>>ecounting the life of a journalist i asked on his reporting career spans from the great depression to the vietnam war. vermont is the host of this event and it is just under one hour. >> it is an incredible pleasure to be here the independent bookstore because independent bookstores are the cradle of civilization. usually begin my book talks with the salutation fellow workers and friends by we is something i do not get used very often but what i like almost as much. fellow vermonters greetings. i come not from london but from gil heard vt. sonat very far away. because i went to begin with a literally a footnote from page

66 of my book why biography is difficult. a small illustration why this book that i started in 1991 is coming out now. 18 years later. in 1927 stone was eight reporter in new jersey the drop in philadelphia and his family owned a dry goods store which is a fairly common thing board use in small towns. all of these towns had wondered to do is there were running the dry goods store the feinstein family they had a dry goods store there was

eight storer partly because they were latency they were slightly figures of fun on the feinstein family day wed order a packet of needles although they were only three blocks away sell one day one day she t into a conversation she could not get him to take his nose out of his book eventually they got into a conversation she said you should come to our house sometime she was theife of j. david stern who owned the courier her maiden name on the department-store lived in

philadelphia if we have depart mr. advertising than you can stay in business but if not it is much harder. j. david stern he soon met this wonder kid. there was that a little difficult because he was a bespectacled leader who did not know very much about sport so he turned up to cover his first basketball game he had to have the the priiples explained but wants the have them explained and understand they derive a dramatic story he was paid for it by the inch. so eveually became to work for stern as a reporter on the career that in the summer of 1927 there was a case the whole world was watching which

is the appeals process for two i itaan american and and our guest two were convicted of murder many even two-day say wrongfully for a payroll robbery in massachusetts they were supposed to be there and also attended the vigil in boston. his boss said they could not go up to cover it because they were short-handed and there's a flu epidemic so he quit and walked off the job and packed up his belongings and hitchhiked to massachusetts. when i was first told the story by his brother who just died last year. he said he never made it to massachusetts his father intercepted him somewhere on the ferry levying camden new jersey and would not let him go.

he told another interviewer he had gone but they found out there was a stay of execution so he continued a add hittite to bellows falls massachusetts where he stayed with a friend called vernon read to was an actor in a local theater and camden because one of the things izzy was doing was theater review for the local paper. and then there was another version and another biography of i.f. stone. this is the fourth but maybe not the last. and it was a slightly different version. i had to figure out what happened or try to figure out or the fact i could not figure out what happened. those are the kinds of choices you have to make. have conflicting in permission and conflicting material. i was lucky because i had a friend at the historical society because even though i was in london i did call her

and she dug up these clippings who really did have a rich family who had a sun named vernon that worked as an actor in new jersey. so i figured that he could remember this guy's name 50 years later in the interview meant it was probably true he had made it to england that summer. but i say that in the blood notes. why do i mention this to a book the mostly does not happen in vermont? partly because if you have been reading the papers of the opinion magazines, you know, there is some controversy. those that charge i.f. stone for spying for the soviet union. i thoughtince we're all here i would explain why i think that is not so the also what troubles me about the charges. there are two separate issues you can think something is the case but it does not matter i think it matters but i will tell you why it is not true

first. when i started working on this biography in 1991, us doan died in june 1989 and covered his memorial service for new york newsday which is the paper i was working on at that time. then as i did fairly routinely fight asked for a freedom of information request for somebody who was distinguished or may happen of interest to the fbi for their file i did that routinely the next day than i had went to his memorial service. i never met i.f. stone. our ready his articles in the new york review of books. i was too young for "i.f. stone's weekly". but iound out his fbi file was 6,000 pages long. that is too our three times the size of out upon. [laughr] i got the sense they figure

this is a dangerous character and that intrigued me a lot. the ones i started working in hour earnest was a have a contract and publisher i probably spent three or four years just trying to figure out his relationship with the mayor can communist party because given his politics and his aides, it seems to me at least possib at various times probable he may have joined the communist party. but he never did. that puzzled me and i spent a lot of tim trying to be sure as opposed to keeping quiet then i tried to figure out why he never joined? quite a long while into my work may be tender 15 years i've learned from someone who had been a communist and in philadelphia and had grown up with a stone and wento

