Hoover Studios is making grant application to generate a Citizens Media Information Service collaborating with persons a story to tell with service learning institutions.
In a new series called Parts per Million Hoover Studios offers audio/intellecutal support to citizens with something to say with room available to those wishing to create response. If you are interrested in creating an episodes submit storyline idea detailing substance, length, and scope of your episode. ideas@iowafm.org
Episode 1 No Hurry, No Pause Nigel A.
Episode 2 Easy Green Home Tony S.
Episode 3
Storylines ‘All Governments Lie’: The Life and Times of Rebel Journalist I.F. Stone,
biographer Myra MacPherson compares outsider I.F. Stone with insider Walter Lippmann
because they are dynamic examples of opposing approaches to journalism. Presidents and
kings were so much a part of Lippmann’s life that when he visited
Paris his forwarding address was in care of Charles de Gaulle. He
wrote speeches for presidents and never saw the dichotomy….Meanwhile,
Stone was blackballed by the National Press Club after his premature
gesture of civility in a Jim Crow era, inviting a black to lunch
there.
[The following excerpts are verbatim from “All Governments Lie” [AGL]. References quoted
by the author in the published text are acknowledged here in quotes
and sourced with footnotes. A major source was Ronald Steel’s
biography Walter Lippmann and the American Century. . In order to
avoid confusion, quote marks are not specified regarding the author’s
own writing. However, nothing may be excerpted without acknowledged
reference to the author’s work.]
######
The comparison between Lippmann and Stone reveals a fascinating schism among Jews in the
thirties, when overt anti-Semitism ruled the world of politics and
business, journalism and judgeships, universities and executive
boards. Even Stone's revered FDR, while appointing Jews to prominent
positions, was not above private anti-Semitism. He once infuriated
New York Times publisher Sulzberger by commenting about some business
deal as a "dirty Jewish trick.”
Lippmann and Stone were Jews from the opposite side of the ghetto. Lippmann's childhood was lined
with gold, his parents were second generation, of German stock. He
brought expensive suits to Harvard by the trunk full. Assimilation
was a goal for Jews such as Lippmann, who were generally taught from
birth to disparage the masses of Yiddish speaking Russian and Polish
Jews, the world from which Izzy sprang.
Everything about them was a study in contrast: Lippmann cultivated a disinterested, elevated and
cool style. Stone was red-hot, passionate and spoke for the masses.
If Stone erred on the side of ideological fervor, Lippmann was flawed
by an absence of it. Lippmann was a celebrity journalist early in
life, Stone's glory came late in life. Friends never shortened
"Walter" and no stranger had a nickname for Lippmann.
Hordes of strangers called Stone "Izzy." Stone felt that
being an outsider was the only way to cover politics, that
governments needed constant watching. Lippmann reveled in being an
insider, dealing with kings and presidents, financiers and titans.
His columns scorned the idea that Democracy should be left to the
vote of the inferior average citizen and, at one stage, Lippmann put
his faith in Wall Street to handle government.
As early as 1916 Lippmann had perfected his views that the Jews brought much of their troubles on
themselves. Noted Lippmann biography Ronald Steel, "He
criticized the Jews for being 'different' rather than the Gentiles
for emphasizing and punishing those differences."1
Such thoughts were anathema to Stone. Despite his name change, he
proudly identified himself as a Jew to clarify his position on a
subject. Stone empathized with European Jews and wrote passionately
about their homeland in Palestine (only later to be excoriated by
fellow Jews for criticizing Israeli treatment of the Palestinians.)
Lippmann ignored them.
To the very end, Lippmann
sought to hide his Jewishness. When a childhood friend, Carl Binger,
was asked to write a biography of Lippmann for a book of essays
honoring his 70th birthday, Binger faced a quandary. He "could
not say that Walter was Jewish. Otherwise Walter would never forgive
him, and would never speak to him again." Binger snuck in the
suggestion of Lippmann's heritage by mentioning that Lippmann had
attended Dr. Sach's School for Boys, where wealthy Jewish families
sent their sons2
Lippmann was far from alone
among the journalistic elite in his effort to hide Jewish roots. The
head of CBS, Bill Paley, edgy about his Russian-Jewish heritage,
associated with ultra WASPS and feared being tagged as a Jew. He
turned down a chance to back "Fiddler on the Roof" with the
comment, "it's good, but don't you think it's too Jewish?."
3 The Jewish owners of the New York Times held to an
unspoken coda denying Jews high level positions. (In later years, the
Times was said to be owned by Jews, edited by Catholics and read by
Protestants.) …In 1939 Sulzberger was among Jewish leaders who
urged Franklin Roosevelt not to appoint Frankfurter to the Supreme
Court for fear that it might increase anti-Semitism…. It was worse
on the New York Herald Tribune, the guardian of mainstream
Republicanism. The presence of or the advancement of Jews was "not
encouraged." They were stereotypically viewed as too crude,
radical or pushy. 4 Lippmann was the sort of Jew with whom
WASP publishers felt comfortable; a Harvard man who favored Jewish
quotas for admissions to his alma mater.
ON HITLER
AND THE JEWS:
Stone’s words throughout
the 1930's stand in stark contrast to the silence of Lippmann,
regarded as America's most influential voice. As early as 1929, when
Stone was but twenty one, he recognized a road map for annihilation
and world conquest in what others dismissed as the lunatic ravings of
Mein Kampf. Stone predicted in 1932 that "Today or tomorrow the
shifty-eyed little Austrian paperhanger, Hitler, may step into the
mighty shoes of Bismarck as Chancellor of the Reich." At 24,
Stone shaped prophetic editorials for The Record, lucidly denouncing
the dictator in the spring of 1933: "The danger to Europe and
the world is that he may seek a way out in war." His words
throughout the 1930's stand in stark contrast to the silence of
Lippmann, regarded as America's most influential voice. Lippman's
lack of concern, relegating Hitler to "Europe's problem",
was thus all the more damaging. Not only his mass of readers, but
other journalists and, Lippmann felt, world leaders took their cue
from him. His influence was so strong that Time magazine cited him as
their excuse for a a do nothing policy. Lippmann must have been
aghast when the magazine deemed him America's "most statesmanly
Jewish pundit."5
Had Lippmann done the same,
he might have swayed public opinion and possibly stirred FDR into
action, although the latter is debatable. Well informed through
internal State department memos both before and during the worst of
the Holocaust, Roosevelt himself remained scandalously silent. 6
Nevertheless, Lippmann's public abandonment of the Jews lasted for
five amazing years. In 1938, he broke his half decade silence only to
recommend that Europe"s "over population" problem (he
did not mention Jews) could be solved by shipping the Jews to Africa.
