this book is "flags of our fathers." thank you very much for joining us. >> guest: thank you. ..

america's adversaries. the author profiles high ranking government officials that he argues were duped by foreign governments including fdr, jimmy carter and ted kennedy. he presents his book at the heritage foundation in washington, d.c. >> good afternoon. thank you for joining us here at the heritage foundation. as director of lectures and seminars it's my privileged to welcome everyone to our lewis lehman auditorium. we welcome those who join us on our heritage.org website as well as those who will be seeing us on a future occasion on c-span booktv. we would ask everyone in-house to check that cell phones have been turned off. and for those viewing us online, questions or comments can be submitted at any time. simply emailing us at

speaker@heritage.org. hosting our discussion this afternoon is heather sexton. ms. sexton serves as director as our young leaders foundation. she oversees heritage's youth efforts for the ex-generation of political activists grassroots leaders and public policy professionals. among the programs under her oversight are our internship program, campus outreach activities, student group briefings and our young leaders program virtual think tank webcasts. before serving as director of this program, she was our intern coordinator as well as having served as a heritage intern herself. a graduate of the university of michigan. you get that clear the university of michigan. she earned her bachelor's degree in english and political science. please join me in welcoming heather sexton. heather? [applause] >> thank you, john. well, i'm excited to introduce dr. paul kengore for you today. professor of political science

at grove city college an executive director of the center for vision and value. a think tank policy center which focuses on advancing freedom with christian scholarship. paul is also a visiting fellow at the hoover institution on war, revolution and peace at stanford university. he's a frequent contributor to msnbc, c-span and fox news. in addition, he has written for the "new york times," "wall street journal," political science quarterly and many other publication. among the numerous books he has authored are the crusader, ronald reagan and the fall of communism, god and reagan, god and george w. bush and william p. clark, ronald reagan's top hand. today i'm excited that paul will be focusing on his newly released book "dupes." we are really looking forward to hear your discussion of this

troubling aspect of history, the prominent role of the dupes. please join me in welcoming paul kengore. [applause] >> thank you, heather. john, and everybody here at heritage, everybody for coming. lee edwards. i really struggled how to organize this talk because i turned in a manuscript of 250,000 words and about 1,000 pages. and i think the book god and ronald reagan i believe was somewhere around 100,000 words so that gives you an idea of just how enormous the task was and probably as well just how many dupes are out there. in fact, i'm not joking when i say this could be volume 1 in a multivolume set. [laughter] >> i really didn't know where to stop. and there were a number of people at different points that i thought i would have full chapters on and there would be so much information i'd fill up

an entire box that i would just mark, for example, henry wallace and then at some point, i got to punt on this one. i mean, i could do a whole book just on this guy. so i'm going to focus a little bit with -- first i'll give you a little overview, why i did this and why i chose this subject and my goals and hopefully the importance of the issue. and then work upwards chronologically through three cases that i think are very telling and represent different types of individuals. an academic, somebody involved in education, a writer and also a politician and specifically i'll talk about john dewy, frank marshall davis and ted kennedy as examples. and during the q & a there's a lot of other people that we could talk about as well including actors all kinds of people. humphrey bogart, for example, i talk in the book as a dupe. i found that bogart in the

communist party usa archives from the soviet common turn and i look at that very carefully as too whether that could possibly be humphrey bogart so that's something we could also talk about during the q & a. but first on why i did this. three components, scholarship, partisanship and the issue of redemption. scholarship, i notice that nobody had ever done a book on the role of dupes in american history. in fact, i did a google search on the term and maybe 2 or 3 books in all the library of congress even have the word in the title and yet it's a word that goes back to the founding of the republic itself. you would probably be surprised to know that george washington used the word "dupes" in his farewell address. so they've been warning about it since the founding of the republic. adam smith who was not an american but, of course, was around at the time of the founding.