school with his siblings all of them except izzy had joined the american communist party. that is something that none of the other bikgraphers had written that, nobody had no the. the siblings were not always happy about that being known. his brother whom i interviewed a lot and grew very fond of, never mentioned it to me. really got around to try to ask him about a year and a half ago i finally had to write a letter to find out what i have learned and a chance to respond and i got a letter from his daughter saying he had just died but then i got the notes one month later saying she had been won't looking through her father's papers and there was a draft why he joined the communist party and why he had left. the charges that stone was a soviet spy are based on documents that are supposedly in the kgb archives seen by

one person. this one person first of all, is not what you would call the best for the ideal witness. he is somebody who sued 10 earlie critic for libel in england where the slanted days the laws or slanted and yet he lost his case. i wrote another book about it so i attended the trial and i saw him lose and failed to convince the jury of 12 men and women that he was someone that could be trusted with historical material. but if you read the controversy now on the web and they say i accuse him of fabricating thisaterial. that is not the case. i don't think he fabricated. his material is the basis of a new book called aspires which is the history of the kgb in america. i don't think he fabricat the homo book you should be

careful because in the same way i was careful whether or not i.f. stone hitchhiked to massachusetts so you do have some files that say he had conversations with some when he may or may not have known was the kgb agent. you can say that with confidence that there may be these documents which may say yes, we do not know that because we cannot say them so let's assume that they do. what do we know? 1936 i.f. stone had conversations with somebody who was a reporter working for the soviet wire service in america. he may or may not have known was a kgb agent and may or may not have been friendly or helpful. in 1936 he was a enthusiastic fellow traveler and very enthusiastic of the american

communist party and premise supportive of tough soviet union in so far was the only country that supplied arms to the anish republic. also he was terrified of the threat of fascism. in 1937 i.f. stone of became his name because he was terrified fascism might come to america and his family was targeted. he changed his name. a lot of america and change their names. the famous editor of "the new yorker" changed his name, artie shaw the band leader changed their names. the people had different motives but he made -- made no bones he had done it partly out of fear and he was embarrassed. so somebody that was that afraid of fascism and it would

not surprise me if he had conversations were they told him things that he thought he might be interested and talk to them. that is the reporters do that is what every diplomatic correspondent i havealked to that was on the beat that involves talking to people from other countries, did. that does not mean you are a spy or an agent or you took direction. but the other hand that is obvious to anybody of i.f. stone or bothered to read what he wrote year by year at the time he was alleged to happen in a cozy relationship with the russians, he never took direction. he was terrible. that is why he walked out of the newsroom in 1927 that is why 11 years later even though stern was in the great phase of his career and a surrogate father they fell out over the fact that stern had to issu

an apology of the papers covering the spanish civil war because they were boycotting the paper. they were favoring the spanish republic is was favoring and the catholic diocese was favoring the fascist. stone did say later in life one of the few times where he had written something where he suppressed the truth in his riding he suppressed atrocities by spanish troops against the catholic priest and nun and he felt bad about that. he was very close to dorothy day to use to a@ded a new publication in called the catholic worker and he went to hurt people in the '80s when he was a very old man. and he made a point* to talking to one of the jesuits and said he still felt bad about suppressing the fact

buds but he was incurably insubordinate so that in a sense why it took me a long time to appreciate this, but that is why i think alone among his siblings and never managed to stay in the congress party or join the party because he was not willing to take direction or follow orders go to take orders to a government he did not respect or why, he thought they were useful but never thought this of the union was the promised land, he thought they were the only force willing to fight of fascist did he would have been allied with anybody fighting them. in the rush to discredit him, fairly flimsy pieces of information are crammed together and blown up to be somethg they are not. why did this bother me? it does as a historian because it is careless and dishonest the politically because i it