Lippmann "showed a surprising insensitivity to the human
dimension of the Nazi threat, especially as it concerned the Jews,"
wrote Lippmann's biographer Steel7 Like many journalists,
Lippmann touted an early cynical speech of "peace" by
Hitler but Lippmann went further, praising Hitler as "statesmanlike"
and the "authentic voice of a genuinely civilized people."
Lippmann dug a deeper hole by
including a Jewish slur as he wrote that one could not judge an
entire body of people by the actions of some: “Would it be fair to
judge the French by the Terror, Protestantism by the Ku Klux Klan,
the Catholic Church by the Inquisition" or, "the Jews by
their parvenus?" 8 Not only did this sound like an
excuse for Hitler's anti Semitism, it smeared Jews with a
condemnatory cliche; their rich were vulgarians--as if there were no
such analogous WASPS. (Lippmann, obviously embarrassed, did not
include the column in a collection of his pieces published two years
later.) His columns caused Felix Frankfurter, the New Dealer who
became a Supreme Court judge, to dissolve their friendship.
No wonder Stone as chief
editor of the Philadelphia Record sanctioned this caveat above
Lippmann's column: EDITOR'S NOTE:--Walter Lippmann's articles are
published by The Record because Mr. Lippmann is one of America's
foremost publicists."[ital. mine] a trivializing description
that must have stung Lippmann. " The opinions he expresses are
strictly his own. They often disagree with the editorial policies of
this newspaper." 9
While many had underestimated
the plight of European Jews, Lippmann's dismissal remained
reprehensible. As late as 1939, he wrote nothing about Jews who were
refused asylum on a refugee ship. In 1942, when the death camps were
known and some newspapers printed graphic descriptions, Lippmann
wrote nothing. When others criticized the State Department for
repressing knowledge of Hitler's extermination plans, Lippmann wrote
nothing. By contrast, Stone was frantically and vainly urging--along
with ordinary citizens, a handful of other concerned writers, and
religious groups from synagogues to Quaker meeting halls--that
congress and President Roosevelt relax the United States immigration
policies in order to admit more European Jewish refugees. Lippmann
argued against changing the quota, a prevailing sentiment in
depression weary America where the unemployed feared foreign
competition.
While Lippmann's columns do
not stand the test of time, Izzy's work was singled out for praise by
Holocaust historians more than half a century later. "The
dispassion, if not indifference, of most of the press becomes all the
more noteworthy when it is compared to the behavior of publications
such as the New York Post, The Nation, The New Republic, Commonweal
and PM," wrote Deborah Lipstadt. "I.F. Stone, Dorothy
Thompson, William Shirer, Arthur Koestler, Max Lerner, Freda Kirchwey
and a few others.......had no more information than the rest of their
colleagues," she wrote. "In fact, some of them depended on
reports in other major dailies for their information...the real
difference between these publications and the vast majority of the
rest of the press is not between belief and disbelief, but between
action and inaction, passion and equanimity." They were
convinced that the Allies could do something if they would stop
behaving as if "the Jews were expendable." 10
Diverting their attention by
persecuting the Jews was the way to "keep his followers
together" while "baiting the Jew," said Stone. He
wrote about this tactic with passionate outrage, not Lippmann's
callousness. Wrote Lippmann "the persecution of the Jews"
acted as a " kind of lightning rod which
protects Europe."
11(emphasis
added).
While Stone dissented from
America's majority stance of isolationism, denial, disinterest and,
for some, support for Hitler, Lippmann "would not go against the
powerful tide of American isolationism." He wrote in 1933, "as
long as Europe prepares for war, America must prepare for
neutrality." A stable Europe was vital, but Lippmann refused to
support any commitments to sustain it. "Despite his low esteem
for the public's wisdom, he was no less confused than the average
man." 12
ON THE
SPANISH CIVIL WAR:
Walter Lippmann applauded the
United State's refusal to lift the arms embargo [to aid the duly
elected Spanish Loyalists against rightist rebel forces] and then
complained when the Loyalists, abandoned by the west, accepted arms
from Russia. Neutrality meant consigning Spain's government to a
brutal and unequal siege. Said Steel, "The logic of everything
he had written about the European crisis dictated that the United
States should abandon neutrality and forge a defense alliance with
Britain and France. This alone might have prevented Hitler's
aggression and "brought Russia into the balance against Hitler."
Lippmann knew this, but was unwilling to "race too far ahead of
the pack."13 Even after Mussolini flaunted all rules
by sending planes and troops to the Fascist-led rebels, Lippmann
cooly insisted that somehow the sides were even. The Spaniards, "must
work out their own salvation until a favorable moment presents itself
for conciliation."
While Stone, like many on the
left, was guilty of ignoring ugly facts about the communists during
the war, he was more correct than Lippmann in assessing the double
standard applied by those who decried Russia's participation in
Spain. Stalin had sent planes, cannons, munitions, tanks, arms and
men. And no condemnation of Russia's aid would be "too severe",
wrote Stone, if Germany and Italy had honored "their obligations
under the nonintervention agreement to cease supplying [Franco(s]
soldiers....it would seem that the democratic powers are now resigned
to a 'nonintervention' agreement that cuts off aid only to the
established government while Hitler and Mussolini pour in men and
funds to aid the rebels. "There is bitter irony in the drift of
European events," continued Stone. "Fascism, which pretends
to be a bulwark against revolution, has fomented revolution in one
country after another--Rumania, Greece, Spain. Hitler cries poverty
but spends $180,000,000 in subsidizing rebellion in Spain."
