease, poliomyelitis, which physically disabled him during his presidency.[1]
Although Mr. Roosevelt was very popular at first, it has been argued by scholars and analysts then and now that many New Deal relief efforts actually helped to prolong the Great Depression. Mr. Roosevelt started the second wave of the massive expansion of the Federal Government and greatly increased American foreign aid. Some of these policies were viewed controversially coupled with persistent high level of unemployment in the 1930s as a result and later US involvement in WWII.[2]
From his second term on the people were told that Roosevelt was the only man who could keep the US out of war; later that he was the only man who could successfully fight the war which he alone could keep the US out of; then that he was the only man who was capable of facing Josef Stalin on equal terms; and finally the only man who could guarantee against the ruthlessness of Stalin in the post-war era.
Contents[hide]
1 Early life
2 Election of 1932
3 First Term
3.1 Foreign policy
3.2 New Deal
3.2.1 Civilian Conservation Corps
3.3 Social Security
3.4 Taxation
3.5 Economic growth
3.6 Congress of Industrial Organizations
4 Second Term
4.1 Court packing plan
4.2 Crash of 1937
5 Third Term
5.1 Commander in Chief
5.2 Big Three conferences
6 Fourth Term
7 Reflections on Christianity
8 Legacy
9 See also
10 Further reading
11 References
12 External Links

Early life
Franklin Roosevelt studied law at Columbia University where he failed to graduate. Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, the first woman ever appointed to a cabinet post and knew FDR from his early manhood up to his death, says he was not a student, that he knew nothing of economics and that he admitted he had never read a book on the subject. [3]
Election of 1932
This article is a "stub". You can help Conservapedia by expanding it! The Democrats made Government expansion under the Hoover administration an issue in the campaign of 1932, charging that Hoover was promoting socialism. After Roosevelt had taken office, former Democratic New York Governor Al Smith, saw Roosevelt's ultimately expansive policies as a betrayal of the true ideals of the Democratic party and supported Republican candidates in subsequent elections.
While the Democrats were damning Hoover as a big spender, at the same time he was refusing to be drawn into big spending, the Democratic House passed a bill appropriating $1,500,000,000 for old-fashioned pork-barrel outlays.
First Term
Foreign policy
On November 16, 1933, when the Roosevelt administration granted diplomatic recognition to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the USSR pledged itself to refrain "from interfering in any manner in the internal affairs of the United States." This occurred three weeks after the founding of the Comintern affiliated American League for Peace and Democracy. The process of Communist “influence” in American life was accelerated. This “influence,” as described by Communist party defector Louis Budenz, was to “infiltrate key government posts, undermine the patriotism of wellmeaning people in strategic or confidential positions, and win over those whose words, spoken and written, have an effect on American public opinion;” it was checked “partially during the Hitler-Stalin alliance, it went all out in the course of the Second World War."[4]
Numerous Comintern affiliate organizations sprung up in the ensuing years, including the American Youth Congress in 1934 and the League of American Writers in 1935. KGB officers traveled the country in the guise of diplomatic and consular officials, conducting espionage activities [5] freely and offering bribes.
On February 28, 1934, Elliott Roosevelt, son of the President, and Anthony Fokker each received half a million dollars for selling fifty military aircraft to the Soviet government. [6]
New Deal
For Main Article see New Deal.

Real Output and Growth remained stagnant throughout the New Deal largely due to government interference. The Depression came back with a vengence in 1937-1938 because of the economic planners over emphasis on consumption, and de-emphasis and persecution of producers--the people who make the economy work. Source:New Deal Policies and the Persistence of the Great Depression.[7]
FDR is also famous for his New Deal, a set of economic planning experiments that were meant to bring about the end of the Great Depression, but instead prolonged it and caused American citizens to be burdened with unnecessary government programs for decades to come. Economic growth was negligible to non-existent, and what growth did occur was consumed by an every swelling bureaucracy.
Enforcement of the Anti-trust Act was considered as an essential instrument to prevent cartels and trusts in restraint of trade which had been viewed as deadly to the system of free enterprise. On the campaign trail Roosevelt called loudly for its strict enforcement. Yet immediately upon Roosevelt's accession to office the Anti-trust Act was suspended in order to cartelize every industry in America on the Italian fascist corporative model. [8] The National Recovery Act (NRA) and the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) were plans to take the whole industrial and agricultural life of the country under the wing of the government, organize it into vast farm and industrial cartels, as they were called in Germany, corporatives as they were called in Italy, and operate business and farms by economic planning schemes dictated and carried out under the supervision of government. This is, in fact, the essence of fascism. In those days fascism was not defined as anti-Semitism. [9]
The AAA reported to the Secretary of Agriculture but was independent of the Department of Agriculture bureaucracy. Harold Ware was a Communist Party USA (CPUSA) official in the AAA and founded the Ware group. The group consisted of young lawyers and economists, had about 75 members in 1934 and was divided into about eight cells. The AAA was later found unconstitutional, but by that time the Communist operatives had established jobs in government employment. Alger Hiss, Lee Pressman, John Abt, Charles Kramer, Nathan Witt, Henry Collins, George Silverman, Marion Bachrach, John Herrmann, Nathaniel Weyl, Donald Hiss and Victor Perlo were all members of the Ware group. Harry Dexter White, who was involved in the most auspicious policy subversion as Director of the Division of Monetary Research in the Treasury Department, was also affiliated with the group. The Ware group was the CPUSA's covert arm at this time. Each of these agents not only provided classified documents to Soviet intelligence, but was involved in political influence operations as well.
In 1934, a Congressional Investigation was held to examine statements by Dr. William A. Wirt, who headed the U.S. Office of Education. Dr. Wirt had attended a dinner party with several Brain Trusters at the home of his secretary, Alice Barrows. Barrows began working for the Office of Education in 1919 and was secretly a member of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) which advocated the violent overthrow of the United States Constitution. Several of the Brain Trusters present at the dinner revealed to Wirt they were CPUSA members. Wirt testified,
“
I was told they believe that by thwarting our then evident economic recovery, they would be able to prolong the country’s destitution until they had demonstrated to the American people that the Government must operate business and commerce. By propaganda, they would destroy institutions making long term capital loans—and then push Uncle Sam into making these loans. Once Uncle Sam becomes our financier, he must also follow his money with control and management. [10][11][12]
”
A June 1945 Venona project decryption of Soviet KGB wartime cables from the Washington D.C. KGB Office to Moscow's Eighth Department, the political intelligence wing, relayed information on matters regarding Attorney General Francis Biddle. KGB agent Charles Kramer, who served on the staff of several U.S. Senate Subcommittees, and Barrows are the sources of the information. [13] Mary Van Kleek who headed the Russell Sage Foundation and also served on the Board of the National Council, visited Washington weekly to meet with Barrows and Nathan Gregory Silvermaster.
During World War II Barrows was the Executive Secretary of the the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship. This organization was declared in 1953 to be a Communist front organization by the Subversive Activities Control Board (SACB). In its Findings of Fact, the SACB said the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship,
“
advances positions...markedly pro-Soviet and...anti-United States Government...is a Communist-action organization which has as its primary purpose to advance the objectives of the world Communist movement under the hegemony of the Soviet Union; it has the policy to support and defend the Soviet Union under any and all circumstances...We conclude that the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, Inc., is substantially directed, dominated, and controlled by the Communist Party of the United States...and is primarily operated for the purpose of giving aid and support to...the Soviet Union, a Communist foreign government." [14]
”
Civilian Conservation Corps
Main article Civilian Conservation Corps
Soon after President Roosevelt's inauguration in March 1933, he announced the establishment of the CCC camps to take the boys off the street corners and out of the transient camps and to get money for their families. Of the New Deal innovations, perhaps the most generally applauded was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), adapted from German predecessors. That was a year after Hitler had coordinated all work camps under Nazi leadership. In 1934 the German university student organization voted that the work camps should be compulsory before matriculation and in 1935, Hitler decreed that the work camps be compulsory for both sexes. That same plan under the prompting of Harry Hopkins was announced by Roosevelt. [15] Ralph Ingersoll's PM newspaper reported the President's statement that training in the conscript camps will remove those elements in the thinking of youth which makes them "critical of their elders." [16][17]
Social Security
An Old Age Social Security Bill was passed during his first term which provided for workers who reach the age of 65 a pension of $8 a week at most. The plan had to be pushed through against his procrastination until finally in the 1934 congressional elections the Republicans denounced him for his tardiness. When he did finally consent to a bill, it contained a plan for building a huge reserve fund that would extract billions from the workers' payrolls without any adequate return. Over the protest of the President, the Congress finally took that provision proposed by Roosevelt out of the law. [18]
Taxation
FDR, in a letter to journalist Roy W. Howard, wrote,
"What is known as consumer taxes, namely the invisible taxes paid by people in every walk of life, fall relatively much more heavily upon the poor man than on the rich man." [19]
Robert H. Jackson, then serving as Internal Revenue Service General Counsel, observed in Congressional testimony that prior to FDR’s election, "we find those taxes bearing most heavily on the well-to-do contributed 68% per cent of the government's total internal revenue and customs receipts, while miscellaneous taxes and customs receipts, bearing most heavily upon the consumer contributed only 31.8%” By 1935 the situation was reversed with “taxes based on ability to pay contributed 38.7% . . . there has been an increase in the proportion of revenues contributed by taxes on consumption to 61.3%."[20]
Economic growth
New capital made available for investment amounted to $348,000,000 in 1935. This was less than 1/10th of the amount available in 1929. By contrast, the British economy had nearly recovered to its 1929 levels by 1935, and the amount available for investment was almost twice as much as the United States.
Year
United States [21]
Great Britain [22]
1927
$3,201,000,000
$710,509,000
1928
3,062,000,000
983,033,000
1929
3,668,000,000
759,174,000
1930
3,039,000,000
394,186,500
1931
1,006,000,000
155,728,000
1932
321,000,000
248,191,500
1933
177,000,000
296,856,500
1934
356,000,000
350,388,000
1935
348,000,000
666,710,500
Congress of Industrial Organizations
By 1935 membership in labor unions had sunk to a low figure as a result of unemployment. There were men around the President at this time that saw the tremendous possibilities of organizing labor as a political force. An industrial union is one in which all the people engaged in a single industry are included without regard to the type of skills at which they work. The industrial union was the one great instrument by which all labor could be organized and the President was urged to promote this idea as the starting point in building up a powerful political labor movement. There were three large industrial unions at that time, John L. Lewis’s United Mine Workers (UMW), the International Ladies Garment Workers Union of David Dubinsky and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of Sidney Hillman.
Roosevelt tried to sell the plan to John L. Lewis of the UMW, and William Green, head of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Green and the AFL opposed the idea of industrial unions and refused, but under the leadership of Lewis, a new group of unions was formed called the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The Comintern directed Lee Pressman [23] of the Ware group to assume the position of general counsel[24][25] where he became known as "Comrade Big." The year 1936 was a period of furious organizing work by it among the unskilled workers of the country. As Lewis, Dubinsky, and Hillman set about organizing millions of workers they were immediately up against the problem of finding skilled organizers to promote and manage the new unions.
There had been in the United States a Communist labor organization known as the Trade Union Unity League which took its instructions directly from Moscow. It is estimated that ten or fifteen thousand Communists were in these unions. In 1934, Moscow directed the Communist party in the United States to dissolve the Trade Union Unity League unions and to march the members of those unions into the American Federation of Labor. The purpose was not to advance the cause of labor unions or to get better working conditions for the members, but to use the apparatus of the labor union as an instrument of revolution. The Communist leaders saw in the rise of the CIO a better opportunity for their own revolutionary objectives than in the AFL and instructed their members to withdraw from the AFL and go into the CIO where they achieved disproportionate influence. [26]
Lewis was interested in bringing into existence industrial unions like his own, in which he had always believed. Roosevelt was interested in bringing into American labor unions as many voters as possible and in capturing their leadership to build a powerful labor faction which could control the Democratic party and which he and his allies could control through the vast power of the government and the vast powers of labor leaders, along with the immense financial resources that so great a labor movement would have. The Communists were interested in getting into key positions as union officers, statisticians, economists, etc., in order to utilize the apparatus of the unions to promote the cause of revolution. By the early part of 1938, over three million workers had been organized. Lewis was later to split with FDR. [27][28]
Second Term
“
Planning will become a function of the federal government; either that or the planning agency will supersede the government, which is why, of course, such a scheme will be assimilated to the State. [29]
”
On August 13, 1938, John P. Frey, president of the Metal Trades Department of the AFL, appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Frey, in a presentation lasting several days, laid before the Committee a complete documented account of CPUSA penetration of the CIO. He gave the names of 280 organizers in CIO unions under salary who were CPUSA members. He charged that John Brophy who was the director of the CIO, was expelled by the United Mine Workers some years before for disloyal activities and while he was not directly a CPUSA member, he was assisted in his work by two active members of the Party. He had gone to Russia as a member of a delegation sponsored by the Party and approved by Moscow and when he returned the UMW accused him of being a paid agent of the Soviet government. Brophy at a meeting said that the condition of workers in the Soviet Union "should be a source of inspiration to workers in America."
Frey named union after union in the CIO, giving names of the Communists who were holding positions of leadership and trust. He charged, for instance, that they dominated the United Office and Professional Workers Union, that the president of that organization was a CPUSA member and through that organization they had infiltrated the government with numerous Party members in almost all the bureaus in Washington.
Thomas Corcoran [30] moved from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to the White House and was instrumental in securing numerous appointments for friends and colleagues to New Deal agencies. Eventually he was pushed out in favor of Harry Hopkins for the position of Roosevelt's right-hand man.
Court packing plan
Tommy Corcoran was given the task by Roosevelt to persuade Congress to pass the proposed legislation. I. F. Stone of the New York Post, who later was to agree to work for the KGB, wrote speeches for Corcoran on this issue.
Crash of 1937
When FDR was inaugurated for his second term national income, payrolls, and industrial production [31] were still 20 per cent below the 1929 figure and construction was still only about one third what it had been in 1929. By June, 1937 the Treasury boasted relief payments were less than in the same period the preceding year. But this was not so. The Treasury made a practice of cooking the books and producing phony numbers. It merely shifted relief payments to other accounts. They were, in fact, larger than the year before. Stock prices declined and by September the reality could be no longer hidden. By the end of October the market crashed. The budget was running a deficit at the time $300,000,000 a month.
Robert H. Jackson, Assistant Attorney General, and Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes in December made speeches inspired by the President on the conspiratorial America's 60 Families. [32] In January, John D. Biggers staggered the administration with a report Roosevelt had commissioned that stated there were 10,870,000 people out of work. [33] Roosevelt realized that all the “pump priming” and spending $17 billion had failed. Despite the billions added to the debt, the Depression was back. He was now at the center of a tug-of-war with advocates of spending like Harry Hopkins, Leon Henderson and Rex Tugwell on one side, and opponents like Henry Morgenthau on the other. DNC Chairman Jim Farley reports he had a talk on the subject with Roosevelt on March 28, 1938.
FDR told Farley he would have "to go in for pump priming or relief," then Roosevelt confessed to a difficulty that is little understood: what could he spend on? There is only a limited number of things which the federal government can spend. The federal government can build schools, hospitals, roads, institutions of all sorts. But they are built in cities, counties, states and the activities which go on in these buildings are within the jurisdiction of the states. And the continuing perpetual maintainance of such things, like payroll, is the in the purview of the states. The federal government can spend money on agricultural experimentation, on scientific research, on national parks, on power dams, etc. But in the end the outlays on these things are limited. The one big thing the federal government can spend money on is the army and navy. Roosevelt explained to Farley that he could not spend on local projects because the states and cities did not want any more buildings and institutions which they would have to support. They were having trouble enough paying the bills of those already built. Roosevelt revealed to Farley that many WPA projects approved by the government were abandoned because the states and cities could not raise the money to support them. In the 1938 Congressional elections Harry Hopkins was spending as fast as he could without any regard to utility to meet the immediate political necessities of an election but couldn't go on indefinitely. And the whole problem was complicated by pressure from within his own party to balance the budget.
The country now reached a greater crisis than in 1933. The public debt, which was $22 billion when Roosevelt took office and was a heritage of World War I, now was $37 billion. Taxes had been more than doubled by Roosevelt. By April 1938 unemployment reached several thousand more than when Roosevelt was elected in 1932. This was not Hoover’s Depression but Roosevelt’s Depression. Voices began to speak up suggesting after all Hoover may have known what he was doing, but here, nine years after the Depression began the fundamental condition of the country was no further advanced than it was at the end of Hoover's three year struggle with it.
Making provision for war increased business profits. In 1936 Roosevelt had said, "If we face the choice of profits or peace, the nation will answer – must answer - 'We choose peace'. It is the duty of all of us to encourage such a body of public opinion in this country that the answer will be clear." [34] By 1938 Roosevelt embarked on a massive defense appropriations buildup; the Administration would advance 30% to a defense contractor when placing an order. The National City Bank reported an increase of overall business profits in the year 1939 over 1938 of 63.6%, and in its December 1940 Bulletin showed for 284 companies "directly affected by war and defense program" a rise of 79.2%. The Wall Street Journal reported, "Betterment in profits was naturally more pronounced, as a rule, in those industries benefiting directly or indirectly from the European conflict." [35]
Curtiss-Wright Aircraft, to enlarge its plant, received a loan of $92 million at 4%. I. F. Stone of The Nation magazine wrote,
"Offered as a non-recourse loan . . . the government would have no claim against the Wright company if it failed to repay the loan. All the government could do in that case would be to take the factory. Since the plant would be financed entirely by the government, the government would really be taking back its own property if the Wright company for some reason wanted to drop it. ...The Wall Street Journal reported on August 2 that while the loan was for $92,000,000, 'the cost of the proposed plant and its equipment is understood to be only $37,000,000 or $38,000,000'. When asked by the Journal correspondent about 'this apparent discrepancy', Jesse Jones said, 'We don't believe it would be in the public interest to break down that total at this time'....As this is being written, the Wright contract has yet to be signed. The company is now asking for five-year amortization instead of eight. Incidentally, a vice-president of this finicky company, T. P. Wright, was assigned to the Defense Commission on June 8 to help speed up production"
The Defense Commission was the same commission that would determine and approve the terms of the loan.[36] PM noted "For an $18,000,000 plant to command a $92,000,000 credit from any bank, including a federal one, may make financiers blink, but that is what has been arranged". The Curtiss-Wright loan was only a little over five times the value of the plant. But Boeing Aircraft, with a plant worth $3,000,000 was awarded a loan of $32,000,000, more than ten times. And Boeing was to own it in five years.[37]
Third Term
It is fairly certain that early in 1939, if not a little sooner, FDR made up his mind to seek a third election in the presidential election of 1940. FDR realized the political difficulties involved in a third nomination so he wanted to make it appear as a "draft Roosevelt" movement. He discussed other candidates with his aids, among the names were Democratic National Committee Chairman James Farley, whom FDR rejected because he was Roman Catholic. The name of Paul McNutt was urged; FDR was angry McNutt would even permit his name to be discussed. FDR told Farley: "I consider it bad taste on his part to be letting his name be used when he is still a member of my administration." Roosevelt sent him as High Commissioner to the Philippines and jokingly asked: "Is that far enough?"[38] Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin in her book No Ordinary Time explored the decision to seek a third time and concludes FDR probably decided to enter the war at the same time he decided to run again, although he was politically unable to enter the war until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Administrative Assistants to Roosevelt included James Forrestal, Lauchlin Currie [39] and David K. Niles. Their function was "to get, information and to condense and summarize it for [Roosevelt's] use." [40] Forrestal later was to jump from a 16th story window of Bethesda Naval Hospital psychiatric ward. [41] Currie and Niles were to be found working for the KGB.[42][43] Currie alerted his KGB controllers that "the United States was on the verge of breaking the Soviet code."[44]
Commander in Chief
John P. Davies was assigned to Gen. Joseph Stilwell as Stilwell's adviser in China. Hopkins made a note at the time: "The President indicated his strong dissatisfaction with the way the whole show was running in China. He stated that Stillwell obviously hated the Chinese and that his cablegrams are sarcastic about the Chinese and this feeling is undoubtedly known to the Generalissimo."[45]Roosevelt and Hopkins biographer Robert Sherwood wrote that Gen. George C. Marshall told Hopkins his only serious disagreement with Hopkins was on the issue of Stilwell. Sherwood adds that "he was unquestionably a serious nuisance to Roosevelt and there were many times when he was on the verge of recalling him."[46]
On May 19, 1942, pressured by Communist union officials of the American Communications Association, CIO, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox, informed Rear Admiral Adolphus Staton that Communist radio operators were not to be removed from their ships. Less than six months earlier, Congress, with the lone dissenting vote of Vito Marcantonio, enacted Public Law 351, which authorized the Secretary of the Navy to have all radio operators with a subversive background taken off their ships. Rear Admiral Staton had recommended the removal of a number of Communists. In the presence of Rear Admiral S. C. Hooper and others, Knox instructed Rear Admiral Staton "that, in the opinion of the President, membership or suspected membership in the CPUSA was not sufficient to deprive a radio operator of his job." [47] Expounding a memorandum bearing President Roosevelt's initials, Knox brushed aside the objections of Staton and Hooper, declaring that the order came from the President himself. Because the presidential command defied the law of the land, it was not put into writing. Consequently, the Communist radio operators returned to their ships and Rear Admirals Hooper and Staton were put on the inactive list.
Stalin publicly disbanded the Comintern in 1943. A Moscow message to all stations on 12 September 1943, message number 142, relating to this event is one of the most interesting and historically important messages [48] in the entire corpus of VENONA translations. This message clearly discloses the KGB's connection to the Comintern and to the national Communist parties. [49] Shortly afterwards Rear Admiral Staton, a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, was asked to testify before the Cox Committee of House of Representatives on the White House efforts to protect Communists in the Armed Forces. Staton complied in executive session. Before he could appear in public hearings, Adlai Stevenson, assistant to Secretary Knox, instructed him that "there were White House orders" forbidding him to testify. [50] By that time Counter-Intelligence officers had obtained irrefutable proof that the CPUSA had developed an extensive plan to abolish the Armed Forces' counter-subversive system. [51]
Roosevelt himself was responsible for the order of January 1, 1944 which abolished the entire setup of the Counter-Intelligence Corps in the War Department.[52] On February 19 the War Department issued the order which purposely disorganized the counter-subversive reporting system of the Armed Forces. [53] On May 19, the day after learning of the secret order to destroy the War Department records on subversives, Senator StyIes Bridges, a member of the Military Affairs Committee, demanded an explanation from Secretary of War Henry Stimson. Lieutenant General McNarney, Army Chief of Staff deputy, was "vague, evasive and obstructive." Bridges told McNarney "he could forgive an officer who makes a mistake or loses a battle, but that an officer who betrays the security of his country should be taken out and shot." McNarney admitted the order had been issued from "higher authority." After much wrangling, Secretary Stimson in a letter of May 27 promised to prevent the destruction of records on subversives. [54]
The War Department, on December 30, 1944, issued a secret order which expressly condoned "divided loyalty" and established as a guiding rule that "the subversive-suspect should be given the benefit of all reasonable doubt."
Big Three conferences
See also Teheran conference
At the Teheran conference it was secretly agreed to let the Soviet Union have not only eastern Poland but also part of Finland, the Baltic States and parts of Romania. It was secretly agreed to support the Yugoslav Communist, Joseph Broz Tito, and desert the pro-Western, anti-totalitarian friend, General Mihailovich. Roosevelt told a joint session of Congress upon his return to the United States that no secret arrangements had been made.
See also Yalta conference
At the Yalta conference a reparations commission was set up. The Soviet Union wanted the amount to be 20 billion dollars of which the USSR would take half. It was agreed that labor might be taken as a possible source of reparations. This was a way of authorizing the seizure of human beings to work as slaves and is the basis of the crime perpetrated after hostilities ceased to which Franklin Roosevelt agreed. [55]
Roosevelt also agreed at Yalta to have all fugitive Soviet nationals or citizens of satellite nations and tens of thousands of POW's who elected to stay this side of the Iron Curtain, returned to the Soviet Union. This was in contravention of the Geneva Convention. The Saturday Evening Post commented:
“
With this shameful agreement as their authority, Russian MVD agents strode through the displaced-persons camps after the war and put the finger on thousands who had managed to escape the Soviet tyranny. These miserable victims were herded into boxcars and driven back to death, torture or the slow murder of the Siberian mines and forests. Many killed themselves on the way. Also under a Yalta agreement, the Russians were permitted to use German prisoners in forced labor as an item in 'reparations account.' For such inhumanities there is no excuse.[56]
”
Roosevelt not only made agreements secret from the American people but secret from his closest advisers in the government. He made agreements with Stalin hostile to the objectives of Churchill and kept secret from Churchill. He made secret agreements with Chiang Kai-shek secret from both Churchill and Stalin. He made secret agreements in derogation of Chiang Kai-shek's interests without Chiang Kai-shek's knowledge. And he made many secret agreements which no one in the U.S. State Department knew about until after his death and then learned about only at embarrassing moments from Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov. [57]
Fourth Term