is part of that what the two-party system does in america. sometimes republicans are power sometimes it demrat sometimes right wing or sort of liberal democrats are in power but right-wing republicans the difference is when t left is in power, when the right in power, the left says maybe reorganize or maybe we tried to carry on. certainly we criticize but we do not tried to delegitimize the whole project will understand their project is part of what america is. they disagree with us and we disagree with them we have convinced more people but the right to delegitimizes the left so that we have to start from the beginning with everything. you have to start from the

beginning with social security, minimum-wage, all sorts of projects or laws that were taken for granted in the 1930's, '40's, '50's, but since 1988 have been made to seem as if they were coming out of joseph stalin back pocket. [laughte so part of that project is to delegitimize american radicals to rule radicalism of the conversation. it is interesting because as i parked my truck and the parking lot i saw the little sculpture dedicated to thomas jefferson. i.f. stone always thought of himself as the jeffersonian marxist he thought they were compatible. somebody asked him how he could fire thomas jefferson and so much after he was a slave owner, therefore had to be a terrible and evil man? stone said because history is

a tragic eight ... there is the ghost of thomas jefferson. [laughter] lab. >> where is the. >> because history is dramatic and people have complicated motives maybe it makes things more complicated or call them enemies but parts of what is it meant stone could see things as they were in be surprised by evens. somebody asked him wants how he could be, he said your reporter you have the choice of being either honest or consistent. if you are consistent, you will see things that don't jive with whatou wrote the day before s 1/2 to write them or suppress them but if you're honest somebody will say that is not what you wrote

on thursdays you have to be prepar to be surprised and change your mind and he was prepared to change his mind but his radicalism was very much the came out of american soil somebody brought up in a small town, born in the philadelphia slums but lived in a small town where they still had hitching post out front where the of farmers bought supplies and he was someone who's only membership in an organized political party was the america socialist party which he joined in 1928 when he was too young to vote and roe spehes for nine days norman thomas you love him because he talked about radical ideas in american terms and american and language. the attacks on stone are because it suits their right to pretendhere is no native radicals. that all radicalism is a

foreign import to this country and anybody who favors anything that you can describe as radical house to be controlled by foreign ideology or foreign spy masters. that is what the attacks on stone are about, discrediting the idea of naïf -- native radicalism and that is why i object. i want to leave time for questions so i will read a little bit. a couple of pages from the very beginning of the book because i think it is an illustrated page interesting illustration i wrote these pages a year and a half ago i had no idea there would be so timely but they tu now to be very timely and an interesting reminder of the political price we pay when we exclude radicals from the conversation and when we have a political spectrum that goes all the way from the extreme right to

liberals and that is where it stops. let meegin at the beginning. >> to the need to the press audience on december 12, 1949, there is nothing special of a confrontatio between 25 it and the editor of the american journal of american men as eight -- assn stone a sometime member of eet the press" panel since 1946 could always be relied on for profit -- provocative questions. i will point* out "meet the press" began in the '40's as a radio ogram and in the late forties it was on radio and television and stone was a frequent member of the panel on both the radio and tv version. he was on the radio more often but then the radio audience was 10 times the size it had

900,000 viewers for the television radio was much bier. he was a regular member. >>he country's most influential position doctorfish pine h denounced national health insurance as quote mad the regimentation the red to totalitarianism in germany. when he said it was socialistic stone said why he was a good the dollar. in the view of compulsory health insurance to regard truman as a card-carrying communist or a diluted traveler? the arguments have not changed that much in the the arguments over national health care did not a vance much but i.f. stone th marked a the career that saw him rise to national prominence not only television and radi but as a correspondent for the natn

and a columnist 4 pm the tabloid that refused advertisements to revolutionize american newspapers he was about to disappear, not literally for the moment he still had a job the daily compass had your readers in the same citie and the-- of him sauering into new deal agencies making three with the phones and the ioc still have friends in washington some were willing to be seen talking to him but it is another 18 years before i.f. stoneas next on national television and win political pundits dominated he was never again invited back on "me the press". one decade earlier stone had our developed as much access as a journalist in the country and included a harvard law professor at teacher supre court justice, the president's political fixer during world war ii stone worked closely with union leaders to propose

