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his review of Ronald Radosh's important new book, Commies,
Roger Clegg raises a provocative question: Are conservatives too
forgiving of the crimes committed by the Left against America, specifically
the crime of treason? Here are some ways to think about an answer.
It is certainly the case that the "progressive" Left--which has
never really looked back with second thoughts about its radical
commitments, which is still dedicated to its small-"c" communist
agendas, and which still defends its old subversive heroes —
is an anti-American Left that is ready to aid and abet virtually
any enemy of the United States, including apparently Saddam Hussein.
It is a near certainty that thousands of so-called new leftists
actively worked with the intelligence agencies of Communist governments
whose objectives were to weaken, injure and if possible destroy
the United States. The most obvious cases of this kind of treason
were the radio broadcasts from Hanoi of Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden,
and others accusing America of war crimes and urging American troops
to defect during the Vietnam conflict, and the collusion with Cuban
intelligence operatives during the 1980s in the setting up of "solidarity
committees" as part of Castro's plan to destabilize and overthrow
central American governments. At one point a Salvadoran operative
working for Cuban intelligence actually set up shop in the congressional
offices of Ron Dellums, with the conniving of the Congressman himself.
Roger Clegg is right that these and other crimes should not be regarded
lightly, and that a double standard governs attitudes toward former
Nazis and neo-Nazis on the one hand and former Communists and neo-Communists
— among whom I would include Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden, and Carlottia
Scott, the current political issues director of the Democratic party.
This nation's democracy would be in much healthier shape (and I
would probably retire from political activity) if there was no such
double standard and if all Americans, and conservatives in particular,
took the assaults on this nation's institutions and ideals more
seriously than they do.
Where I differ with Clegg is that his interrogation of this question
is directed almost exclusively at the Left. He notes that conservatives
are forgiving, and properly so, since it is a conservative insight
that we are all sinners, and it is pragmatically wise to "encourage
people to break with a wrong-headed past." The conservative movement,
for its part, has benefited tremendously from its generosity to
ex-Communists and ex-radicals. The shaping intellectual forces of
the publication in which Clegg makes his observations were recruited
from the ranks of the Communist movement by NR's founder,
William. F. Buckley. I, myself, am deeply grateful to the conservative
movement for the warmth with which they have accepted an ex-radical
like myself, and for the generosity of their support — despite
what I did — for my attempts to repay my country for the damage
I was responsible for.
That said, the problem that Clegg overlooks, and the problem that
has continued to puzzle me, has been the failure of nerve by those
who love this country, and who should be leading the efforts to
defend it, in fighting the Left. If leftists do not take seriously
their acts of treason, it is partly because nobody else does either.
When is the last time the United States government executed a spy?
Aldrich Ames — to name only one convicted traitor among many
— not only worked for the enemy, he caused the death of Americans
whom the government has identified. If the United States Government
doesn't regard spying and murder as such a big deal, why should
anyone else?
Turning to the Fonda problem, we encounter the same message. Fonda
committed treason during the Nixon and Ford administrations but
was never prosecuted. Perhaps that is because the United States
never declared itself at war. The decision of Lyndon Johnson to
put Americans in harms way without a formal declaration of war —
and the fact that this provoked no great congressional revolt —
probably tells us more about the nature of the problem that Roger
Clegg has raised than does anything else. It is just part of a syndrome.
Why weren't the student radicals who occupied university buildings
in the 1960s (and who then went on to run the universities themselves)
expelled or jailed? Why was Bernadine Dohrn, a terrorist in the
Seventies and now a prominent and unrepentant figure high up in
the American Bar Association — never prosecuted for her crimes?
Why did Republicans not protest (or even notice) the appointment
of Carlottia Scott, mistress of the Marxist dictator of Grenada
and colluder in his anti-American schemes? How was Defense Secretary
William Cohen able to give Ron Dellums the highest medal that the
Pentagon can bestow on a civilian without a peep of protest from
the Right? How come the present Republican Justice Department has
not launched an investigation into the collusion among the Clinton
administration, the Democratic party, and the Chinese Communist
dictatorship, in transferring previously protected military technologies
to America's number one potential adversary? These are the questions
that conservatives should be asking.
I would like to end this note with a personal request to my conservative
comrades-in-arms. When you go into your next battle with our opponents,
would you please stop referring to leftists who despise America,
who have waged a forty-year war against its foundations, whose agendas
are to build a socialist and even fascist utopia (redistribution
by racial preferences) as "liberals." These are not liberals. They
are leftists. The only thing they are liberal about is hard
drugs and sex. In every other respect they want to control your
lives. Their traditions are of the left; their ideas are of the
left; their agendas are of the left. You can't really complain about
the double standards for the past if you continue to apply those
double standards to the present.
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