adam smith in his book wealth of nation talks about dupes but suddenly it took an ugly upsurge with the founding of the bolshevik revolution in russia and the launching of the bolshevik revolution in russia in october 1917. and then after that even more specifically with the founding of the common term, the communist international in moscow in march of 1919. if you're following this chronologically then it gets really bad with the founding of the communist party in america in chicago in september of 1919. as i was looking in one particular cachet of documents in particular, the common turn archives on cpusa which are right over here at the library of congress. i mean, there's hundreds and reels of microfiche. and because, when i would go there in the summertime when professors and academics are off, i mean, not like we work a lot to begin with in the school

year. [laughter] >> but i never once even one time was told by an after could i havist you can't have that reel because somebody else has it out. hardly even anyone is looking at this stuff and that's because most academic historians are on the left and when you see what these files say, they are a real indictment of many things that the left has believed. among them, i started going through -- i started spinning the different reels of microfiche, one of the first documents you come to is a september 1919 document from the communist party of america and its founding on blue island avenue in chicago, holiday. i have a bunch of different documents. i could have done powerpoint but as some of my former students in here know, i'm technically computer illiterate so i didn't bother with that but i'll hold these up and they're in the book. i'll try to describe them. this one right here communist party of america. it doesn't -- it looks like this on microfiche.

it's actually a good reproduction. these are 100-year-old documents but this is from charles rosenberg the executive secretary. and it's very brief. he's sending it to the folks at the communist international in moscow. in the name of the communist workers of the united states organizing the communist party of the america extend writings to the communist party of america. long live the soviet socialist -- russian socialist soviet republics. long live the communist international. paternally your executive secretary charles rosenberg who today is buried on the wall of the kremlin. but as you see these right off, you learn what the american government learned and what anticommunists said throughout the 20th century. that the american communist party was not just another political party. i mean, they were loyal soviet patriot. they were dedicated to the soft -- their materials ended up in the communist international

files in moscow. and we only have them now because they were declassified by the yeltsin government in the early 1990s. so you see here right off -- and this is why i think scholars on the left are ignoring this stuff -- what the anticommunist said all along was right. there was this tight bond, this inseparatable bond between the american party and the soviet party. another document -- this is from again chicago where the party was founded. this one is from november 24th, 1919. and it says to the bureau of the communist international, okay, as international secretary again charles rosenberg of the american party, i make application for admission of the communist party of america to the bureau of the communist international. they're filing their formal membership application in there. it's a three-page document and you get to the very end, last page just a few lines, and it

says here the final struggle of the communist will be weighed at the united states. our congest sharing the republic. realizing all this the communist party prepares for the struggle. long live the communist international, long live the world revolution paternally yours international secretary charles rosenberg. once again, you see that connection. why are dupes so important in it? dupes are so critical because dupes are people on the progressive left, liberal left who weren't communists themselves but sometimes ran in the same circles. had some of the same ideas, shared some of the same sympathies, redistribution of wealth, workers rights, nationalization, different issues. they weren't as far to the left as the communists but over a little bit and i started finding throughout these styles clear evidence, letter after letter,

document after document where the boys of the common turn in moscow and the boys at cpu headquarters in new york, chicago or whatever are very closely laying out plans and campaigns to try to very deliberately dupe progressives and liberals. go to this rally, do this, don't let them know that you're a communist. if you're charged with being a communist, say it's red baiting paranoia, right. later on in the 1950s. call it mccarthyism. right? deny that you're an actual communist and they would go to these rallies and they would do that and the progressives -- they'd say we're not communists and the anticommunists would come in yes they were i know they are and the anticommunist would be the bad guy. they'd be the red baiting reprobate, the paranoid anticommunist person and cavemen. so the dupes were critical.

the american communist party at its peak membership in the 1930s only got to be about 100,000 members. so they could never really get any popular support. to try to get larger popular support for their cause they had to enlist progressives and liberals so that's why i looked at them. they targeted the progressive liberal left but this gets to an important point i want to make on partisanship. they didn't always have success. i appreciate the chance to say this to a conservative audience. there were a lot of good anticommunist liberals and anticommunist democrats who weren't duped, okay? and i've got dozens and dozens of examples. arthur schlesinger, the late arthur schlesinger, jr. wrote a piece for "life" magazine in 1946 which at that point was along with "time" probably the largest circulation in all of america. and arthur schlesinger said this, communists have succeeded

in hiding their true face from american liberal. the red are posing the most serious danger to liberals. they are engaged on a massive attack on the moral fabric of the american left, unquote. george f. kennan said the same kind of thing. try to warn people on the left, don't be duped by these guys. don't be taken in. the list of one-time duped liberals who changed, who were duped and say, boy, was i duped and changed and weren't duped again. humphrey bogart, paul douglass, john dewy from hollywood, lucille ball, jimmy cagney, olivia dehavilland, jimmy cagney, melvin douglas and also a later anticrusader republican president named ronald reagan who admitted in 1946 that he had been misled.

