Since reading M. Stanton Evans’ Blacklisted by History and then Ronald Radosh’s highly negative review I have mistrusted Radosh to the point where I can only think of him as a far left socialist plant here on the right. Radosh, from the deepest of leftist motivations, wrote a book about the Rosenbergs in which he was hoping to defend them but was compelled by the evidence to conclude that they actually had been Soviet spies. Unexpectedly for him but not for me, his friends on the left immediately drove him out and would no longer associate with him. No principle of his had changed, only the people who were now willing to talk to him. Thus under the my-enemy’s-enemy-is-my-friend principle that if you are shunned by the left then you must be something else, the assumption has grown that he is one of us. But from everything he has written this is so obviously untrue it only amazes me he is not so utterly discredited that no judgment of his is ever accepted amongst ourselves.
Radosh has done the same again in a review of Diana West’s American Betrayal which was published in Front Page Magazine where you would hope for better. West has now replied at Breitbart in an article titled, The Rebuttal – Part One which presumes there will be at least one more section to come. You can read her reply for yourself – long and detailed – but here are the reviews of her books that were put up on the Amazon website:
“Diana West masterfully reminds us of what history is for: to suggest action for the present. She paints for us the broad picture of our own long record of failing to recognize bullies and villains. She shows how American denial today reflects a pattern that held strongly in the period of the Soviet Union. She is the Michelangelo of Denial.”– Amity Shlaes, author of Coolidge and the NYT bestseller The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression
“This explosive book is a long-needed answer to court histories that continue to obscure key facts about our backstage war with Moscow. Must-reading for serious students of security issues and Cold War deceptions, both foreign and domestic.”– M. Stanton Evans, author of Blacklisted by History
“If you haven’t read Diana West’s “American Betrayal” yet, you’re missing out on a terrific, real-life thriller.”– Brad Thor, author of the New York Times bestsellers Black List, Full Black, and The Last Patriot.
“What Diana West has done is to dynamite her way through several miles of bedrock. On the other side of the tunnel there is a vista of a new past. Of course folks are baffled. Few people have the capacity to take this in. Her book is among the most well documented I have ever read. It is written in an unusual style viewed from the perspective of the historian—but it probably couldn’t have been done any other way.”—Lars Hedegaard, historian, editor, Dispatch International
“Her arguments shred our preconceived notions of twentieth century history.”—Jeff Minick, Smoky Mountain (NC) News
“American Betrayal is a monumental achievement. Brilliant and important.”–Monica Crowley
“Diana West’s new book rewrites WWII and Cold War history not by disclosing secrets, but by illuminating facts that have been hidden in plain sight for decades. Furthermore, she integrates intelligence and political history in ways never done before.”–Jeffrey Norwitz, former professor of counterterrorism, Naval War College
“Enlightening. I give American Betrayal five stars only because it is not possible to give it six.”–John Dietrich, formerly of the Defense Intelligence Agency and author of The Morgenthau Plan: Soviet Influence on American Postwar Policy.
If it is endorsed by M. Stanton Evans, the one person more likely than anyone to know whether this kind of book is on the hunt or not, it is a book that is worth your time although by the time you are through you will wonder whether the betrayal continues to this day and where its gangrenous tentacles now reach.
David Horowitz Replies: This is the reply at FrontPageMag that leaves me unsatisfied. I don’t know what Horowitz is afraid of but he should mistrust Radosh. Unless he has read the book himself and decided that her misjudgments are seriously unacceptable, he should not be policing such a debate in such a heavy handed way. The first of the comments after Horowitz’s very brief remarks captures the issue:
I read West’s book, as well as the one by Evans and Omerstein, Stalins Secret Agents. Both complement each other, and West made a reasonable case, even if some parts of her work lapsed into speculation. She was clear about that, however. Hopkins appears condemned by the facts to have been a Stalinist agent, either that or FDR was, and was instructing him to do what he did. Whatever the truth, massive help was given to the Soviets by FDR, and more than just Dodge trucks via Murmansk. America helped Stalin on many factors, and West exposes them, unmercifully. Did FDR deserve mercy? Not if half of what West dug up is true, and I say more than half is true, and well documented. Her facts mirror those of Evans and Omerstein.
This ‘debate’ between West and Horowitz has lost focus, and should return to the “search for truth” which is always the first duty of good scholarship. it has now become something more bitterly personal. The acid being thrown around seems to be far greater than any mere disagreement on the facts.
I admire both West and Horowitz. How about you both take a cooler, and get back to debating the facts about the many Soviet spys and communist betrayers in FDRs administration, and how that connects to the modern very similar situation.
This, then, is the second comment:
David,
I have just one question for you, what the heck were you thinking when you let Ron Radosh talk you into this nonsense?
And please don’t deny it because I know Radosh talked you into this. You have already admitted that it was Radosh who first called to alert you to the ‘mistakes’ in Diana West’s book and the folly of the initial review that was since removed, so anyone who can add 2+2 knows Radosh took you down this road in the first place.
That said, don’t you realize who you are in the conservative movement and on the anti communist right, as compared to Ronald Radosh?
Ron Radosh may be a big-shot in academic circles, but most grassroots conservatives couldn’t pick him out of a police lineup, not if there was a million dollars at stake, not if their lives depended on it, therefore Radosh has nothing to lose by alienating conservatives, he has nothing to lose by attacking Diana West just as he had nothing to lose when he attacked Stan Evans and Evans proceeded to clean his clock. Ultimately the only people Radosh is beholden too are the folks he encounters at think tanks and in the faculty lounge, that’s where his bread is buttered and none of this stuff alienates that crowd, and he knows it, so he risks absolutely nothing by going after West or Evans, viciously or otherwise.
You, on the other hand, are an icon in the movement with a direct connection to grassroots conservatives. Prior to this, had you asked the grassroots to contribute to this endeavor or that endeavor, the checks would come fast and furious because the grassroots trusted you and believed wholeheartedly that your causes were our causes. If you said ‘this is important too me’, most conservatives would automatically say, ‘then it must be important to all of us.’
Do you realize how rare that is and that its more precious than gold?
How many people in the movement have that kind of clout with the grassroots and why on earth would you do anything to damage that?
This is what I tried to explain to you weeks ago!
Heck, now you are calling West’s defenders an ‘army of kooks.’
Really David, is that where you want to take this now?
Think David, think long and hard about this, in fact I suggest you consider what your mentor, the late/great Reed Irvine, might have advised you here.
You knew Reed much better than I did, I know that you were like a son to Reed, I simply adored him from afar, but I find it hard to believe, knowing how much Reed cared about you, that he ever would have allowed the likes of Ron Radosh to talk you into this fools errand. I think he would have reminded you, right or wrong, Diana West is on our side and if you must correct some factual errors, do so in a constructive way, and say or do nothing to bring embarrassment on this woman, do not put her in a position where she can be abused and ridiculed by the left.
Just my opinion, for whatever its worth.
Law of Markets 