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Five WORST U.S. Presidents
- Thread starter Dr. Bob
- Start date
Roy and KenH
I have looked over the Venona transcripts at the links provided by KenH and it seems to me that they don't provide evidence against Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White. If you can point that out, I would be happy to read it. No doubt the Soviets were trying very hard to spy on the United States and many spies were convicted on other information. Seems to me, from what you have shown, that the Venona transcripts offer interesting information about those convicted on other evidence but that not much new evidence is offered against those whom the ultra right has suspected, such as Hiss and other top officials in the democratic administrations. I could be wrong, so show me where I am mistaken, if you will.
I have looked over the Venona transcripts at the links provided by KenH and it seems to me that they don't provide evidence against Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White. If you can point that out, I would be happy to read it. No doubt the Soviets were trying very hard to spy on the United States and many spies were convicted on other information. Seems to me, from what you have shown, that the Venona transcripts offer interesting information about those convicted on other evidence but that not much new evidence is offered against those whom the ultra right has suspected, such as Hiss and other top officials in the democratic administrations. I could be wrong, so show me where I am mistaken, if you will.
>>>>>KenH:So unless a court declares someone to be a communist, a person is not a communist. Is that what you are saying? Are you saying you don't believe that Alger Hiss was a communist?<<<<<<
First I must note that you were unresponsive to my inquiry. I said that if you have any information from the Venona transcripts as to Hiss or Harry Dexter White being spies and communists, that you should post it. You have not done that. I don't have to have a court's declaration that someone was a communist in order to believe that they were, but I do have to have evidence. You have made the claim that the Venona transcripts showed that Hiss and Harry Dexter White were communists. I simply asked you to post that portion of the transcripts, which you have failed to do. My impression is that the Venona transcripts are not nearly as conclusive as you and others claim. Alger Hiss may have been a communist, but the evidence is not convincing, as far as I have seen. What evidence there is rests on the word of Whittaker Chambers, and the Venona transcripts do nothing at all to support that evidence, in fact the transcripts refer to Hiss only once and the context is such that it implies that the KGB did not know him. In addition by 1991, the Russians really had not motive to keep any information secret about Hiss being in their camp, and a search of the Russian KGB archives turned up nothing about Hiss, other than the normal references that might be expected about a well known American political figure.
Here is what the FBI had to say about the transcripts:
Further along in the same memorandum, canvassing the disadvantages of using Venona information for criminal prosecutions, the FBI observed:
"The fragmentary nature of the messages
themselves, the assumptions made by the
cryptographers in breaking the messages, and
the questionable interpretations and
translations involved, plus the extensive use of
covernames for persons and places, make the
problem of positive identification extremely
difficult.[55]"
The above and other comments on the Venona transcripts were found at the following link:
http://homepages.nyu.edu/~th15/venona.html
[ September 18, 2003, 09:27 PM: Message edited by: Tanker ]
First I must note that you were unresponsive to my inquiry. I said that if you have any information from the Venona transcripts as to Hiss or Harry Dexter White being spies and communists, that you should post it. You have not done that. I don't have to have a court's declaration that someone was a communist in order to believe that they were, but I do have to have evidence. You have made the claim that the Venona transcripts showed that Hiss and Harry Dexter White were communists. I simply asked you to post that portion of the transcripts, which you have failed to do. My impression is that the Venona transcripts are not nearly as conclusive as you and others claim. Alger Hiss may have been a communist, but the evidence is not convincing, as far as I have seen. What evidence there is rests on the word of Whittaker Chambers, and the Venona transcripts do nothing at all to support that evidence, in fact the transcripts refer to Hiss only once and the context is such that it implies that the KGB did not know him. In addition by 1991, the Russians really had not motive to keep any information secret about Hiss being in their camp, and a search of the Russian KGB archives turned up nothing about Hiss, other than the normal references that might be expected about a well known American political figure.