[Stone, however, ended this column with a misguided defense of
Russia.]14
The difference between the
response to Lippmann and Stone was that when Lippmann was wrong he
was, in the eyes of the establishment, acceptably wrong; in fact, he
was not even viewed as wrong. His international clout did not suffer
(except with the left) when Lippmann careened off the deep end. One
reason is that his errors in judgment were often mirror reflections
of the status quo---his denigration of the New Deal, his myopia
regarding Hitler's rise, his neutrality regarding Spain, his
isolationism when it was clearly ruinous. On the other hand, when
Stone was wrong, he erred on the side of the unacceptable left--which
earned him a barrage of attacks, life long surveillance by the FBI,
scorn from establishment journalists and publishers.
Both Lippmann and Stone were
powerful opinion shapers in the thirties and thus their blind spots
were all the more harmful. Lippmann spoke to entrenched establishment
thinking. Stone was a spokesman for, and shaped opinion among, a
significant New Deal group of leftists. Unlike Stone, Lippmann was
motivated neither by war's human slaughter nor the concept that
Spain's battle was a moral contest between good and evil. "I
never took a passionate, partisan interest in the Spanish civil war,"
Lippmann later revealed in a private conversation. "I feared it
as a thing which was going to start a European war...My hope was that
it could be quieted, pacified, rather than exacerbated. I thought the
non-intervention program was critical and futile, but I didn't
concern myself with it." [emphasis added.] "My mind
works like a spotlight on things, and it wasn't one of the things
that I was interested in at that time."15 He
displayed little comprehension of this war's global repercussions and
disregarded the human cost of Hitler's daily blitzkreig, "strafing
city after city, dropping 10,000 bombs a day to obliterate once
peaceful towns like Valencia."16 Although there had
been limited use of airplanes in World War 1, advanced technology now
produced bombs and aircraft that spared few villagers. It was a new
form of killing, a prelude to the mass terror bombings of World War
II.
ON STALIN’S
SHOW TRIALS:
While harboring doubts about
the sincerity of the confessions, Stone concluded that more
information was needed; "we simply don't know."17
His faith in socialism and the antifascist front were so great that
he waffled. One can imagine what he would have done with Stalin's
bizarre inconsistencies and "facts" in order to execute
valiant revolutionaries, had they come from Hitler, Mussolini or
Franco.
Lippmann was much more
prophetic. His poor judgment regarding Hitler was countered with a
"far better sense than his left wing critics of the realities of
Soviet-style Communism." He wrote in 1937 that Stalin's purges
could help free Western liberals "from the dominion that Russian
communism has exercised over their minds in the past twenty years. To
have realized that the present Russian government repudiates the
principles of truth and justice must, I think, eventually lead to the
realization that this is not a corruption of, but the inevitable
consequences of, the ideals of communism." 18.
ON FDR’S
NEW DEAL:
Stone was recognizing that
the New Deal meant reform only within the system, perhaps the best
that could be hoped for. He was at odds with and more prescient than
America's most exalted columnist. Lippmann "seriously misread
the New Deal, viewing it as revolutionary rather than reformist"
wrote his biographer Steel. He saw "diabolical method in the New
Deal where there was only haphazard experiment."19 By
that time, leftists were denouncing Lippmann as a Wall Street
reactionary.
At times Stone harshly
criticize the New Deal from the left. The NRA ultimately helped
corporations more than labor, social reforms never totally
solidified. Yet, in gauging the long term effects, Stone was more
sanguine and accurate than the soured Lippmann. There was the Minimum
Wage act of 1938, pushed by Claude Pepper; the princely sum of 25
cents an hour was a vital beginning in a still unending struggle for
decent wages. Social Security was one of its greatest achievements,
"at last the national government had acted to underpin the
future security of Americans."20
ON WALLACE,
TRUMAN AND DEWEY CAMPAIGN:
Like Stone, Lippmann now
disliked Truman, but, unlike Stone, he turned to the right. The sage
who posed as a lofty observer secretly gave advice to Truman's 1948
Republican opponent, Thomas Dewey. So did J. Edgar Hoover. Stone
bucked his newspaper—PM had endorsed Truman—to support [leftist
Henry] Wallace. Stone admired for his heart and courage as the
"champion of the common man" but also found Wallace
frustrating and confounding. In 1945, Stone privately assessed
Wallace as a "cross between a saint and a village idiot."
Four decades later Stone said, "I haven't changed my opinion. He
was remarkably dumb in some ways."21 When
Wallace died in 1965 Stone's obituary softened the phrase: "he
was a cross between a saint and a village innocent."
In 1950 Stone characterized
Wallace as "a giant in the pygmy world of the Left."
Wallace tried to distance
himself from the Red label, saying that his party had "vastly
different" goals than the Communists. Stone strongly criticized
the Progressive Party but continued to preach unity. "When the
Communists go under, the popular fronters will follow, and, when we
have been taken, the ADA-ers and the liberals will be next in the
line of fire." The collapse of the Progressive party would be a
"calamity" for the "tiny remains of the Left in
America."22
ON KOREA AND
MACARTHUR:
[As the Korean war continued]
Lippmann, who by that time saw the disastrous consequences of the
war, also blamed Acheson and Truman for heedlessly urging MacArthur's
drive to the Yalu. He was as caustic as Stone; the Truman
administration was "almost prostrate with its inferiority
complex in the presence of generals, aware of its mediocrity and
inexperience."23 Lippmann and Stone correctly saw
Truman paralyzed by charges that he was soft on Communism and both
backed Eisenhower in 1952 on the grounds that a Republican might be
able to negotiate peace better than a Democrat.
A specious charge against
Stone, which continued after his death, was that he spread communist
germ warfare propaganda. In 1952, Chinese communists accused the
United States of airdropping diseased rodents and insects that would
spread anthrax, cholera and other plagues. In a 1952 Compass column,
Stone strongly refuted the charges as false."...I do not believe
them. I start from the premise that a certain amount of lying, some
bare-faced, some quite sincere, is inseparable from the heat of
warfare." Atrocity reports should not be believed unless proof,
"objective enough to be persuasive on either side" was
presented.24 Lippmann took the insider's viewpoint; the
accusations could not possibly be true because two top officials "who
happen to be old friends" told him they were false.25.