>> that he had been duped as well. democrats on the other hand there were antiliberal democrats who i think were never duped and right away recognized the danger that the communists posed to their plans and their policies and i'm going to surprise you here. the first president who had to deal with this at the founding of the party, founding of the american party was who, 1919? woodrow wilson. woodrow wilson. and woodrow wilson may have been the -- [inaudible] >> a man on the left, all right, but he was an anticommunist and he was stridegently anti-bolsheviks. harry truman, same kind of thing. jfk warned us about our atheistic foe and the godless communist conspiracy. right?

they realized these guys did that the communists were not their friends. and went after the causes that they held dear. they attacked wilson's league of nations. they attacked fdr's new deal. the documents and the archives on this are stunning. almost as if the boys at cpusa wanted to report to the boys back in moscow the yeoman's work they were doing attacking liberal causes. and here's one. this is the 1920 presidential election. this is from the united communist party. don't vote. strike. boycott this election. overthrow the capitalist government, establish the soviet government. not just another political party. right? not just another political party. when you strike, the court enjoins you, the police beat you, the soldiers shoot you. that is what the capital of government is for. the united communist party is the only party which puts up

candidates for this purpose. boycott this election. don't vote, strike. an official proclamation from the united communist party, stand by soviet russia. another. boycott the election. right? here's communist labor put out by the communist labour party of america. this is february 1920. guess who's on the front? woodrow wilson's attorney general who they are portraying as an indian carrying a scalp, okay? that's what they thought of the progressives, liberals. okay, the communists were not your friends. quit defending these guys. the anticommunists were right. here they are in 1933 may day protesting the roosevelt administration, okay, putting together a march. demonstrate against hunger,

fascism and the war. the new deal is a blow against the war and increases profits for wall street. all this was done of the crisis, all this shows how the american government, this is the roosevelt administration is moving headlong towards fascism and war. roosevelt, fascist. okay. it's the american communist party. here's another one, may day, same period. they did this all over the country, in 1933. condemning the roosevelt's program of, quote, forced labor for the unemployed, unquote. and who had the answer? lenin. lenin shows the way. right? lenin shows the south the only way to jobs, land and freedom. so that's what they were sending around. that's the kind of thing that they were doing. and while they're doing all of that, they're also very

condemnusly very strategically trying to get progressives and liberals to join their cause. so i'll give you three cases, three examples. john dewy, john dewy, i include among a group i call progressives. and these were people in the 1920s and 1930s -- american progressives, western progressives, british as well as american who were taken to the soviet union in the 1920s and 1930s in very carefully manipulated by soviet handlers. it's extraordinary to see how they did it. it's shocking. it's shocking to see how many took the bait as well. because of the woodrow wilson administration wouldn't recognize the bolsheviks, right, because the early british government wouldn't recognize the bolsheviks, winston churchill said you might as well

recognize sodomy than recognize the bolsheviks. so stalin and the boys took them on carefully managed tours to try to get them to go back to the united states, write articles about how great the soviet union is and how they're finding this whole new world and the united states government ought to recognize the soviet government. so these were the progressives. one of them. h.g. wells, h.g. wells -- after a meetings with stalin in 1934 -- i've never met a man more candid, fair and honest. everyone trusts him. everyone trusts him. that's the start of the great terror, 1934. well, maybe as a stalin. wells likewise had been impressed by vladimir lenin whom he called a refreshing little man. an amazing little man. wells's fellow socialist george bernard shaw met with stalin and

you're going to think this is sarcastic, it's not. it's completely serious. george bernard shaw -- we cannot afford to give ourselves more leaders. what our most enterprising neighbor the soviet union judicially eliminates speculators to make the world safe for honest men. if you see the actual original notes from the meeting which lady aster and some other people recorded that was precisely, precisely what stalin had told george bernard shaw. he parroted the exact line that stalin wanted them to say. somebody who wasn't taken by this was a witness was the great malcolm mugerige and upon one of his returns made these comments about what he saw. talking about these american progressives. they're unquestionably one of the wonders of the age that i shall treasure until i die.