CPUSA defector Louis Budenz testified he could name 400 individuals involved in the Communist conspiracy; [58] others testified there may have been over 1000.[59] The Silvermaster group had 27 high level infiltrators still employed in the US government well after the War ended.[60]
In February 1944 Congress rejected Roosevelt's demand for a $10,500,000,000 tax increase and cut it to $2,300,000,000. Roosevelt vetoed it saying this was a "bill not for relief of the needy but of the greedy." Senator Alben Barkley, Democratic leader, rose on the floor of the Senate to say the veto was "a calculated and deliberate assault upon the legislative integrity of every member of Congress." The entire Senate united in a roar of applause. Barkley declared that after seven years of carrying the New Deal banner for Roosevelt, he would resign his post as Democratic majority leader and he called on every member of the Congress to preserve its self respect and override the veto. The Senate overrode it 72 to 14 and the House 299 to 95.
After the Comintern was disbanded Roosevelt was offered the nomination of the Communist dominated American Labor Party and he had accepted their nomination in the Presidential election of 1944. It was 825,000 votes from Earl Browder and Sidney Hillman's American Labor Party that gave him his majority. His administration was now the hopeless prisoner of these demanding and ruthless radical labor leaders,[61] who had shown their ability to elect or defeat the Democratic party, who had filled all the departments and bureaus with their agents and who had insinuated their experts into the CIO labor unions and their propagandists into the radio, the movies and all the great instruments of communication and opinion - a fact which Mr. Roosevelt's successors would have to face when the war ended. [62]
So thorough was KGB penetration of the Roosevelt Administration, that when Army Signals Intelligence cryptographer Meredith Gardner extracted the names of Hans Bethe, Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi, Harold Urey, Edward Teller and 11 other scientists working on the Manhattan Project from a December 2, 1944 KGB encypherment,[63] KGB agent William Weisband watched him do it.[64]
Strom Thurmond also supported FDR's decision to seek a fourth term, and referred to Roosevelt as having been the world’s greatest leader. [65]
Reflections on Christianity
FDR said this about the Bible in an address on October 6, 1935:
"We cannot read the history of our rise and development as a nation, without reckoning with the place the Bible has occupied in shaping the advances of the Republic."
"Where we have been the truest and most consistent in obeying its precepts, we have attained the greatest measure of contentment and prosperity."[66]
FDR became famous for delivering "fireside chats" over the new medium of radio, and on March 9, 1937 he declared:
"I hope that you have re-read the Constitution of the United States in these past few weeks. Like the Bible, it ought to be read again and again."
While running for his third time in a Brooklyn speech, Roosevelt said,
"I am certain that the rank and file of patriotic Republicans do not realize the nature of this threat. They should remember, and we must remember, what the collaborative understanding between Communism and Nazism has done to the processes of democracy abroad...
"Those forces hate democracy and Christianity as two phases of the same civilization. They oppose democracy because it is Christian. They oppose Christianity because it preaches democracy. Their objective is to prevent democracy from becoming strong. [67]
As World War II broke out in Europe, FDR warned:
"Those forces hate Democracy and Christianity as two phases of the same civilization."
The following year, on May 27, 1941, FDR stated in one of his radio addresses:
The Nazis are as ruthless as the Communists in the denial of God.
"In his second inaugural address, FDR pledged to do his utmost by 'seeking Divine guidance.' He took that mission further on January 25, 1941, when he wrote a personal prologue to a special edition of the New Testament, which was distributed to millions of U.S. soldiers. 'As Commander-in-Chief,' Roosevelt wrote, 'I take pleasure in commending the reading of the Bible to all who serve in the armed forces of the United States.' He believed that all American soldiers should have the opportunity to read the words of Christ in preparing for battle. Once, when joining those soldiers aboard a warship with Winston Churchill, FDR asked the crew and prime minister to join him in singing the hymn 'Onward Christian Soldiers.' In his final inaugural address, FDR affirmed, "So we pray to Him for the vision to see our way clearly ... to achievement of His will.' "[68]
At the most difficult point in the War, when American boys were landing on the beaches of Normandy, FDR led the nation in prayer publicly during a radio broadcast. [69]

Legacy

It was essential that he do everything in his power to reestablish confidence in the economic system. What the nation needed was more jobs at machines, in ships, in mines and stores creating and distributing goods that were needed and providing wages and profits with which these goods could be purchased. If there are to be jobs for all they must be jobs producing something - goods and services. He began with a sweeping attack upon business and kept it up until the end of World War II. When Roosevelt came into power business was regarded as some gigantic criminal conspiracy against the welfare of the nation.
Business cannot function at full measure unless consumption is held within total output, and savings are produced. Those savings then must regularly flow into new investment. New investment means the flow of economic resources into establishing new industries and the expansion of old ones. It means encouraging construction trades, manufacturing, producing and installing new equipment and tools. It means allowing the creation of new private businesses. Instead FDR carried on ceaseless attacks and denouncements of business, warned people against it, subjected businesses to dozens of absurd, semi revolutionary schemes, coupled with deficit financing which ate up all the savings, inflation, utopian panaceas, constant preaching that profit was evil, investors parasites, and businessmen scoundrels and enemies of the people. [70]
Roosevelt's image now appears on the Dime.
See also
New Ordeal
Michael Whitney Straight
Further reading
Charles Maclaurin, Post Mortem and Mere Mortals (New York: Doran, 1923, 1925).
References
↑ http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/fr32.html
↑ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/presidents/32_f_roosevelt/printable.html
↑ The Roosevelt I Knew, Frances Perkins, New York, Viking Press, 1946. p. 34.
↑ Men Without Faces, The Communist Conspiracy in the U. S. A., By Louis Budenz,New York Harper & Brothers, 1950, pg. 2 pdf.
↑ Anonymous letter to Hoover, undated (received 7 August 1943), National Security Agency Venona Collection. "SEMENOV works in AMTORG, is robbing the whole of the war industry in America. SEMENOV has his agents in all the industrial towns of the U.S.A., in all aviation and chemical war factories and in big industries."
↑ Son's Scheme, Time magazine, Oct. 19, 1936,
↑ New Deal Policies and the Persistence of the Great Depression: A General Equilibrium Analysis, Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian, Journal of Political Economy, volume 112 (2004), pages 779–816.
↑ The Roosevelt Myth, John T. Flynn, Fox and Wilkes, 1948, Book 1, Chapter 4, The New New Deal.
↑ The Roosevelt Myth, Book 1, Chapter 7, An Enemy Is Welcomed, Flynn, 1948.
↑ Hearings, House Select Committee To Investigate Certain Statements of Dr. William Wirt, 73rd Congress, 2nd Session, April 10 and 17, 1934.
↑ Dr Wirt faces the cameras and tells all, Literary Digest v. 117 (April 21 1934) p. 7.
↑ FBI Silvermaster file Volume 53 June 1946, p. 78 pdf.
↑ Venona 3706 KGB Washington to Moscow, 29 June 1945.
↑ United States. Subversive Activities Control Board. Reports of the Subversive Activities Control Board. Washington. United States Government Printing Office. 1966. Vol. 1, p. 501.
↑ Getting Us into War, Porter Sargent Publisher: P. Sargent, Boston, 1941. In the Footsteps of Hitler, pg. 492 pdf
↑ PM, June 20, 1940. "that training in the conscript camps will remove those elements in the thinking of our youth which makes them 'critical of their elders'...We should hold little hope for the future of any nation whose young people had ceased to be critical of their elders."
↑ American Youth, Kenneth Holland, Harvard University Press, 1940, pg. 103. "As the camps and resident centers are established on a permanent basis they should be carefully integrated with educational, vocational, employment and adjustment activities of institutions already in existence. It is to be hoped that established schools and other training institutions in the United States will see in the labor camps a new technique for providing youth with practical experience better adapted to its needs and interests than the present academic school courses."
↑ Roosevelt Myth, Book 3, Chapter 14, The Roosevelt Myth, John T. Flynn, Fox and Wilkes, 1948.
↑ Franklin D. Roosevelt, letter to Roy W. Howard, September 2, 1935.
↑ Testimony of Robert Jackson, Assistant General Counsel, Treasury Department, Committee on Finance, U . S. Senate, August 6, 1985.
↑ Standard Statistics Co., New Honey for Operating and Producing.
↑ Midland Bank, London, New Issues for British Companies, converted from £ to $ at $4.8665.
↑ FBI Report, Underground Soviet Espionage (NKVD) in Agencies of the United States Government, October 21, 1946, United States Government, pgs. 298 - 300 pdf. "Leon Pressman, alias Lee Pressman, served as General Counsel for the Agricultural Adjustment Administration from 1933 to 1935; in 1935 he was appointed General Counsel for the Works Progress Administration. In 1937 he was appointed to the General Counsel for the National Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). Pressman was also associated with various Communist front organizations. Pressman was a known contact of Anatoly Gorsky, New York KGB Rezident, and KGB Agents Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White.
↑ FBI Silvermaster file, Vol. 132, pg. 109 pdf. "Pressman is said to have run arms to Spain during the Civil War via Mexico and to have worked with General Mark Moren in the project. Moren was involved in the Rubens Robinson passport case in 1938." See also Underground Espionage Agent, Adolf Berle notes, September 2, 1939. [1]
↑ 32,000 & Mrs. Rubens, Time magazine, Feb. 07, 1938. "In the first years of the Soviet Union, to escape from Russia was difficult and dangerous. Today it has become almost impossible, an attempt tantamount to suicide. Barbed and electrically charged wire, searchlight-equipped watch towers. 24-hour frontier patrols aided by bloodhounds and police dogs guard every mile of border. .... Weak from scurvy and dysentery, Konarski told correspondents: 'The camp contains about 32,000 prisoners. They are kept there until death results from hard work, bad food and consequent sickness. I met two American citizens in the camp, Arthur Hanley, a chemical engineer from California, and Edward Rose, a machinist from Boston, Mass. They said they came to Russia in 1921 as volunteer workers. Rose said he was arrested in Leningrad in 1923. Hanley was caught trying to escape from Russia to Latvia in 1925. Each was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment, but, although they have served out their sentences, they are still being held. They told me they know of three other native-born Americans who are held prisoner in other Soviet camps.'...Mrs. Ruth Marie Rubens (alias Robinson), one U. S. citizen officially known to be in jail in Moscow (TIME, Dec. 27 [1938]). In Moscow on December 9 able, active U. S. Charge d'Affaires Loy W. Henderson learned that Mrs. Rubens had "disappeared"' from the big Hotel National next door to the U.S. Embassy. On January 18 the Soviet Foreign Office finally admitted that Mrs. Rubens was under arrest, failed to say on what charge.... hundreds of Germans are today in Soviet jails and for years German diplomatic & consular officials have not been allowed to see them."
↑ The Soviet World of American Communism, Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes, and Kyrill M. Anderson, Yale University Press, 1998, Document 13, pp. 58-68. ISBN 0-300-07150-7.
↑ Communists and the CIO: From the Soviet archives, Harvey Klehr and John E. Haynes, Labor History, Volume 35, Issue 3 Summer 1994 , pages 442 - 446. [2]
↑ Turning Point?, Time magazine, Monday, Jul. 12, 1937.
↑ The Principle of Planning and the Institution of Laissez Faire, Rexford G. Tugwell, The American Economic Review, vol. 22, no. 1, March 1932. [3]
↑ After World War II Corcoran employed Soviet agent Duncan Lee in his Washington law firm, Corcoran and Youngman. FBI Silvermaster file biographical details on Duncan C. Lee, Elizabeth Bentley's allegations concerning him, his contacts with Donald Wheeler and Mary Price, Vol. 92, pgs. 20 - 21 pdf, January 26, 1947. On June 6 1945, 6 persons, including U.S. government officials Andrew Roth and John Stewart Service, were arrested on conspiracy and espionage charges related to possession of roughly 1000 stolen classified Government documents in the offices of Amerasia magazine. Amerasia, edited by Philip J. Jaffe, had published classified materials verbatim from the United States wartime intelligence service, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Amerasia's chief financial benefactor was Frederick V. Field. Joseph Milton Bernstein, a GRU contact between Soviet agents in the OSS and the Board of Economic Warfare, was also an employee. Others connected with the Amerasia scandal were T.A. Bisson and Owen Lattimore. Corcoran worked with the Truman administration to cover up the scandal.
↑ League of Nations Monthly Bulletin of Statistics, June, 1936. Percentage change 1929 to March 1936, United States -21.8%, rank number 13.
↑ New Deal Chorus, Time magazine, pg. 1 pg. 2, Jan. 17, 1938.
↑ Two Schemes, Time magazine, Jan. 10, 1938.
↑ Getting Us into War, Porter Sargent Publisher: P. Sargent, Boston, 1941. No More Millionaires, pg. 372 pdf
↑ Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1940.
↑ Getting Us into War, Sargent, 1941, pg. 433.
↑ Roger Ingersoll, PM, August. 9, 1940.
↑ The Roosevelt Myth, Book 1, Ch. 6, The Third Term, John T. Flynn, Fox and Wilkes, 1948.
↑ Committee on Un-American Activities, "The Shameful Years: Thirty Years of Soviet Espionage in the United States," 82d Congress, 2d Session, 1951, pp. 15-17; Required Reading List for Counterintelligence, Counterterrorism, Intelligence and Security Professionals,The Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, Alexandria, VA.
↑ Roosevelt and Hopkins : An Intimate History, Robert E. Sherwood, New York Harper and Brothers, 1948, pg. 226 pdf.
↑ The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People, John Loftus and Mark Aarons, New York : St.Martin's Press, 1994. [4]
↑ Uncovering Stalin's Spies Julius W. Friend, International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, (2000) Vol. 13 No. 3, pgs. 381 - 384. [5]
↑ The Venona Story, Robert L. Benson, Center for Cryptological History, National Security Agency. One of the special reports issued in July 1948 (1948 was a presidential election year) gives the earliest translation found that mentions friends of David Niles, an important advisor to Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, "will arrange anything for a bribe." Venona message 786 New York KGB to Moscow, 1 June 1944, pg. 1, pg. 2).
↑ The Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet Espionage and America's Traitors, Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel, Washington, DC, Regnery, 2000, pg. 27. Herbert Romerstein was the Chief, Office to Counter Soviet Disinformation and Active Measures, U.S. Information Agency from (1983-1989), Staff member, U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (1978-1983), and Minority Chief Investigator, House Committee on Internal Security (1971-1975). [6]
↑ Roosevelt and Hopkin, Sherwood, pg. 739.
↑ Roosevelt and Hopkin, Sherwood, pg. 740.
↑ America's Tragedy-Today, Major Hamilton A. Long, (NY: Post Printing), pgs. 15-25.
↑ Venona 142(a) Moscow to Canberra 12 September 1943. Text reads: "change in circumstances - and in particular the dissolution of the Comintern - necessitates a change in the method used by the workers of our residencies to keep in touch with the leaders of the local Communist organizations on intelligence matters. 2. Our workers, by continuing to meet the leader of the Communists, are exposing themselves to danger and are giving cause [orgs of] local authorities to suspect that the Comintern is still in existence. 3. We propose: a. That personal contact with leaders of the local Communist organizations should cease and that Communist material should not be accepted for forwarding to the Comintern. b. That meetings of our workers may take place only with special reliable undercover [ZAKONSPIRIROVANNYJ] contacts of the Communist [D% organizations], who are not suspected by the [orgs of] local authorities, exclusively about specific aspects of our intelligence work (acquiring [1 group unidentified] contacts, leads [NAVODKI], rechecking of those who are being cultivated, etc.). For each meeting it is necessary to obtain our consent. Representative of the Soviet Union.No. 4084 Lt. Gen. P.M. Fitin. Notes: [a] This message is known to have been sent also to NEW YORK, SAN FRANCISCO, and OTTAWA.
↑ Counterintelligence Reader, National Counterintelligence Center, United States, Vol. 2, Ch. 4, n.d.
↑ Cox's Circus, Time magazine, Monday, Jul. 19, 1943.
↑ Long, op.cit., pg. 12.
↑ Long, op.cit., pg. 12.
↑ Long, op.cit., pg. 13
↑ Long, op.cit., pgs. 28-31.
↑ Speaking Frankly, James F. Byrnes, New York: Harper & Bros., 1947, p. 29.
↑ Saturday Evening Post, Editorial, April 11, 1953, pg. 12.
↑ Roosevelt Myth, Book 3, Ch. 13, The Final Betrayal, Flynn, 1948.
↑ FBI Headquarters File 100-63, Louis Francis Budenz, Internal Security—C, Serial 122.
↑ Executive Sessions of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations (McCarthy Hearings 1953-54).
↑ FBI Silvermaster file Vol. 15, pg. 4 pdf.
↑ Roosevelt Myth, Book 3, Ch. 12, The Atlantic Charter Is Scrapped, Flynn, 1948.
↑ The Venona Progeny, Hayen B. Peake, Naval War College Review, Summer 2000, Vol. LIII, No. 3. "Venona makes absolutely clear that they had active agents in the U.S. State Department, Treasury Department, Justice Department, Senate committee staffs, the military services, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the Manhattan Project, and the White House, as well as wartime agencies. No modern government was more thoroughly penetrated." Hayden B. Peake is the curator of Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) Historical Intelligence Collection. [7]
↑ Venona 1699 New York to Moscow, December 2, 1944.
↑ VENONA: Soviet Espionage and the American Response, 1939-1957, Robert Louis Benson and Michael Warner, eds., (Washington, D.C.: National Security Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, 1996) [8]; The Baltimore Sun (Laura Sullivan, "SPY'S ROLE LINKED TO US FAILURE ON KOREA," 6/29/00) reported that a report newly declassified by the US National Security Agency (NSA) shows that William Weisband alerted the Soviets to extensive US eavesdropping in 1948, resulting in a complete blackout of information from the communist bloc for more than two years. This crippled the NSA's intelligence gathering efforts in the late 1940s and begins to explain why the US was caught unprepared for the DPRK's 1950 invasion of the ROK. NSA historian David A. Hatch, who authored the report, said, "This report answers several significant questions. Up until now, there has been a great lack of knowledge surrounding some of these events ... and this should help sharpen [the public's] understanding." [Ed. note: This article was included in the US Department of Defense's Early Bird news service for June 29, 2000.] [9]
↑ What Trent Meant, Kevin Baker.
↑ Quoted in DeMar, The Untold Story, p. 60 and Gabrial Sivan, The Bible and Civilization (New York: Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Co., 1973), p. 178.
↑ Roosevelt and Hopkins, Sherwood, 1948, pgs. 193-194 (pgs. 211 - 212 pdf).
↑ God and George W. Bush (New York: Regan Books, 2004), p. 176
↑ Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, Franklin Roosevelt's D-Day Prayer, June 6, 1944.
↑ Roosevelt Myth, Book 3, Ch. 4, Toward the Precipice, Flynn, 1948.
External Links
* "The Mythology of Roosevelt and the New Deal," by Robert Higgs
Great Depression
"On the Brink of World War II: Justus Doenecke’s Storm on the Horizon," by Ralph Raico
"Government and the Economy: The World Wars," by Robert Higgs
"How War Amplified Federal Power in the Twentieth Century," by Robert Higgs
Depression, War and Cold War, by Robert Higgs
"Wartime Prosperity?", by Robert Higgs
Pearl Harbor
FDR: The Man, the Leader, the Legacy, Ralph Raico, Future of Freedom Foundation, April 1, 2001. Retrieved from The Independent Institute.org 06/17/07.

Bernardine Dohrn

2008-09-04T14:28:00.003-07:00

Leader of the domestic terrorist group the Weathermen
Participated in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, of the Capitol building in 1971, and the Pentagon in 1972
Referring to the Tate-LaBianca murders, stated, "Dig it. First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them. They even shoved a fork into the victim's stomach! Wild!"
Director of the Legal Clinic's Children and Family Justice Center of Northwestern University
Professor at Northwestern University Law School

Bernardine Dohrn, along with her husband Bill Ayers, was a 1960s anti-American militant and leader of the homegrown terrorist group the Weathermen , a Communist-driven splinter faction of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). The Weathermen's hatred of the United States manifested itself in the bombings of the U.S. Capitol building, New York City Police Headquarters, the Pentagon, and the National Guard offices in Washington, D.C. Ayers summed up the Weathermen's ideology as follows: "Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, Kill your parents."

At a 1969 meeting to form a terrorist underground in Flint, Michigan -- a meeting which the Weathermen called the "War Council" -- Dohrn held her fingers up in a fork salute and said of the murders committed by Charles Manson and his gang: "Dig it. First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them. They even shoved a fork into the victim's stomach! Wild!" Dohrn is currently the director of the Legal Clinic's Children and Family Justice Center of Northwestern University, and is on important committees and boards of the American Bar Association and the American Civil Liberties Union. She is also a clinical associate professor at Northwestern University Law School.

The Weathermen, named from a Bob Dylan song lyric, later known as the Weather Underground, has been described by Ayers as "an American Red Army." The group took over Students for a Democratic Society, the largest leftwing students' organization of its day, in 1968 and closed the organization down, saying that it had "Smashed the Pig," The Weathermen thought SDS was too reformist and wanted to launch a race war in American, in order to hasten an Armageddon in which the Third World would wreak its revenge on the "Amerikkkan" beast. The Weather Underground was a terrorist organization which issued "War Communiques" and set out to "bring the monster [the United States] down."