Here is what the FBI had to say about the transcripts:
Further along in the same memorandum, canvassing the disadvantages of using Venona information for criminal prosecutions, the FBI observed:
"The fragmentary nature of the messages
themselves, the assumptions made by the
cryptographers in breaking the messages, and
the questionable interpretations and
translations involved, plus the extensive use of
covernames for persons and places, make the
problem of positive identification extremely
difficult.[55]"
The above and other comments on the Venona transcripts were found at the following link:
http://homepages.nyu.edu/~th15/venona.html
[ September 18, 2003, 09:27 PM: Message edited by: Tanker ]
Here is something from the Internet about the Russian search for information on whether or not Hiss was a spy. It is from the following web site:
http://homepages.nyu.edu/~th15/volk.html
In 1992, Russian historian General Dmitry A. Volkogonov searched a full range of official Russian government repositories with information about Soviet intelligence operations, including KGB files, military intelligence - or GRU - files, and files at the Presidential Archives, for any possible references to Alger Hiss. This examination was conducted at Hiss's request. Volkogonov reported, in a letter to Hiss's longtime associate, John Lowenthal, that the files contained no information indicating that Hiss had been a Soviet spy.
Volkogonov's statements brought angry protests from American supporters of Whittaker Chambers and detractors of Hiss. In response, Volkogonov acknowledged that he had not seen every document in the archives he had reviewed, and could not guarantee that every file was still intact. He said, however, that these facts did not lead him to change his conclusions.
In a subsequent (and previously unpublished) interview with Lowenthal in Washington, D.C., Volkogonov reiterated his firm belief that, had Hiss been a spy, he [Volkogonov] would have found a reflection of that in the files he had studied.
John Lowenthal: General, which archives did you examine on the Alger Hiss case?
Dmitry A. Volkogonov: When I was approached about the Alger Hiss case, I tried to examine all the archives of the Foreign Intelligence Department. This department used to be part of the KGB. I was interested in the '30s and '40s, and with the kind permission of the Chief of Russian Intelligence, Mr. Primakov [Yevgeny Primakov was subsequently Prime Minister of Russia], I been able to examine a large number of materials on intelligence services in the '30s and '40s. I've had the assistance of some of the staff of the Foreign Intelligence archive. And as a result of this work, I have been able to determine that Alger Hiss, according to those documents, had never been listed as a paid or recruited agent for the Soviet Union.
JL: And was he ever an unpaid agent?
V: I have been able to determine that Alger Hiss in his official capacity did meet with Soviet officials, diplomats in New York, at the United Nations and other places, but only in his official capacity. In the files that I've seen, Alger Hiss has never been listed as a paid agent of the intelligence services of the Soviet Union.
JL: But was he an unpaid agent? He was accused of being a volunteer for ideology, not for money.
V: The Americans could think what they wanted about him, but only could think what they wanted about him because he had some contacts, but in the Soviet sources, the Soviet files in the Soviet hierarchy, he wasn't listed as an agent, either paid agent or an agent out of convictions.
JL: Did you examine also the military intelligence GRU files?
V: Yes, we also asked to examine the military intelligence files and there, too, no traces of Alger Hiss have been found. Sometimes I'm told that I could look through not all of them, and naturally I can't say that I've seen all existing documents, but the intelligence documents pertaining to agents, personnel matters I did see. And it is also possible that he had some regular working information in the course of normal contacts he might have said something, but it was not intelligence information. It's like simply when two representatives of different states meet and conduct normal business. You also had McCarthy times and witch-hunt times, and I know that this could happen.
JL: Did you see the Presidential archives?
V: Yes, I also work in the Presidential archive. I have looked at many documents there. I have not finished yet, but I have found no mention of Alger Hiss in those documents either.
JL: In your opinion, if Alger Hiss had been a spy, would you have found some documents saying that?
V: Positively, if he was a spy then I believe positively I would have found a reflection in various files. I know this from numerous documents and on many spies, many agents I have been able to see documents.
JL: What is the condition of the files from the 1930s? How do we know nothing was destroyed or removed on Alger Hiss?
V: These documents are in the process of being opened to the general public. And naturally I can not give a one hundred percent guarantee that something wasn't destroyed, but as far as I know during the putsch [the 1991 attempt by hard-line communists to wrest power from Mikhail Gorbachev] these documents were not touched.