the spectacle of them traveling with optimism through a countryside wandering happy bands of squalid overcrowded soviet towns listening to unshakeable fate to the fat uus pattern guides repeating like school children a multi indication table the bogus statistics and mindless slogans endlessly in toned to them. he continued there were ernest advocates of the humane killing of cattle who looked up at the massive headquarters of the ogpu with tears of gratitude in their eye. ernest proposal who easily assented with the necessity of the dictatorship of the person. there were ernest clergyman who walked through soviet anti-god museums and irrev gently turned the pages of at ittis jake literature. pacificists who watched tanks go

across red square and planning specialist whose stood outside overcrowded ramshackle tentments and muttered if only we had something like this in new england. not only was he mystified by the naivete that he saw among those progressives but so were the soviets. he said the almost unbelievable credit uity of these mostly uneducated tourists astonished even soviet officials that were used to handling foreign visitors. in the book i quote a romanian intelligence chief during a cold war. who died a few years ago who talks about handling western visitors like senator ted kennedy. and he worked for the soviet press agency said among my duties was to get these western progressives -- from the moment they got off the plane at moscow

international airport my chief tasks was to keep them permanently intoxicated the entire time they were in the soviet union. and a lot of these guys -- they came to see the rot of the soviet system and it disturbed them and it ate at their conscience because they thought here's what i'm working for. but what do i do? how do i defect? how do i get out of here? how do i take care of my family? and they were depressed at how progressives would come to the country and no matter how outrageous the line of exaggeration propaganda they fed them, they swallowed it again and again and again. these fellow passengers provided my first experience of the progressive elite from all over the world who attached themselves to the soviet regime. resolved to believe anything that they were told by the spokesman. resolved to believe anything that they were told.

one of them was john dewy. one of them was john dewy. a founder of american public education. and probably the single greatest influence on american public schools to this day, whose books have been used for over 100 years now to train generation after generation of public school teachers. columbia teachers college, departments of education, teachers colleges all over the country. this guy's books are like sacred scripture. some departments of education. dewy, did you know this, i didn't know this till i started -- i never learned any of this when i had to learn about dewy. dewy's books were being rapidly translated into russian by the bolsheviks as early as 1918. the bolsheviks had taken over in 1917. you immediately get a vicious

civil war from russia from 1918 to 1921. w. bruce lincoln the russian historian said 7 million men, women, children died in that war. bolsheviks they were preoccupied but they realized how important john dewy's works were to the soviet collective communist state that they were trying to put in place. so they immediately started translating them. 1918, dewy's schools of tomorrow published in russian. 1919, dewy's how we think published in russia. 1920, dewy, the school and society published in russian. dewy's preeminent classic, what is it? 1921 democracy in education, democracy in education. 1921 published as a 62-page pamphlet. that book as a dewy biographer said became a bible of columbia

teachers college and the soviets loved it. and adored it. and you think dewy perhaps once caught wind of this that lenin and all these others probably felt bad, you know, the architects of this collectivist totalitarian society adored his books and were translating them in russian? no, he was flattered. he was flattered. sort of mutual admiration society started developing and dewy and the bolsheviks hierarchy and so in the summer of 1928, john dewy along with 25 american educators from various universities made a trip to the soviet union where they were given the full treatment. all the factories, you know, ride around and lincoln limousines, caviar, all the food -- everything you could possibly imagine. dewy went there realizing, too the possibility they were going to try to manipulate him. in fact, he even said the

warning that appears humorous in retrospect so often given by kindly friends that i would be taken to show places, right. that's not going to possibly happen. so when dewy came back, he wrote a 6-part series for the new republic. the bible, the political bible of the american left for a long time. published from november 14th, 1928 through december 19th, 1928. i have a long chapter on this in the book so i won't read all the quotes but it is astonishing to read these articles. it is really astonishing. dewy, my mind was in a whirl. readjustment was difficult. i lived somewhat dazed. the liberation of the people that i saw. the outstanding fact is that russia is in a revolution involving a release of human powers at such an unprecedented scale that it is incalculable

significance not only for this one but for the whole world and one really painful article dewy writes about how impressed he was with the restoration of russian churches that was taken place under lenin and stalin. they're blowing them up. and in a later -- a later biography of dewy where that's mentioned, the biographers was completely sympathetic and loves dewy and inserts this gentle little footnote. apparently professor dewy didn't know about the demolishing of russian churches that was going on in russia at the time. how? how? he didn't know that? that's what they were doing. they're blowing them up. 650 churches operating in moscow on the eve of the revolution 46 left by the 1970s. official soviet statistic. how could he not know this? dewy -- this one, i'm not making it up.