The beginning of the Weathermen's violent track-record can be traced back to a 1969 trip the group made to Havana, Cuba, where its members planned their strategy for an assault on America. At this time in Havana, camps set up by Soviet KGB Colonel Vadim Kotchergine were educating Westerners both in Marxist philosophy and urban warfare. Upon their return to the U.S., the Weathermen unleashed what they called the "Days of Rage" riots in Chicago, using their guerilla-style tactics to viciously attack police officers and civilians alike, in the process destroying massive amounts of property with handmade explosives - all in the name of their anti-war, anti-American message. Dohrn was arrested during the riots for assaulting a police officer.

Dohrn has said of her radical past, "We rejected terrorism. We were careful not to hurt anybody." This is not true. A Chicago district attorney was paralyzed during the Days of Rage, and police are currently investigating a bombing in San Francisco that killed a policeman and for which the Weathermen are believed responsible. Moreover, the famous townhouse explosion in which three Weathermen were killed was set off by a bomb that was intended for a social dance at Fort Dix, New Jersey. In 1970, Weather Underground members Diana Oughton, Terry Robbins, and Ted Gold died when the bomb they were constructing unexpectedly exploded. That bomb had been intended for detonation at the Fort Dix dance, which was to be attended by army soldiers. Hundreds of lives could have been lost had the plan been successfully executed.

Dohrn has also stated, "We were completely self-restrained as a movement compared to other world movements." Regardless of her current whitewashing, Dohrn was in fact complicit in a number of terrorist bombings intended to destroy key parts of America's defense and security infrastructure, and to cause mass chaos among the population at large. These bombings included: the National Guard offices in Washington, D.C.; the U.S. Capitol building; New York City Police Headquarters; and the Pentagon.

After their bombing spree, Dohrn and her now-husband, Bill Ayers, spent the 1970s as fugitives running from the FBI, which placed Dohrn on its "Ten Most Wanted List." In 1980 the two surrendered, but all charges against them were dropped due to "improper surveillance."

Justifying her past actions, Dohrn has said, " We organized both against war and racism. We also taught that all human life is equally valid, not just the body count of the United States." As evidenced by her participation in the aforementioned acts of sadistic violence, nothing could be further from the truth.

Today Dohrn is a clinical associate professor at Northwestern University Law School. "During your student years here," Dohrn said to her students, "the cruelly brutal, criminal attacks of September 11, 2001, the shredded economy and loss of jobs, the consequences of deregulation and devolution that bankrupted state and local governments, the relentless punishment and imprisoning of over two million people in America, flagrant corporate plunder and criminality, rolling blackouts, the apparently permanent war on terrorism, the shock and awe occupation of Iraq, systematic and degrading detention without trial, torture and extra-judicial assassinations, and the establishment of a crescent of new U.S. military bases across the Middle East and South Asia - all have transformed whatever blissful illusions were harbored as you entered college."

During the 1960s and 1970s the NLG experienced considerable growth with the rise of the radical student movement. Several NLG figures were violent revolutionaries, including Bernardine Dohrn, the NLG student organizer in 1967 and fixture on the FBls "most wanted list" for several years. Another was Judith Clark, now serving a long sentence for murder in the 1981 Brinks armored car robbery undertaken to fund radical leftist activities. According to Prof. Gunter Lewy of the University of Massachusetts:

By the early 1970s old and new left elements in the Guild had come to terms, for they shared basic goals, the most immediate of which was the victory of the Vietnamese Communists.............. Marxist-Leninist terminology, previously shunned, now was used openly in Guild proceedings and publications.

An article in a 1981 issue of Military Police journal detailed the criminal careers of several National Lawyers Guild members as follows:

...Carlos Zapata who was killed in Denver by a bomb he was planting at a VFW hall on 22 March 1978. He was...involved in the National Lawyers Guild-sponsored 'Police Crimes Task Force.'

Bernardine Dohrn, the much sought Weather Underground fugitive, was named student director for the National Lawyers' Guild in 1967.

NLG member, Stephen Mitchell Bingham, is being sought by the state of California and the FBI for smuggling a .380 automatic pistol to George Jackson in prison...

...Guild member Frank Eugenio Martinez...was a Loyola law student who was active in NLG projects at the college and on the streets. Suspiciously, Frank's fingerprints ended up on several of the eight letter-bombs mailed to Denver police officers in 1973...

The article by Detective Arleigh McCree, a former military police officer who became Officer in Charge, Firearms and Explosives Unit of the Los Angeles Police Department, observes that "The NLG continues to act as a clearinghouse and, as an apologist and defender for terrorists and terrorism."

The PFOC, formed in 1974, was the publishing arm of the Weather Underground Organization (WUO), the terrorist spin-off from Students For a Democratic Society (~DS). Its first pamphlet was Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-imperialism, written by Bernardine Dohrn, Bill Ayers and Jeff Jones. According to Harvey Klehr:

It announced that "we are communist men and women" and urged its supporters to form an above-ground arm of the WUO. Chapters soon formed in several cities with perhaps a thousand members. Members of PFOC helped facilitate communication and logistics for WUO members living underground.los

The PFOC also published iJreakthrough, a quarterly journal which routinely called for widespread violent resistance to U. S. imperialism, and ran article after article- praising third-world single party Marxist-Leninist dictatorships.

Gunter Lewy, The Cause That Failed: Communism in American Political Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990),285.

Klehr, Harvey (1988). Far Left of Center: The American Radical Left Today. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. ISBN 0-88738-217-7

№ 63 Memorandum of conversation Josef Stalin with Franklin Roosevelt

2007-08-21T17:15:00.000-07:00

1 December 1943 15 hours. 20 min.

(from Russian)

Roosevelt. In the United States a question about the start of Baltic republics in the Soviet Union can be raised, and I assume that world public opinion will consider it desirable so that sometime in the future in some manner will be expressed the opinion of the peoples of these republics on this question. Therefore I hope that Marshal Stalin will take this wish into attention. I personally do not have any doubts about the fact that the peoples of these countries will vote so harmoniously for the connection to the Soviet Union, as they made in 1940.

Stalin. Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia did not have autonomy before the revolution in Russia. The Tsar was then in the union with the United States and with England, and no one raised the question about the conclusion of these countries from the composition of Russia. Why is this question asked now?

Roosevelt. The fact is that public opinion does not know history. I would want to have a talk with Marshal Stalin about the home situation in the United States. Next year in the United States elections will be in prospect. I do not desire to advance my candidacy, but if war is continued, then perhaps I will be since I am forced to make this decision. In America there are millions of citizens of Polish origin, and therefore, being a practical person, I would not want to lose their concerns. I am agreeable with Marshal Stalin to the fact that we must restore the Polish state, and personally I do not have objections to the borders of Poland being moved from the east to the West - up to Oder, but for political reasons I cannot participate at present in the resolution of this question. I consider Marshal Stalin's ideas, I hope that he will understand, why I cannot publicly participate in resolution of this question here, in Teheran, or even in the spring of next year.

Stalin. After the explanation of Roosevelt this I understand.

Roosevelt. In the United States there is also a certain quantity of Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians. I know that Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia and in the past and very recently composed the part of the Soviet Union, and, when the Russian armies again enter into these republics, not to camp for war because of this with the Soviet Union. But public opinion can require conducting there a plebiscite.

Stalin. As far as voleiz"yavleniya of the peoples of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia is concerned, we have numerous cases to give to the peoples of these republics the possibility to express its will.

Roosevelt. This will be to me useful.

Stalin. This, of course, it does not mean that the plebiscite in these republics must pass under any form of international control.

Roosevelt. Certainly, no. It would be useful to state at the appropriate moment, that the selections take place in their time in these republics.

Stalin. Certainly, this can be will be made. I would want to know, was resolved finally a question about the departure tomorrow.

Roosevelt. They reported to me that there will tomorrow be the blagopriyatnaya weather. it remained a little the questions, which we can discuss this evening. Tomorrow in the morning I will intend to depart...

Source: Teheran conference of the leaders of three union powers - USSR, THE USA and Great Britain. M., 1978. S. 123 - 169.
OCR, working and the formulation: Mikhail koval'chuk
velikiye are the lords of the past

The New Ordeal

2007-06-22T09:39:00.000-07:00

By Freeman Tilden

The North American Review,
v. 239, February 1935, p. 131-7.

If the foundation of civilization is contract, as Mr. Tilden believes, then the world is really facing one of its major crises

THE gods, turned surly, seem bent upon the destruction of mankind. If the indications are trustworthy, the method employed is the ancient favorite: that of first making men mad.

Hercules, always hated by his father's wife, was driven witless by Hera, and in his frenzy killed his own children. Insane man naturally attacks that which is most precious to him, the fruits of his own toil and virility and aspiration. Hence we should not be surprised that the present and mounting folly of a crazed world should be directed chiefly against the very foundation of man's existence as a social creature, that chart from which he derives the greater part of his strength, and all his power of organization. This foundation is contract.

Wholly shorn of his belief in the validity of the promises of his fellows, civilized mail necessarily would revert to what we may suppose was his original posture: solitary, lurking, apprehensive and predatory. The transition to this former state would not be abrupt, but once definitely accepted, it would follow an ever descending curve. Within recorded history this decline has several times been narrowly avoided, and then only by the intelligence and heroism of the few, resisting the mama of the many. For the annihilation of former civilizations, whose existence is indicated by a few broken but significant remnants, it is adequate to offer the simple explanation that covenants became generally repudiated. That would be enough.

"If you do not know," said Demosthenes, when defending a wealthy banker in an Athenian lawsuit, "that confidence is the principal asset of a business man, you do not know anything." Demosthenes was quite modern. He leaped a number of millenniums, with their painful struggle toward the development of contract, when he submitted this statement to the jury. He might correctly have said, "If you do not know, men of Athens, that confidence is the thing which makes it possible for this city, and the court of justice, and you unarmed men, to exist you do not know anything." Manfestly, this is the truth of it. The day when the first Troglodytes agreed upon the giving and receiving of a promise was the day upon which civilization was conceived; and the day when that promise was fulfilled, however grudgingly, was the day when civilization was born. It remained for a superior race to clothe the naked pact with an obligation that could give the promise the sanction of law; but the essence of the social structure was in the discovery that two men acting together by agreement were better off than two men acting as individuals.

The greater part of mankind is incorrigibly hopeful of getting something for nothing, in spite of all the evidence that this way of life is illusory. So, most human beings can imagine no activity more delightful than gambling, and particularly that form of gambling which consists in the attempt to outwit their fellows in exchange of goods and services. The lawyers of Justinian recognized this frailty when, in their wise and orderly codification of the rules of contract, they came to the final and personal touch. At this point they threw up their hands and said, "In pretio emptionis et venditionis naturaliter licet contrahentibus se circumvenire," and let it go at that. "In buying and selling, a little overreaching is expected in the matter of price." There is something in the horse-trade that defies legal boundary.

In the face of this weakness, we may imagine that the earliest consent to live aggregated by contract was one given with reluctance, and with many misgivings that a good deal of fun was going to be missed. Only the whip of necessity brought men to that gloomy sobriety in which a promise was to be binding, and the dancing of today must be put aside in the hope of freer fiddling of tomorrow. It is no wonder, then, that at certain times, and indeed at pretty regular intervals, corresponding with the greater cycles of abundance and adversity (the shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves periods of the race), the basic social contract, which is the sanctity of promises, comes into renewed hazard.

No person of composed mind and of any acquaintance with the past can fail to observe that civilization has arrived at one more of its recurrent tests, in which the tensile strength of the chain that keeps individuals from being redispersed into barbarism is exactly determined by the weight of repudiated promises it can bear. This chain is truly the vinculum juris of the Romans, on a much vaster scale than those words implied. Not only individuals, but partnerships and companies, lesser and greater units of government, are busily engaged in tampering with this bond of contractual confidence with the purpose of effecting specific reliefs, without entailing a general collapse. For in the latter case there would be no benefit.

When we remember that the vital principle of the contract inheres in the intelligently directed selfishness of man, which encouraged him to put aside the immediate interest for the distant but greater good, the naivete of responsible persons who believe the} can steal any lasting advantage become almost pathetic. They are in the case t0 those who spend their last moments OJ a sinking ship in looting the merchandise of the cargo, forgetting that when they have plundered they have no place to go, and no chance of enjoying the fruits of their unsocial act. If you default, then I default, whereupon we all default; try to take a profit from that!

Of course, wherever there are co tracts there are violations; this must is so until perfection arrives. The repudiation of any specific covenant is of slight importance. The habitual felon is not necessarily a person of feeble intelligence. Neither is he who refuses to contract, or, having contracted, has done so with the deliberate intent to defraud. In both instances, a powerful egotism may inform the delinquent that he will be better off by subscribing to no social order; that by skirmishing on the fringe of the compliant majority, he can pick up a richer living than they. The law provides penalties for these nonjurors when they can be laid by the heels. It was only in the earliest experimental period that the principle of contract was menaced by such dissenters.

It is when repudiation ceases to be casual, and becomes the subject of a new theory of conduct based upon it, on the plea of moral or economic progress, that the principle is in danger. We then find enrolled along the attacking force not merely the unenlightened, the lone wolves, the discontented, the impoverished and the demagogues, but a new and far more dangerous class of innovators, recruited from that part of society which, having risen highest, has farthest to fall. The .greatest assaults upon civilized society are always led by those who, possessing wealth without habituation, or knowledge without understanding, or sentiment without proportion, and above all vanity without curb, are always for marching upon some radical expedition, under the colors of high moral purpose.

Truly, the precious husbandry of the world is always necessary to be fenced from that horde upon whom the processes of education can be lavished without the slightest visible effect. They are pressing ever at the gate, ready to swarm through and trample what they can not devour. But, upon examination, it will be found that when the bars are let down, it is by certain beneficiaries of conservation sometimes animated by misdirected benevolence; oftener by restlessness, a love of dramatic novelty or the malice that springs from incapacity.

In the region of politics, such a man was Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who chose soft boudoirs, but praised the rugged savage life, who had no effective morals, but luxuriated in moral theory; who was impotent in friendship toward men, but reeked with a doctrine of brotherhood. A sufficient number of Rousseaus, of Rousseau-cules, can be heard and seen in the political and economic scene of the moment. But whereas Jean-Jacques was an inspired lunatic and a consummate artist, these contemporaries are neither artists nor inspired. They are simply busy and windy. Yet the times are propitious for Cleons. Our hardships are heavy; and even heavier is the disappointment of those hopes of perpetual prosperity, raised in a period when promissory notes were mistaken for cash.

III

So, with such provocation and under such leadership, we see powerful forces being brought to bear to contrive a nullification of pledges of faith unfortunately, unwisely or flippantly made: sophisms multiply; and there is vague idealism, supposed to spring from generosity of spirit or political need, about "the greatest good of the greatest number," as though that excellent condition had been waiting thousands of years for the present generation to discover. And since the majority of modern contracts take the form of an indebtedness, in goods, services or money, it follows that the conflict will appear to have creditors ranged upon one side, and debtors upon the other.

I say, it appears, for the truth is not there: in any engagement between those who do and those who do not actively support the strict observance of contracts, the battle is really between the forces of civilization and disintegration. But since it is not possible for many minds to encompass an abstract idea, much less to weep about one; and since it is possible for every one to sympathize with a distressed debtor, and to hate a prosperous and persistent creditor, the simple device of political dramaturgy is to place in scene two interesting antagonists: the man who received and can not pay, or would rather not pay; and the man who gave, and is disposed to enforce the covenant. In such a presentation, rash sentiment does not fail to perceive who is the hero, and who the villain, for two passions work simultaneously: first, the feeling of sympathy for the under-dog; second, the inextinguishable envy that delights in seeing wealth and pride toppled. This fallacy and these blind emotions are, however, not so mischievous in themselves; they are only what had originally to be overcome in the development of justice, and what justice must be prepared coolly but understandingly to ignore.

The real danger and the emergency derive from the fact that the resistance of law to the same fallacies is surely breaking down. Daily it becomes more apparent that the courts are no longer scrutinizing the contract with a view of deciding what was the intent-and when the statements are cloudy, or the agreement proper in spirit but irregular in detail, exercising the function of equity-but of applying a large programme of interpretation which has to do with the consequences of performance. This, so far as the principle of contract is concerned, is fatal, for decisions rendered on that basis can reflect merely the limited reasoning of a judge, or a group of judges, as to the merits of a transitory condition, or perhaps partisan polity. The man in the street can do that, perhaps with as much keenness as any other guesser.

We hear something, at least among readers of Plutarch, of the salutary siesacthea, or burden-lifting, decreed by Solon when he was called to rescue the tottering Athenian city-state. By his decrees, Solon "made a pound, which before passed for seventy-three drachmas, go for a hundred, which proved a considerable benefit to those that were to discharge debts," and made other social changes, presumably affecting existing contracts. It should be noted, however, that he did these things, if he did them at all (for Plutarch, though the most honorable of biographers, wrote seven centuries after Solon was born), as Dictator, in a state of alarm when constitutional guarantees were suspended. The principle of contract is not endangered by being wholly stayed, while extra-legal powers supersede it. The Roman Senate, as a legislative body, did not cease to exist because some tyrant dispersed it, but only when, unhampered by major force, it failed to exert its normal functions, or betrayed the idea by which it had being. And this is quite aside from the question whether the employment of dictatorial power ever cures those social disabilities and inequalities whic9 are offered as its apology. In a verse quoted by Plutarch and credited to Solon himself, the lawgiver states in his own honor that (The mortgage-stones that covered her [Athens] Removed, -the land that was a slave is free. But the mortgage-stones reappeared) many times in the course of the next centuries. Glotz. says that agrarian pauperism was always the cancer of Greece, and that when she went down in a whirlwind, "her last defenders fell with promises of sharing land and abolishing debts, on their lips." If the repudiation of contract, including the remission or lightening of debts contrary to the bond, were the open-sesame to perfect justice and prosperity, the gods would have come down from Olympus and joined the human race long ago. The experiment is not novel.

Neither is there anything new about the abrogations by which governments cheat their own subjects, or swindle each other. Almost as soon as there was coinage there was coin-clipping and coin-sweating; degradation of the standard of value; surcharging; and as soon as the use of paper symbols came into wide employment, the emission of unredeemable inflation money. Dionysius of Syracuse ordered his creditors to present themselves with all their coin, and then doubled its purchasing power by means of an over-stamp, thus not only wiping out his government debt, but putting himself handsomely in pocket. At least the half of all economic history is concerned with the tragicomedy of governments getting into debt by extravagance and trying to get out by fraud. A good deal of the other half is concerned with individuals attempting to do the same thing. But governments have the advantage over individuals in this respect, since they are immune from the police power, because they control it. Indeed, it is axiomatic that if the commercial morality of the individual were as low as that of his government, no government could exist.

IV
What concerns us now, however, is not repudiation in specific instances, whether of government or the individual, but of the attitude toward repudiation, as expressed by those whose position, training and intelligence are of considerable moment. While there is yet no blunt statement from high sources that an obligor is to receive special favor if his net fortune prove, on examination, to be inferior to that of his creditor; yet we have clearly arrived at the stage when, regardless of the intent of the obligation, if the debtor suffers a loss, the creditor is to be considered a partner in the borrowers enterprise; though, if the borrower prospers, the creditor simply gets his money back, with interest. There is a romantic persuasion that bankruptcies should be avoided by such means, though common sense would say that an honest bankruptcy is preferable to a stolen solvency.

Of course, the leading spirits in the assault upon the contract principle are governments. Whatever specious excuses are given by a government for the repudiation of its promises, either to its own subjects or to others, there is never more than one real reason: that it wants ~ore money to spend as it prefers to spend it. As all governments are liberal promisors, their first thoughts, when more money is needed, and there is a fear of alienating support by taxation or direct expropriation, fly to the devising of some means of invalidating their obligations, and setting up a construction more to their liking.¹ Fortunately for needy governments, a great part of their subjects are also in debt, and would also like to be relieved. Therefore what the government desires, and what would at the same time be popular, happily coincide, and the next thing is to declare that a crisis exists. This is taking high ground, precluding the charge that there is any immoral or illegal purpose of fleecing the creditor class. Whether he likes it or not, the creditor is going to be protected against his own base instincts, among them the craving to have his contract fulfilled.

Having declared that a crisis exists, which is not hard to do, since governments are generally so clumsy and expensive that a crisis is always within call, all that remains is to alter the standard of value in some artificial manner; and there are a number of ways of doing so. This step, of course, brings all existing contracts that involve money payments into confusion. The unfortunate consequences in respect of these contracts could be avoided by enacting, along with the legislation altering the standard, that preceding obligations should be made good according to the maxim "valor monette considerandus atque inspiciendus est, a tempore contractus, non autem a tempore solu tionis," which is to say, not according to the new value, but according to that which existed when the contract was made. Curiously enough, this maxim was acted upon by several of the kings of France during the Middle Ages-a period greatly despised by moderns.

But, even if there were no political reasons against this course, it would be unthinkable to a modern government, for the reason that it has its own obligations so clearly in mind. If its act were not to have the final result of assessing the difference to the creditor, the legislation might just as well not have been passed, and the crisis was cried up for nothing. Of course, the government is even now not in the happiest position, for its expenses increase in exactly the ratio of the degradation of the standard; but this can be met by a further degradation and that by another, and so on until that day arrives so well suggested by Montesquieu when he said: "The State may be a creditor to infinity but it can only be a debtor to a certain degree, and when it surpasses that, the title of creditor vanishes."

Meantime, the spirit of default naturally filters down through the body politic. And truly, it is hard for the humble individual to see why, if a government can elude its obligations, or set the stage for a general default based upon one particular kind of contract, it is not equally in order for him to repudiate his promise, however and wherever made.

Yet in so far as he is a reflective man, who knows the story of the rise of civil ized man from the cave, he will not readily lend his aid to destroy that which secures to him all the rights (and responsibilities) he possesses. The original principles of right, as seen by Grotius, are confined to a small compass. They require only:

Abstaining from what belongs to another.
Making a compensation for the advantages derived from the use and possession of another's property.
Fulfilling the promises we have given.
Making reparation for the injury we have done.
Submitting to punishment for the offenses we have committed.

These are in fact the rules of civilization; but I submit that four of these are dependent upon the one named third; all the rest must derive their force from the belief that promises will be fulfilled.

And as no person can be an actively good citizen of a state who is ignorant of the beginnings and adversities and struggles and halting endeavors, by which the unity of that state was brought into being, so it is important to the intelligent performance of promises not to regard it as primarily a moral issue, though years of custom have endowed it with that secondary merit, but to realize the centuries of trial and check, the study of which led to the conclusion of Sir Henry J.S. Maine that "the positive duty resulting from one man's reliance on the word of another is among the slowest conquests of advancing civilization."

1 In this statement no account can be taken of a debasement of monetary standard which arises from the curiosity of a ruler, or his desire to furnish one of his favorites with a sphere field for laboratory experimentation. I know of only two such cases in history: one being the Roman Emperor Gallienus, son of Valerian. Gibbon paints an interesting portrait of this dilettante in supreme power. He had personal magnetism, was a fluent orator, a writer of elegant verses, a skilful gardener and excellent cook. At a .time when the finances of the state were at an alarming point, Gallienus held long conversations with the philosopher Plotinus, concerning subsistence settlements, to be modeled after Plato's communistic theories. He promised Plotinus a large tract of land to try the social experiment, but it came to nothing, because the emperor was soon enthralled with a new idea. This virtuosity and intellectual curiosity did not contribute much toward Roman prosperity.

