By M. Stanton Evans, Contributing Editor of Human Events
Reviewed by Francis P. Sempa, Contributing Editor
In a speech at the Heritage Foundation, longtime journalist M. Stanton Evans discussed his new book (authored with Herbert Romerstein) about Soviet infiltration of the U.S. government during the Franklin Roosevelt administration. The topic is not new, but Evans contends that the extent of Soviet infiltration and its consequences for U.S. foreign policy were much more significant than is commonly believed.
Some Soviet agents operated near the highest level of U.S. policymaking. Launchlin Currie was a member of the White House staff; Harry Dexter White was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury; Alger Hiss was a high-level State Department employee. These and other communists' greatest impact was not in the area of spying or espionage, but in their influence on policymaking.
According to Evans, communists within the U.S. government significantly influenced U.S. policy toward China and Yugoslavia which helped communist forces within those countries gain power after the end of World War II, and almost convinced FDR to so weaken post-war Germany that it would be unable to resist Soviet encroachments after the war. Evans also accuses the Department of Justice in the late 1940s of covering up the extent and true nature of communist infiltration of the U.S. government.
Evans compares the U.S. government's response to communist infiltration and subversion in the 1930s and 1940s, with our government's response to the threat posed today by Islamic radicalism. In both instances, he says, the government chose to ignore or downplay the "enemy within" with negative consequences for U.S. foreign policy.