the bolsheviks, right, how they're doing things. well, in spite of secret police, inquisitions, arrests and deportation of people and businessmen and farmers aside from exiling them, life for the masses goes on with regulator, safety and decorum. aside from all those other things. the external routine of life is more settled and secure in russia than probably any other country in all of europe. and this isn't what i'm being told, he said. that's what i'm seeing. the bolsheviks revolution he pronounced was a great success. a great success. and i think the schools are a dialectic factor in the evolution of russian communism. his very last article for the new republic dewy wrote this, political recognition of russia on the part of the united states is at least a necessary antecedent step bringing about

the kind of relations that are in the countries and the rest of the world. i went to russia with no conviction on that subject but now here i am telling you i think our government should recognize bolsheviks russia which was russia which is precisely, precisely the number one priority of what stalin and the bolsheviks wanted in bringing these progressives over. that they would go back home and call for recognition. so that's dewy. i'll give you a couple of other examples here. frank marshall davis, the example of frank marshall davis. i spent about four years on this one and i won't take you through the entire four-year sojourn, i promise you. but frank marshall davis is relevant right now because he was, i'm choosing my words carefully, a mentor, a mentor to the current president of the united states, barack obama. that was in obama's years in the latter 1970s in hawaii.

and i first started reading about frank marshall davis and obama in 2007/2008. i heard conservatives on talk radio, on blogs and elsewhere saying frank marshall davis was a communist, a party member. he influenced obama. and meanwhile while i'm hearing all of this stuff i have spread all over my desk all these committee reports, right? senate judiciary committee run by democrats because. house committee internal security run by democrats, house committee un-american activities. run by democrats. most of these people who ran these committees were democrats. chris dodd's father, thomas dodd, right? francis walter, representative i-court, jack kennedy was an anticommunist on some of these committees. so i hear this and i'm thinking, okay, what does he really believe? what does davis really believe? and how close was he to obama?

august 2nd, 2008, a.p. piece, davis was a constant figure in obama's early life. he was an important influence to obama looked to like a father, a mentor for advice on living, other things. obama in "dreams for my father." i was intrigued by old frank with his books and whisky breath and the hen of hard knowledge behind eye. frank gave me advice of college, on women and all things of life. i started looking in the documents and among the things that i found -- there's a frank marshall davis was called to testify before the senate in 1956 for communist associations. he pleaded the fifth amendment. these are -- these are in the book. i give the actual copies of the actual pages. i think it's around page 256, 257 in the book.

next year, a senate report actually listed frank marshall davis as an identified member of the communist party usa. so that's pretty -- that's pretty -- congress didn't just go and say that somebody was a member of the communist party. they would say things like this person has associations of communist front groups. here they actually said he was a member of the communist party usa. so i started looking at some different biographers, john edgar tidwell who's a preeminent biographer in frank marshall davis. and another davis biographer. most of these guys are on the left. a massachusetts professor, harvard ph.d. he said davis was almost certainly a party member. i read john edgar tidwell's book he's a university of kansas professor and that book tidwell actually said davis actually joined the communist party and produces a letter that he dates around 1943 where davis says in his own writing that he joined

the communist party. okay. finally after looking at all of those different things, not long before the book went to press, i found -- i got davis' actual fbi file which was declassified through a foia request by a fellow researcher. but 600 pages long and as soon as you start reading frank marshall davis' fbi file you can see very clearly it takes maybe a half hour of reading to see that the guy was a communist. very, very, very clear and in the appendix of the book i give 10 to 12 pages from that fbi file. including on page 507 this page which among other information actually lists frank marshall davis' communist party card number 47544, which is -- i mean, that's hard evidence. i recently read some of the

stuff that was out there accusing howard zinn of being a party member and howard zinn's file was recently released and i read the fbi file. there aren't things like communist party numbers in zinn's file. all right. when you find a file that was cp numbers, you've really got something. and because, those numbers are fully consistent with other people who joined the party at the time including hollywood 10 members who you're probably told your universities were all innocent lambs just, you know, liberals and progressives practicing their civil liberties. dragged before joe mccarthy. joe mccarthy was a senator. he wasn't on the house committee un-american activities. october 1947 called to washington, d.c., to testify. john howard lawson was one of the hollywood 10. communist party card number 42475. albert mulz, 47196. alva besse 46386.