Chronology of Dominionism

2007-03-11T11:39:00.001-07:00

26 January 2005 Berlet begins writing on Dominionism; links to Katherine Yurica's website.

29-30 April 2005 " Examining the Real Agenda of the Christian Right" conference held. Katherine Yurica quoted as saying,

the Republican Party had gained power through "Hitlerian tactics."... evangelical leaders from Billy Graham to Jerry Falwell "had to have read Hitler’s Mein Kampf."

02 May 2005 Stanley Kurtz reports on conference.

09 June 2005 Doug Ireland reports about conference on "Christers", and how "strategies to defeat them can be developed"; quotes Berlet complaining Political Research Associates doesn't have the resources and none of them could make enough money doing it.

15 June 2005 Academics decry partisan nature of conference.

16 June 2005 Christian community reacts to invidious pejoratives coming out of conference.

10 July 2005 Berlet cited again suggesting invidious pejoratives.

31 July 2005 Berlet names Paul Weyrich as a ringleader in giant 25 year old Christer conspiracy to dominate US politics.

10 August 2005 Frederick Clarkson, citing a source named as, "information surfaced", from several years ago, trys linking Dr. James Dobson to the Ku Klux Klan.

31 July 2006 User:Pravknight proves tagging Weyrich with "Dominionism", defined as "a trend in Protestant Christian evangelicalism", is pounding a square peg in a round hole as Mr. Weyrich is Catholic.

23 August 2006 Pravknight summoned before RfC Tribunal for challenging the smear against Weyrich who is Catholic, with "Dominionsim", a supposed Protestant trend based on "scholarly research".

03 November 2006 Pravknight summarizes the situation.

04 November 2006 Community sanctions on Pravknight.

06 January 2007 Berlet continues attacks on Dobson.

03 February 2007 Essjay declares "I've been pretty upfront about using disinformation".

06 February 2007 Essjay has dinner with Jimbo and says "I love my new job."

23 February 2007 Jimbo appoints an expert in Catholicism to ArbCom.

Materials of the Teheran conference

2007-02-19T14:01:00.000-07:00

(from Russian)

(on 28 November - on 1 December, 1943)

Stalin. If it is possible, then I would want to obtain the answer to a question about that, who will be appointed as the commander of Operation Overlord.

Roosevelt. This question is not yet resolved.

Stalin. Then nothing it leaves the Operation Overlord. Who bears moral and military responsibility for preparation and fulfillment of Operation Overlord? If this is unknown, then Operation Overlord is only conversation.

Roosevelt. English General Morgan bears responsibility for preparation for Operation Overlord.

Stalin. Who bears responsibility for conducting of Operation Overlord?

Roosevelt. All persons, who will participate in the realization of Operation Overlord, with exception of the commander-in-chief of this operation, are known to us.

Stalin. It can happen so that General Morgan will consider the operation of that prepared, on afterward the designations of commander, whom it will answer for the realization of this operation, it can seem that the commander will consider the operation of that not prepared. Must be one person, who would answer both for the preparation and for conducting of operation.

Churchill. Preliminary preparations were charged to General Morgan.

Stalin. Who did charge this to General Morgan?

Churchill. Several months ago this was charged to General Morgan by the united Anglo-American staff from the agreement of the President and from my agreement. To General Morgan it was charged to news preparation for Operation Overlord together with the American and British staffs; however, commander-in-chief is not yet assigned.

The British Government expressed the readiness to place its forces in Operation Overlord under the command of American commander-in-chief, since the United States bear responsibility for concentration and completion search and have numerical superiority in the troops. From other side, the British Government proposed to appoint British commander-in-chief of operations in the Mediterranean, where the Englishmen have numerical superiority in the troops.

A question about the designation of commander-in-chief cannot be solved at this extensive session as today's. This question should be solved by the heads of three governments between themselves, in the narrow to circle. As the President said to me now - and 4 this podtverzhdayu, - resolution of a question about the designation of commander-in-chief will depend on the negotiations, which we conduct here.

Stalin. I want so that they would understand me that the Russians do not pretend to the participation in the designation of commander-in-chief, but Russians would want to know, who will be commander. Russians would want so that it would be rather assigned and so that it would answer both for the preparation and for conducting of Operation Overlord.

Churchill.We are completely agreeable with the fact that Marshal Stalin said, and I think that the President will agree with me in the fact that in two weeks we will appoint commander-in-chief and will report his surname. One of our tasks is the designation of commander-in-chief.

Churchill. It seems to me that we do not disperse in the views as, as this it can seem. I am ready to do everything that in the forces of the British Government, in order to accomplish Operation Overlord within the nearest possible period. But 4 I do not think that those many possibilities, which are located in the Mediterranean, must be unmercifully rejected as the not having values, because their use will detain the realization of Operation Overlord for 2--3 months.

Stalin. Operations in the area of the Mediterranean, about which speaks Churchill, this only of diversion. 4 I do not deny the value of these diversions.

Churchill. In our opinion, numerous British troops must not be located in the idleness in the course of six months. They must conduct combat against the enemy, and with the aid of the American allies we hope to destroy German divisions in Italy. We cannot remain passive in Italy, since this will spoil entire our campaign there. We must render aid to our Russian friends.

Stalin. It leaves according to Churchill, that the Russians require of the Englishmen of that so that the Englishmen would be inactive.

Churchill. If vessels are sent from the area of the Mediterranean, then as a result the scale of operations in this region will considerably be reduced. Marshal Stalin remembers the fact that at the Moscow conference were indicated the conditions, with which Operation Overlord can be successful. These conditions they provide that in France will find up to the moment of intrusion not more than 12 German mobile divisions and that during 60 days the Germans cannot move into France for completing of their troops more than 15 divisions...

Finally, I consider it acceptable and on behalf of the British Government I give agreement to that so that the directives for the military commission would be manufactured. I propose so that we together with the Americans would develop our proposals about the directives of commission. I think that our views more or less converge.

Stalin. How long we are intended to remain in Teheran?

Churchill. I am ready not to eat, unless these directives are developed.

Stalin. The discussion deals with that, when we are intended to finish our conference.

Roosevelt. I am ready to be remain in Teheran as long as Marshal Stalin is to remain in Teheran.

Churchill. If it is necessary, then I am ready to remain in Teheran forever.

... Roosevelt. I want to say several words. In my opinion if we three together give the directives of our military commission, then they will be able to discuss all questions.

Stalin. It is necessary for no military commission. We can solve all questions here, at the conference. We must solve a question about the date, about the commander-in-chief and a question about the need for auxiliary operation in South France. I think also that the commission, which consists of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and representative, appointed as the President, on questions of the Balkans also is not necessary, since all questions about the Balkans we can solve here more rapid. We, Russians, are limited by the period of a stay in Teheran. We could stay here during 1 December, but on the 2nd - GO we must leave. The President remembers about the fact that we agreed with it about 3-4 days.

... Roosevelt. To us by all it is known that the differences between us and Englishmen are small. I object to the postponement of Operation Overlord, while Mr. Churchill more greatly emphasizes the importance of operations in the Mediterranean. Military commission could be dismantled at these questions.

Stalin. We can solve these questions themselves, since we greater have rights, than military commission. If it is possible to pose a careless question, then I would want to learn if the Englishmen, do they believe in Operation Overlord, or they simply speak about it in order to calm down Russians.

Churchill. If the conditions are present, which were indicated at the Moscow conference, then 4 they are solidly convinced of the fact that we will be obligated to move all imeyushchiyesya [available] forces against the Germans, when the realization of Operation Overlord begins.

Roosevelt. We are very hungry now. Therefore I would propose to interrupt our session in order to be present at that dinner, by which we today entertain Marshal Stalin. I propose so that tomorrow in the morning our military commission would continue its conference.

Stalin. The conferences of military commission does not be required. This excess. The conference of servicemen will not accelerate our work. We can accelerate our work only themselves.

Churchill. If possible, is it better for me and the President to agree on thier point of view and then to report to you about our common point of sight?

Stalin. This will accelerate our work.

Churchill. But as about the commission in the composition of Hopkins and two Minister of Foreign Affairs?

Stalin. And this commission it is not necessary, if Mr. Churchill insists, then we do not object to its creation.

Roosevelt. Tomorrow Hopkins, Molotov and Eden could have a conversation with each other after the breakfast.

Stalin. What we will make tomorrow? Will the proposals of Churchill and Roosevelt be ready?

Roosevelt. The proposals will be finished, and I propose tomorrow to me, to Churchill and to Marshal Stalin to breakfast in half of the second and to discuss all questions.

Churchill. This will be our program on tomorrow.

Stalin. It is agreeable.

№'y from the record of the third session of the Heads of Government

Teheran, on 30 November, 1943

Beginning 16 hours. 30 min. End 17 hours. 20 min.

... Roosevelt. I am very glad to hear, that Marshal Stalin agreed to remain on one more day. I still wanted to say relative to the communiqué: it can be, our staffs could present to us the project of this communiqué.

Stalin. In that part, which concerns military questions.

Churchill. Yes, certainly. It is necessary that the communiqué would be brief and mysterious.

Stalin. But without the mysticism.

Churchill. I am confident, that in the very near future the enemy must become known about our preparations, since it will be able to reveal this from the large accumulation of trains, on the activity in our ports, etc.

Stalin. Large operation in the bag you will not hide.

Churchill. It would be necessary so that our staffs would think about disguising of these preparations and leading enemy into error.

Stalin. We in such cases deceive enemy, systems the dummy tanks, aircraft, creating decoy airfields. Then we with the aid of the tractors set these dummy tanks and aircraft into the motion. Reconnaissance reports to enemy about these movements, the Germans thinking that the impact precisely in this place is prepared. At the same time, where actually is prepared offensive, reigns complete calmness. All transportation are produced by night. We create in a number of places to 5--8 thousand dummy tanks, to 2 thousand aircraft scale models, the large number of decoy airfields. Furthermore, we deceive enemy with the aid of the radio. In those regions, where is not assumed offensive, is produced the roll-call between the radio stations. These stations are intersected by enemy, and in it impression will be created, that here are located the large connections of troops. The aircraft of enemy sometimes day and night bombard these localities, which in actuality are completely empty.

Churchill. Truth is necessary to guard via untruth. In any case, will be accepted the measures, in order to lead enemy into error.

№ 63 memorandum of the conversation I. V. Stalin with F. Roosevelt
1 December 1943 15 hours. 20 min.

Roosevelt. In the United States a question about the start of Baltic republics in the Soviet Union can be raised, and I assume that the world public opinion will consider it desirable so that sometimes in the future in a some manner expressed the opinion of the peoples of these republics on this question. Therefore I hope that Marshal Stalin will take into the attention this wish. I personally do not have any doubts about the fact that the peoples of these countries will vote for the connection to the Soviet Union so harmoniously, as they made in 1940.

Stalin. Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia did not have an autonomy before the revolution in Russia. Tsar was then in the union with the United States and with England, and no one raised the question about the conclusion of these countries from the composition of Russia. Why this question is placed now?

Roosevelt. The fact is that public opinion does not know history. I would want to have a talk with Marshal Stalin about the home situation in the United States. Next year in the United States elections will be in prospect. I do not desire to advance my candidacy, but if war is continued, then perhaps I will be since I am forced to make this decision. In America there are millions of citizens of Polish origin, and therefore, being a practical person, I would not want to lose their concerns. I am agreeable with Marshal Stalin to the fact that we must restore the Polish state, and personally I do not have objections to the borders of Poland being moved from the east to the West - up to Oder, but for political reasons I cannot participate at present in the resolution of this question. I consider Marshal Stalin's ideas, I hope that he will understand, why I cannot publicly participate in resolution of this question here, in Teheran, or even in the spring of next year.

Stalin. After the explanation of Roosevelt this I understand.

Roosevelt. In the United States there is also a certain quantity of Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians. I know that Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia and in the past and very recently composed the part of the Soviet Union, and, when the Russian armies again enter into these republics, not to camp for war because of this with the Soviet Union. But public opinion can require conducting there a plebiscite.

Stalin. As far as voleiz"yavleniya of the peoples of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia is concerned, we have numerous cases to give to the peoples of these republics the possibility to express its will.

Roosevelt. This will be to me usefully.

Stalin. This, of course, it does not mean that the plebiscite in these republics must pass under any form of international control.

Roosevelt. Certainly, no. It would be useful to state at the appropriate moment, that the selections take place in their time in these republics.

Stalin. Certainly, this can be will be made. I would want to know, was resolved finally a question about the departure tomorrow.

Roosevelt. They reported to me that there will tomorrow be the blagopriyatnaya weather. it remained a little the questions, which we can discuss this evening. Tomorrow in the morning I will intend to depart...

Source: Teheran conference of the leaders of three union powers - USSR, THE USA and Great Britain. M., 1978. S. 123 - 169.
OCR, working and the formulation: Mikhail koval'chuk velikiye are the lords of the past

2007-02-17T12:35:00.001-07:00

User:Katefan0/Notes

Rove/push poll/McCain-related articles
New page
Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Copyright 2005 The Conde Nast Publications Inc.All Rights ReservedVanity FairJuly 2005SECTION: MICHAEL WOLFF; The Power Of Rove; No. 539; Pg. 60LENGTH: 3228 wordsHEADLINE: The Power Of Rove;For spooked and frustrated liberals, Karl Rove embodies everything evil inAmerican politics. How has Bush's top strategist managed to outmaneuver andelude them at every turn? Perhaps because he isn't interested in anything butpolitics: the old-fashioned, down-and-dirty, unglamorous, winning kindBYLINE: Michael Wolff, Contributing EditorHIGHLIGHT:Michael Wolff Plugs Into Bush's Brain p. 60BODY:Â Â Â What do liberals mean when they say "Karl Rove"?Â Â Â Al Gore was out at the Michael Milken-sponsored bigwig conference in LosAngeles (the Milken Institute Global Conference) not long ago, giving Rovesingular credit for his defeat. John Kerry, likewise, can't stop "murmuring 'Rove, Rove' under his breath," says one senior political operative of myacquaintance.Â Â Â A recent PBS Frontline documentary on Rove was titled The Architect, afterthe president's election night acknowledgment of Rove (and thanks to "thearchitect, Karl Rove"). But whereas Bush's architect, we might assume, isdraftsman, planner, and hired hand (who doesn't think this is how Bush sees anarchitect?), in Frontline's liberal construct, architect Rove is strictly out ofAyn Rand-an all-powerful creator, designer, mastermind, and, if he chooses, orif his mind wanders, destroyer.Â Â Â In the liberal lexicon, Karl Rove, the great direct-mail specialist, hasbecome a direct- mail hot word himself-you get a solicitation with the menacingword "Rove" and you get out your checkbook. No one since, perhaps, Joe McCarthyhas suggested the dark forces in American politics, and the impotence ofliberals, more than Rove.Â Â Â He's a curse. A terrifying specter. Something alive in the night.Â Â Â Among his purported signature escapades is the one that, characteristically,nobody can connect him to: artfully, if illegally, leaking to columnist RobertNovak the name of C.I.A. agent Valerie Plame, whose husband, former ambassadorJoseph Wilson, had annoyed the administration by disputing one of its W.M.D.whoppers (and who evoked the wishful image of Karl Rove being "frog-marched outof the White House in handcuffs"). Rove is always at a remove. Disembodied.Hence, "Rovian"-the appellation given to swift, seamless, destabilizingpolitical acts which liberals, helplessly, can't seem to pin on anyone.Â Â Â Most political figures grow smaller with scrutiny. Rove, resistingdefinition-I know of no satisfying character description of the man-grows everlarger. Who is he? Karen Hughes, the other dominant personality in the WhiteHouse before she returned to Austin, is emblematic of the Bush style in herplainness, her what-you-see-is-what-you-get-ness, her meat-and-potato-ness. ButRove ... ?Â Â Â At a recent interview with a deeply self-satisfied Rove before a Time Warnercocktail reception (Rove left before the cocktails), Norman Pearlstine, theinterlocutor and Time Inc. editor in chief, tried to discreetly work the key inthe lock. Pearlstine-who pointed out that Rove was the runner-up for Time's 2004Person of the Year, behind only Bush himself-gently tried to needle Rove abouthis Jaguar. Was this a whiff of glamour, perhaps even a hint of foreignness,emanating from the anti-latte-sipping Rove? Rove neatly pointed out that Jaguaris owned by the Ford Motor Company. Pearlstine pursued, asking if Rove'sstepfather (a complicated issue here-Rove was a teenager before he found out hisstepfather was not his biological father), a geologist, would by necessity havebelieved in evolution-a significant deviation for Rove's fabled conservativebase. Rove allowed, smoothly, that, while they'd never discussed it, this mightbe true, but that his stepfather was a man of faith, though, Rove added, prettysmoothly, too-cat-that-ate-the-canary smooth-"not of deep faith." With evengreater catlike-ness, this mastermind of evangelical politics offered, "I'm anEpiscopalian, so I'm not allowed to have deep religious beliefs."Â Â Â You can't catch him.Â Â Â He's the liberal conundrum. "Nobody knows how to elect a president," says thepolitical consultant Howard Wolfson, who, if things go right, will be HillaryClinton's Rove a few years hence. But what if Rove has figured it out? And whatif what you have to do is the exact opposite of the way a liberal would do it?He's the political other. The spore that got loose. The moon face. Theporcineness. Those horn-rims. He's Simon Birch. Or he should be-certainly inliberal hands he would be-a comic or satirical character. (His biographers, CarlM. Gannon, Lou Dubose, and Jan Reid, point out in their 2003 book, Boy Genius,that in college the Commie-hating Rove worked behind the cash register in whatsounds suspiciously like a head shop-now, that's funny.) Except that he clearlyis not a joke-so if there is a joke, it must be on us.Â Â Â It's ... Nixon. He's back. Indeed, more than Reagan, the perennialsentimental Republican favorite, Nixon is Rove's great hero.Â Â Â Rove grows up in Utah. His parents break up. He finds out his father is nothis father. His mother commits suicide. But such personal history figuresnowhere in the Rove affect (politicians may have to get sappy and confessional,but not Rove).Â Â Â Maybe most notably, he's not a Mormon in Utah. He's got no religion in anorthodox world-how unsettling is that? Perhaps looking for his sect (or,possibly, he's striking a secular blow), he becomes an obsessive teenageRepublican. He drops out of college and heads to Washington during the height ofthe Watergate investigation to pursue his young-Republicanism.Â Â Â He's Briefcase Bob. Not just a nerd but an aggressive nerd-a mean nerd. Fortyyears later people still have hurt feelings over Rove's moves and countermovesin the organizational power struggles among the young Republicans.Â Â Â The reward for his obsessiveness is that he gets to run errands for olderRepublicans (there's a GoodFellas sense at this point in the Rove story-hishanging around, driving the boss's car, getting to perform a few small-timedirty tricks). The big guy he's working for, a wealthy former Texas congressman,tells him to deliver car keys to his son who's down from Harvard B-school. Thisis Rove's road-to-Damascus moment, similar to Clinton's shaking hands withJ.F.K.-similarly transforming, similarly erotic. Says Rove about his firstglimpse of the 27-year-old George W. Bush, "I can literally remember what he waswearing: an Air National Guard flight jacket, cowboy boots, blue jeans... He wasexuding more charisma than any one individual should be allowed to have." Or, inanother telling: "huge amounts of charisma, swagger, cowboy boots, flightjacket, wonderful smile, just charisma-you know, wow." Rove even remembers thecar: "A purple Gremlin with Levi interior." A testament, he always takes theopportunity to point out, to Bush-family frugality.Â Â Â In every variant of the Rove early-years tale, he comes off as Sammy Glick,hustling, sucking, dealing. In the middle of Watergate, The Washington Post evenwrites a story (the Post has been dropped a tape by one of Rove'syoung-Republican antagonists) about Rove's giving a tactical seminar on dirtytricks. (In one instance, Rove passed out free-food-and-drink invitations to thelocal homeless for an opponent's campaign event.) He's this close to being nowforgotten Watergate dirty-trickster Donald Segretti instead of Karl Rove.Â Â Â And yet, there's another way to tell the Rove story: while the better bredare turning up their noses at politics-in some sense re-evaluating the veryconventions of the form, trying to upgrade the whole craft, or departing indroves for tonier professions (George Bush getting his M.B.A.)-Rove is learningclassic technique. In the post-Watergate clean-hands world, in the age of theever expanding economy, where the real operators are heading, Rove is ashoeshine-and-a-smile, steal-it-if-you-must, winning-is-everything politicalapprentice.The striking comparison here, the parallel reality, is with the career of Rove'sopposite number on the Gore and Kerry campaigns, Bob Shrum.Â Â Â In 1976, Shrum, the 32-year-old Harvard Law graduate, is making a principledstand and quitting the Carter presidential campaign over some liberal slightthat is almost impossible to decipher now. Shrum thereafter assumes celebrityrank in liberal politics, working in every Democratic presidential campaign fromCarter on.Â Â Â In 1977 the 26-year-old Rove heads for Texas, walking into possibly the leasthospitable environment for a Republican in the nation: the Democrats hold everystatewide post but one and have held the governor's office for more than 100years.Â Â Â Shrum, in Washington, becomes a virtuoso of high-profile speeches and high-margin television political ads (earning a percentage on all media bought andamassing quite a serious fortune in the process). Rove, in Austin, starts abusiness focused on low-margin direct mail.Â Â Â Television political advertising is the glamour deal. Direct mail is junkmail, not a profession that anyone aspires to (at least not until it starts tobe called database marketing). But the vectors of influence and usefulness areabout to change. Shrum's 30-second and 60-second television spots will betransformed from glitzy and powerful to expensive and, often, unproductive.Whereas Rove's direct mail makes money-a successful mailing delivers a messageand returns more money than the message cost to deliver. What's more, as Rovehas pointed out, mail is largely "immune from press coverage"-you can sayanything about anybody and you won't get caught; it's invisible media.Â Â Â In Washington, through the 80s and 90s, Shrum builds one of the most eminentclient lists in politics-anybody who's anybody hires Shrum. Rove, in DemocraticTexas, slowly builds a different sort of list-a database of Republican donors,voters, potential voters (Rove is an early computer geek too-all spreadsheetsand merge/ purge). He controls pretty much the only Republican list in Texas. He's the guy you have to go to if you're a Republican candidate. Actually, don'tcall him. He selects the candidates-he creates them. Most of all, Bushhimself-whom Rove works from the ground up.Â Â Â Shrum's world is a civilized, businesslike mix of winning and losing and,too, personal publicity-your candidate can lose, but, with the right press, youcan win.Â Â Â In Rove's world, there's only winning. And you avoid publicity. (A friend ofmine who ran a leading technology company in Austin through the 90s says henever heard of Rove-who, operating from Austin, is now understood to have beenthe most powerful political figure in Texas-until Bush started running forpresident.) A combination of legend and fact has Rove in cahoots with an F.B.I.agent named Greg Rampton, who investigates various Democrats standing in Rove'sway-several of whom end up in jail. In a gubernatorial race, legend and facthave Rove bugging his own office and pinning it on the opposition. Legend andfact have him ever-so-stealthily, ever deniably, attaching the lesbian questionto Bush's first gubernatorial opponent, the much-liked Ann Richards. These areskill sets that Shrum would not have acquired.Â Â Â In their parallel realities, Shrum becomes one of the biggestinside-the-beltway stars and Democratic bloviators, while Rove systematically,race by race, re-district by re-district, institutionalizes the Republican Partyin Texas and destroys the Democratic Party. They are both beyond being mereconsultants. But whereas Shrum is a media personality, a talking head, Rove is,in essence, the political boss of the nation's second-largest state, a Hague, aPendergast, a Daley.A confounding thing for liberals is that a guy with such a nuts-and-bolts,regional, old-fashioned, political-muscle career (who would even want such acareer?) turns out to be good at media. Image has been a Democratic thing: theKennedys and Clinton. O.K., Reagan, sure ... an actor-but Texas? The Bushes?Â Â Â It isn't just that Rove, the direct-mail guy, has a much more practiced andintuitive feel for slicing and dicing, for targeting, for micro-targeting-forseeing a national election as 50 separate races in 50 states-than an

Vanity of vanities

2007-02-08T12:04:00.000-07:00

full context restored

QUOTE(Somey @ Thu 8th February 2007, 8:49am)
... these people are now "notable" enough for their own articles. If they don't want articles written about them, then that should be their right - but they should extend that right to others as well, in the interest of fairness. They should extend that right to everyone.