The United States long denied such actions, but not until 46 years
was proof available. In 1998 the Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun
printed "explicit and detailed evidence that the charges were
contrived and fraudulent" based on Soviet archives.26
ON WHITEWASH
OF GEORGE POLK MURDER:
In 1952, Stone saved his most
blistering attack for Walter Lippmann and other distinguished
journalists in an outraged five part expose under blazing headlines:
"I.F. STONE EXPOSES POLK MURDER CASE WHITEWASH. 'THE CRIME OF
HUSH-UP.'"27 His columns remain among the most
salient of that era.
Four years earlier, a body
had been fished out of Salonika Bay in Greece, with the back of his
head blown off by a bullet. The face was unrecognizable after days in
the water. In life, he had been a dashing foreign correspondent;
photographs portray the fine features and slicked-back hair elegance
of matinee movie idols. In death he was mottled and bloated. His
hands and feet were bound with rope, execution style, and thrown into
the bay while still alive. There had been no attempt to hide his
identity; i.d. papers were in the pockets of his camel's hair jacket
and on his wrist was a metal bracelet etched with the name George
Polk, a 35-year old CBS radio correspondent covering the battle
between the U.S. backed Greek government and communist rebels. His
body was found on May 16, 1948. 28
At first the murder caused a
sensation among journalists. Polk had been one of famed Edward R.
Murrow's "boys", as his radio reporters were called.
Correspondents had been killed in warfare but this was cold blooded
murder, an act of reprisal and a message of horror. Fearing that the
Greek government was involved or, at the very least, would wink at
the murder investigation, American reporters pushed for an
independent inquiry. Walter Lippmann headed the committee and picked
General William "Wild Bill" J. Donovan, recently of the
OSS, to run the investigation.
The choice of Donovan should
have been suspect at the time, noted Stone; a man so closely linked
to the State Department was "too easily reachable by government
officials." Lippmann had to prod Donovan for years to get a
report, which was finally made public in 1952. Stone was the only
journalist at the time who pegged the belated report a "feeble
bit of whitewash" which endorsed a "farcical" 1949
Greek government trial pinning the murder on Communists.29
In his shabby Compass office in Manhattan's warehouse district, Stone
waded through the report's attached appendices. "He always told
reporters to read documents from back to front" Stone concluded
that "the Truman Administration had as big a stake politically
in the outcome of the Polk Affair as the Greek government."
Stone stingingly rebuked the Lippmann committee. A "cub
reporter" could have done better; it was clear that both the
Greek and American governments had prevented a real investigation of
the murder and had succeeded in "making an accomplice of this
bunch of journalistic stuffed shirts."30 What is
worse, Lippmann expressed private doubts but "accepted a verdict
that seemed feasible and had the inestimable virtue of not upsetting
cold war politics." 31
"To a surprising
degree," wrote Steel, Lippmann endorsed the assumptions that
cold war policies were essentially defensive. "He criticized the
policy makers, but rarely what lay behind their policies."32.
There could be no greater contrast than his and Stone's approach to
the ramifications of Polk's murder. Stone blasted Donovan for his
part in a high stakes political murder cover up "it is
extraordinary how much he managed not to see in that courtroom".
He ridiculed a speech given by Lippmann when presenting an inscribed
bowl to Donovan on behalf of the committee. Lippmann cloyingly
praised Donovan—"we have learned that your sense of justice is
the equal of your courage"—a sentiment uttered "on behalf
of men whose profession it is to have few illusions." Retorted
Stone, "For men with few illusions they certainly managed to be
gulled by the Greek and American governments." 33
In 1947, the United States
began pouring millions into the Greek regime, the first front in its
global containment of communism. "A cardinal point" of the
Truman Doctrine, wrote Stone, was its support of the rightist
government against leftist rebels. What had been a Greek civil war
became a vital forerunner in the domino theory of foreign affairs.
Independent-minded journalists at that time were the victims of a
"kind of guerrilla war" campaign by the Greek rightist
press and the State department, wrote Stone in 1952. They were
"smeared as Communists" and letters of complaint were sent
to their home offices. For example, Homer Bigart of the New York
Herald Tribune, which could scarcely be called a Commie rag, was
called a "distorter of truth in Greece" by the Administer
of American Aid to Greece Dwight Griswold. 34
Polk was an honest reporter,
"a decent and fine young man" wrote Stone, who had met Polk
in Cairo. He was "no radical" but a "fearless"
reporter who was "not the kind who used handouts and not the
kind who fell for soft-soap." On his CBS broadcasts, Polk did
not hesitate to criticize both sides but decried America's support of
the corrupt Greek government; the Greek Army was a "military
monster", the Truman Doctrine program was a "poor
investment." 35
Although the Lippmann report
noted that Polk was a "severe critic" of the regime it
nonetheless endorsed the improbable verdict of the Greek trial and
"lamely" added that "it was not self-evident what the
political motive was." Stone scoffed at "this lush
double-talk." He exposed this sham endorsement of an "incredibly
one sided" trial; witnesses were suppressed and American style
cross examination was not allowed. A leftist Greek journalist,
Gregory Staktopoulos, was convicted of being an accomplice. The
accused assassins, two high level Communist officials, were
never found and were sentenced to death in absentia, while
Staktopoulos received life imprisonment. Donovan declared himself
satisfied that justice prevailed and the Lippmann committee bragged
that "we can say with entire conviction" that the man who
led Polk to his death was in prison. Stone and several members of the
New York Newspaper Guild formed their own group to investigate, but
attempts at inquiry "were discouraged by Lippmann on the grounds
that a second investigative group would complicate efforts to win the
cooperation of Greek and US officials," wrote Steel. "The
most vocal dissenter was I.F. Stone."36 59
Typically, Stone found
nuggets buried in the fine print staring at anyone who had cared to
examine it. There was the skeptical Harvard criminal law professor,
E.M. Morgan who concluded that the many and several "confessions
of Staktopoulos" were "so inherently weak as to be
practically worthless..." The Greek's entire testimony "cries
aloud for cross examination." The Morgan analysis "ignored
in newspaper coverage of the Lippmann report, would have severely
damaged the official theory" had it been published at the time,
argued Stone, who was furious that this view had been withheld "until
now" (1952) when Polk's murder "has been all but
forgotten."37
Stone assailed the committee
and the media for ignoring another major clue: They showed only mild
concern that Lt. Colonel G. L. Kellis, Donovan's assistant, was
recalled "although he was the only investigator working on
clues...which pointed to the Rightists" as the authors of the
crime.