i got some of frank marshall -- i got all of frank marshall davis' columns, weekly columns that he wrote from the honolulu record from 1949 to 1950 which was the communist party usa organization in hawaii. and i got them through the help of two tremendous grove city college students. one found them online and the other who's actually in hawaii and i'm amazed is here today. i won't -- i'll keep it secret, i promise. but she went into a library at the university of hawaii and got the columns on microfiche. actual hard copy. but what you see here in reading davis' columns was just how anti-american the communist party was in the united states and the latter 1940s. who was president in the united states after world war ii? harry truman. what party? democrat. so he was the enemy. so they mercilessly savaged

harry truman. davis just took him that apart. davis turned harry truman into a demon in these articles. colonialist, imperialist, fascist, racist monsters were truman, george marshall, you name it. examples, february 9th, 1950, piece here davis really tows the soviet and the communist party line of portraying harry truman as the butcher of hiroshima. because, harry truman dropped the bomb on japan august 6th, 1945, to spare a land invasion of japan. the land invasion would have been joined by who? not just american troops, not just british troops but russian troops. stalin supported that. but once the war is over, truth doesn't matter, right? lenin, there is no truth there is no truth and the only

morality that matters class. truman who had done what we've done in 1945 is now the butcher of hiroshima and that makes the cpu ssh cpusa line of them. this one from february 9th 1950. when we dropped the atom bomb on hiroshima said davis, we believed the world was ours. having defeated the axis powers on the battlefronts we were now ready to show the russians who was the boss of the world, unquote. he said harry truman goal was to rule russia. was to rule russia. in addition to that, the accused truman and the democrats in particular of wanting to turn west germany back to the nazis. wanting to turn west germany

back to the nazis. marshall plan was a sham. a policy to try to as davis put it re-enslave, all right, the colonial peoples around the world. the black and yellow peoples around the world as he wrote in this piece. that was the goal of the marshall plan. not to bail out western europe but to re-enslave the world and if you've ever studied this period you know the only people making that argument anywhere in the world stalin and molotov and cpusa. quote, davis, the big industrialists who financed hitler have been handed back their factories and the old school ties with wall street are almost as strong as they ever were. america's policy of de-naziification is a sham. one of the big jokes of the 20th century. what kind of west germany is america trying to help back to its feet wrote frank marshall davis? it is the germany of the master

race theory. the fascists that we saw to exterminate in world war ii are now our partners. what do you say we kiss and make up? as i was reading that column at the time, senator obama had gone to berlin who was still senator and made this eloquent speech about how americans and germans stood together in those days of the berlin blockade and after world war ii and the marshall plan to keep -- to resist the soviet union. well, not all americans did. frank marshall davis was on the other side on that. another piece that continues to haunt me, january 26th, 1950, column by davis called "free enterprise socialism." and in this piece, davis' demon is not harry truman, not the democrats. but general motors, gm.

and davis is furious that this gigantic corporation last year made a profit of $600 million and he's trying to frame gm as an aggressive monopoly. davis concludes, in the face of still rising unemployment and mounting depression, the time draws nearer when we will to have oust the monopolies and restore a system of freenterprise or let the government own or operate our main industries. if davis could have, if he could have, he would have nationalized gm in 1950, no question. how relevant is all of this today? with president obama? we can go into that and talk about that in q & a. i started looking at davis and reading these columns -- i went a little bit -- not exactly the order of my discovery of these things. i read the columns first and then i started finding the fbi

files and the other things. but first i thought with davis that i was dealing with possibly a progressive liberal who is duped by communists and then i realized that this was a communist who duped progressives and liberals. and so i realized i had to have this character in the book. now, how exactly relevant is it today in what's going on in washington and how does it apply to today? we could talk about that and we can debate that. you could make some of those conclusions. i don't go into all of that. but i cover davis obviously. one last example here and then i'll wrap up and take your questions. senator ted kennedy, the late senator ted kennedy, who's hard to get a handle on and i've been asked if i consider kennedy a dupe or something else all together? i found things from kennedy on the vietnam war in the 1960s

that he said about our troops that were almost identical to the things he was saying to the troops in 2003, 2004, 2005 in the middle east. it was really startling. i didn't realize all the things kennedy had said about our troops in vietnam, for example, in the 1960s. but the major revelation that i have on kennedy which i know a lot of you are familiar with is the may 1983 document that's in the central committee archives in the soviet union. and my understanding is that the archives have since been resealed. and so you can't go in now and get that document but that's okay. i've it got. and it's in the book so you can read it. [laughter] >> so i one up the russians. i'm all excited about that. but here is the actual document which is in the appendix in the book. it's five pages in russian. so if any of you read russian -- because, i've been told that the translation that's in the book