Soon people will discover no living person wants a wiki entry about themself, notable or vanity. The very creation of an article, keeping with human nature, will always gravitate in the direction of negativity. Any 'puff piece' short of that is suspect.Spoken by one with a reputation of being ominous: "I know where the bodies are buried..."

QUOTE(nobs @ Thu 8th February 2007, 11:43am)
Soon people will discover no living person wants a wiki entry about themself, notable
or vanity. The very creation of an article, keeping with human nature, will always gravitate in the direction of negativity. Any 'puff piece' short of that is suspect.

Somey

You don't really believe that though, do you?

Thing is, if you've been reading what's posted here on Wikipedia Review fairly regularly, it would be very easy to get that impression, I should think. But the reality of it is that most people do want articles about themselves, and most such articles aren't really negative at all. In cases where people have done bad things, or who have skeletons in their closets that have recently been revealed, those peoples' enemies will occasionally target their bio articles... but I'd say that's a tiny minority of cases.

Another thing: You yourself, Nobs, have a history of adding negative information to BLP articles - or at least one or two in particular - and it's ultimately the reason you're here, as I understand it. It may be that the information you added is true and well-sourced, that the subjects deserve to be exposed in that way, and that "the people" deserve to know - and you may very well be right. But again, that's still a tiny minority of articles, and even in those cases I doubt that all but a few would want to risk the additional attention they'd get by asking for an opt-out deletion.

At a minimum, Wikipedia must allow for the fact that it is capable of damaging people out of spite, pettiness, and vindictiveness, often having nothing to do with the "notability" of the subject. In other words, it must make allowances for serious flaws in the very nature of its underlying concept. Only if it does that can we even bother to consider the question of whether or not it's a net-positive to society.

nobs

QUOTE(Somey @ Thu 8th February 2007, 11:18am)
You don't really believe that though, do you?

It's human nature; "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God".

QUOTE(Somey @ Thu 8th February 2007, 11:18am)
most people do want articles about themselves, and most such articles aren't really
negative at all. In cases where people have done bad things, or who have skeletons in their closets that have recently been revealed, those peoples' enemies will occasionally target their bio articles...

Vanity of vanities, all is vanity...see above...

Another thing: You yourself, Nobs, have a history of adding negative
information to BLP articles - or at least one or two in particular - and it's ultimately the reason you're here, as I understand it. It may be that the information you added is true and well-sourced, that the subjects deserve to be exposed in that way, and that "the people" deserve to know - and you may very well be right.

Yes and no. My dispute arose prior to official BLP. In fact, BLP came into existance largely based upon the Siegenthaler/Berlet/ Brandt controversies (Marsden was in infancy). BLP was created 17 Dec 2005; me, a "problem user", was hounded out 6 days later. Mr. Harry Magdoff was the living person whom my dispute was over. Venona 687 specifically identifies Harry Magdoff as "KANT". NSA Archives release states,

QUOTE
The release of VENONA translations involved careful consideration of the privacy interests of individuals mentioned, referenced, or identified in the translations. Some names have not been released when to do so would constitute an invasion of privacy.

Other WP:ATT sources nobs used to verify Magdoff as "KANT" were

Allen Weinstein, Archivist of the United States;
John Earl Haynes, Library of Congress Manuscripts Division;
Robert L. Bensen of the National Security Agency Archives;
Michael Warner, CIA History Staff; National Cryptological Museum, Custodian of Documents for the Army Signals Intelligence Corp;
Hayden Peake, Curator of CIA's Historical Intelligence Collection;
Counterintelligence Reader, National Counterintelligence Center, Frank J. Rafalko, ed.

(of course many of the persons named above have since had negative wiki bios created about them to impugn their credibility). To top it all, Magdoff up and dies on us 31 December 2005.

Berlet's confession

2007-01-23T14:55:00.001-07:00

QUOTE(Daniel Brandt @ Sun 3rd September 2006, 8:56am)
My reading of the Section 230 mess (and yes, those 33 pages by the Harvard guy, with 200 legal footnoes, will make your head spin), is that the question of Section 230 and Wikimedia Foundation's immunity under 230 has to do with whether the Foundation as an "entity" is just the Trustees and their paid employees, or consists of the larger Wikipedia community.This distinction is relevant in determining whether or not the Foundation plays a role in the "creation or development of content," or whether it is merely a provider of an "interactive Internet service." Wikimedia Foundation itself defines its membership in its bylaws (for voting purposes) as extending broadly into the community....The greater your role in the creation or development of content, as opposed to just being an interactive Internet service, the less immunity you can claim under Section 230.

Wouldn't the answer to these questions be in the various "Policies" relating to how "Policy" is formulated both on the Wikipedia and Wikimedia websites? And not just the instructions on gaining "broad community concensus", but moreso actual real experience with the creation of policy.The Daniel Brant bio was created before WP:BLP. It is a huge error in judgement now to assume that the Brandt bio was created with the same "objective fairness" in mind that now is required for existing bios. Prior to BLP, the name of the game was to slime sources. When the other guy had better sources to support his arguement, and you were on the losing side, trash the sources was virtually the rule of the Wikielite.A study of BLP, from its inception will reveal the Foundation's role in the "creation or development of content". SlimVirgin is questioned here for example, in a key page related to the creation of BLP, and explains her actions,

QUOTE
BLP applies to every page on the website. I'm putting a stop to what's been happening on that talk page. It is for discussing the article only, and it must be done respectfully. Please review WP:BLP very carefully and note that the Foundation takes it seriously, for obvious reasons...

What material did SlimVirgin remove from this talk page?

QUOTE
This material, deleted from the article about you [Berlet], makes it clear that you have accused prominent conservatives of being fascists or neonazis. ... __ [redacted] 18:53, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Berlet responded

QUOTE
I have indeed suggested that a handful of "prominent conservatives" have allied themselves with "fascists or neonazis"

Berlet's confession here would certainly violate WP:NOT, yet this is evidence of the ongoing collusion to regulate the creation and development of content.

Part III -- partisan v extreme, ex post facto policy change

2007-01-14T13:48:00.001-07:00

Fred Bauder said in the Rangerdude (RD) case,

Even a blind pig may find an acorn from time to time and Rangerdude has shown you [SlimVirgin] have made a few missteps, for example I believe you [SlimVirgin]interpret NPOV wrong when you express the view that favorable and unfavorable material ought to be "balanced" and use that as an excuse to remove well sourced material. This wrong-headed notion is not limited to you and might even be agreed to by some or even most arbitrators. It is understandable that you might commit this error. Point is, don't panic. A long record of responsible work is not going to be ignored just because you are in a mud fight with a POV pusher. You also protected a page that you were actively editing. It is not clear why, no one had removed what you had contributed, nor was protection called for by any arbitration decision, but you did it. Rangerdude would have it that a grave violation has occurred. This would be true if you were edit warring at the article and protected the article in your version, but that is not what happened.

This is in WP:AfArb/RD/Workshop/Request of finding for ex post facto policy changes. RD demonstrated,

Example 1: SlimVirgin changed WP:RS to support her interpretation of what count as partisan political websites [25] following a dispute at the Chip Berlet article when I [RD] cited this guideline in support of my contention that Berlet's political and editorial beliefs be so designated since they came from a partisan political source.

What was the change to support SlimVirgin's interpretation of what count as partisan political websites?; this change,

However, that a source has strong views is not necessarily a reason not to use it, although editors should avoid using political groups with widely acknowledged extremist views, like [[Stormfront]] or the [[Socialist Workers' Party]]. Groups like these may be used as primary sources only i.e. as sources about themselves, and even then with caution and sparingly. [emphasis mine]

Change was made 04:04 18 August 2005. Thus SlimVirgin, acting at the behest of Chip Berlet as RD alleged, could not remove NPOV material to the Chip Berlet mainspace, as Fred Bauder found in Arbitration. So SlimVirgin rewrote WP:RS to prohibit using "political groups with widely acknowledged extremist views", i.e., Holocaust denial. Later, Namebase was delinked or delinkedspammed, or whatever the technical language is, as result of this ex post facto policy change. And the "hit piece" on Daniel Brandt was created because of the inability to remove the criticism section authored by RD in the Chip Berlet article.

(Somey @ Sun 14th January 2007, 1:56pm)
...at the time, there was no guarantee that Brandt would object so strenuously to the article... If anything, Berlet would have wanted to avoid getting Brandt involved in Wikipedia affairs...

See SlimVirgins account of the events 22:24, 14 November 2005:

....Rangerdude was arguing [464] [465] that Chip and the company he works for, Political Research Associates, should be regarded as "extremists" under the Wikipedia:Reliable sources provision, which at the time read: "An extreme political website should never be used as a source for Wikipedia except in
articles discussing the opinions of that organization or the opinions of a larger like-minded group," a passage I [SlimVirgin] was the author of back in March. [466] What I meant by "extreme" was political groups like Stormfront, Hamas, or the Socialist Workers Party, not research organizations like Political Research Associates...
[ed. note: "like-minded" , i.e. so called "leftists". Per WP:ATT Wilcox materials support designation of Berlet and PRA as "extreme" . See also ''Racial Extremism in the Army'', MAJ Walter M. Hudson, ''The Military Law Review'', p. 7, Vol 159, (Mar 99), Department of the Army, Washington, DC. Army Pamphlet No 27-100-159 for qualification of Wilcox.]

This explains why no links to Namebase are allowed. SlimVirgin continued,

...During the discussion about his edits, I made the comment to Rangerdude that I felt he ought not to be editing the article and that I was thinking of taking the matter further. [472] What I meant by taking the matter further was that, if Rangerdude had continued to add criticism to the page, I was going to make Jimbo and/or the arbcom aware of the situation, because I believed that his actions looked like malice, and that could potentially have created a legal problem.

Celebrations Marking 60 Years Since the End of World War II

2007-01-04T14:04:00.000-07:00

Babelfish Translation from Russian (unedited)
Controversial Interpretations of an Undisputed Anniversary
(An Empirical Study)

Pavel Vitek

Версия для печати/Print version

The 60th Anniversary of the End of World War II has become an opportunity to honor the victims who have lost their lives. At the same time, it is an opportunity to initiate historical discussions. Unfortunately, these are often perceived through politics. Therefore, a universally accepted interpretation of some historical events is difficult to be agreed upon; it can even lead to diplomatic disputes. In the European context, increased attention is given to discussions of the so-called Ribbentrop-Molotov pact and the consequences of the February 1945 conference at Yalta.

Both issues are marked by a clash between interpretations by Russia, which is often readopting the Soviet point of view, and by the directly concerned countries. The overall objective of this study is to confront various interpretations with historical documents commonly available to the general public. On that basis, it will be possible to asses what happened shortly before World War II, during the war, and after its end.

Reflections mostly by representatives of the Baltic countries whether or not to take part in Moscow celebrations marking 60 years since the end of World War II have given birth to a new wave of discussions of this issue. Reactions by top Russian officials have interfered with discussions among Baltic politicians and historians. Continuously commented on by Russia, discussions gradually started in Poland and Finland as well.

A statement by Latvian President Vaira V??e-Freiberga has ignited most reactions. President described, in a consistent manner, the mixed feelings of the Baltic countries as regards the 60th Anniversary End of World War II:

"Latvia, together with the rest of Europe, rejoices at the defeat of Nazi Germany and its fascist regime in May of 1945. However, unlike the case in Western Europe , the fall of the hated Nazi German empire did not result in my country's liberation. Instead, the three Baltic countries of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania were subject to another brutal occupation by another foreign, totalitarian empire, that of the Soviet Union . For five long decades, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania were erased from the map of Europe . Under Soviet rule, the three Baltic countries experienced mass deportations and killings, the loss of their freedom, and the influx of millions of Russian-speaking settlers."1

The reaction to V??e-Freiberga's statement of January 31, 2005 from the Russian Foreign Ministry has avoided a matter-of-factly argumentation, or a substantial attempt to assess past events in critical terms. Instead, the statement denounced President who, from historian's perspective, had not said anything new. She said, basically, that an occupation had been replaced with just another occupation, adding that Stalin actually matched Hitler. None-the-less, the reaction by the Foreign Ministry was sharp:

"It is only regrettable that the leader of a neighboring country lacks respect for the day sacred to the entire civilized world. On the other hand, after the many "explanations" of Latvian President, we have had an opportunity to understand still better of what configuration is the "hand of friendship" that Madame Vike-Freiberga is extending to Russia." 2

Latvian President sent her written statement to the heads of government of a broad number of countries. Reactions to the statement mostly expressed an understanding of the Baltic view of the events in connection with the German-Soviet pact. Shortly before the Moscow celebrations, loud voices expressed feelings that Russia should develop a critical stance vis-a-vis the pact. Condoleezza Rice or Guenther Verheugen made statements in that sense.

This time, the Russian Foreign Ministry took a less emotional position with use of certain dosage of historical argumentation:

"Question: Russia has recently been under growing pressure to recognize and condemn the "occupation" of the Baltic countries in 1940 and to assume responsibility for this. What is the Russian position in this connection?

Answer: The Russian position on the issue has been repeatedly put forward and remains unchanged. Neither the introduction of additional Red Army units nor the accession of the Baltic states to the Soviet Union contradicted the provisions of international law that were in effect at the time.

Thus, in accordance with the international legal doctrine of the mid-20th century, "occupation" meant the acquisition by a state of uninhabited territory that did not previously belong to any state by establishing effective control over it with intent to spread its sovereignty to it. In addition, the term meant temporary occupation during the course of an armed conflict by the army of one of the warring states of the territory (or part of the territory) of another state.
The term "occupation" cannot be used for a legal assessment of the situation in the Baltics in the late 1930s because there was no state of war between the USSR and the Baltic states and no military actions were being conducted, and the troops were introduced on the basis of an agreement and with the express consent of the authorities that existed in these republics at the time - whatever one may think of them. In addition, throughout the period when Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were part of the Soviet Union , there were national bodies of power, with the exception of the time when that part of the USSR territory was occupied by Germany during the Great Patriotic War. And it is known that it was these authorities - again, regardless of how one may assess them today - as represented by the Supreme Soviets of the corresponding republics, that made decisions in 1990 that led to their secession from the USSR.

So, if one were to question the legitimacy of the power bodies of the Soviet period, the question arises of the legitimacy of the promulgation of independence by the Baltic republics.

Accordingly, any claims, including demands for material compensation for alleged damage which, as some think, was the result of what happened in 1940, are without grounds.

Meanwhile, attempts to put the policy of the USSR during that period on the same footing as the actions of Hitler Germany which was waging an aggressive war in Europe in order to enslave or destroy entire peoples, are absurd if only due to the obvious fact that it was above all through the efforts of the USSR that Hitler Germany was defeated and Europe was rid of Nazism. Such insinuations have a particularly blasphemous ring on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the Great Victory.

As for the assessment of the repressive actions of the regime that existed in the USSR in the 1930s-1950s, it has been repeatedly given both by the Soviet Union and by Russia . Moscow does not see any sense in revisiting the issue. If somebody is trying to turn it today into real politics, this is an attempt to speculate on memory for the sake of political expediency. 3
Should one accept the logic adopted by the Russian Foreign Ministry, it is for example difficult to understand the reasons to label the 1939 entry of German troops in Czechoslovakia as "occupation." That action was also executed following an agreement between Czechoslovakia and Germany. More to the point, there was not any direct military conflict; national and local governments and police remained functional.

In all likelihood, the path to the agreement between the two parties is the true problem. The modus operandi of the Soviet Union can be described on the example of Latvia that was the first country to find itself under repeated Soviet pressure:

"On the same day [June 14, 1940] at 2 PM , deputy Soviet's People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs V.G. Dekazonov received Urbsis who informed him of resignation of Skucas and Povilaytis. He repeated that Latvian authorities had not taken part in disappearance of Soviet troops, and pointed out the anti-Soviet stance of the Baltic Entante [thereby rebutting previous Soviet accusations]. There was no indication of a substantial turn in negotiations. However, at 11:50 PM, Urbsis was summoned to appear before Molotov who handed him a Soviet ultimatum (the text was published on June 16 in Izvestiya). The ultimatum demanded bringing Skucas and Povilaytis to justice, and forming a government that would duly respect the provisions of the agreement on mutual assistance and agree on the entry of more Russian troops on the Lithuanian territory. After having explained the entry of 3 to 4 corpuses (9 to 12 armed divisions) was to be expected, Molotov promised that the army would not interfere in internal affairs. He nevertheless stressed that the new government would have to be pro-Soviet. Molotov noted that unless his demands were met, the troops would immediately cross Lithuanian border anyhow. The deadline to meet the conditions of the ultimatum expired on June 15 at 10 AM." 4

Latvia, as well as the two other Baltic countries a little later, accepted the ultimatum. In his memoirs, N.S. Khruschev openly acknowledges the threat of the use of military power should the conditions not be met. Moreover, he links the actions against the Baltic countries to the implementation of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact:

"then Mussolini opened military actions against Greece and zavyaz in them. Further Hitler attacked in Yugoslavia and was straightened with it, because Germany was more strongly; without the shots it almost occupied Denmark and Norway, practically without the resistance it took Holland, invaded Belgium, in 1940 took the large part of France. So it ensured to itself on the sufficiently large space sea line, protection from the English fleet and on the north it approached close to our to Murmansk. It is natural that the Soviet government meanwhile realized the measures, which escaped from the agreement, signed by hammer and Ribbentropom. We began negotiations with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in the fall of 1939 and produced our conditions for them. In prevailing then situation these countries correctly understood that by them not to keep balance against the Soviet Union, and our proposals were accepted, after concluding with us the mutual aid agreements. The change of their governments then occurred. It stands to reason!" 5

The telegram from German Ambassador to the USSR Schulenburg to Berlin indicates to what extent Moscow intended not to interfere in internal affairs of Baltic states. The telegram hinted, among other things, how the new governments would be formed. The awkward reason for the USSR to annex the Baltic countries merits our attention. The congratulation on the defeat of France is just "the best" moment of the whole text:

"VERY URGENT
Moscow, June 18, 1940-1:10 a m
Received June 18, 1940-4 a m
No. 1167 of June 17

Molotov summoned Me this evening to his office and expressed the warmest congratulations of the Soviet Government on the splendid success of the German Armed Forces. Thereupon, Molotov informed Me of the Soviet action against the Baltic States. He referred to the reasons published in the press and added that it had become necessary to put an end to all the intrigues by which England and France had tried to sow discord and mistrust between Germany and the Soviet Union in the Baltic States.

For the negotiations concerning the formation of the new Governments the Soviet Government had, in addition to the Soviet envoy accredited there, sent the following special emissaries:

To Lithuania: Deputy Commissar Of Foreign Affairs Dekanosov; To Latvia: Vishinski, the representative of the Council of Ministers; To Estonia: Regional Party Leader Of Leningrad Zhdanov.

In connection with the escape of Smetona and the possible crossing of the frontier by Lithuanian army units, Molotov stated that the Lithuanian border was evidently inadequately guarded. The Soviet Government Would, therefore, if requested, assist the Lithuanian Government in guarding its borders.

SCHULENBURG6

In connection with the euphemism "the introduction of additional Red Army units" appearing in the statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry, it is good to bring up the memo No. 390ss of June 17, 1940 by People's Commissar of Defense Timoshenko to Stalin and Molotov:

"for purposes of the guarantee of the fastest preparation of Baltic TVD [ war theatre ] I consider it necessary immediately to approach, in the territory of the occupied republics, the realization of the following measures:

1. boundary with East Prussia and Baltic coast to immediately engage by our frontier troops for averting the espionage and diversionary activity from the side of western neighbor.
2. into each of the occupied republics to introduce on one (first of all) regiment of troops OF THE NKVD for the protection of internal order.
3. possible to rather solve a question "with the government" of the occupied republics.
4. to approach disarmament and disbandment of the armies of the occupied republics. To disarm population, police and existing militarized organizations.
5. protection of objects, guard and garrison duty to lay on our troops.
6. decisively to approach the Sovietization of the occupied republics.
7 7. in the territory of the occupied republics to form Baltic military district with the staff in Riga. Commander-in-chief of forces of region to appoint the commanding SAVA colonel general Apanasenko. Staff of region to form from the staff of the eighth army.
8. in the territory of region to approach the works on preparation of it as the theater of military actions (building of strengthenings, the altering of railroads, road and highway building, storages, the creation of reserves and so forth.) The plan of preparation TVD I will present dopolnitel'no"8

Considering these and other facts that could be adopted, as well as events after the entry of Russian troops on the territory of the Baltic countries, it is extremely difficult to describe the situation as" the introduction of additional Red Army units ". It is necessary to user the expression "occupation." Probably not de iure, but de facto without doubts.

German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact

President Putin Has Made A clumsy Contribution To Discussions Surrounding The 60th Anniversary When He commented In slovak Media On The Ribbentrop- Molotov Pact: "To protect its interests and security on its western borders, the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact with Germany." 9

Putin adopted the Soviet interpretation of the reasons for the Soviet Union to have signed a non-intervention treaty with Hitler's Germany. His words mark a continuation of Russian authorities ' skating on extremely thin ice, both in historical and political terms. The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry Immediately Reacted To The Statement. Among other things, the Ministry noted President of Russia had returned the interpretation before December 24, 1989 when the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union denounced the Pact: 10

"the decision of the congress of the people deputies of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics about the political and lawful estimation of the Soviet-German nonaggression treaty of 1939.