JL: When the case broke publicly in 1948, would the Soviets have opened a file on the case, and did you find any from 1948, '49, and '50? [This question was misunderstood by the interpreter and therefore mistranslated, to mean opening an already existing file on the case, whereas the question was intended to mean opening, in the sense of starting, a new file. The interview was terminated before the matter could be cleared up.]
V: No, these documents couldn't be opened. Even two years ago, it only happened after the putsch after August 1991. Before August 1991 there was no chance to look at those documents. For example, when I was working on a book about Trotsky and had to find documents from 1940 related to Trotsky's murder, I had to exert fantastic efforts to obtain some documents and, only thanks to my name, to the fact that many people knew me, I managed to obtain something. But that required enormous effort.
JL: Georgi Arbatov explained to me that the Soviets would not have opened a file in 1948, he believes because the case was of no interest to them but was risky for anybody to comment during Stalin's years. The Soviets told me that in 1948 the Soviets would not have opened the archives in any case because it would have been risky in the Stalin times, not because it was not useful but because it was risky in the Stalin times to talk about it.
V: I believe that the person who would even raise the question that he needs to not even open, but simply look at this document in the archive, would be considered a spy, an enemy and he would be shot. If he were even to think about trying and doing it, it would cost him his life. In these times in our country, a person could be imprisoned for having an accidental occasional contact with an American. It was enough to be thrown into the camp. Therefore I would say again in conclusion that Alger Hiss was apparently a victim of the Cold War and may God help us that those times never come back.
JL: Thank you very much
http://homepages.nyu.edu/~th15/volk.html
In 1992, Russian historian General Dmitry A. Volkogonov searched a full range of official Russian government repositories with information about Soviet intelligence operations, including KGB files, military intelligence - or GRU - files, and files at the Presidential Archives, for any possible references to Alger Hiss. This examination was conducted at Hiss's request. Volkogonov reported, in a letter to Hiss's longtime associate, John Lowenthal, that the files contained no information indicating that Hiss had been a Soviet spy.
Volkogonov's statements brought angry protests from American supporters of Whittaker Chambers and detractors of Hiss. In response, Volkogonov acknowledged that he had not seen every document in the archives he had reviewed, and could not guarantee that every file was still intact. He said, however, that these facts did not lead him to change his conclusions.
In a subsequent (and previously unpublished) interview with Lowenthal in Washington, D.C., Volkogonov reiterated his firm belief that, had Hiss been a spy, he [Volkogonov] would have found a reflection of that in the files he had studied.
John Lowenthal: General, which archives did you examine on the Alger Hiss case?
Dmitry A. Volkogonov: When I was approached about the Alger Hiss case, I tried to examine all the archives of the Foreign Intelligence Department. This department used to be part of the KGB. I was interested in the '30s and '40s, and with the kind permission of the Chief of Russian Intelligence, Mr. Primakov [Yevgeny Primakov was subsequently Prime Minister of Russia], I been able to examine a large number of materials on intelligence services in the '30s and '40s. I've had the assistance of some of the staff of the Foreign Intelligence archive. And as a result of this work, I have been able to determine that Alger Hiss, according to those documents, had never been listed as a paid or recruited agent for the Soviet Union.
JL: And was he ever an unpaid agent?
V: I have been able to determine that Alger Hiss in his official capacity did meet with Soviet officials, diplomats in New York, at the United Nations and other places, but only in his official capacity. In the files that I've seen, Alger Hiss has never been listed as a paid agent of the intelligence services of the Soviet Union.
JL: But was he an unpaid agent? He was accused of being a volunteer for ideology, not for money.
V: The Americans could think what they wanted about him, but only could think what they wanted about him because he had some contacts, but in the Soviet sources, the Soviet files in the Soviet hierarchy, he wasn't listed as an agent, either paid agent or an agent out of convictions.
JL: Did you examine also the military intelligence GRU files?
V: Yes, we also asked to examine the military intelligence files and there, too, no traces of Alger Hiss have been found. Sometimes I'm told that I could look through not all of them, and naturally I can't say that I've seen all existing documents, but the intelligence documents pertaining to agents, personnel matters I did see. And it is also possible that he had some regular working information in the course of normal contacts he might have said something, but it was not intelligence information. It's like simply when two representatives of different states meet and conduct normal business. You also had McCarthy times and witch-hunt times, and I know that this could happen.