Stone's work remains a
piercingly accurate indictment but more remarkable is that the
evidence was right there in the attached appendices, including the
CBS radio fair but harsh coverage of the trial. Fifty years later
Stone was singled out by several newly intrigued authors for his
courage in taking on the leaders in journalism, exposing woeful
timidity and lackluster pursuit of the truth. They utilized documents
unavailable to Stone at the time to reinforce his argument that the
crime was committed by the Rightists and that the truth was
deliberately suppressed. At the time, however, Stone experienced the
frustrating fate of writing for a fringe publication. His concise
analysis was ignored amidst Korea and Cold War saber rattling.
"Only I. F. Stone can be
said to have seen and said it all at the time," wrote journalist
Christopher Lydon in a 1996 New York Times book review of the latest
exploration, Who Killed George Polk? Fresh details made interesting
reading, Lydon wrote, but "there is no improving on I.F. Stone's
succinct judgement." 38
The journalist [Stone] had
remarked in 1952 that "Some day perhaps the truth will be known
and these men will blush for their role in its unfolding."39
By the time the Polk murder was re-examined it was too late for
blushes. Staktopoulos, released from prison, publicly recanted his
confession years later, stating that he had been tortured by
government officials; Kellis, who had maintained more than two
decades of silence, charged that "the entire inquiry and trial
had been a cover up" which was why he had been removed
after unearthing a trail leading to right wing assassins. But by
the time widespread interest occurred, both Stone and Lippmann were
dead. A committee member, James "Scotty" Reston, the New
York Times columnist, said in 1990 "I do not have one single
memory of that committee."
Reston spoke fondly of Stone.
When told that Stone had accused the committee of gullibly accepting
Donovan's judgement, Reston said, "If we did, we were stupid. I
wouldn't trust Donovan's judgement on anything. I wouldn't have put
it past Donovan for one minute to engage in cover up of that kind,
but Lippmann, Joe Harsch, Reston and so on? That we would have
covered up a murder of one of our own colleagues is unthinkable. Did
I ever see the report? I don't remember that either."40
"His murder was an
outrage." noted Steel in 1991. "At the least, Lippmann can
be criticized for showing too much faith in Donovan and allowing
himself to be led into a solution that suited everyone's
convenience." The committee "and particularly Lippmann,
should have been more skeptical." However, Steel argued, the
committee had no access to Donovan's private files, did not know of
the "open collusion that took place between US and Greek
officials" and "accepted a verdict that seemed feasible and
had the inestimable virtue of not upsetting cold war politics."
The inexcusable fact was that they "should not have been so
credulous. They failed in their responsibility. But this is not the
same thing as a cover up. Here Donovan is the far more likely
candidate."41 Steel's latter day comments were
reasonable but the fact remains that Stone came to a far different
conclusion with no more evidence than the committee at the time. When
he was asked to review one of the new books that confirmed all that
he had written, Stone refused, saying that it would be too much like
blowing his own horn.
THE RUSSIAN
VENONA FILES:
[Deciphered secret Russian
files—memos written when Russia was an ally during World War II but
released by the United States only in the 1990’s list two
journalists identified by code names. The FBI labeled “I” or
“Imperialist” as referring to Lippmann. There were numerous
references to “Imperialist” as having talked to a KGB agent who
was also under cover as the Russian press attaché in
Washington, DC. There are minor references to this agent trying to
make contact with “Blin”, whom the FBI, later wrote, “appears”
to be Stone.] .
Both Lippmann and Stone were
among many journalists courted by "Sergei", aka Vladimir
Pravdin, in his official capacity as the TASS news agency
correspondent. He approached Pancake/Blin "in the line of
cover". During the crucial World War II alliance, journalists
met routinely with Tass representatives, swapping information.
Lippmann probably told Pravdin nothing that millions did not read in
his columns while Stone is never reported as having done anything but
evade Pravdin, except for a casual reference of being with him and
three other journalists. Yet, in numerous books about the KGB
decrypts, Lippmann's meetings with Pravdin create no stir while Stone
has been branded a "spy" with no evidence but these meager
mentions in KGB memos and the misinterpreted words of a former
Russian spy.42 Despite vast evidence to the contrary, old
HUAC hacks like Herbert Romerstein and extremists like Ann Coulter
and Robert Novak still spread such lies. So let's answer these
accusations: First, Stone never had access to classified secrets to
barter. Second, journalists naturally sought information about Russia
from a TASS correspondent, Pravdin's official role. And as files
reveal, Lippmann told far more than Stone ever did in meetings with
Pravdin.
ON ACCESS:
In the 50's [journalist
Richard] Dudman defended Stone from a "jerky managing editor who
questioned Stone as a too radical source" for a Post-Dispatch
editorial page article. "Everybody was scared stiff. You
couldn't mention the Nation or people would say 'shut up', afraid
some informer would report you. You had to be careful what books and
periodicals you had on your coffee table." Stone, Mary McGrory,
Alan Barth, Drew Pearson were "on the cutting edge, the brave
ones," said Dudman, "To write something new is dangerous
ground. [The press] always talk about how they want scoops but they'd
rather have something that somebody else has touched on. Access is
considered the great thing. Walter Lippmann told me he voted for
Nixon and I asked 'why would you do that?' Lippmann said 'because
he's going to get us out of the Vietnam war.' I said, 'how do you
know?' and Lippmann says 'he's told me!' Dudman eyes widened in
recollection. "There's access for you." 43
ON CIVIL
LIBERTIES AND FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS:
[All of his life Stone
remained a First Amendment absolutist, even when he was violently
opposed to the statements.] Stone's editorials slammed as Fascistic
the dictatorial powers of two inflammatory orators who reached
dizzying heights of popularity in the '30's--Father Coughlin and Huey
Long. Stone condemned them, but embraced their right to free speech.