1. congress of the people deputies OF THE USSR takes into consideration findings of the commission for the political and lawful estimation of the Soviet-German nonaggression treaty of 23 August, 1939.
2. congress of the people deputies OF THE USSR agrees with the opinion of commission, what agreement with Germany about the nonaggression was concluded in the critical international situation, in the conditions for the growth of the danger in the aggression of the fascism in Europe and of Japanese militarism in Asia and had to one of the purposes - to lead from THE USSR the threat of the moved war. In the final analysis this purpose on was achieved, and the errors, connected with the presence of the obligations of Germany before THE USSR, aggravated the consequences of perfidious Nazi aggression. At this time the country stood before the difficult selection. Obligations by agreement came into force immediately after its signing, although agreement itself was subject to assertion by the Supreme Soviet OF THE USSR. The decision about the ratification was accepted in Moscow on 31 August, and the exchange of ratification instruments took place on 24 September, 1939.
3. congress considers that the content of this agreement did not disperse from the standards of international law and the contractual practice of states, accepted for a similar kind of regulatings. However, both with the conclusion of a treaty and in the process of its ratification hid itself the fact that with the agreement it was simultaneously signed "secret additional protocol", by which were delimited the "spheres of interests" of the negotiating parties from the Baltic to the black of seas, from Finland to Bessarabia. The originals of protocol are discovered neither in the Soviet nor into foreign arkhivakhy. However, the grapho-logical, photocopying and lexical examinations of copies, maps and other documents, the correspondence of the subsequent events to the content of protocol, confirm the fact of its signing and existence.
4. congress of the people deputies OF THE USSR presently confirms that the nonaggression treaty of 23 August, 1939, and also the prisoner on 28 September of the same year the treaty of friendship and border between THE USSR and Germany, just as other Soviet-German understandings, in accordance with the standards of international law - lost force at the moment of the attack of Germany in THE USSR, i.e., on 22 June, 1941.
5. congress establishes that protocol of 23 August, 1939, and other secret protocols, signed with Germany in 1939-1941, both according to the method their compositions and in the content were withdrawal from the Leninist principles of Soviet foreign policy. The differentiations of the "spheres of the interests" OF THE USSR and Germany undertaken in them and other actions was situated from a juridical point of view in the contradiction with sovereignty and independence of a number of the third countries. Congress notes that in that period the attitudes OF THE USSR with Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were regulated by agreement system. According to peace treaties of 1920 and nonaggression treaties, concluded in 1926-1933, their participants were forced to mutually respect in any case sovereignty and territorial integrity and the inviolability of each other. The Soviet Union had similar obligations before Poland and Finland.
6. congress establishes that the talks with Germany on the secret protocols conducted by Stalin and By molotov in the secret from the Soviet people, TSK the AUCP(B) and entire party, the Supreme Soviet and the governments OF THE USSR, these protocols they were iz"yaty from the procedures of ratification. Thus, the solution about their signing was actually and on the form the report of personal authority and it in no way reflected the will of the Soviet people, which did not bear responsibility for this agreement.
7. congress of the people deputies OF THE USSR condemns the fact of the signing of "secret additional protocol" of 23 August, 1939, etc. secret of understandings with Germany. Congress recognizes secret protocols by legally unfounded and ineffective from the moment of their signing. Protocols did not create new lawful base for the interrelations of the Soviet Union with the third countries, but they were used by Stalin and by his environment for the presentation of ultimata and power pressure on other states and a violation of the undertaken before them lawful obligations.
8. congress of the people deputies OF THE USSR proceeds from the fact that the realization of the complex and contradictory past is a part of the process of reconstruction, intended to ensure to each people of the Soviet Union of the possibility of free and equal development under the conditions of the integral, interdependent peace and expanding mutual understanding.

Moscow, the Kremlin.
Chairman of the Supreme Soviet OF THE USSR
on 24 December, 1989.
M. Gorbachev "11

In light of what we know today about the nature of the Ribbentrop- Molotov Pact, its raison d'etre as a means to protect the Western border of the Soviet Union seems very complicated. While from the military perspective, any and all acquisition of a buffer territory May be important, it is necessary to evaluate the means the USSR adopted to strengthen its security. From that perspective, any defense of the past is a question of bad palate, at least. The wording of the agreement and its subsequent execution indicate that the two parties in the pact shared clearly aggressive intentions - no matter that these were hidden in euphemistic statements: "Article II In the event of a territorial and political rearrangement of the areas belonging to the Polish state the spheres of influence of Germany and the U.S.S.R. shall be bounded approximately by the line of the rivers Narev, Vistula and San." 12

Should one still doubt about the true nature of the pact, we can mention the words by N S Khrushchev. He quoted Stalin's interpretation of the pact with Germany in the circle of the closest coworkers,:

"A in Stalin we they were gathered on 23 August toward the evening. Our hunting trophies thus far were prepared for the table, Stalin described that Ribbentrop already flew away to Berlin. He arrived with the draft of the nonaggression treaty, and we signed this agreement. Stalin was in the very good mood, he said: here, it is said, tomorrow Englishmen and Frenchmen learn about this and will leave not with which. They at that time still were in Moscow.

Stalin correctly evaluated the value of this agreement with Germany. He understood, that Hitler wants us to deceive, it is simple to outwit. But assumed that these are we, THE USSR, they outwitted Hitler, after signing agreement. Here Stalin described that according to agreement to us actually they will move away Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bessarabia and Finland in such a way that we themselves will solve with these states the problem about the fate of their territories, but Hitlerite Germany with the this as does not be present, this it will be especially our question.

Stalin said relative to Poland that Hitler will attack it, it will take and will make by its protectorate. The eastern part of Poland, populated by Belorussians and Ukrainians, will go away to the Soviet Union. It is natural that we stood for the latter, although feelings experienced those mixed. Stalin this understood. He told us: "here goes game, who whom will outwit and will deceive". 13

The speech by Foreign Minister V Molotov of October 31, 1939, at the 5th extraordinary session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, also illustrated the intentions of the Soviet side. The statement is full of communist demagogy mixed with the pride of thieves who have just achieved a spectacular Act of robbery.

With the use of very specific "logical" arguments, the Minister told delegates to -.tyue usual believers in anything they were told- that after defeating Poland, Germany is a country looking for peace. He added that both France and England want to continue the useless war: "it is known, for example, that for the latter several months such concepts, as" aggression "," aggressor "obtained the new concrete content, acquired new sense not difficult to surmise, that now we cannot use these concepts in the same sense as, let us say, 3-4 months ago. Now, if we speak about the Great Powers of Europe, Germany is located in the position of state, which approaches for the fastest end of war and peace, and England and France, yesterday still fought against the aggression, they stand for the continuation of war and against the conclusion of peace. Roles, as you see, change.

The attempts of the English and French governments to justify this their new position by data to Poland by obligations, it goes without saying, are clearly unfounded. On the restoration of old Poland, as to each it is understandable, there can be no discussion. Therefore the continuation of present war under the flag of the restoration of previous Polish state is senseless. Understanding this, the governments of England and France, however, do not want the curtailment of war and peace-making, but they search for new justification for continuing the war against Germany." 14

In front of the same audience less than half a year later, the Soviet Foreign Minister developed this argumentation in a very "unorthodox" manner:

"Germany, which combined within the last period to 80 million Germans, which placed under its supremacy some adjacent states, and in many respects strengthened in military sense, became, as is evident, the dangerous competitor of main imperialistic powers in Europe - England and France. Therefore, under the pretext of the fulfillment of their obligations before Poland, they declared the war of Germany. It is now especially clearly evidently, as the real purposes of the governments of these powers from the interests of the protection of decomposed Poland or Czechoslovakia are distant. This evidently already from the fact that the governments of England and France proclaimed as their goals in this war crushing defeat and breakdown of Germany, although these purposes before the people masses are still covered by the slogans of the protection of "democratic" countries and of "rights" of small peoples." 15

Molotov was not the only one to use this argumentation; it was the Official party line of the Soviet leadership. The short statement by Stalin for Pravda summed up the whole position. It is interesting to point out that the statement was published on the very same day the Soviet aggression against Finland began. It looks as if Stalin wished to tell Hitler that their pact was still valid, asking that Germany does not intervene in the cleaning of territories under the pact in the Soviet sphere of influence:

"a) not Germany attacked in France and England, but France and England attacked in Germany, after taking upon itself responsibility for present war;
b) after opening of military actions Germany was turned to France and England with the peaceful proposals, and the Soviet Union openly supported the peaceful proposals of Germany, since it was counted and continues to consider that the fast end of war would radically facilitate the position of all countries and peoples; c) the ruling circles of France and England roughly deflected both the peaceful proposals of Germany and attempts of the Soviet Union to attain the fastest end of war." 16

Molotov holds the opinion that the declared intention of England and France to destroy Hitlerism is pointless: "the recently ruling circles of England and France attempt to depict themselves as the champions for the democratic rights of peoples against the Hitlerism, the British government declaring, what supposedly for it the war aim against Germany is, not more and not less as. the "destruction of Hitlerism". It is obtained so that English, and together with them and French, the supporters of war declared against Germany something like the "ideological war", which resembles old religious wars. Actually, in their time religious wars against the heretics and the heterodox were in the mode. They, as is known, led to the consequences gravest for the people masses, to the economic destruction and to the cultural savageness of peoples. Nothing other these wars could give. But these wars were in the times of the middle ages. Not to these whether times of the middle ages, to the times of religious wars, superstitions and cultural savageness do pull us the again ruling classes of England and France? In any case, under the "ideological" flag is now ventured the war of an even larger scale and even larger dangers for the peoples of Europe and entire peace. But of this type war has for itself no justification. The ideology of Hitlerism as any other ideological system, can be recognized or denied, this is - the matter of political views. But any person will understand that it is not possible to destroy ideology by force, it cannot be put an end to it by war. Therefore not only it is thoughtless, but also is criminal to wage such a war as war for the "destruction of Hitlerism" that covered by the false flag of fight for "democracy." 17

As regards the attack from behind against Poland to -.shyuichyu was resisting German invasion at its Western border of -.Molotov did not have any doubts about the reasons to do so. Quite on the contrary. After having described the successful action,

"ruling circles Poland little did not boast" by the strength of "their state and" by the power "of their army. However, it proved to be sufficient of short impact on Poland from the side of first German army, and then - the Red Army so that nothing it would remain from this deformed creation of the Versailles agreement, which lived due to the oppression of nepol'skikh nationalities"), 18

he listed plunder gained by the USSR:

"as far as our combat trophies in Poland are concerned, they compose 900 and the more of instruments, it is more than 10.000 machine guns, more than 300 thousand rifles, more than 150 million rifle cartridges, about 1 million artillery shells, to 300 aircraft, etc.

The territory according to its sizes passed to THE USSR is equal to the territory of large European state. Thus, the territory of West Belorussia reaches 108 thousand square kilometers, with the population into 4 million 800 thousand people. The territory of the West Ukraine is 88 thousand square kilometers, with the population into 8 million people. Thus, the passed to us territory of the West Ukraine together with the territory of West Belorussia is 196 thousand square kilometers, and its population - about 13 million people, of whom Ukrainians - it is more than 7 millions, Belorussians - it is more than 3 millions, Poles - it is more than 1 millions, Jews - it is more than 1 millions." 19

The Soviet Union was strengthening "its interests and security on its western borders" - as Putin put it- in a very special manner, indeed. What other terms could be used to point out that Moscow allowed German naval forces to use the Teriberka navy force base for Atlantic operations? This action had had significant importance for Germany before it obtained naval bases in Norway. As stated in the telegram by the Foreign Ministry to Ambassador Schulenberg in Moscow, the German leadership did appreciate such assistance:

"our fleet is intended to forego the given to it base on by Murmansk coast, since at present to it it is sufficient base in Norway. If you please, you will inform about this solution of Russians and on behalf of imperial government you will express by them appreciation for invaluable help." 20

Was it necessary for Putin’s "strengthening of borders" to overhand a group of German communist activists to Gestapo's hands?

"Most of the emigrants from Nazi Germany were falsely and arbitrarily accused of sympathizing with the fascist regime -.a quite absurd accusation addressed to KPD members who had only barely escaped the hands of the Gestapo. The Hitler Government And Its Messengers In Moscow Showed Their Open Satisfaction With Stalin's Terror Against The German Refugees. The Gestapo Realized With Astonishment That A number Of Top Communist Officials, at the head of the fascist "wanted" list, had been dispatched by the NKVD." 21

Should we mention in this context the cooperation between NKVD and Gestapo to destroy the Polish resistance during occupation?

"There were many new contacts between intelligence personnel aiming a joint approach to the issue of the Polish resistance movement. Among other things, three joint conferences of NKVD and Gestapo specialists took place (in lvov, Krakow and Zakopane)." 22

Upon their return to the territory of Poland, Soviet security authorities relaunched their unfinished actions aimed against the Polish resistance. Armia Krajowa Officers Were The Primary Targets Of Their Activities, for they posed a major danger to geopolitical plans of the Soviet Union:

"Moscow
on 14 November 1944g.
OWLS. SECRETLY
THE STATE COMMITTEE OF DEFENSE
TO COMRADE STALIN I.V.
With N k s s with R - T. to Molotov

I direct to you the communication of tov. Serov from Lyublina about the provodimikh State Security Agent measures for the fight with active participants in the "armies Of krayovoy" and other underground organizations, which act on teritorii of Poland.

From 15 October with g. are arrested 2.648 people... Furthermore by the county divisions of public safety of Poland it is arrested 1.732 people, majority of which akovtsy.

In all in the territory of Poland our operations groups together with the security services arrested more than 4.200 participants in the "armies Of krayovoy" and in other criminals...

In the course of consequence in matters of underground organizations "armies Of krayovoy" around Lyublinu city are established the Roman Catholic priest- Catholics, who actively help akovtsam in their underground activity.

Tov. Serov raises the question about the production of otdelnykh searches in the church buildings and about the arrests of a number of Roman Catholic priests.

THE NKVD OF THE USSR considers tselesobraznym this measure to sanction.

People commissioner
of the internal affairs of the union OF THE USSR
L. Beria "23

The situation got so far that London, though its Ambassador A.C. Kerr, asked Moscow to carry out her own military inspection of the Soviet-controlled territory. The letter by N Bulganin from Poland to First Deputy Foreign Secretary Andry Vishinski, describes the unwillingness to allow such an action to "keep Russian Army's freedom to take action against the military forces of ' Armia Krajowa '".

"g. of lyublin
on 3 November, 1944.

Tov. VYSHINSKOMU

In connection with your demand I consider that the secret note of Kerr to Molotov's name T. of 2 November is an attempt at the pressure to the Soviet government for a Polish question and is directed to create political difficulty the Soviet Union, with the advance of the Red Army to the territory of Poland beyond the Vistula.

Therefore I assume that it is necessary to take measures not to make possible to Englishmen to reach the decreed purpose it will preserve the freedom of the hands of the Red Army with respect to the vooruzhenykh forces of the "army of boundary" in the territory Polshi after iznaniya of otsuda of Germans.

Necessary to proceed from the fact that we examine underground organizations created in the territory Poland by the representatives of Polish emigration in London as hostile to the Red Army and to the Soviet Union, since that part of these organizations, which proved to be nna of the territory of Poland, by the freed Red Army, without any occasion from the side of Soviet military authorities undertook and undertakes the armed actions, directed against the union to the British forces of the Red Army...
.............................................................................................................
BULGANIN"24

In light of the awareness of these actions by the Stalin regime, is it possible not to understand the monstrosity of the non-intervention pact, much less stand defend it as a classic defense treaty? Today's Russian Officials, as well as former Soviet leaders, do not hesitate to use such an argument. Putin has even strengthened the Stalin- Molotov thesis of comparing the pact with the Munich agreement:

"The Soviet- German document was signed on a much lower level - on the level of foreign ministers - one year later, in response to the treaty signed by the western countries, which is now called the" Munich pact ". I would also remind you - and for you as slovaks, this is probably especially important: as a result of the Munich pact, Czechoslovakia was handed over to Nazi Germany, and the western partners, as it were, showed Hitler where he should go to fulfil his growing ambitions - to the East." 25

It is very likely that President Putin was not in his best shape when using this argument. The Munich Agreement Undoubtedly Is A wrong Agreement Mirroring The Bad State Of European Politics Of The Y9e0'.s. However, there is no reason comparing it with the Ribbentrop- Molotov pact.

The sole objective of both England and France to take part in the agreement was to protect Europe from war. 26 Such efforts were completely vain but it is not relevant in this context. The crucial reason for the USSR to sign the treaty with Germany was to divide Poland and take action against the Baltic countries and Finland.

The Munich Agreement Had Proved To Be a badly Chosen Means That Did Not Reach Its Objectives. None-the- loess deposits, the pact did not have any secret provisions and its signatories did not take part in the German annexion of Czechoslovakia that is what the Soviet Union did in the case of the German aggression against Poland.

Neither England, nor France used the Munich agreement to occupy other countries. On the other hand, that is exactly what the Soviet Union did on the basis of the Ribbentrop- Molotov pact when it annexed the Baltic countries and started war against Finland.

Last but not least, unlike the Soviet Union England and France abolished the Munich agreement yet before the end of World War II:

"The negotiations on recognition of Czechoslovak Government in exile between Benes And Great Britain Were Closely Connected With British Attitude Towards Munich. The British Attitude Was That The Treaty Was Concluded As a valid One And Ceased To Be valid Only After Germany Broke Its Obligations And Established The Protectorate. The question of validity of Munich was connected with the British reluctance to recognize re -establishment of Czechoslovakia in its pre-Munich borders. In August of 1942 the compromise was reached between the two parties.

France took different approach towards the repudiation of Munich during WWII. The reason was that France was defeated by Germany in June of 1940 and that General De Gaulle was able gradually to establish French National Committee /.FNCH/ in exile. In September of 1942 FNC reached an agreement with Czechoslovak exile Government on the question of validity of Munich. FNC proclaimed Munich Agreement to be null and void from the very beginning. In 1944, when French Provisional Government was established, Czechoslovak Government was among the first Allied Governments, which recognized it. Again the question of French attitude towards Munich was opened and after initial problems French Provisional Government repeated the proclamation from of 1942 on the Munich Agreement." 27

Not only Moscow defended the pact as vitally important, but over a long period of time it denied at least to the socialist bloc the existence of its secret additional protocol. The actual position on the pact is best described by the fact that the USSR kept most of the territories it had annexed on the basis of its pact with Germany.

Estonian President A R??.tel Said During His Radio Address On January 20 that he had been told by President Putin that he had been ready to support repudiation of the pact by Russian side. 28 this information has not been confirmed by following Putin’s statements. Russian President Was Moving Rather The Contrary Way Because The Interview Mentioned Above For Slovak Media In which He defended The Pact Took Place Just A little Later.

Impacts of German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact

After the separation of Poland, Moscow began "securing" its borders in other directions as well. First, it forced the Baltic countries to allow it to build military bases on their territories. Later, covered with the pact and using the defeat of France, Moscow annexed the three Baltic republics even though it had repeated many times that their independence was untouchable to the USSR:

"the special nature of the pacts of mutual aid indicated by no means indicates any interference of the Soviet Union in the matters of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as this they attempt to depict some organs of the foreign press. On the contrary, all these pacts of mutual aid solidly specify the inviolability of the sovereignty of their signatory states and the principle of nonintervention into the affairs of another state. These pacts proceed from the mutual respect for the state, social and economic structure of other side and must strengthen the basis of peaceful good-neighborly collaboration between our peoples. We is cost for honest and punctual putting into action of the prisoners of pacts on the conditions of complete reciprocity even we declare, that the chatter about the Sovietization of the Baltic countries is advantageous only to our general enemies and any anti-Soviet provocateurs." 29

If the objective of the USSR really was to secure its borders, its agreements with the Baltic countries- ace well as the military bases it built on their territories-would have been sufficient to reach that goal. Indeed, that was the Soviet Foreign Minister was confirming in his speeches:

"in view of the special geographical location of these countries, which are appeared of their kind approaches to THE USSR, especially from the side of Baltic sea, these pacts give the Soviet Union the possibility to have naval bases and airfields in the specific points of Estonia and Latvia, and with respect to Lithuania the protection of Lithuanian boundary joint with the Soviet Union is established. The creation of these Soviet naval bases and airfields to the territory of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and the introduction of certain quantity of Red Army parts for the protection of these bases and airfields they ensure the reliable support of defense not only for the Soviet Union, but also for quite Baltic states and, thus, they serve a matter of preservation of peace, in which are interested our peoples." 30

However, Soviet ambitions were much more far-reaching and especially more aggressive. The issue of the complete annexion of the Baltic countries proves that neither passing over military bases, nor giving up a part of national sovereign could stop the USSR from fulfilling its own geopolitical goals.

The work of evil that Soviet authorities launched in several waves on the annexed territory of the Baltic countries calls for a comparison between Soviet terror and Nazi terror. In light of the total population of Baltic countries, terror unleashed by the Stalin regime in the Baltic countries before as well as after World War II reached tragic dimensions:

"Altogether around 139 700 persons were deported from Latvia during the reign of Stalin. During the whole Communist era 51 973 Latvians were arrested, according to Official information 1 986 of those were executed. The total number of known victims of Communist genocide in Latvia - arrested, executed and deported - would thus be 191 673 persons. That number constitutes about 15 per cent of the country's population according to the of 1959 census. The real number was probably higher because far from every arrestation, execution or deportation was recorded and archived. Besides, many Latvians were killed in Russia but nobody knows the exact number. Out of the Latvians living in the Soviet Union prior to World War Two, around 70 000 were hit by the wave of terror of 1937-1939 and 25 000 among them were killed.

The total number of known victims of Communism in Lithuania, calculated in the same way, was around 360 000 persons; ca 130 000 were deported (28 000 of those died in Siberia), ca 200 000 were arrested (149 741 of those were later transferred to Communist concentration camps), 25 000 members of the resistance movement were killed as well as 2 747 prisoners in Lithuanian prisons.

In Estonia The Number Of Victims Can Be summarised As follows: around 30 000 were deported, around 80 000 were arrested, around 2 000 were executed and the same number of civilians fell victims to Communist bombing, around 10 000 soldiers fell while fighting on the Russian side, (and 8 000 fighting on the German side). The population losses in Estonia were two or three times larger. That means that around 70 000 refugees, around 20 000 Baltic Germans who moved "home" to Germany prior to and during the war, around 80 000 persons who were evacuated or mobilised and sent to Russia, around 70 000 inhabitants of areas that were forcibly separated from Estonia and incorporated with Russia should be added to the above mentioned number. If one includes relatives of all those arrested, executed, deported and generally persecuted one could claim that around half the population was hit by Communist persecutions." 31

Stalin's allies had a generally clear idea about the situation in the occupied Baltic countries. They had no illusions of what would become of them once war was over. In Teheran, Roosevelt was attempting to soften the inevitable development. However, the future of the Baltic countries was sacrificed to building the relationship with Stalin:

"№ 63 memorandum of the conversation I. V. Stalin
with F. Roosevelt
on 1 December, 1943, 15 hours. 20 min.

Roosevelt. In the United States a question about the start of Baltic republics in the Soviet Union can be raised, and I assume that the world public opinion will consider it desirable so that sometimes in the future in a some manner expressed the opinion of the peoples of these republics on this question. Therefore I hope that marshal Stalin will take into the attention this wish. I personally do not have any doubts about the fact that the peoples of these countries will vote for the connection to the Soviet Union so harmoniously, as they made in 1940.

Stalin. Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia did not have an autonomy before the revolution in Russia. Tsar was then in the union with the United States and with England, and no one raised the question about the conclusion of these countries from the composition of Russia. Why this question is placed now?

Roosevelt. The fact is that the public opinion does not know history. I would want to have a talk with Marshal Stalin about the home situation in the United States. Next year in the United States selections be in prospect. 4 I do not desire to advance my candidature, but if war is continued, then 4 perhaps I will be it is forced this to make. In America there is shest'-sem' of millions of citizens of Polish origin, and therefore 4, being practical person, he would not want to lose their voices. I is agreeable with marshal Stalin in the fact that we must restore Polish state, and personally 4 I do not have objections so that the borders of Poland would be moved from the east to the West - up to Oder, but for political reasons 4 I cannot participate at present in resolution of this question. I divide Marshal Stalin's ideas, I hope that he will understand, why 4 I cannot publicly participate in resolution of this question here, in Teheran, or even in spring future year.

