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Mr. Lucas writes: "John Haynes and Harvey Klehr (and it should be noted that they have not engaged in labelling) have slipped into this rhetorical pattern. Their latest book closes, 'The Soviet espionage offensive, in [American officials'] minds, indicated that the Cold War was not a state of affairs that had begun after World War II but a guerrilla action that Stalin had secretly started years earlier.' And in Professor Klehr's latest posting comes the assurance 'There was a genuine security problem occasioned by the willingness of several hundred American Communists to violate their oaths and their obligations and to provide classified information to the Soviet Union and the government needed a mechanism to deal with the problem.' Who exactly were those severalhundred Communists? Where exactly were they? The problem with loyalty-security, whether implemented formally within the Government or 'informally' in the private sector, was that it was based not on identifying subversive Communists but on others suspected of being 'disloyal', possibly because they were political opponents, possibly because they raised uncomfortable issues (as in the actions against state NAACP chapters in the 1950s in the South), possibly because they had 'unconventional' lifestyles, or possibly because they didn't agree with Truman's foreign policy. The position taken by John Haynes and Harvey Klehr that they criticise the organisation and design of the loyalty-security program --- the line of Arthur Schlesinger and others in the 1950s when the threat came from McCarthy and the 'Right' --- misses the point that, given the rhetoric which lumped Communists and non-Communists together, a line could not be drawn. For, even if the Truman staff wanted to pull back their rhetoric after the 1948 campaign, it had buttressed the Congressmen, FBI officials, and private groups who wanted an all-out crackdown on those to the 'left' of Truman. In my opinion, the pursuit of this 'anti-Communist liberalism' continues to be an effort to justify America's Cold War, whatever the cost, irrespective of whether there was really a subversive threat in the years after World War II. One result of that is the convenient oversight of other aspects of the conflict, such as the links between private individuals and intelligence agencies of the American rather than the Soviet variety." Klehr and Haynes respond: Mr. Lucas wants to know ^who exactly were those several hundred Communists? Where exactly were they?^ suggesting that they are the figment of our imagination. We refer him to our book VENONA: DECODING SOVIET ESPIONAGE IN AMERICA where on the basis of deciphered Soviet intelligence service cables, material in Soviet-era archives, and other primary source document he will find the American communists working in the State Department, War Department, Manhattan Project, Treasury, Interior, OSS, Justice, UNRRA, etc., etc. who were cooperating with the KGB and the GRU. Mr. Lucas suggests that "given the rhetoric which lumped Communists and non-Communists together, a line could not be drawn" between the loyalty-security program and its abuses. Does he then believe that any effort by the govenrment to ferret out subversives was illegitimiate? Because a program is flawed does not mean that it is unjustified. Venona demonstrated that the Communist Party of the United States- as an organization- had been cooperating with Soviet intelligence. Party leaders had worked with the KGB and Party liaisons had helped recruit spies, most of whom were secret members of the CPUSA working for the government. In the context of the developing Cold War, with clear evidence that Soviet atomic capability had developed with assistance from American and British spies, was an effort to prevent Communists from working in sensitive positions irrational or illogical? The Progressive Party issue is separate, although Mr. Lucas continues to conflate it with espionage. By 1948 most American liberals had concluded that Communists were unreliable and unfaithful allies, the most compelling evidence having come in 1939 when, in response to Soviet foreign policy, the Communists had abandoned anti-fascism. The liberals who founded the ADA were convinced that unless they jettisoned communists and their allies, who were intent on justifying and apologizing for every Soviet move, that liberalism itself would be discredited before the American people. Look at the Progressive Party convention, where the CP and its close allies secured the defeat of the Vermont Resolution, which asserted that, while critical of the foreign policy of the United States, the PP would not give blanket endorsement to the foreign policy of any other country. Truman and the Democrats quite sensibly- and rationally- asked whose foreign policy the PP was giving a blanket endorsement to. Historians have even more to look back to, including our knowledge that C.B. Baldwin, national campaign manager for Henry Wallace, was a concealed Communist, as were a number of the state and local leaders of the Progressive party. In Minnesota, for example,the Progressive party state chairman was a concealed Communists, as was its U.S. Senate candidate (run in the Democratic Farmer-Labor primary against Hubert Humphrey), and its gubernatorial candidate. Was it irrational of liberals and Democrats to believe that concealed Communists were not genuinely committed to liberalism and its values? Anti-communism did not develop in a vacuum. The Soviet Union and its actions had something to do with it. Soviet repression in Eastern Europe not only concerned many Americans, but it engaged Americans of Eastern European descent, many of whom were Catholics- and Democrats- and angered by Soviet repression of the Church. Mr. Lucas notes that "the pursuit of this 'anti-Communist liberalism' continues to be an effort to justify America's Cold War." Well, yes. That was what the Cold War was about; anti-communism. Just like WW2 was about fighting fascism and we allied ourselves with one totalitarian power to stop another.
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