To do otherwise, he argued, would mean a disintegration into
Hitlerism. Lippmann opposed such blanket freedom. Never a free speech
absolutist, the columnist argued against acquiescing to the
"overthrow of a democracy" if a dictator such as Long
received a majority of votes. Calling for restraints, Lippmann wrote,
"the right of free speech belongs to those who are willing to
preserve it." 44
MCCARTHY AND
IKE:
Although Stone had astounded
friends by supporting Eisenhower, hoping that a man who knew about
the horror of war first hand would push for peace in Korea, he
rapidly found weakness in the new president's response to the witch
hunts. After 30 days the President "let the State Department
knuckle under...to McCarthy," wrote Stone. The "naked acts
of submission" included killing an order "that no employee
need talk to McCarthy's investigators" and that the senator's
investigators could not remove files without specific permission.
Scoffed Stone, "those like Walter Lippmann who hoped wistfully
that...Republicans under a famous General would provide sufficient
... backbone to put the wild men under control must be bitterly
disappointed."45
An excuse by Lippmann is one
often used to champion "objective" reporting. "McCarthy's
charges of treason, espionage, corruption, perversion are news which
cannot be suppressed or ignored, " he wrote. "They come
from a United States Senator..." His attacks on the State and
Defense Department "is news which must be published."
Richard Rovere, who wrote the quintessential biography of McCarthy,
caustically responded, "It was also, of course, news that a
United States Senator was lying and defrauding the people and their
government...."46
[In contrast, Stone’s
steady attack on McCarthy, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and
McCarthyism in general was courageous at a time when he and other
leftists were being hounded out of the media and the FBI was trailing
Stone’s every move.]
ON CIVIL
RIGHTS:
[Stone’s] crusade for civil
rights was constant and passionate, unlike the efforts of many white
colleagues and mainstream newspapers who either were late to cover
the movement or editorialized that civil disobedience merely stirred
up trouble. [Lippmann had none of the vision of Stone] who
prophetically called for a massive march on Washington, “the
American Negro needs a Gandhi to lead them.”47….Eight
years after Stone’s 1955 astounding insight, an American black
Gandhi did emerge and the world heard Martin Luther King’s “I
have a dream” speech.”
[When Stone quit the National
Press Club after he and a black judge were refused luncheon service,
he joined the black newspapermen’s club. Stone received a standing
ovation when he returned to the club in the 1980’s..] [Meanwhile,
during the civil rights early struggles Lippmann and [famed
columnist] Arthur Krock wore as badges of honor their membership in
the Cosmos Club, which had unspoken quotas regarding Jews and denied
membership at that time to blacks and women. Lippmann even supported
the southern filibuster against a federal anti-lynching law in 1938.
He hailed the Brown decision and applauded Eisenhower's use of
federal troops to desegregate schools during the Little Rock battle
of 1957, but looked to southern liberals to "solve the race
problem amicably."48 He did not see the urgency of
the problem until blood ran in the streets.
Lippmann's personal
involvement in the 60's was to second the nomination of journalist
Carl Rowan for the Cosmos Club. Rowan was a tennis playing buddy of
many reporters and politicians, a "one-of-us" establishment
black. There is no greater comparison between Lippmann and Stone than
Stone's dismissive comment about Rowan. After Malcolm X was gunned
down In 1965 by rivals in the Black Muslin movement, Stone wrote a
long essay in the New York Review of Books on Malcolm X's
Autobiography (written with Alex Haley) . Stone sympathetically
defined Malcolm X and delved into the reasons for the fiery road he
took ("if they make the Klan nonviolent," Malcolm X often
said, "I'll be nonviolent"). Stone touched on Malcolm X's
emerging sense of unification with whites, for which he was murdered.
"In Africa and in America there was almost unanimous recognition
that the Negro race had lost a gifted son," wrote Stone. "Only
the then head of the U.S. Information agency, Carl Rowan,
immortalized himself with a monumental Uncle Tomism: All this about
an ex-convict, ex-dope peddler who became a racial fanatic," was
Rowan's obtuse and ugly comment." 49
ON
APPRAISING JFK’S LEGACY AND THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS:
[Both saw rashness in
Kennedy’s approach to the Cuban Missile Crisis.] Stone heralded a
suggestion that Lippmann had made during the crisis and blamed
Kennedy for refusing this mutual face-saver that Khrushchev
ultimately offered: Russia would remove the missiles from Cuba and
offer a non-aggression pledge to Turkey if the United States would
remove its missiles from Turkey and offer a non-aggression pledge to
Cuba. Stone termed Arthur Schlesinger's account that Kennedy
"regarded the idea as unacceptable, and the swap was promptly
rejected" as "appallingly ethnocentric". Cuba's fate
and interests are simply ignored.” 50 When the President
was assassinated Stone wrote that it was necessary to take a
“clear-sighted view” of Kennedy and his advisers who were “in
some ways a warlike Administration…” As for the Cuban missile
crisis Stone asked, what if Russia had “called our bluff and war
had begun and escalated? …Abroad, as at home, the problems were
becoming too great for conventional leadership, and Kennedy, when the
tinsel was stripped away, was a conventional leader, no more than an
enlightened conservative, cautious as an old man for all his youth,
with a basic distrust of the people and an astringent view of the
evangelical as a tool of leadership…” 51 Like Stone,
Lippmann “wrote no eulogy” for Kennedy and was not into
mythologizing him, remembering that the president had taken no stance
against McCarthyism. Lippmann and Stone both supported the Warren
Commission’s “lone gunman” report on the assassination,
although Lippmann privately voiced questions when others clamored for
more investigation as conspiracy theories bloomed. Stone never
wavered. 52
VIETNAM:
In the summer of 1964,
Johnson received a blank check from congress for retaliatory bombing
raids on North Vietnam following a trumped up charge that they had
fired first on American ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. Thus was born
America's full scale war. Lippmann's readers found only approval of
the so called retaliatory bombings. They were "a test of
American will."53 But this was no reflexive response.
