The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America - -The Stalin Era

Reading about how American liberals could think the Soviet Union was some great Utopia worth betraying your own country for boggles the imagination. But they did it. And they gave Stalin, the worst butcher in world history, the atomic bomb. You read this and you think and hope it couldn't be true, but it is. Every liberal in America should be required to read this and made to reflect on their treason against our great country.

The Haunted Wood: Soviet Espionage in America--The Stalin Era (Modern Library Paperbacks) For a short time in the 1990s writers from the West had access to KGB archives. These give a definitive picture of the range and depth of Russian espionage in the USA from the 1930s to the 1950s, and this account of information from these archives is fascinating and chilling. The American author knows the period and the people well, and his account passes no judgements on those involved; however, it shows something of the extent to which people with progressive ideas in the USA were able and willing to deceive themselves over the nature of Soviet society and to pass potentially damaging information to their country's potential enemies. Most of the British traitors of that period are well known (or so we suppose); those in the States are less publicly recognized. For instance, when I was in the USA in the late 1950's Agler Hiss was regarded by much of liberal opinion as a victim, but this book shows that his guilt can hardly now be doubted. I was shocked to discover how much of what seems to me to be treasonable activity lay behind the wickednesses of the McCarthy era. The book is a little disjointed; because it deals with groups of individuals chapter by chapter, there is a lot of cross-referencing and repeating, but I recommend it strongly.

What if we found out there was a Nazi underground operating throughout all sectors of American life between 1930-1960? There would surely be outrage. What if we found out that the deadliest and most oppressive philosophy in the world had entrenched itself in our culture and its institutions from the theatre, movies, and literature to the defense establishment, executive offices of the President, and even members of the United States Congress??? Allen Weinstein illustrates just that in The Haunted Wood. Thanks to the end of the Cold War and the lure of cash the files of the former KGB provide undeniable proof that "The Red Scare" was not based on superstition and paranoia, but the geniune defense of the United States from those who carried water for the Communist conspiracy. A conspiracy that collectively killed more people in this century than any other. Now the question must be asked. Where is the shaming and accountability for those who cast dispersions upon those who tried to root out the problem and questioned their motives. Would we do the same to those who had tried to expose shadow members of the American Bund Party? Communism is a dead and dark belief that feeds on the individual freedoms of the common man. Those who supported its expansion or cast a blind eye to its crimes all bear the stain of the blood from the millions who died at its altar.

This book should be required reading for the left wing sympathizers who still maintain the fiction of: a. Alger Hiss was innocent, b. Elia Kazan is a bad guy, c. The Rosenbergs were innocent, d.the Communist Party of the United States was not affiliated with the Kremlin, e. Whittaker Chambers and Elizabeth Bentley were lying. This history, illuminated by KGB files, uncovers the lies and deceit of the fellow travelers and communists who claimed their innocence. They committed treason and should be ashamed of it.

When I was young, I believed in the innocence of Ethel and Julius. I believed that McCarthy was a monster. I remember from our black and white tv Have you no shame ?Now it appears, I was wrong. Worse, my parents were wrong, their friends, and their class. If not entirely, at least in part or in degree. Its a good lesson, and maybe a sad one. And, given the season, it makes you wonder about Virginia and Santa Claus.

This is probably one of the landmark books of this century and will contribute enormously to the history of Soviet intelligence operations during the crucial years of the late 1930's, throughout the war and after. The KGB opened its files to American historian Weinstein (also author of the classic work on the Hiss/Chambers case, PERJURY, just recently out in a revised edition from Random House also) and his Russian counterpart as part of a sequence of studies of intelligence operations as seen in through the eyes of participants on both sides. THE HAUNTED WOOD answers many questions, including what was the real role of Alger Hiss and how effective KGB, GRU and other Soviet intelligence penetration was--and how ineffectively they used so much of this goldmine of information. This will be a definitive study--and a superb, engrossing read--for decades to come.