Stalin. After the explanation of Roosevelt 4 this I understand.

Roosevelt. In the United States there is also a certain quantity of Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians. I know that Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia and in the past and very recently composed the part of the Soviet Union, and, when Russian armies again enter into these republics, 4 not to camp to war because of this with the Soviet Union. But public opinion can require conducting there plebiscite.

Stalin. As far as voleiz"yavleniya of the peoples of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia is concerned, we have numerous cases to give to the peoples of these republics the possibility to express its will.

Roosevelt. This will be to me usefully.

Stalin. This, of course, it does not mean that the plebiscite in these republics must pass under any form of international control.

Roosevelt. Certainly, no. It would be useful to state at the appropriate moment, that the selections take place in their time in these republics. Stalin. Certainly, this can be will be made. I would want to know, was resolved finally a question about the departure tomorrow. 32

The proverb that only victors write history could only remain valid over a short period of time. It is not possible to label occupation as liberation forever. Moscow's reactions nevertheless indicate that Russia has not yet gotten over the "single right opinion" scheme. To put it in more exact terms, it is returning to the same mindset -.after period of freedom of speech by Yeltsin- under Putin's leadership.

Accordingly, the reaction by the Russian Foreign Ministry to the speech by President Tarja Halonen of Finland in the French Institute for International Relations33, in which the President briefly commented on the issue of the Soviet-Finnish war, uses vicious and unjustified wording. The Ministry Commented On Another Example Of The Use Of The German-Soviet Pact:

"In late summer of 1939 Germany and the Soviet Union agreed on a division of Europe into spheres of influence. The following winter Finland had to fight off an attack by the Red Army in order to preserve her independence and avoid being occupied by the Soviet Union. We had to do this alone, without significant outside help.

Five years later, in the summer of of 1944, we again managed to stop the Red Army's attempts to conquer Finland. Our country was not occupied at any stage, during or after the war. We lost part of our territory, but we achieved a defensive victory. We held on to our independence as well as our democratic political system and our economic system.

For us the world war meant a separate war against the Soviet Union and we did not incur any debt of gratitude to others." 34

The statement by the President of Finland contains ambiguous parts. There is no doubt that Finland faced a Soviet aggression in the first war of of 1940; this interpretation is beyond any doubt. Even Stalin Did Not Hide That The War Constituted An Aggression By The USSR:

"The first question - about the war with Finland. Correctly whether did enter the government and the party, that they did declare the war of Finland? This question specially concerns the Red Army. It cannot be whether it was manage without the war?

It seems to me that it was. Could not be manage without the war. War was necessary, since peaceful talks with Finland did not give results, but safety of Leningrad should have been ensured unconditionally, since its safety is safety of our fatherland. Not only because Leningrad presents percentages 30-35 defense industries of our country and, that means on integrity and safety of Leningrad depends the fate of our country, but also because Leningrad is the second capital of our country. To burst open to Leningrad, to engage it and to form there, let us say, bourgeois government, white guard - this means to give sufficiently serious base for the Civil War inside the country against the Soviet regime.

Here to you the defense and political value of Leningrad as the center of industrial and as the second capital of our country. This is why safety of Leningrad - is safety of our country. It is clear that as soon as the negotiations peaceful with Finland did not lead to the results, it was necessary to declare war in order with the aid of the Armed Forces to organize, to affirm and to fasten safety of Leningrad and, that means safety of our country." 35

In the two subsequent clashes with the Soviet Army, Finland accepted German support; the interpretation is not so clear in this point. There is room for reflection whether or not it is possible to use one devil to fight another one. This issue concerns not only Finland but also the anti-Soviet resistance in Ukraine, Baltic countries and even in the USSR.

It remains nevertheless beyond any doubt that if the Soviet Union had not attacked Finland in 1940, the latter would not have used a year later the German attack to regain the territories lost to the previous Soviet aggression and the subsequent tough peace agreement:

"Article 2

the national frontier between the Republic of Finland and the U.S.S.R. shall run along a new line in such fashion that there shall be included in the territory of the U.S.S.R. the entire Karelian Isthmus with the city of Viipuri and Viipuri Bay with its islands, the western and northern shores of Lake Ladoga with the cities of Kexholm and Sortavala and the town of Suoj?.rvi, a number of islands in the Gulf of Finland, the area east of M?.rk?.j?.rvi with the town of Kuolaj?.rvi, and part of the Rybachi and Sredni peninsulas, all in accordance with the map appended to this treaty...

Article 4

The Republic of Finland agrees to lease to the Soviet Union for thirty years, against an annual rental of eight million Finnish marks to be paid by the Soviet Union, Hanko Cape and the waters surrounding it in a radius of five miles to the south and east and three miles to the north and west, and also the several islands falling within that area, in accordance with the map appended to this treaty, for the establishment of a naval base capable of defending the mouth of the Gulf of Finland against attack; in addition to which, for the purpose of protecting the naval base, the Soviet Union is granted the right of maintaining there at its own expense the necessary number of armed land and air forces.

Within the days from the date this treaty enters into effect, the government of Finland shall withdraw all its military forces from Hanko Cape, which together with its adjoining islands shall be transferred to the jurisdiction of the U.S.S.R. in accordance with this article of the treaty." 36

However, the statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry does not deal with the relation between cause and effect. It only argues with the use of the peace agreement of of 1947 between the Allies and Finland. From the legal point of view, there is no room for doubt: an agreement is an agreement. Unless one wishes to look into the conditions under which these agreements were signed at the end of war, we do not have to raise unnecessary questions. Over a long period of time, this was the manner in which the USSR argued against any and all mentions of Soviet participation in the Katyn massacre:

The Communist Party Of the Soviet Union.
CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF OWLS.

SECRET
№ P1/35
To Brezhnev, Kosygin, Suslov,
To Andropov, To katushevu,
To ponomarevu, Gromyko, To Rusakov.
Extraction from the protocol № 1 session of the
Politburo of the CC CPSU
of 15 April, 1971 On the idea OF MID of England in connection with the
anti-Soviet campaign all around so NAZ.
the "Katyn matter".
To affirm the project of indications to sovposlam in
London and Warsaw (it is applied).
SECRETARY OF TSK

To point 35 channels № 1
Secret
LONDON - SOVPOSOL

Copy: WARSAW - SOVPOSOL
You will visit MID of England and you will state the following:

"on the available in embassy information, television company the BBC will intend to show the prepared by it hostile to the Soviet Union film about the so-called" Katyn matter ". The publication in England of the slanderous book about the Katyn tragedy is timed to the same time.

To English side it is well known that the guilt of Hitlerites for this crime irrefutably is proven by the authoritative special commission, which conducted on the spot the investigation of this crime immediately after expulsion from the region of Smolensk of German occupiers. In 1945-46 g.g. International military tribunal in Nuremberg recognized main German war criminals as being guilty of conducting the policy of the destruction of Polish people and, in particular, in the shooting of Polish prisoners of war in the Katyn scaffolding.

In this connection cannot but cause surprise and disturbance the tendency of some it is circular in England again take out to the light of the insinuation of Goebbels' propaganda in order to slander the Soviet Union, whose people by its spilled blood were the Saviour of Europe from the Fascist enslavement. Embassy expects that the Foreign and Commonwealth office will take the appropriate measures to the non-admission of the propagation in England of the mentioned above slanderous materials, calculated, according to the intention of their authors, for that in order to cause worsening in the relations between our countries ".

The text of idea can leave to collocutor." 37

Both Soviet allies were aware of the Finland's specific position. They attempted, even by the end of war, to negotiate with Moscow easier conditions for Finland. However, when Stalin did not want to back off from his position, they contented themselves with the guarantee that the USSR would not annex the whole of Finland: "A separate peace with Finland was discussed at the summit meeting of the three major powers in Teheran on December 1, 1943. Roosevelt spoke in favour of Finland, and so did Churchill, even though Britain had declared war on Finland in December of 1941. Stalin admitted that "a people that had fought so valiantly for its independence deserves consideration". He presented his terms for peace: restoration of the borders of the of 1940 treaty; Annexing Petsamo To The Soviet Union; a "50 per cent restitution" for the damage caused by the Finns; the expulsion of Germans from Finland; and demobilization of the army. Roosevelt and Churchill did not comment. For them, the important thing was for Finland to remain an independent and democratic society." 38

The question why Stalin -.as he told Tito in April 194539 - eventually regarded the Americans too much and did not annex the whole of Finland, has not yet been successfully answered. Molotov later argued pointing to the stubborness of Finns: "We were wise not to annex Finland. It would have been an running sore... The people there are stubborn, very stubborn." 40 if we take into account Stalin's above mentioned words about "a people that had fought so valiantly for its independence".it is possible that desperate courage of the Finnish people showed in two conflicts with the USSR allowed Finland to gain better position than some of the Central European countries that stood by the side of the victors only to find themselves in the Soviet sphere of influence.

Most of all, that is the case of Poland. In the beginning of the war, Poland became victim of a German-Soviet aggression. During the war, it fought the Nazi at home and abroad. It suffered horrible human and material losses only to give in to the Soviet Union large territories in the East and suffer from a communist regime installed by the Soviet Union.

"Polish Munich"

Although the Polish leadership in the West had no illusions of the consequence of the war for Poland, the result of the Yalta conference were terrible:

"THE VII. POLAND

The Following Declaration On Poland Was Agreed By The Conference:

"A new situation has been created in Poland as a result of her complete liberation by the Red Army. This calls for the establishment of a polish Provisional Government which can be more broadly based than was possible before the recent liberation of the western part of Poland. The Provisional Government Which Is Now Functioning In Poland Should Therefore Be reorganized On A broader Democratic Basis With The Inclusion Of Democratic Leaders From Poland Itself And From Poles Abroad. This new Government should then be called the Polish Provisional Government of National Unity. "M Molotov, Mr. Harriman and Sir A Clark Kerr are authorized as a commission to consult in the first instance in Moscow with members of the present Provisional Government and with other Polish democratic leaders from within Poland and from abroad, with a view to the reorganization of the present Government along the above lines. This Polish Provisional Government Of National Unity Shall Be pledged To The Holding Of Free And Unfettered Elections As soon As possible On The Basis Of Universal Suffrage And Secret Ballot. In these elections all democratic and anti-Nazi parties shall have the right to take part and to put forward candidates.

"When a Polish Provisional of Government National Unity has been properly formed in conformity with the above, the Government of the U.S.S.R., which now maintains diplomatic relations with the present Provisional Government of Poland, and the Government of the United Kingdom and the Government of the United States of America will establish diplomatic relations with the new Polish Provisional Government National Unity, and will exchange Ambassadors by whose reports the respective Governments will be kept informed about the situation in Poland.

"The three heads of Government consider that the eastern frontier of Poland should follow the Curzon Line with digressions from it in some regions of five to eight kilometers in favor of Poland. They recognize that Poland must receive substantial accessions in territory in the north and west. They feel that the opinion of the new Polish Provisional Government of National Unity should be sought in due course of the extent of these accessions and that the final delimitation of the western frontier of Poland should thereafter await the peace conference." 41

Poland was more or less let down upon Moscow by its Western allies. The Soviet Army And Security Personnel Were Very Active Immediately Upon Their Arrival To The Conquered Territory. "In eastern Poland, the bloody situation from between 1939-1941 took places all over again. Armija Krajowa Officers, representatives of conspiratory parties and groups, and the intelligence were sent to prisons. Again, transports deporting the condemned took their way to the USSR. The circulation of the Polish press was discontinued; social organizations did not restore their activity. There was constant pressure to move beyond the Curzon line fueled both by the authorities and Ukrainian partisan units." 42

During the war, the Soviet regime was continuously building a parallel structure to the Polish government in exile, with seat in London, and its military forces. The objective was to build a strong base for these structures, as it was clear that they would not survive without Soviet support. Creating such positions led through destruction of the Polish resistance, and in particular Armia Krajowa officers. The army suffered heavy losses in direct hits by Soviet military forces. It also lost most of its strength in the Warsaw insurrection.

After the USSR successfully got its way as regards the government of Poland -.in spite of Stalin's Yalta commitments- the door to communizing Poland was opened. It is then little surprising that Poland was bewildered at the statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry of February 12, 2005 that described Yalta as the place where "the allied powers affirmed their shared desire to see Poland strong, free, independent and democratic."

"Question: Please comment on the assessments that have appeared in polish media recently of the outcome and consequences of the allied powers ' Crimean (Yalta) Conference.

Commentary: We have learned with regret about the attempts being made in Poland and a number of other countries to misinterpret the outcome of the Crimean Conference of the heads of the leading allied powers of the Anti-Hitler Coalition, which concluded these February days 60 years ago.

Its most important result was, as is well known, the agreeing of the plans for the final defeat of the armed forces of Nazi Germany and Japan, and the determination of the basic principles regarding the Post- sphere world arrangement, including the establishment of the United Nations.

It was in Yalta that the allied powers affirmed their shared desire to see Poland strong, free, independent and democratic. As a result of the Yalta- Potsdam arrangement Poland received a substantial increase of its territory on the north and on the west. Security was guaranteed Poland not only by the United States and Britain, but also by the USSR.

Over the postwar decades none other than the Soviet Union was the chief stimulator of the final establishment of the Polish border along the Oder-Neisse line, which found reflection in the treaties on Poland's border with the GDR in July of 1950, and subsequently with the FRG in November of 1990. The status of the new Polish borders was reconfirmed in the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany of September 12, 1990, of which the Soviet Union was a participant along with the US, Britain and France.

So it's wrong for our Polish partners to complain about Yalta. and then too to "rewrite" the history of World War II by snatching historical events out of the context of that era is an unscrupulous thing to do." 43

Besides necessary "pity" to have abused history, stated by Russian side, the argument that "Poland received a substantial increase of its territory on the north and on the west" merits our attention. A well-versed reader attempting here to look for a mention of the territories lost in the East would be looking for vain.

Like in other cases that were or were not quoted earlier, interpretation of history by Russian authorities differs seriously from interpretation used outside Russian borders. Concerning Yalta We Can Remit To Speech Delivered In Riga Before Moscow’s Commemoration By President Bush. President summed up results of conference critically enough. He acknowledged historical responsibility of all participants of Yalta conference including President Roosevelt. Such step has not yet done by Russian side:

"For much of Germany, defeat led to freedom. For much of Eastern and Central Europe, victory brought the iron rule of another empire. V - E Day Marked The End Of Fascism, but it did not end oppression. The agreement at Yalta followed in the unjust tradition of Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable. Yet this attempt to sacrifice freedom for the sake of stability left a continent divided and unstable. The captivity of millions in central and Eastern Europe will be remembered as one of the greatest wrongs of history." 44

A simple statistics -.if ones does not intend to believe in theory of conspiracy- indicates that the Russian perspective of selected past events is not without problems. The reasons for this situation are not to be sought in a lack of understanding of Russia's own history; our attention should be given to the political ambience of the Putin regime. Current interpretations of the Soviet history in today’s Russia mirror this atmosphere quite exactly.

In March, the statement by the Military Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation did not help things, saying that the Katyn massacre did not constitute an Act of genocide. Moreover, the Office announced that while it was ready to hand over to Poland a portion of Katyn - related documents, 116 files would remain closed and classified as "top secret."

The statement by the Seym of Poland of March 22, 2005 reacted to both issues:

"Sejm Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej wyra?.a r?.wnocze?.nie ubolewanie, to?.e do dzi? zbrodnia katy?.ska jest przedmiotem politycznych dzia?.a?, zmierzaj?.cych do jej zrelatywizowania i pomniejszenia, a tak?.e rozmycia odpowiedzialno?.ci sprawc?.w. Jeste?.my przekonani, to?.e tylko ujawnienie pe?.nej prawdy o zbrodni a tak?.e napi?.tnowanie i ukaranie wszystkich jej sprawc?.w b?.dzie s?.u?.y? zabli?.nieniu ran i kszta?.towaniu dobros?.siedzkich stosunk?.w mi?.dzy Rzecz?.pospolit? Polsk? A federacj? Rosyjsk?. Pojednanie i przyja?? mi?.dzy narodami s? mo?.liwe jedynie na fundamencie prawdy i pami?.ci, a nie przemilcze?, p??.prawd i k?.amstw. Dlatego - wierni pami?.ci niewinnych ofiar spoczywaj?.cych w katyniu, Miednoje i charkowie - oczekujemy od narodu rosyjskiego i w?.adz Federacji Rosyjskiej ostatecznego uznania ludob?.jczego charakteru mordu na polskich je?.cach, tak jak to zdefiniowano podczas proces?.w w norymberdze. Oczekujemy te? wyja?.nienia wszystkich okoliczno?.ci tej zbrodni, a zw?.aszcza wskazania miejsca pochowania ogromnej grupy zamordowanych je?.c?.w, kt?.rych grob?.w do dzi? nie uda?.o si? odnale??. Uwa?.amy tak?.e, to?.e nazwiska wszystkich sprawc?.w zbrodni katy?.skiej - nie tylko mocodawc?.w, ale i wykonawc?.w - powinny by? publicznie ujawnione i napi?.tnowane. Wyra?.amy ubolewanie z powodu umorzenia of?.ledztsha w sprawie zbrodni katy?.skiej przez prokuratur? Federacji Rosyjskiej. Oczekujemy od strony rosyjskiej wydania wszystkich dokument?.w zgromadzonych w trakcie prowadzonych?.ledztsh." 45

The statement refers to the Nuremberg War Crime Trials, during which the USSR itself described the Katyn massacre as an Act of genocide. An Act committed by Germans, indeed:

"By shooting the Polish prisoners of war in Katyn Forest, the German invaders consistently realised their policy for the physical extermination of the Slav peoples." 46

When the USSR pushed this point through to the agenda of the Nuremberg War Crime Trials, it intended to forever blame the massacre on a false culprit. The ruling by the trial has since caused trouble to Russian officials. It is obvious in reactions by the usually epic Russian Foreign Ministry. In reaction to the statement by the Seym, the Ministry avoids answering the Seym's demands. It rather quotes earlier statements:

"Question: How does Moscow regard the adoption by the Polish Sejm of a resolution calling upon Russia to condemn the execution of the Polish servicemen in 1940?

Commentary: Disclosing the truth about the Katyn crime back in the early 1990s, the leadership of our country took a principled position on this question, which found reflection also in the joint statement of the Russian and Polish presidents as they signed the Treaty on Friendly and Good-Neighborly Cooperation between the two countries on May 22, 1992. We would consider it relevant to quote it:

"The memory of the victims of totalitarianism is sacred. Russia and Poland, condemning the antihuman essence of totalitarianism in all its manifestations, declare their resolve to overcome the negative legacy of the past and to build qualitatively new bilateral relations in the future based on the positive values in the history of both peoples and states as well as on international law, democracy and the observance of human rights."

We also recall the statement of five years ago by then Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Poland Jerzy Buzek at the ceremony on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Katyn tragedy: "Katyn - this symbol of Polish torments - can become a symbol of common memory, a pledge to jointly overcome the difficult part of history for the sake of a common future, for the sake of strengthening the friendly feelings between Poles and Russians and for the sake of building friendly relations between our two counties."

As we understand, these assessments remain relevant to this day." 47

In this case, Russian authorities clearly avoided condemning words. Why, then? Although Russia Is The Legal Successor To The USSR, she does not bear responsibility for crimes committed by the Soviet regime. None-the- loess deposits, Official statements tend to defend past actions by the USSR, regardless of likely and pointless suffering of relations with former Soviet satellites.

Unless changes are made, these relations shall bear the burden of history. Instead of reconciliation, Russia turns to acting outraged dignity that often replaces even the mildest penitence. The example of Germany can be used here. Since the end of World War II, Germany has shown significant efforts to build trust with the countries that suffered from the Nazi aggression. The image of Willy Brandt kneeling down in front of the memorial of Westerplatte defenders has become a symbol of the Germans ' genuine plea for forgiveness. Can we imagine Putin in a similar position at Katyn graves...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Statement of Vaira V??.e-Freiberga of January 12, 2005. http://www.president.lv/
2 http://www.ln.mid.ru/
3 http://www.ln.mid.ru/
4 Mel'tyukhov M.I. the missed chance of Stalin. The Soviet Union and fight for Europe: 1939-1941 (documents, facts, judgment), Moscow, meeting, 2000, p. 203.
5 http://www.lib.ru/MEMUARY/HRUSHEW/wospominaniya1.txtp 7

6 the Avalon Project: Nazi-Soviet Relations 1939-1941 http://www.yale.edu/

7 The Minister had probably misread the speech by his colleague Molotov of October 31, 1939 which says: "the special nature of the pacts of mutual aid indicated by no means indicates any interference of the Soviet Union in the matters of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as this they attempt to depict some organs of the foreign press. On the contrary, all these pacts of mutual aid solidly specify the inviolability of the sovereignty of their signatory states and the principle of nonintervention into the affairs of another state. These pacts proceed from the mutual respect for the state, social and economic structure of other side and must strengthen the basis of peaceful good-neighborly collaboration between our peoples. We is cost for honest and punctual putting into action of the prisoners of pacts on the conditions of polnoyvzaimnosti even we declare, that the chatter about the Sovietization of the Baltic countries is advantageous only to our general enemies and any anti-Soviet provocateurs." Hammers v. M., report about foreign policy of government (at the extraordinary fifth session of the Supreme Soviet OF THE USSR), on 31 October, 1939. http://www.hronos.km.ru/

8 ibidem, p.207.

9 interview with Radio Slovensko and the Slovakian Television Channel STV, 22. 2. 2005. president.kremlin.ru

10 "In the interview the Russian President claimed that the Soviet Union signed the so-called Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in order to" safeguard its interests and security of its western borders ". However, the protection of one's interests May not serve as an excuse for annexation of another sovereign country. The Ministry Of Foreign Affairs Of The Republic Of Lithuania Reminds That The Congress Of The People's Deputies Of The USSR Gave Its Political And Legal Evaluation Of This Notorious Pact On 24 December of 1989, whereby the Congress condemned the secret protocols and declared them void. Therefore an attempt to "explain" the legitimacy of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact May be regarded as an attempt to once again turn over the already closed page of history and thus to review the decision of the Congress of the People's Deputies of the USSR. "Statement by the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry of February 23, 2005. http://www.urm.lt/

11 http://www.obraforum.ru/

12 Nazi-Soviet Relations 1939-1941. Documents from the Archives of the German Foreign Office, Washington D.C., 1948, p. 78

13 www.lib.ru p 228

14 Molotov v. M., report about foreign policy of government (at the extraordinary fifth session of the Supreme Soviet OF THE USSR), on 31 October, 1939. http://www.hronos.km.ru/

15 report of the chairman of the Council of Peoples' Commissars and the people commissioner of foreign affairs at the session OF VI session of supreme Council of the Union OF SSR on 29 March, 1940, http://www.histdoc.net/

16 answer to the editor of "Pravda". True, 30. THE XI. 1939. http://www.magister.msk.ru/

17 report of the chairman of the Council of Peoples' Commissars and the people commissioner of foreign affairs at the session OF VI session of supreme Council of the Union OF SSR on 29 March, 1940, http://www.histdoc.net/

18 ibidem.

19 ibidem.

20 telegram to Ambassador Schulenberg, September 5, 1940. In: USSR - Germany. 1939 - 1941. In 2- X Vol. doc. and materials about the Soviet-German relations. Vol. 2., Vilnius, 1989, S. 76 - 77.