plans to increase production of aircraft. his expos day of the alcoa aluminum trust and a the cozy cartel agreements with the german firm brought him kudos into the senate committee to defend-- to report of the defense fund. after the nazi holocaust who defied the british bckade wrote the headline his reports under fire from a new state of israel made him a hero to america's u.s. but then he vanishes. he opposes the loyalty program and nato and supports the marshall plan and is denounced by the communist daily workers that report favorably from yugoslavia whose leader declares his country's independence from the policies of those in the balkans by the soviet union. february 1950 speaking at a rally against the hydrogen bomb the rallies against the fbi ages. the bear will soon put him

under daily surveillance. already is the author of four books each more successful than the last when he writes another, the korean war no publisher will touch returning to new york in 1951 after one year in paris as a foreign correspondent you can i get his passport renewed by the time that paper closes its doors, he is blacklisted as a reporter not even the nation would give him a j. he is 44 and relies on a hearing aid to make out any sound below a shout he said he feels like a dose. and $0.01 his life was over and in another sense he started "i.f. stone's weekly" a four page newspaper starting now with 4500 subscribers grew up at 20,000 in 1962 then when the vietnam war escalated he became indispensableecause it was the only place you could read the truth so by the time he closed in 1971 he had

70,000 subscribers progress oppose that is the premise of my book. thank you very much for listening and if you have questions of love to answer them if you have any reminiscence of i.f. stone i would like to hear them [applause] >> . >> i am old enough i do remember i.f. stone college and in 1967 i was a freshman my first day i went to find my mailbox and the only thing in it was "i.f. stone's weekly" so from that point* i stayed in touch and flowed and i know the road against the vietnam war but how much active more than that was the? he was probably 60. did he communicate did he ever

get arrested or was it mostly his right thing at that time? >> that is a good question. the short answer is he was incredibly important to the new left in the way that's our what's picked him up from the ash heap of history because 101963, december 63, just after kennedy was assassinated he wrote weekly america is losing the war in vietnam. johnson had just taken over. he was able to do that because he lived in paris and have seen the french lose their vietnam war and he followed french reporting from indochina he knew the experts had read their work. knew america was falling the same path but what was interesting s if you talked to the people, i interviewed

people who were in the us the asset in the democratic society, and they said they wrought-- relied on the week the for the information but it is more than that because i think 1963 or 64 they talk to the national council he was supposed to talk about the state of the international issues but he said there is a war going on there is no peace movement because there's almost no domestic opposition to the korean war. the peace movement was so terrified that people kept quiet and stayed indoors, they did not go out on the streets and he said here is a disastrous war we're about to get embroiled an there is no opposition. that is why you should be focusing on and talking about because there were strands of

sds wanted to talk about visiting hours in the dorms other strands wanted to talk about south effort at and apartheid which that happens and 20 years later. and it is not that either were not worthy issues but stone said this war is happening and needs to be opposed and you have the means to oppose the. so they invited him first they voted to hold the first moratorium after he had this speech that was crucial in pushing sds to come out against the war which they have not until then. secondly, he was really journalists invited to speak at the first moratorium and only two or three people who voted against the gulf of tonkin resolution. the two were the only people over the age of 30 that spoke

at the moratorium. he traveled the country tirelessly speaking out against the war. did he get arrested? i don't think so i think he felt he was a little old for that. on the other hand, he was not a big fan of jerry rubinnd abbie hoffman. he was a big fan when they were on trial and he felt the trial revealed the nature of american justice during war time and what happened to the country and he felt the political fear was affected but again and again even though the neweft were his new readers they would chastise him and say you need to decide if you are a pea movement or were movement because some people say victory to the vietcong. that is legitimate position but you'll never convince the american people of that position and the only way to stop the war is to convince

the majority of american people it is wrong and to do that you have to respectfully address them on the grounds for you can expect some common ground he was someone who felt very much that liberals and needed radicals in order to move theountry and the conversation radicals need liberals because without them there was no majority. he was always a small the democrat he did not believe it could not get anything done without convincing the majority of the american people. >> please go to a microphone. >> i was lucky enough actually to have met stone and 1964 at

