Free The Rebuttal: Defending 'American Betrayal' From the Book-Burners by Diana West Page B

work on the Soviet [cable] traffic indicated large scale Soviet
intelligence operations in the United States.”
    Radosh, contending these findings
weren’t available in mid-1945, decides that this proves Truman was wholly
innocent of Venona in mid-1945. Even if this were true, what, to coin a phrase,
difference does it make? Not knowing in mid-1945 doesn’t render Truman
permanently ignorant of Soviet infiltration for the rest of his administration
– and certainly not after we recall the numerous, detailed memos that
began coming his way a few months later from the FBI.
    Radosh, however, insists that my
discussion of the motivation behind Truman’s many years of inaction – his
partisan political motives, for example, and other possible motives first
raised by the Schecters, and so cited (but, in the Alinskyite tradition of
isolating a target, transferred by Radosh to me alone) – is completely
invalid. He calls it a “fanciful indictment,” as if Truman’s knowledge of
Soviet espionage activities inside the US government somehow remains frozen in
June 1945 along with, erroneously represented, my discussion.
    Odd.
    Odder: Once again, this is not what I
wrote in my book. I never attempted to pin my analysis to a 15-minute
briefing in 1945, but rather to Truman’s entire time in office.
    MEETING
2
    This is the most significant meeting
involving Kirby that the Schecters relate.
    “West,” Radosh writes, “then shifts
the time frame five years forward” – almost as though there is something
suspect is doing so. Radosh now cites my reliance on “an interview” Kirby gave
the Schecters in the late 1990s. (In all, the Schecters interviewed Kirby on
three occasions. Kirby also gave the Schecters his handwritten notes on this
meeting.) Radosh writes: “Kirby told them that both Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter
White were `positively identified’ in decrypts in 1950, and that he brought
this information to General Omar Bradley.”
    For the record, there is an
important temporal corroboration for Kirby here, as I put it on p. 165 of American Betrayal:
    [Kirby]
later told the Schecters that in 1950, Harry Dexter White and Alger Hiss were
both “positively identified” as Soviet agents by Venona codebreakers, a date
Robert L. Benson and Michael Warner affirm in their Venona study.”
    Notice how Radosh omitted the Benson and Warner confirmation
of this date in his retelling of the Kirby tale (above). This is the same methodology
he employs throughout. Better to leave the “yellow journalism” impression of
“an interview” on the fly that I rely on with no additional confirmation.
    Just to pile on, also remember what Truman had already heard
about Hiss and White beginning in 1945 from J. Edgar Hoover.
    American
Betrayal on the 1950 Kirby account continues:
    “Kirby
himself claimed to have brought this information to the attention of General
Bradley, White House point man, as noted, on Venona. Kirby said, “When Bradley
called me back later he said, “The President was most upset and agitated by this. Bradley reported
President Truman’s words, ‘That G—— D—— stuff. Every
time it bumps into us it gets bigger and bigger. It’s likely to take us down.’”
The Schecters add, “Kirby said there was no doubt the President understood.”
    American
Betrayal again:
    “In
other words, President Truman took in and grasped revelations that, according
to Soviet secret cables, the most senior-level, trusted, and powerful U.S.
government officials had been working on behalf of the Soviet Union, and then
he, as president, did nothing about it. Suddenly, Truman’s domestic
anti- Communism program starts to look like a giant act of misdirection. …
    Radosh’s misleading comment:
    “ Once
again, West shows that she does not know how to evaluate the reliability of a
source or assess the evidence produced. The Schecter interviews with Kirby
occurred nearly a half century after the events alleged to have taken