National Observer Home > No. 64 - Autumn 2005 > Book Reviews

Treason: Liberal Treachery From the Cold War to the War on Terrorism

Ann Coulter

Crown Forum, New York, 2003

The subtitle to Treason — “Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism” — neatly summarises what this book sets out to establish. Ann Coulter has never sought to disguise her distaste for the liberal-left, which in the United States controls the Democrat Party. Her incisive criticisms
are well justified by a wealth of research.

Treason is not always easy reading, but, for anyone who wants to understand the last sixty years of United States history and the present divisions which became so apparent in the recent Presidential election, it is essential reading. While F.D. Roosevelt was President, there was a very significant infiltration of the U.S. government by Soviet agents. This infiltration was typified by Alger Hiss, who in 1944 at Yalta was chief adviser to the ageing Roosevelt, when so much of Eastern Europe was abandoned to the Soviet Union. What had happened was not only a major disaster for the United States, but, if the full truth came out, inevitably would have been enormously damaging to the credibility of the Democrats.

In 1938 Whittaker Chambers, who had been a Soviet agent, came to realise that he was involved in something very evil, and defected from the Communist Party. Chambers knew not only many of the names of those working in the Soviet network but also precisely what they were doing. In 1939, deeply concerned by the Hitler-Stalin pact, Chambers went to see Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle and, over some hours, provided him with a vast amount of information.

He named, amongst others, Alger Hiss and his brother Donald as Soviet spies. When, however, Berle relayed all this information to Roosevelt, the President merely laughed, dismissing it all and quickly dispatching Berle with a ribald and offensive comment. The most interesting, and probably most valuable, part of Treason is Coulter’s analysis of the immediate postwar era. She says the problem was not that the Democrats were given insufficient proof of communist spies in by Hans Blix London: Blomsbury Publishing, 2004, pages 274 and index, $29.95

There is clear purpose of selfjustification in Dr. Blix’s account of events. He had been criticised, and
he has an understandable wish to justify himself. In this he succeeds: he was evidently conscientious in the their administration but that “they didn’t give a damn”. Soviet spies in the government most certainly were not, as the liberal-left continued (generally dishonestly) to maintain, a figment of right-wing imaginations.

Senator Joseph McCarthy, who played one of the more prominent parts in the battle to expose the truth
of the authentic communist conspiracy, became not only the major target of liberal-left defamation, but
also of a vast propaganda campaign deliberately designed to destroy his reputation. Early in this campaign a number of major attacks were made by “independent” journalist I.F. Stone who published hysterical diatribes against Senator Joseph McCarthy. Without a tittle of evidence he called McCarthy
an “anti-semite” and a “fascist”, then standard communist terms of abuse. Stone was highly praised by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post. Inter alia he was described as “one of the great investigative reporters of the 20th century”. In 1992, it was finally revealed that Stone in fact had always been a paid Soviet agent, a matter subsequently corroborated from a number of sources

McCarthy’s allegations that some fifty-seven persons in government were communist spies or security risks in every instance proved to be entirely accurate. In fact, McCarthy significantly underestimated
the penetration of government. A cache of Soviet cables was decoded during the Cold War. Known
as the Venona Project, it was first released in July 1995. Despite the fact that it would have established the guilt of Alger Hiss, the Rosenbergs and others, the continuing value of the Venona Project had necessitated it being kept under wraps.

Not only was McCarthy a patriot and a man of complete integrity, he was of high intellectual calibre, enabling him to analyse much of what was happening. Yet to this day the term “McCarthyism” survives to be used to convey a false and unjustified smear. Coulter ascribes to McCarthy what she asserts is his rightful place in history, yet the liberal-left still continues to peddle its calumnies. Much of American contemporary history is written by left-wing academics, and many American school children and college students will be brought up to believe in what is a false version of history. Many Australians studying American history will labour under similar delusions.

Having firmly established the pattern of Democrat behaviour, Coulter goes on to examine their war record — the betrayal of brave Cubans at the Bay of Pigs, characterised as Kennedy’s failure of will, and what she describes as the miserable prosecution of the Vietnam war. She claims Vietnam was winnable (as did the Army at the time), but it required the overwhelming force which Johnson was never prepared to give. In what is described as the “most dishonourable chapter of the nation’s history”, the United States doublecrossed
its ally. In vain President Ford begged the Democratic Congress “to provide adequate assistance to allies fighting for their lives”.

Treason goes on to highlight the enormous difference between Democrat government and the regime of
Ronald Reagan (1981-1989). Reagan had always believed he could destroy the Soviet Union if he could only be given two terms in the White House. After his accession, not one country fell to communism and, for the first time since the Russian Revolution, communist countries began to break
free. Reagan took the offensive both ideologically and geopolitically, nor would he abandon his constant description of the Soviet Union as the “evil empire”, despite the contempt of the left-liberal New York Times. And, as we all know, the Soviet Union did in fact crumble.

In referring to recent events, Coulter inevitably needed to mention the striking similarity between the treatment of Senator McCarthy and the recent treatment of Kenneth Starr. Amongst those who knew him, Starr had a reputation of great integrity, a hard worker of considerable ability and a fair man with complete independence of mind. Because of his findings he too had to be vilified to protect Clinton from a richly deserved impeachment, yet Clinton is now claimed to be “the President who saved the Constitution”.

Whilst dealing with what are very serious matters, Coulter nevertheless enriches her subject matter with
flashes of brilliant humour and comments biting in their sarcasm as, for example, her attack on Hollywood producer Steve Bing who, she says, “has not only donated millions of dollars to the Democratic Party but also actively supports the Democrat lifestyle by fathering illegitimate children”.
In her final chapter, Coulter poses and answers the question: why do liberals hate America? She points out that the liberal-left and much of the media and of academia continue to support barbaric dictatorships as against civilisation.

She concludes that “the fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives is conservatives believe man was created in God’s image while liberals believe they are God — liberals believe they can murder the unborn because they are gods”: “They can lie, with no higher power to constrain them, because they are gods. They adore pornography and the mechanisation of sex because man is just an animal, and they are gods”.

That in a nutshell is what Coulter has set out to prove. Her analysis of the history of the last sixty years
strongly supports her thesis. Many may discount or even dislike what she writes, but one cannot underestimate the importance of Treason and its contribution to current American political debate.

Charles Francis Q.C.

 

National Observer No. 64 - Autumn 2005