JL: Did you see the Presidential archives?
V: Yes, I also work in the Presidential archive. I have looked at many documents there. I have not finished yet, but I have found no mention of Alger Hiss in those documents either.
JL: In your opinion, if Alger Hiss had been a spy, would you have found some documents saying that?
V: Positively, if he was a spy then I believe positively I would have found a reflection in various files. I know this from numerous documents and on many spies, many agents I have been able to see documents.
JL: What is the condition of the files from the 1930s? How do we know nothing was destroyed or removed on Alger Hiss?
V: These documents are in the process of being opened to the general public. And naturally I can not give a one hundred percent guarantee that something wasn't destroyed, but as far as I know during the putsch [the 1991 attempt by hard-line communists to wrest power from Mikhail Gorbachev] these documents were not touched.
JL: When the case broke publicly in 1948, would the Soviets have opened a file on the case, and did you find any from 1948, '49, and '50? [This question was misunderstood by the interpreter and therefore mistranslated, to mean opening an already existing file on the case, whereas the question was intended to mean opening, in the sense of starting, a new file. The interview was terminated before the matter could be cleared up.]
V: No, these documents couldn't be opened. Even two years ago, it only happened after the putsch after August 1991. Before August 1991 there was no chance to look at those documents. For example, when I was working on a book about Trotsky and had to find documents from 1940 related to Trotsky's murder, I had to exert fantastic efforts to obtain some documents and, only thanks to my name, to the fact that many people knew me, I managed to obtain something. But that required enormous effort.
JL: Georgi Arbatov explained to me that the Soviets would not have opened a file in 1948, he believes because the case was of no interest to them but was risky for anybody to comment during Stalin's years. The Soviets told me that in 1948 the Soviets would not have opened the archives in any case because it would have been risky in the Stalin times, not because it was not useful but because it was risky in the Stalin times to talk about it.
V: I believe that the person who would even raise the question that he needs to not even open, but simply look at this document in the archive, would be considered a spy, an enemy and he would be shot. If he were even to think about trying and doing it, it would cost him his life. In these times in our country, a person could be imprisoned for having an accidental occasional contact with an American. It was enough to be thrown into the camp. Therefore I would say again in conclusion that Alger Hiss was apparently a victim of the Cold War and may God help us that those times never come back.
JL: Thank you very much
KenH
Well-Known Member
Though Alger Hiss, a U.S. State Department official, was accused of spying for the Soviet Union and imprisoned, he was never convicted of espionage per se. Throughout his life, Hiss denied any involvement in espionage, and many historians have for years remained polarized on the question of Hiss's spying; some believe that declassified documents prove he did spy for the Soviets, and some still see these allegations as groundless.
Alger Hiss was born in Baltimore and attended Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Law School. One of the most brilliant law students in his class at Harvard, Hiss was picked after graduation to serve as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. He went on to work in the Roosevelt administration.
In the late 1930s Hiss was a key State Department official during the formative years of the United Nations. He eventually served as Secretary General at the 1945 San Francisco meeting at which the U.N. was founded. In 1939, however, Whitaker Chambers, a former member of the U.S. Communist Party, told Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle that Hiss was a communist. Berle, under whom Hiss worked, scoffed at the charge. Soon, however, similar information came from French intelligence sources. Also, Igor Gouzenko, a Soviet defector, charged that an individual in the State Department was a Soviet spy, and the FBI secretly began targeting Hiss as the suspect.
Hiss left the State Department to become, in 1947, the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Within a year of Hiss's departure from the State Department, Chambers, a senior editor at Time magazine, told the House Un-American Activities Committee that Hiss had been a fellow communist in the 1930s and had given him State Department documents that he passed to a Soviet official. Chambers's revelation followed the testimony of Elizabeth Bentley, an admitted Soviet agent, who told the committee that she had passed documents from a nameless, high-ranking government official to the Soviets.
Denying the charges, Hiss sued Chambers for libel. To counter Hiss's charges, Chambers produced handwritten memos and typewritten summaries of State Department documents. A Woodstock typewriter was introduced into evidence. Experts testified that Hiss had typed both the summaries and personal correspondence on the typewriter. Hiss and experts on his side argued that the typewriter had been tampered with in order to produce the desired evidentiary results.