the a emocratic convention in atlantic city. i was a college kid and down there with some friends. we were spending time with the mississippi freedom democratic party and the mississippi freedom democratic party had a small caucus meeting one afternoon and i decided to go. is basicallyor them. they were all sitting there and fannie lou hamer was the french-speaking and i realized one seats away from me was i.f. stone and i was knocked out but what i would like to know is, what was his connection to the civil rights movement in general and the mississippi active particular? >> i am so glad you ask that question because i spent a lot

of time on the 1964 convention in my book so i hope you read those pages because i think it is crucial. this thin in st. -- interesting incident for me because own thoughts, and he thought people like robert moses and people in than snic were heroes. he calls them saints. we have a wship now that my parents' generation and those that fought the second world war we call them the greatest generation but the kids who started the civil rights ment in the fifties were another greatest generion who have not yet brought their complete do and still realize very early what they were doing was absolutely crucial and indeed the most important thing happening in the country so he gave a lot of states to what was happening in the south and he had a friend from

"pm" to live din alabama and two roach a reporter for him on the montgomery improvement association on the bus boycott. stone wrote for the bus boycott and in fact, win and it still was killed the roach american negro needs a dandy to leave him and we need the amican in the road to leave us. he recognized we before any of dirt white reporter civil-rights had to be led by black people a lot of whites were involved never realized that he realized that from the very beginning and secondly he realized that a civil rights movement was crucial to america's redeeming its own promis which is a promise he always believed in and he felt needed to be redeemed and could not as long as there was segregation and blacks were denied their rights. it is interesting because i am

digressing but this in a way is my favorite portion of the book. stone was in washington in december 1963 and he wrote a incredibly cheerful report because he had spent the weekend with snic at howard university's well kennedy is dead come he was devastated by his death but he also said when a country is as murder as a political tool we cannot be that amazed when somebody murders our own press of them. o something that was incredib astringent but pressing he said it is not these to obtain gunst is the ease of obtaining excuses. we all have a finger on that trigger meeting all of us in america who expect the cia t kill our animation not be surprised when it becomes a political to allow home. but from the akamai he then

went to this snic convention and spent the weekend with robert moses and john lewis and he came out incredibly energize. he thought these people are going to do it, they're really going to do it. flash forward through 1964 and atlantic city. might understanding of what happened is very much colored by the reports that i read, not at the time because i was seven years old but years later written by a radical journalist from vermont who was writing in the new republic has the new statesman. he wrote an account of the 64 convention which was essentially was about the betrayal of the left by the liberals and the extent to which the the mississippi freedom democratic party it was led by the governor used

to refer to the naacp as knickers, apes and coups and opossums he alrdy made it clear he would not support lyndon johnson because of his civil-rights but nevertheless the democratic convention refused also the whole delegation had been selected as the all white primary mfdp had a voter readiness campaign where they have 70,000 people cast their ballots for at delegates headed by fannie lou hamer they had two sets of delegates and they came before the credentials committee and it was you would get seated? johnson to keep things quiet offered a compromise and said we will see mfdp as consumers but the cannot sell it in a

sense they're there as a guest but the whites will be controlled by the white delegation there's an incredible amount of pressure on snic to take the offer martin luther king intervened and called john lewis and said take the offer hubert humphrey went and spoke to them and said it you keep making trouble i will be off of the ticket and hubert humphrey was the hero of the white civil rights supporters. in the end fannie lou hamer was on television testifying how she had been beaten trying to registered to vote and how she were pledged to suppo johnson and work for his election and he called a press conference that that tv cameras caught cover speech so he could get her off of television. in the end of the credentials committee rammed through a deal who was the head? a young minneapolis politician

walter mondale. my sense of 1964 is never turn you're back in a liberal in a tight corner. [laughter] >> also fannie lou hamer, that they took a vote and act mfd and decided they would not accept the compromise and the young people who were there actually left that meeting feeling very proud they had made the right decision. >> the interesting saying is that is the view that i came with the four started to look at this. nothing that i looked at change my view of what mattered but that was not i.f. stone of view. as i say in the book, 85 was -- i.f. stone was so sold on the possibility that lyndon johnson was really going to hammer through civil-rights and it would take somebody like johnson, as we said 10 years later it took a next 10