is actually pretty kind to kennedy. it's kind of charitable. that if you actually read it in russian, it's worse. and then here it is -- it's in english also. and on the very back of the book, there's the very top -- back of the book the very top of page 1 translated in english and it's listed here. here's what that document says. does this not grab you right away, special importance, committee on state security of the ussr, kgb. may 14th, 1983. and then this subject head bound to pique your curiosity. regarding senator kennedy's request to the general secretary of the communist party, andropov, hmmm, okay? opening line, on 9-10 may of this year, this is 1983, president reagan, reagan is

president, speech, march of 1983 evil empire speech, march of 1983, re-election campaign coming up in 1984. on 9-10 of this year, senator edward kennedy and trusted confidant and they note who this was was in moscow. the senator charged him to convey the following message through confidential contacts to a general contact andrewoff. senator kennedy like other rational people is very troubled by the current state of the soviet-american relations. events that are developing with this relationship coupled with the general spate of global affairs will make the situation even more dangerous. here we go. the main reason for this is reagan's belligerence. in his firm commitment to deploy new american weapons in europe. and he goes through here in this

document and lists difficulties reasons as to why exactly reagan is gaining in popularity. and because this is fascinating. here you have an admission from the soviet head of the kgb who's really interpreting the offer from senator kennedy so an admission of him as well that reag reaganomics is working. he's cruising in the election, oh, no what are we going to do about this? well, they go through there and then it says given this, given the current state of affairs, basically, reagan's re-election coming up, what can we do? what can we do to stop this? to reverse reagan's belligerent and dangerous defense policy? well, then they get to the core of the offer. kennedy proposes the following. and they give one, two, three different steps here that

basically what kennedy believed according to this document -- what kennedy believed is that the soviets wanted peace and this increasing in cold war tensions was reagan's fault and it's better to communicate it to the americans generally. because as this letter says hilariously reagan was good at propaganda so you need to get around reagan's smoke screen of propaganda. kennedy is very impressed, exact words, very impressed with andropov. not impressed with reagan. very impressed with andropov. so they argue here, kennedy would go to moscow and meet with the soviet leadership. he even talks about senator mark hatfield, a liberal republican with him. they would talk to them.

they would help arrange for a soviet media tour in the united states. basically, a kind of a public relations tour in the united states. a kind of a p.r. campaign. those are my words, p.r. campaign, to help communicate soviet peaceful tensions. andropov would come to the united states. so would high level soviet military and political figures would come to the united states this they would talk to the american media and have sit down interviews and would even mention by unanimous walter con cite and barbara walters are two people who could do interviews with andropov and some of these folks, right? and they could directly communicate to the american people. now, what happened with all of this? because, and then it ends up -- winds up in 1984 where it talks about the election campaign is coming up and then there's a discussion as to senator kennedy's president prospects in the 1984 race.

so it finishes up with that. whatever became of this? remember this is may 1983. well, andropov eventually got sick at the end of that year, died i believe it was in february 1984. they talked about this happening in september of 1983. anybody remember your chronology of cold war history? what happened over the alaska territory of september 1983? the soviets shot down the korean airliners killing 269 including 61 americans. 007. and initially denied doing it. initially did. so that kind of put an end to this apparently. not very impressive was the -- was all of that. now, for people who were listening, who are watching on c-span and who are democrats and who are angry about this and don't want to believe it because they liked kennedy and they didn't like reagan, good news for you. kennedy did a very, very, very

similar thing to jimmy carter in march of 1980. and we know this from the archives. they came into the united states with a defector in 1992. and isn't it interesting when talking about his diaries when kennedy tried to undermine him on health care, right, because of -- kennedy was challenging carter for the democratic primary in 1980. well, he didn't mention anything about this. but on march 5th, 1980, kennedy again through the same contact, the same liaison in moscow had a message delivered to the soviet leadership. to brezhnev in this case. and as the archives characterized this, here's what kennedy was arguing. the carter administration is trying to distort the

peace-loving ideas behind brez any's proposal. the atmosphere of tension and hostility is being fueled by carter. the carter white house is feeding public opinion with nonsense about the soviet military threat and soviet ambitions for military expansion in the persian gulf, unquote. what's so jaw-dropping about this -- according to this, kennedy again is concerned about rising soviet tensions, cold war tensions and he's blaming it on the soviet but again, on the president and the white house. who is jimmy carter? we have carter on the cover of the book kissing brezhnev. carter was anything but hard on the soviets. he was very accommodating toward the soviets. june, 1979, carter kisses brezhnev at the vienna summit and then six months later talk about betrayed with a kiss.