Chambers had held back from producing several strips of 35mm film and three undeveloped rolls. The existence of this additional evidence ultimately reached the Un-American Activities Committee, which prompted then U.S. Representative Richard Nixon to issue a subpoena for the materials. Under subpoena, Chambers guided congressional investigators to a pumpkin patch on his farm in Maryland. Hidden in a hollowed-out pumpkin was what later became known as the "pumpkin papers" -- several prints of State Department documents from the 1930s.
The pumpkin papers were introduced against Hiss in a perjury trial, at which he was accused of lying about having passed State Department papers to Chambers. Hiss was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison, though he vehemently denied the charges for the duration of his life.
In 1996, shortly after Hiss's death, a collection of Venona decrypts was declassified. One of the messages, dated March 30, 1945, refers to an American with the code name Ales. According to the message, Ales was a Soviet agent working in the State Department, who accompanied President Roosevelt to the 1945 Yalta Conference and then flew to Moscow, both of which Hiss did. The message goes on to indicate that Ales met with Andrei Vyshinsky, the Commissar for Foreign Affairs, and was commended for his aid to the Soviets. Analysts at the National Security Agency have gone on record asserting that Ales could only have been Alger Hiss.
- www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/venona/dece_hiss.html
Tanker: I found the following paragraph on Harry Dexter White at the link given. I am sorry that the link doesn't work. I don't know why. Maybe it can be entered manually. According to this source,, White's involvement is substantiated by Soviet archives. The same guy that fingered White, also fingered Hiss. Hiss was convicted of lying about his spying. The statute of limitations had run out for him to be tried and convicted of espionage.
I looked at the link that you gave for Alger Hiss, and while looking at it, a banner floated across the page, slamming Ann Coulter's book. I have a feeling that is an oppinionated web site.
BTW: Are you, Galation, and Barbarian (a former BB Member) one in the same? Your posts and arguments all look identical.
Roy
[ September 19, 2003, 12:29 AM: Message edited by: Roy ]
http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/publications/digest/992/beichman.html
I looked at the link that you gave for Alger Hiss, and while looking at it, a banner floated across the page, slamming Ann Coulter's book. I have a feeling that is an oppinionated web site.
BTW: Are you, Galation, and Barbarian (a former BB Member) one in the same? Your posts and arguments all look identical.
Roy
[ September 19, 2003, 12:29 AM: Message edited by: Roy ]
Y
Yelsew
Guest
AND the single greatest reason that most of what we buy and use bears the words "Made in CHINA"
I've had all the revisionism about Harry Truman that I can stomach.
Yes, it seems incontrovertable that Alger Hiss was a communist. Case closed.
Coulter makes my blood run cold. McCarthy as a great patriot? Give me a break. He never produced a shred of evidence to back up his claims. Nada. Zilch. When the Army humbled him, it was a great day for the military, the only ones — including Ike, sadly — who had the backbone to do it.
The other canards against Truman are outlandish. There was not a more staunch enemy of the Soviet Union than Truman. He invited Churchill — who was out of power and not a political asset at the time — to deliver the "Iron Curtain" speech. He instituted the Berlin Airlift to save West Berlin from the Soviets. He approved the Marshall Plan to prop up Western Europe specifically to prevent the Soviets from dominating the continent.
The decision to avoid taking Berlin wasn't Truman's; that was made at Yalta. The Allies had agreed to zones of control of Berlin and Germany, with the western powers taking the biggest part. There was simply no reason for the western Allies to take Berlin, unless they were willing to fight the Russians for the honor. Ike was entirely in agreement; he saw no reason to sacrifice American lives to take a city that would be partitioned anyway.
As to Korea, Truman could have simply accepted the Northern invasion. He didn't. He embarked on an unpopular war to stem communist aggression.
MacArthur, though brilliant, was a loose cannon. He advocated the use of atomic weapons; Truman, having seen what they did in Japan, said "no." MacArthur though he was bigger than any president, including FDR. He made the mistake of playing his hand in public, and Truman decided to call it.