to go to china it would take a johnson to pass the civil-rights act. it did take a john sen. he said we will feel morally superior giving our views about those neanderthal sen mississippi but we will also tear apart the democratic party and we need to have that so he could get elected and we did have a real civil rights law. the other thing that happened in 1964 was the gulf of tonkin which have already happened but i.f. stone had already written that everything about the gulf of tonkin was discussed except for the possibility it was provoked. he had already written a complete expose say of the fraud of the gulf of tonkin distilling johnson's corner. vietnam was still small. in part to every team history have to get the sequence right but also a sense of

perspective you cannot let your views i can say i think he was wrong but you have to say what he actually thought and he thought we have to stick with johnson but thank you for the question. >> one quick question i was stunned when you said the nation blackballed and would not hire him for anythilg you have do say anything about that? >> i cannot say anything. or work for them. [laughter] i will try to keep it short, in 1946 when he was working two jobs as a washinon correspondent for the nation and also "pm", at the met some people in the jewish underground and you went to palestine with the illegal immigration into palestine and ran the british blockade and reported on it but his contacts in the underground said he was not

allowed to tell the people at the nation when he was doing because they suspected one of them was too close to the british and word may have gotten back. he did tell rolf ingersoll who was the editor of "pm". he told the nation he was going to paris to cover a peace conference he went to paris but then he kept going then he dropped off of the map for three weeks then filing the dispatches that were on the front page of "pm" and sent the circulation into profit for the first time in its entire history. when he came back, the natio fired him. that did not mean that they hated him and he still wrote for them but they did not give him a job. in 1953, the past for his old back days old job back with his old salary and carey mcwilliams said he was very much in favor of them hiring

stone but they just could not decide to do. they did not say yet know the did not say as. of poor's when you need a job is basically saying no. that is what happened. >> i went to nor about "pm" newspaper was that an acronym? >> a good question. nobody knows. it came out a. >> how long was it. >> it started in 1940 started by ralph ingersoll the first editor of "life" magazine used to do the talk of the town section of "the new yorker" and had been at it is right-hand man at "time" magazine. he was the editor o fortune

they thought the newspaper men were the slaves to the advertisers he wanted a newspaper that did not accept advertising the way it would make a profit it would cost more but it would be worth it and part of a what would make it worth it would have things that no other paper have. it had a pediatrician and telling you the diary of a young baby first year in the pediatrician was named benjamin spock who went on to other fame. and have the editorial cartoonist his only previous experience was for an insecticide and this guy theodor seuss geisel do true pictures. [laughter] and he looks much later like the grinch. [laughter] was also the first paper to

have consumer news and to carry comprehensive review listings because newspaper did not want to do that because radio was the competition it change the way newspapers work it cost one nichol when others cost two or $0.03 you had a hard time to get on the newsstands in new york because you had to fight for space and that meant hiring gunmen to give your newspaper on the stand. they would not sell the copy add so it was under siege from the beginning but it did last eight years partly because it was bankrolled by marshall fields to did not need the money so he did not mind it did not make a profit for a long time provincially he did mind and made them except advertising and it closed the year after that but also have photographers. there is a terfic book a university press books o am

sure it is still in print if you're interested in "pm" is good book on the subject >> are you aware of any conservative or right wing writer or commentator like a buckley 2000 acknowledged stone as a superb reporter or seeker of the truth? >> that is a good question. i know ron radar issue is a right wing craig tours was a big fan of i.f. stone and remained a fan of his until faly recently. he bought into the latest round of attacks by the still would say he was a superb reporter. the anarchist, of you consider libertarian and our guest but

they are a fan of i.f. stone although they spared. when the stone died "the national review" did not a eulogy because it was not very pleasant but they did notes his passing. the thing they held against him was although he is probably the most important american publicist for the new state of israel he noticed something that most americans reporters did not which is there were other people living there. he was also very much the advocate of palestinian rights and "the new rublic" and "the national review" held that against him when he died. >> i am wondering if there is