carter is in the white house celebrating christmas and get news in that the red army has just invaded afghanistan. and then here just three months after the soviets invade afghanistan and kennedy is concerned about the rising cold war intentions which according to the archives are the fault of carter? wow! wow! put it in context, what was going on march 5th of 1980? democratic presidential primaries. are jimmy carter the incumbent democratic president was being challenged by senator ted kennedy for this. so what happened in 1980 with carter seems to have also happened to some extent in 1983 with ronald reagan as well. in both cases. well, i could give other examples of this but i'm watching the clock and i should probably stop and i want to take your questions but that was a look at dewy, at frank marshall

davis, at ted kennedy. and there's a lot of other people i could cover as well. but i'll stop right there and take some of your questions. thank you. [applause] >> right here, yeah. john. >> what do you account for the growing support that the communist party has been giving the democrats and people's weekly world and so forth -- i mean, for crying out loud, in 2003, they had a moveon.org thing on the home page of their website. and more recently they're constantly raving about president obama's policies. >> yeah the one nation rally that was held not that long ago here in d.c. i was shocked to see that when you went to the website that listed all the different endorsing groups, communist party usa was right out there

right in the open as one of the endorsers. that is so how -- it's so interesting to me about that having written a book on duping and how the communists duped liberals and progressives for 100 years, right, basically going back to the 1910's is that in the past in those rallies they would -- the liberals like the plague would want the communists -- they'd avoid them and the only way that you would get communist party usa at those groups was secretly, covertly. and here in this case it was kind of arms wide open, come on in. no problem. one of the most troubling examples i give in the book -- this is one of those that i had to look again and again and again and i still look at the documents and just can't believe it was an april 1941 group called the american peace mobilization, okay? and this group -- it was a communist front group and because, people who are

listening who hate the house un-american committee, this group was exposed by them. which called it one of the most seditious, subversive communist front groups ever in the united states. this group accommodated hitler, okay? so the house committee did far more good things than you guys are willing to acknowledge. but the american peace mobilization -- they -- their job was to tow the soviet line, to represent moscow's position, to try to bring progressives to their rally. they were created -- think about this august 1939 hitler and stalin signed a pact, right, the hitler/stalin nonaggression pact to not fight that because of that the american communist party in 1940, 1941 protested to britain aiding britain. basically, accommodated hitler

because hitler was in an alliance with stalin. and that group, the american peace mobilization took that position -- communists -- we have in the book the actual documents ordering the creation of this group in chicago. in the fall of 1940. they went, they protested and picketed outside of the white house. fdr is a fascist. fdr is trying to start another war, rights? the soviets -- don't send aid to britain. meanwhile britain is dying because of hitler's blitzkrieg. that's the position they took. they picketed outside of the white house. "washington post" covered it. "new york times" covered it. it got all kinds of news. one of the leaders fred field of the vanderbilt fortune who was interviewed in one of the articles. communist was never mentioned once. he was a communist. they're picketing outside of the white house and this is so incredible. on june 22nd 1941, june 22nd,

1941 -- and i have the "new york times" article that describes this. they put down their pickets and they started chanting a prowar chant and went home. anybody know what happened on june 22nd 1941? the soviet union was invaded by germany. on a dime overnight the people in the american peace mobilization became prowar and they changed -- this is so cynical. they changed their name from american peace mobilization to the american peoples mobilization. they didn't even change the acronym. they kept the acronym apm. and they started pushing vigorously for aid to britain, for the united states to enter the war, fdr was no longer a fascist, you know, now they could be -- cpusa could now be

pro-american, right because america would be allied with stalin and it was really a great day for them. the "new york times" article on the subject is titled clergyman group opposes war aid. that's the american peace mobilization. clergyman group. because of the presence of religious left social justice duped progressive pastors. the communists would show up at these rallies and say, blessed are the peacemakers. right? turn the other cheek. of course, not noting that they're communists and they're blowing up churches and throwing nuns in the gulag and arresting priests. herb robinson the great ex-communist himself and investigator of this period -- i asked him when i started doing this book i asked him was there a particular group that was duped more than other yes, progressive pastors. they were the biggest suckers of them