All the while Johnson had promised not to send American "boys"
to do the fighting for South Vietnamese "boys", he was
secretly planning to bomb North Vietnam. When an excuse came to widen
the war "which Johnson carefully never called a war"he
dispatched ground troops to Vietnam. Of three million who served in
the war, some 58,000 were killed, 340,000 were wounded. Returning
veterans became reviled scapegoats for the only war the United States
had ever lost.
In contrast to Lippmann and
other journalists who were either Hawkish on the war or believed the
official word, Stone was astonishing in his immediate and accurate
assessment of the dubious 1964 Tonkin incident. He acknowledged that
some in the press had reported for six months that the United States
government planned to leap from commando operations to "overt
attacks against the North". Stone added, however, that "very
few Americans are aware" of the circumstances which "cast a
very different light on the Tonkin affair." He was quite alone
as he tore apart the "official mythology of the war". He
consistently ran the remarks of the lone anti-war voices, Wayne Morse
and Ernst Gruening, the only senators to vote against the Gulf of
Tonkin resolution. Morse charged that U.S. warships in such proximity
was "bound to be looked upon by our enemies as an act of
provocation." Stone dryly observed, "the press, which
dropped an Iron Curtain weeks ago on the anti-war speeches of Morse
and Gruening, ignored this one, too."
Stone addressed a central
problem in uncovering the facts: "The process of brain-washing
the public starts with off- the- record briefings for newspapermen in
which all sorts of far-fetched theories are suggested to explain why
the tiny North Vietnamese navy would be mad enough to venture an
attack on the Seventh Fleet, one of the world's most powerful."
Everything except "the
possibility that the attack might have been provoked."
(Stone's italics.)54.
He questioned the so called facts at the time; if our ships were
attacked why were there no reports of debris or wreckage? A few weeks
after the Gulf of Tonkin incident, Stone exposed official
fabrications, which only came to light years later in the Pentagon
Papers thunderbolts. Stone noted the confusion, inconsistencies and
prevarications in the Tonkin official explanations, commenting that
the whole affair was "beginning to look like a bar-room brawl
with the lights out.....It is not surprising that Secretary McNamara
abruptly shut off his press conference on the latest Tonkin Bay
incident so he would not have to answer questions." Stone asked
readers to imagine that "If Russian or Chinese destroyers
prowled the Florida coast while ships they supplied Castro engaged in
coastal raids, what would we do? Send hampers of Florida grapefruit
to their skippers?"55
LIPPMANN AND
STONE, COMING TOGETHER:
As Stone grew in stature for
his Vietnam reporting, a union occurred with the premier journalist
who was his opposite and prided himself on being an insider. It made
a startling impression on those who gauge the ebb and flow of a
person's station in Washington's incestuous world of media and power.
Pragmatist Lippmann was nonetheless gullible when LBJ smothered him
with flattery, asking his advice on the war. Lippmann believed the
administration was listening to him. After a trip to France in 1965,
Lippmann worried that "I've been pulling my punches"
regarding Johnson's foreign policy.56 He tried to get the
Washington Post to shift its fawning pro-war stance, which did not
happen until LBJ's friend Russell Wiggins, its chief editorialist,
was replaced by Phil Geyelin in 1967. The final blow in Lippmann/LBJ
relations came when Lippmann realized that the President "had
misled me." He turned down a state dinner at the White House at
the end of 1965. He remained far from Stone's peripatetic activism
however. "Although he would not identify himself publicly with
the anti-war demonstrators—the constraints of civility were too
strong—neither could he condemn them."
Now estranged from the
President, Lippmann lashed out at LBJ for pursuing an imperialist and
willful war that risked involving China. The president was consumed
by "messianic megalomania." Harsh words filled his column
by 1967: Johnson was "pathologically secretive" and was
ruining America. Under LBJ, “there was a growing belief in the
world” that the United States was a "bastard empire which
relies on superior force to achieve its purposes, and is no longer an
example of the wisdom and humanity of a free society."
Helping to inform Lippmann's
opinions were two he had previously viewed as too radical, [ French
historian Bernard] Fall and Stone. In the spring of 1966, Lippmann
contacted Fall to get his opinions. Soon he was meeting with both
Fall and Stone. "From these dissident journalists he learned not
to believe administration reports about the conduct of the war."
The great scribe, who had seldom stepped foot out of Georgetown, the
White House or the Cosmos Club, now dined with Izzy and Esther at the
home of Bernard and Dorothy Fall. That spring, Izzy and Esther
mingled on the Lippmann's lawn at their annual mint julep party,
receiving discreet stares. The absence of any important
administration officials was duly noted. Except for Stone, that is.
From his viewpoint, Stone could only grumble as he left the party
with Esther and Dorothy Fall that he had seen far too many
administration dolts present.57
Lippmann began to get a dose
of what Stone had long experienced. LBJ set a team of researchers to
look at old columns trying to find errors. As the war continued,
shouting guests left Washington dinner parties and old alliances
splintered. Lippmann was snubbed by the powerful he thought were
friends. Distressed, "His sense of isolation increased. The
snide remarks about his age and judgment, the embarrassed encounters
at his club when old acquaintances averted their eyes...the
intellectual fratricide and vendetta—all of those took a toll,"
wrote biographer Steel. But Lippmann's harsh lesson forced him to see
things differently about America's conventional explanations of the
cold war. "The war ,as it had for many others, had changed his
interpretation of the American past."58
"It was as if Walter
Lippmann and I.F. Stone met at the intersection of two arcs, one
declining and one ascending," wrote Andrew Patner, although he
noted that Lippmann's "social suffering" did not continue
for long.59 Too accustomed to being an insider, Lippmann
backed Nixon over Humphrey and was once again wined and dined with a
president and his slippery side-kick in war, Henry Kissinger.
******
LEGACY:
Stone never fooled himself
about being the possessor of nonexistent power--that a Nixon or LBJ
would read the Weekly and rush to say "Izzy's right, I am
going to change my policy!" Still, by 1968, Stone was more
influential than Lippmann. Stone did more than unveil the follies,
deceptions, blunders and immoralities of the Vietnam War, he
explained them historically and with remarkable vision. He was long
vindicated for his early dissent. By 1970, he was important enough to
earn a blast by Agnew who called The Weekly "another strident
voice of illiberalism." Stone welcomed this "mere flea
bite" from Agnew—"it does wonders for your
circulation."60
Stone’s difficulty with
“pious lying” surfaced when he attended a memorial for Lippmann.