Truman made his share of mistakes; being soft on communism wasn't one of them.
Yes, it seems incontrovertable that Alger Hiss was a communist. Case closed.
Coulter makes my blood run cold. McCarthy as a great patriot? Give me a break. He never produced a shred of evidence to back up his claims. Nada. Zilch. When the Army humbled him, it was a great day for the military, the only ones — including Ike, sadly — who had the backbone to do it.
The other canards against Truman are outlandish. There was not a more staunch enemy of the Soviet Union than Truman. He invited Churchill — who was out of power and not a political asset at the time — to deliver the "Iron Curtain" speech. He instituted the Berlin Airlift to save West Berlin from the Soviets. He approved the Marshall Plan to prop up Western Europe specifically to prevent the Soviets from dominating the continent.
The decision to avoid taking Berlin wasn't Truman's; that was made at Yalta. The Allies had agreed to zones of control of Berlin and Germany, with the western powers taking the biggest part. There was simply no reason for the western Allies to take Berlin, unless they were willing to fight the Russians for the honor. Ike was entirely in agreement; he saw no reason to sacrifice American lives to take a city that would be partitioned anyway.
As to Korea, Truman could have simply accepted the Northern invasion. He didn't. He embarked on an unpopular war to stem communist aggression.
MacArthur, though brilliant, was a loose cannon. He advocated the use of atomic weapons; Truman, having seen what they did in Japan, said "no." MacArthur though he was bigger than any president, including FDR. He made the mistake of playing his hand in public, and Truman decided to call it.
Truman made his share of mistakes; being soft on communism wasn't one of them.
The Galatian
Active Member
I would be extremely careful about anything you read written by Coulter. She is very sloppy with her facts and conclusions. She once was convinced that hurricanes were named for gay men.
Another gem is her assertion that the flying buttress was invented by Muslims, when there's not a trace of such a structure in the Islamic world prior to the 20th century. She's sort of a rightwing Al Franken.
Incidentally, the Barbarian is not tanker. I had always thought that Hiss was working for the Russians. Apparently, I need to do a little checking now.
KenH
Well-Known Member
Conclusions can be wrong as they are merely opinions and all of us are sloppy at times with our conclusions - published or not.
But facts which are footnoted can be checked. Footnoting is not sloppiness. Which is one thing I have yet to read anyone having done - prove false any of the footnoted facts in her latest book.
Even one of our esteemed editorial writers in our statewide newspaper wrote a column dissing some of Coulter's conclusions(by the way the book is not mostly about McCarthy). I challenged him to disprove any of the footnoted facts - and to do so publicly in his column. He did not take up the challenge. I have drawn my own conclusion from that.
I am willing to concede that Alger Hiss might have been a communist and a spy, and I am willing to be convinced. But I don't necessarily take for gospel what is said by various right wingers about the issue. There were two trials of Alger Hiss, one ended in a hung jury and the other convicted him of perjury, although the jury argued a great deal before reacing a verdict with 4 of them for acquital before finally reaching a consensus. Hiss, as far as I know, had no record of being procommunist aside from the statements of Whittaker Chambers. It seems to me that the Venona transcripts are like tea leaves, you can read into them whatever you want to see.By the way, KenH, if there is a Venona transcript that implicates Hiss, or seems to, please post it. Here is a link that argues for Hiss:
http://homepages.nyu.edu/~th15/lowsoviet.html
http://homepages.nyu.edu/~th15/lowsoviet.html
>>>>>>This comment from a MASTER of espousing right-wing abolitionist trash. <<<<<<<<
It is remarkable how anyone living today can have the political viewpoints of a slave owner! Maybe you would have been better advised to get your Ph.D. from an accredited institution.
It is remarkable how anyone living today can have the political viewpoints of a slave owner! Maybe you would have been better advised to get your Ph.D. from an accredited institution.
Like Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and how many countless other slave owners? Remarkable how they had ANY good ideas and still accepted slavery as a fact. You are so far out of theoretical argument that your rhetoric is laughable.
Nice attack. BTW, my four undergrad and grad degrees ARE from fully accredited schools and my seminary is going through the full North Central accreditation process at the moment.