21 An interview with Nathan Steinberger (1997). World Socialist Web Site, 9..III. 2005. http://www.wsws.org/

22 eberhardt Piotr: Jak kszta?.towa?.a si? wschodnia granica PRL. In: Zeszyty historyczne 90/1989, Instytut Literacki, Pary? 1989, s.16

23 East Europe in documents of Russian archives 1944-1953, that I of 1944-1948, Moscow- Novosibirsk 1997, s. 99-100.

24 East Europe in documents of Russian archives 1944-1953, that I of 1944-1948, Moscow- Novosibirsk 1997, c. 85-86

25 president.kremlin.ru In reaction to Putin's last sentemce, we can add one more quotation from Molotov's speech: "for the change of the hostility, which was being in every way possible preheated from the side of some European powers, arrived rapprochement and establishment of the friendly relations between THE USSR and Germany."

26 See speech given in defense of the Munich Agreement by N Chamberlain in the Parliament in october 3, 1938. Www.wwnorton.com Discussing Question Of Different Attitude Of Contracting Sides Towards German-Soviet Pact And The Munich Agreement It Is Enough To Compare The Note Of Speeches Given By Molotov In moscow And Chamberlain In london After Completion Of Above-mentioned Documents.

27 http://www.ctw-congress.de/

28 what Did Putin Actually Tell Ruutel, and How Did He phrase It? http://www.jamestown.org/

29 Molotov v. M., report about foreign policy of government (at the extraordinary fifth session of the Supreme Soviet OF THE USSR), on 31 October, 1939.

30 ibidem.

31 /.shshsh.rel.eye

32 Teheran conference of the leaders of three union powers - USSR, THE USA and Great Britain. Moscow 1978. Citov?.no dle vlastitel.com.ru

33 "It is an interpretation of history that has gained currency in finland, particularly in the last decade. A striving for respect of its past is natural for each country. The period of mutual distrust between the Soviet Union and Finland, twice leading to war, brought incalculable suffering on the peoples of both nations. Today, 60 years later, reminiscences of this common pain should not disunite, but unite and orient us towards building constructive good-neighborly relations. Yet there are hardly any grounds to make all over the world corrections to history textbooks, erasing the mention that in the years of World War II Finland was among the allies of Hitler Germany, fought on its side and, accordingly, bears its share of responsibility for the war. In order to make sure what the historical truth is, it's enough to open the preamble to the of 1947 Paris Peace Treaty, concluded with Finland by the Allied and Associated Powers. By the way, the Treaty contained a number of serious political provisions guaranteeing the restoration in postwar Finland of human rights and freedoms, the foundation of democratic society." http://www.ln.mid.ru/

34 http://www.helsinginsanomat.fi/

35 appearance at the conference of the commanding composition on the generalization of the experience of the war shooting against Finland on 17 April, 1940.

36 heninen.net Reading the articles of this agreement confirmed by the peace treaty of of 1947, one cannot help "appreciating" J.V. Stalin's sense of humor. During the lunch he hosted to honor the delegation of Finland that signed the Agreement on Mutual Assistance of April 6, 1948, he said: "agreements occur equal and unequal in rights. Soviet-Finnish agreement is equal agreement, since it is concluded on the basis of the complete equality of rights of sides. Many do not believe that the relations between the large and small nations can be equal. But we, Soviet people, consider that such relations can and must be Soviet people they consider that each nation, nevertheless, large or small, it has its qualitative special features, its specific character, which belongs only to it and which is not in other nations. These special features are that contribution, which introduces each nation into the general treasure-house of world culture and it supplements it, it enriches it. In this sense all nations - and small, and large - are located in the identical position, and each nation is equivalent to any other nation. Therefore Soviet people consider that Finland, although it is the small country, comes out in this agreement as the equal country with respect to the Soviet Union. A little it will be located the political figures of the Great Powers, which would consider small nations as equal with the large nations. The majority of them looks at the small nations on top, condescendingly. They not to away go sometimes to the one-sided guarantee for the small nations. But these workers, generally speaking, do not go to the conclusion of equal agreements with the small nations, since do not consider small nations it their partners." http://www.magister.msk.ru/

37 katyn.codis.ru

38 jakobson, M, Defensive victory led the way to peace, virtual.finland.fi

39 "We took the Americans much too much into account" Ibidem.

40 Interview with Molotov in 1974. Ibidem

41 http://www.yale.edu/

42 paczkowski, A, Half Century of Poland's History, 1939-1989, Prague 2000, s. 74. Translation from Polish.

43 http://www.ln.mid.ru/

44 http://www.whitehouse.gov/

45 UCHWA?.A Sejmu Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej z dnia 22 marca 2005 R. upami?.tniaj?.ca 65. rocznic? zbrodni katy?.skiej. orka.sejm.gov.pl

46 http://www.nizkor.org/

47 www.ln.mid.ru

The National Lawyers Guild

2006-12-19T20:42:00.001-07:00

With thanks to Quagmire at Instapundit

Here's what [Quagmire] was able to find:

As said by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (September 1950) The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) was organized in 1936 by a caucus of Communist Party, U.S.A. (CPUSA) lawyers assisted by the International Labor Defense, an American agency of the Comintern (Communist International). The NLG remains an active affiliate of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL), an international Communist front which operated under the control of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The International Department took over the old Comintern that was disbanded by Stalin during World War II. A study prepared by the Central Intelligence Agency at the direction of the House Intelligence Committee in 1978, reported that the IADL:

"has been one of the most useful Communist front organizations at the service of the Soviet Communist Party....In the 31 years of the IADL's existence, it has so consistently demonstrated its support of Moscow?s foreign policy objectives and is so tied in with other front organizations and the Communist press that it is difficult forit to pretend that its judgments are fair or relevant to basic legal tenets."

IADL president, Pierre Cot, an official of the World Peace Council (WPC), the principal Soviet international Communist front, was even awarded the Lenin Peace Prize in 1953.

In September 1950, the House Committee on Un-American Activities issued a report, "The National Lawyers Guild: Legal Bulwark of the Communist Party", which stated:

"The real aim of the National Lawyers Guild, as demonstrated conclusively by its activities...are not specified in its constitution or statement of avowed purpose. In order to attract non-Communists to serve as a cover for its actual purpose as an appendage to the Communist Party, the National Lawyers Guild poses benevolently as a professional organization which shall function as an effective social force in the service of the people....? "

With the extensive revival of the NLG in the late 1960s and recruitment of a broad section of New Leftists who looked not to Moscow, but to the surrogate regimes of Havana, Hanoi, or Angola for models of revolutionary change, the NLG has had an increasingly close relationship with the Cuban regime. The NLG's International Committee formed numerous subcommittees that coordinate both legal action and public relations and propaganda in support of various Soviet and Cuban-backed revolutionary terrorist movements. For example, the NLG's Middle East subcommittee supported the Palestine Liberation Organization(PLO) and issued a blatantly biased report against Israeli legal and security measures against jailed terrorists. The NLG's Vietnam subcommittee pressed for U.S. economic aid and 'reparations' to the Hanoi government and urged recognition and support of the Vietnamese puppet state set up in Cambodia after the invasion and conquest by the North Vietnamese Army.

In 1978, a group of independent Marxists within the NLG's membership published a document criticizing the NLG leadership for conducting "Guild affairs as though we were a committed Marxist-Leninist entity." The NLG Democratic Caucus complained that the NLG International Committee identifies the organization "with the positions of the 'socialist' countries on every major international issue." Bright fellows, those Democrat Congressmen!......but then, embarrassed ones, too!

Through their dual memberships in the American Civil Liberties Union and their activities in other Communist front organizations such as the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee(NECLC), leading NLG activists, including those working to defend terrorist organizations such as the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional(FALN) of Puerto Rico and the Weather Underground Organization (WUO) have played the most prominent role in the myriad of lawsuits against the CIA, FBI and local intelligence organizations.

When Can Iraqis Assume Full Internal Security Responsibilities?

2006-09-11T14:42:00.000-07:00

R. Alan King

author of Twice Armed: An American Soldier’s
Battle for Hearts and Minds in Iraq

Testimony presented before the House Government Reform
Committee, subcommittee on National Security, Emerging
Threats and International Relations on September 11, 2006

Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the Subcommittee, it is an honor and privilege to be here today to speak to you on this fifth anniversary of the attack on our Country that drew a then united nation into war by the horrific events.

When I arrived in Baghdad on 8 April 2003, I was responsible for advising Major General Buford Blount from the 3d Infantry Division on the immediate reconstruction of the city. There were many heroes from those early days like Major Brent Gerald, a captain in the Greensboro, NC fire department, who was responsible for the creation of the current Baghdad Fire Department, and Major Vince Crabb, dubbed the “Sheriff of Baghdad,” a former Texas Ranger who organized the initial re-creation of the Baghdad Police Department in the immediate aftermath of our liberation. A lot has changed since then. The Iraqi people expected immediate results in their services and improved quality of life. What was not clear to them, or to us, was the condition of the country because of the sanctions and policies of the former regime. Yet, even with the failing condition of the country’s infrastructure, children ran to greet us and men hugged us with gratitude for their liberation.

Those are memories that have since passed and I have watched the resistance grow to a viable insurgency in three short years. I believe that this is in large part due to a fundamental misunderstanding of our success.

When the President declared an end to major combat operations on 1 May 2003, we had decisively defeated an armed force and the war in Iraq was over, but at that very moment, the war for Iraq began. Our objective at that time was no longer to defeat an armed combatant, but to decisively engage the Iraqi people. To properly engage the population, our military strategy could have been more effectively coordinated with a political and economic policy designed to win the people, thus allowing the Iraqis the desire to eliminate the insurgency on their own.

Our military did an outstanding job in the early days of beginning reconstruction efforts. Yet, we have been challenged by the use of our conventional tactics of force-on-force with an emphasis on a kinetic response that alienates and creates enemies of the people. Our tactics provide the insurgency a textbook ideological basis for receiving, at least passive support if not direct support, in conducting attacks against the Coalition and the Iraqi security infrastructure. Since April 2003, I have watched the population transition from cautious concern for the Coalition’s tactics, to sympathy for the insurgency because of our tactics, evolving into complicity with the insurgents to fight our tactics.

While in Iraq from March 2003 through July 2004, Corporal Mark Bibby and Omar, a translator working for the 422d Civil Affairs battalion, were killed and four American soldiers were wounded by Sunnis. Major Damone Garner, my operations officer who was decorated for heroism survived the attack and is with us here today. My security team engaged a group of Syrians in a firefight. I was ambushed by members of Sadr’s militia who killed Fallah, my bodyguard and translator. Four American soldiers were also wounded in that attack and I spent sixteen months in rehabilitation and surgery recovering from my injuries. Finally, I have held in my hands the assassination lists of the Iranian-backed Badr Corps. In order for us to determine when the Iraqis may assume responsibility for their own security requires a situational analysis-based on a clearly defined end state verses a political choice. Foremost, as a Nation, we must fully understand the complexity and motives of the insurgency if we are to meet the current challenges in Iraq today. If we do this based on a political decision verses a situational analysis, we would be abandoning the Iraqis because we have not achieved our objective of stability and security.

In order for the United States to determine when Iraqi Security Forces can assume full responsibility for their internal security, we must first realize that the absence of such forces exists because we choose to disband them. Therefore, we must work with the current government to establish a clearly defined end state based on objectives, not timelines, that provides assurance for the newly formed Iraqi government that it has the ability and desire to secure itself before we re-deploy our forces.

To assist in the assessment, we must address the elements of the insurgency separately. Simply, we must know who they are and where they lay their claims. The demographics of the insurgency are different in each province.

There are six elements that contribute to the unrest in Iraqi and the insurgency. I define the six categories as nationalists, religious extremists and sectarians, foreign fighters, militias, former regime loyalists and common criminals. Each has its own motive for fighting, however, I believe that the most serious threats are the militias, the absence of a viable police force, the subversive activities within the Ministry of Interior and the absence of a viable judicial system. The activities of the militias are the single most divisive issue thwarting the legitimacy of the central government. As we have seen, Baghdad has become the axis of the insurgency. This is where all six elements that contribute to the unrest in Iraq derive their power and have the most complicity of the people. Because of the absence of security in the city, the people are forced to use the competing groups for security so that almost every street has become its own security refuge.

Since October 2003, I have witnessed and was involved in the move towards reconciliation. However, since that time, the Sunnis continue to feel disenfranchised and the policies of the government and actions of the independent militias continue to promulgate the unrest towards those that see themselves as Iraqis -- the same way we would feel if a foreign power came to the United States and tried to change our way of life.

To ensure our success in Iraq, we should not consider our withdrawal in terms of a timeline. This would only give our enemy the advantage of sitting back and waiting. Rather, we should analyze the accomplishments of our objectives in determining when Iraq has achieved the ability to ensure its internal and external security before redeploying our forces. Our objectives should focus on stability and security, and Iraq’s focus should be on gaining legitimacy for the government, ensuring the foundation of a sound judicial system, providing economic incentives, employment, disarming and disbanding the militias, creating a police force free of party influence and finally, continuing to build a competent military.

As the central Iraqi government works towards consolidating its authority, it will continue to face challenges because of the competing political objectives of the religious and ethnic groups, particularly those that have militias to pursue their own objectives. While some pundits choose to disagree, Iraq has formed its internal security along sectarian lines with the Shia-dominated Ministry of Interior and the existence of the militias imposing strict fundamentalist policies, including death squads operating what is circuitously being attributed to the government’s inaction or complacency.

Looking at the challenges that would allow Iraq to assume full responsibility for its security is three-fold. First, I reiterate my opinion that the armed militias is the most significant obstacle challenging Iraq’s ability to advance towards a legitimate nation state with the ability to provide internal security. We witnessed the results of what uncontrolled non-state actors did in Lebanon -- Sadr’s Mahdi Army is equivalent to Lebanon’s Hezbollah and although it is not as well armed today, it poses a similar threat to the Iraqi central government’s authority in the future. The SCIRI’s Badr Corps domination of the security forces has positioned a non-state actor in a state-sponsored position to pursue its objectives independent of the government’s objectives. The second challenge is the lack of a legitimate and professional police force to deal with the unrestrained criminal elements operating within Iraq. This is due to infiltration of the police by both the Badr Corps and the Jaysh al-Madhi Army. The final challenge is the inconsistency of the judicial system that makes tackling the police problem unrealistic because of the lack of judicial enforcement.

Prime Minister al-Maliki and President Bush stated that they were forming a joint committee to review what is necessary for Iraq’s security. This committee’s primary focus should be on how to marginalize the militias, legitimize the police force, enforce judicial standards for the rule of law and finally, establish political and economic policies to evolve from a country with a government to a nation state.
As we evaluate what will lead Iraq to full civil war, the most serious factor is failing not to recognize the signs that the country is at civil war. Since we declared ourselves occupiers in May 2003, we have witnessed the growth of resistance into an insurgency; therefore, we must not play down the signs of a civil war. We declared that there was not an insurgency when we were clearly in the middle of one and we failed to fully engage the separate elements that were driving the insurgency, albeit from different ideological objectives. The continuously growing sectarian violence is a logical way to assess the state of affairs in Iraq and while they may not have tilted to full civil war, they are certainly at a point that any significant event could become the spark.

While I was in Iraq, I met with thousands of tribal sheikhs and clerics and there was one constant theme that was repeated by all, “We Are Iraqis.” I continue to hear this statement time and again. This nationalistic identity that transcends religious and ethnic identification provides a prospect for Iraq to become a unified nation. As the animosity between the groups evolve, we can only hope that they desire to maintain a unified national identity exists.

As the security situation in Baghdad worsens and the Coalition finds it necessary to move more troops into the city, if the Iraqis allow this to take place without a political and economic strategy, unilateral military action will only insure the insurgents’ success. The military can establish the conditions for the implementation of a viable political plan to establish peace, however, it cannot create or sustain peace in the absence of plan.

As I mentioned earlier, Baghdad is the hub of all the insurgent groups and a flashpoint for civil war. Containing the violence in Baghdad will only be possible if we are able to secure the borders of the neighboring states that want to assure failure in Iraq. Opening the borders allows new recruits to come in and replace those that are killed. By securing only Baghdad, without a comprehensive security, political and economic plan for the rest of the country, we are in essence creating a recruiting capability for the insurgency.

In closing, I remain concerned that our political leaders believe that we must have a decisive battle to declare victory in Iraq. Unfortunately, our decisive battle is the process of remaining committed and engaged in defeating an enemy in an ideological war where the objective is winning the population and not about defeating the armed insurgents.

Victor Perlo

2006-09-03T19:15:00.000-07:00

Victor Perlo (May 15, 1912 -- December 1, 1999) was an American Marxist economist, NKVD agent (code name 'Raider'), and a longtime member of the national committee of the Communist Party USA.

Born in East Elmhurst, New York, Perlo was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants who had both emigrated in their youth from Omsk in Siberia. He received a BA and MA in mathematics and statistics from Columbia University in 1933.

Contents
1 New Deal
2 Espionage Career
3 Postwar Career
4 Perlo spy ring members
5 Glasnost
6 Venona
7 Notes
8 References
9 External links

New Deal
Perlo served in various New Deal government agencies including the National Recovery Administration (NRA) and the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. Perlo also was an original member of the Ware group. In 1937 Perlo left government to work in the Brookings Institution, and rejoined the government in 1939. He reentered government through the United States Department of Commerce in 1939 to gather data on basic economic decisions he presented to Harry Hopkins, Secretary of Commerce. In 1940 Perlo moved to an agency that became the Office of Price Administration (OPA). By 1943 he was chief of the Aviation Section of the War Production Board. The Perlo group of spies, which he headed, included a Senate staff director, and Perlo's ring supplied the Soviet Union with United States aircraft production figures and shipments to various theaters of war.

In 1943 Perlo divorced his second wife, Katherine Perlo, who told the FBI Perlo "delighted in tormenting their child and in engaging in big talk concerning what he would like to do to Government officials."(1)

Espionage Career
A dedicated Communist, Victor Perlo headed the Perlo group of Soviet espionage agents in the United States. Before World War II, Perlo had been a member of the Ware spy ring. The Perlo ring included several important U.S. officials, including a Senate staff director, and the ring supplied the Soviet Union with economic, political, and military intelligence, including United States aircraft production figures.

Perlo infiltrated through the United States Department of Commerce in 1938 to gather economic intelligence, and passed on intelligence concerning basic economic decisions he presented to Harry Hopkins, Secretary of Commerce. He transferred to the Division of Monetary Research, and served under Harry Dexter White, followed by Frank Coe and Harold Glasser, all of whom were later found to be Soviet agents.

Postwar Career
Perlo left the government in 1947. After being named as a Soviet agent by Elizabeth Bentley, Perlo was called before several Congressional Committees investigating Soviet and Communist infiltration, subversion, and espionage within the United States government in the 1930s and during World War II. Perlo invoked the Fifth Amendment when asked to name other espionage agents and Communist party members, telling the House Committee on Unamerican Activities (HUAC) he was "helping in my humble way to carry out the great New Deal program under the leadership of Franklin D. Roosevelt."(2). At the time, the information corroborating Perlo's activities as a Soviet spy was contained in the still-secret Venona project, and could not be revealed for fear of aiding Soviet intelligence.

In 1948, Perlo obtained a job working on the campaign of Henry Wallace, the Progressive Party's presidential candidate. Unable to find work in the U.S. government after he was named by Elizabeth Bentley as a colleague and fellow Soviet spy, he obtained a job as an economic researcher for the Brookings Institution and wrote the book American Imperialism.

From the 1960s until his death, Perlo, who had a master's degree in mathematics from Columbia University, served as the chief economist of the Communist Party in the United States (CPUSA). He was also a board member of the CPUSA.

Perlo spy ring members

Victor Perlo, Chief of the Aviation Section of the War Production Board; Head of Branch in Research Section, Office of Price Administration Department of Commerce; Division of Monetary Research Department of Treasury; Brookings Institution.

Edward Fitzgerald, War Production Board.

Harold Glasser, Director, Division of Monetary Research, United States Department of the Treasury; War Production Board; Advisor on North African Affairs Committee.

Alger Hiss, Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs United States Department of State.

Charles Kramer, Senate Subcommittee on War Mobilization; Office of Price Administration; National Labor Relations Board; Senate Subcommittee on Wartime Health and Education; Agricultural Adjustment Administration; Senate Subcommittee on Civil Liberties; Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee; Democratic National Committee.

Sol Leshinsky, United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.

Harry Magdoff, Statistical Division of War Production Board and Office of Emergency Management; Bureau of Research and Statistics, WTB; Tools Division, War Production Board; Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, United States Department of Commerce.

George Perazich, Foreign Economic Administration; United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.

Allen Rosenberg, Board of Economic Warfare; Chief of the Economic Institution Staff, Foreign Economic Administration; Senate Subcommittee on Civil Liberties; Senate Committee on Education and Labor; Railroad Retirement Board; Councel to the Secretary of the National Labor Relations Board.

Donald Wheeler, Office of Strategic Services Research and Analysis division.

Glasnost
Under the leadership of Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, the era of Glasnost shed new light on the activities of Soviet intelligence directed against its Allies during World War II. The KGB Archives were opened, and many long hidden secrets came to light. Perlo by this time was openly serving in the leadership of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), an organization he had denied any association with for decades prior. Perlo became a vociferous critic of Gorbachev and his successor, Boris Yeltsin, for their efforts to democratize the former communist state. Perlo wrote several articles for various Communist publications and denounced Gorbachev and Yeltsin for betrayal and treachery.

Venona
Victor Perlo's code name in Soviet intelligence is "Raider", and is referenced in the following decrypts:

588 KGB New York to Moscow, 19 April 1944
687 KGB New York to Moscow, 13 May 1944.
769, 771 KGB New York to Moscow, 30 May 1944, p. 1.
769, 771 KGB New York to Moscow, 30 May 1944, p. 2.
769, 771 KGB New York to Moscow, 30 May 1944, p. 3.
1003 KGB New York to Moscow, 18 July 1944
1015 KGB New York to Moscow, 22 July 1944
1214 KGB New York to Moscow, 25 August 1944
79 KGB New York to Moscow, 18 January 1945, p. 1
79 KGB New York to Moscow, 18 January 1945, p. 2
1823, 1824, 1825 KGB Washington to Moscow, 30 March 1945
3707 KGB Washington to Moscow, 29 June 1945
3708 KGB Washington to Moscow, 29 June 1945
3713, 3715 KGB Washington to Moscow, 29 June 1945

Notes
Note (1): FBI Silvermaster file, 135-143 (PDF pgs. 49-57)
Note (2): Perlo testimony, “Hearings Regarding Communist Espionage in the United States Government,” U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Un-American Activities, 80th Cong., 2d sess., 699–700

References
John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, Yale University Press

External links
The Economic and Political Crisis in the USSR, Victor Perlo Political Affairs, August 1991
Lessons from Cuba, then and now, Victor and Ellen Perlo People's Weekly World, 31 January 1998
War and the US Economy, Vic Perlo Political Affairs (US), July 1999
The Case Against Intelligence Openness, Thomas Patrick Carroll International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Volume 14, Number 4 / October 1, 2001

Categories: Columbia University alumni Espionage Soviet spies Venona Appendix A Cold War spies