Fulsome praise for Lippman filled the room. Then Stone got up and
bellowed, “He was on the wrong side of Sacco and Venzetti! "
[referring to the celebrated case of two anarchists who were hanged
without sufficient evidence in the 1920’s.] Stone peered at the
blur of an audience and added that it was a tremendous fault that
Lippmann never wrote about the Holocaust. Stone sat down to utter
silence. After taking a shot at their hero, Stone blithely walked
out. Said Esther, "Izzy left me to face everybody.” 61
1 "He criticized the
Jews .." Steel, Lippmann .p. 188
2 "could not say that
Walter was Jewish..." Halberstam, Powers that Be. p. 370.
3
"don't you think it's too Jewish?" Halberstam Powers that
Be.
4 "...determined that the paper not be too Jewish...and
references to Arthur Krock, Sulzberger and Frankfurter; Halberstam,
The Powers that Be. (p. 216-217) "...we have too many Jews in
Europe..." Without Fear or Favor, Harrison Salisbury, p. 401.
...The advancement of Jews was "not encouraged.." Kluger,
The Paper p. 385.
5 "most statesmanly Jewish pundit."
Deborah Lipstadt Beyond Belief(p. 109).
6 Roosevelt was himself
scandalously silent...several sources, Michael Bechloss The
Conquerers, Morse, While Six Million Died, Lipstadt, Beyond Belief.
7
Steel, Lippmann pp 331-333
8 Steel, Lippmann
9 The Record
4/5/33
10 Lipstadt Beyond Belief p. 276
10."the Jews by
their parvenus?" Steel Lippmann p. p 331.
11 Steel Lippmann
p.330
12 Steel Lippmann pp 326, 328
13 Steel Lippmann also
quotes of Lippmann in this paragraph are from Steel’s biography.
14
Stone, New York Post, 1/19/37
15 Steel Lippmann p 338
16 Robert
Payne The Civil War in Spain p. 140
17 Stone, New York Post
1/26/37
18 Steel Lippmann p. 335
19 Ibid p. 324
20 James
MacGregor Burns The Last Lion p. 267
21 Stone to Todd Gitlin,
unpublished interview, 1985.
22 IFS, Truman Era, 160-161,
2/28/50
23 Steel, Lippmann, p 475
24 IFS The Compass 7/3/52
25
Steel Lippmann p. 487
26 Cold War International History Project,
Virtual Archive. Background and analysis of Korean War Biological
Warfare Allegations; Milton Leitenberg.
27 IFS Compass columns on
Polk Murder, 8’5/52, 8/7/52.
28 Keeley, Salonika Bay Murder
29
IFS Compass 8/8/52
30 IFS Ibid
31 Steel, “Casualty of the
Cold war”, Review 38, no. 15 (9/26/91)
32 Steel, Lippmann,
p.487
33 IFS Compass, 8/7/52
34 Ibid
35 Comments on Polk,
IFS Compass,7/7/52; “Military monster” and “poor investment”
Steel, Casualty
36 Stone exposed this sham endorsement...Compass
7/7/52; Donovan quote from P 75, bound report of the Overseas Writers
of the Special Committee to Inquire into Polk's Murder. ....attempts
at inquiry "were discouraged by Lippmann...most vocal dissenter
was I.F. Stone..." Ronald Steel, The New York Review of Books,
9/16/91 Casualty of War.
59 Stone exposed this sham
endorsement...Compass 7/7/52; Donovan quote from P 75, bound report
of the Overseas Writers of the Special Committee to Inquire into
Polk's Murder. ....attempts at inquiry "were discouraged by
Lippmann...most vocal dissenter was I.F. Stone..." Ronald Steel,
The New York Review of Books, 9/16/91 Casualty of War.
37
(Compass, 7/6/52).
38 "there is no improving on I.F. Stone's
succinct judgement."New York Times Book Review(April 7, 1996 Who
Killed George Polk? The Press Covers Up A Death in the Family. By
Elias Vlanton with Zak Mettger. Philadelphia: Temple University
Press.)
39 IFS Compass 7/10/52.
40 Scotty Reston to
MM/11/12/90.
41 "Casualty of the Cold War" by Ronald
Steel, New York Review of Books Volume 38, Number 15 9/26/91.
42
.Lippmann's meetings with Pravdin create no stir... In fact Haynes
and Klehr dismiss Lippmann as having "had no sympathy for
communism" without even mentioning the cables of his discussions
with Sergei. They only mention that the CPUSA-KGB had placed agent
Mary Price as his secretary "to find out what sources and
additional information lay behind" his columns. Venona p. 241
and p. 99.
43 Richard Dudman interview with MM 5/91
44 Steel
Lippmann p 314
45 I.F. Stone The Weekly, 1/54.
46 Richard
Rovere, Senator Joe McCarthy, p.166
47 I.F. Stone The Weekly
10/3/55
48 Steel Lippmann p.552-53
49 In a Time of Torment, p.
118, NY Review of Books, 11/11/65.
17."...To face the
November elections..." to "... Cuba's fate and interests
are simply ignored." NY Review of Books, 5/14/66 . In "In a
Time of Torment" collection pp 19-23.
50 NY Review of Books,
5/14/66 . In "In a Time of Torment" collection pp 19-23.
51 I.F. Stone Weekly, 12/9/63,
52 Steel Lippmann, p.
542-43.
53 . Ibid, p.557.
54 8/24/64 In a Time of Torment,
p.202.
55 9/28/64. In a Time of Torment pp 203-206.
56 Steel,
Lippmann is the source for the section on Lippmann’s disaffection;
pp 569 through 577.
57 Dorothy Fall to MM, 6/94.
58 . Steel,
Lippmann p 580.
59 Andrew Patner, I.F. Stone,a Portrait p. 139.
60
Washington Star John Greenya 9/8/70.
61 Dorothy Fall to MM, 1996.