anything articulate revelatory in the fbi files this? >> yes. they are incredibly revelatory but it reminds me of one of stone's press clips the is dovish reporters know a lot of stuff i don't know but a lot of what they know isn't true. that is a problem with the fbi files they are full of revelations but are they true? my first brush with this, there is a man who for a long time was a professor at the columbia journalism school who wrote a book called the file about his own fbi file he got a file because he was on working "pm" just enough to work on that was a leftist and it got you a file and his file meant he was turned down for a full ride, nominated to me on the kennedy administration and

turned about -- turned down and he never knew about that and then he requested his file major and live so when the nation was 125 years old, if they asked campbell to write a piece about the nation fbi file because he i the expert. he requested the fbi file of the nation and he wrote about the note on i.f. stone file that said 1936 o apiece accusing the fbi for what was one of the predecessors of the b tactics. they were going around to people who had new deal jobs and interviewing them and saying things like this he

socialize with negros? do they have a lot of jewish friends? do they read the nation? these were things held against them so herote to the editorial criticizing and of course, that editorial got him the fbi file. one of the notations on that memo in the file says he applied to beat the fbi agent and was turned down by the bureau. he was serious that campbell would put this in the magazine in 1977 because it was not true. and he had done things in his life he was ashamed of a much indeed one of the things that i found out in his full file that the fbi acknowledgdd this was not true but erroneous. but it shows that you have to be carul you have to be careful reading files, and the

memo that is written on the premise that nobody else will see it come you have to be very careful with that. stone famously said all government's liability also sa but they do not lie to themselves. when one government branch communicates with another they have to let the truth out so the truth gets out because they do not lie to themselves. but something that is not designed to be circulated or disseminated come you have to be much more careful whether that is the fbi file or cia file i also that that file which is interesng. think it would go twice as much for the kgb file. but the two big surprises i learned with the stone fbi file was the sheer size and secondly because i filed my

freedom of information request july 1989 i got my last document 2005. the freedom of information act is a wonderful lot and even better if it was in force. but i got lot of material in the early 90's. one thing that i noticed and i did not understand was the fbi started daily service aliens in 1962 on i.f. stone. "i.f. stone's weekly" was started under daily fbi surveillance they followed him everywhere he went. he even took a trip to new york and followed him to grand central station and the men's room so plays know they do not extend him going into the men's roomy got a pretty good sense of the best chinese food and jewish deli is that his or her like to get takeout they even gave the names of

the shops but i did not understand why. it was really only with the release of the program at the national security agency where they were intercepting cable traffic from the soviet missions from the united states in the forties but they did not decrypt these transmissions until the 1950's and then three cables in one cable his name is mentioned and because his name is mentioned and into other cables there was the russian word for pancake which they said probably was i.f. stone and i have to say probably was but i would keep it as probably rather than certainly. the latest round of charges says it is not searchable quite probable that that person was i.f. stone then he was someone who was not so thrilled to be meeting them, avoiding them, but

trying not to be rude why he was not talking to them. that is all they dots but those three cables, at the hoover ordered daily surveillance because they said this guy could be a spy and we want to find out so they spent two years following him even his son he took a milford driver said practice and they followed him there. they opened his garbage and his mail, they got the doorman at the building he was living in to inform him on comings and goings and at the end the two years he was exactly he was just a radical who devoted most of his fire to his own government but had no ties to any foreign organization. it is interesting because stone's oldest son jeremy and ended at 19 50's was a consultant to the rand institution which is a think

tank started by the air force. he had a security clearance revoked because his father was i.f. stone but then it was restored because they looked through his file and said yes your father is a radical but we have looked at him as closely as ever have and there's no evidence he is anything more thanhat. that to me was a revelation but one that i did not understa until 1996 senator moynihan basically made public that program. >> applied to give everybody the opportunity to buy the book and have assigned and thank you so much for being here. >> thank you for your time [applause] >> d.d. guttenplan is the

author of the holocaust on trial in the london correspondenfor the nation magazine and has written for new york and newsday. for more information visit d.d. guttenplan.com.

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