Witness To History

[PoliticalChic]

Instead of the hushed tones and hagiography of the FDR-sycophants, a study of those closest to Roosevelt, and closest to the communists, poses important questions about Franklin Roosevelt, and his intentions.





1. For whatever reason, FDR wasted no time in welcoming the sociopath of the community of nations, the USSR, with open arms.
He assumed office in March of 1933, and on November 16th, 1933, signed a worthless agreement with Litvinov, recognizing the USSR.
Four previous Presidents and six Secretaries of State had refused to do same. What did they know that FDR didn't know.....or did he know?

2. Ironic....normalizing relations with the least normal of nations.
The major thesis of Diana West's block-buster, "American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation's Character, " is that the acts of FDR in this endeavor, led to the moral breakdown of our nation. Once the horrors of the Holocaust became known, Progressives, who had earlier loudly proclaimed kinship with both Hitler and Mussolini, scattered like roaches when the lights are switched on.

Yet...they clung...and cling....to the Soviet murderers and cutthroats to this day.
It is worth considering.

a. If one need an explanation for the postmodernism, the moral relativism that pervades our society....Don't miss West's exposition.





3. But, to move on to a brighter light in the historic firmament, there was FDR close friend, on equally a Sovietophile, William Christian Bullitt, Jr.
Also an extreme Liberal, a radical, he had worked for Woodrow Wilson, and, of course, was a fervent believer in internationalism.
"Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Bullitt the first US ambassador to the Soviet Union, a post that he filled from 1933 to 1936." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Christian_Bullitt,_Jr.

4. An aside here...William Bullitt, Jr., was not, it seems, the brightest light in his own family. At the same time that the press was trumpeting his role in the Roosevelt/Litvinov Agreement, "Soviet Pact Held Bullitt Triumph," his uncle, Archdeacon James F. Bullitt, was making headlines of his own: "Bullitt's Uncle Says Soviet Deal Disgraces The United States." 'Russia will keep no promises with us."
"For the President Personal & Secret: Correspondence Between Franklin D. Roosevelt and William C. Bullitt," Orville H. Bullitt, p. 82





5. Ambassador Bullitt soon recognized the truth. Every 'pledge,' 'promise,' and 'assurance," that the Soviets had tricked Roosevelt into believing- if 'believing' is the accurate explanation- on war debt, on the treatment of American nationals and property in the USSR, on religious freedom, on subversion in the United States, and, of course, on fomenting revolution in the United States, was worthless. As dense a Liberal as Bullitt was, he saw Stalin convene the world's Communist parties, including the American Communist Party (CPUSA), in the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International, 1935. CPUSA leaders Earl Browder and William Foster took leading roles. So much for the pledges.
West, "American Betrayal," p. 197.

a. "This not only proved that [the Soviets] still pursued the goal of world revolution, but it also proved that they were breaking their promise in the letters exchanged between Roosevelt and Litvinov in November 1933 which stipulated that Moscow would have nothing to do with the American Communist Party."
Dunn, "Caught Between Roosevelt and Stalin," p. 49.





6. Bullitt suggested that Roosevelt would feel obliged to break relations. He was wrong. "If we should not [break relations] the Soviet Government would be convinced that it could break its pledges with impunity and would feel free to direct actively the American communist movement."
Bullitt, Op. Cit., p. 130-131.

See what I mean about FDR pushing America down the path to moral relativism?

Future ambassador William H. Standley gave similar advice to FDR.....which he also ignored.


a. "... he later became an outspoken anticommunist..... Though Bullitt arrived in the Soviet Union with high hopes for Soviet-American relations, his view of the Soviet leadership soured on closer inspection. By the end of his tenure he was openly hostile to the Soviet government. He remained an outspoken anticommunist for the rest of his life."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Christian_Bullitt,_Jr.



Ambassador Bullitt was sent to Moscow by FDR and was a witness, a primary source, sending the cables to FDR.
He learned first hand the horrors of communism.
But not FDR.



FDR, Bullitt...and the fork in the road.

Still think we took the right...er, left one, as the correct course?

 

[Spoonman]

it seems everyone knew Stalin was as big a threat to the world as hitler except FDR

 

[PoliticalChic]

Bullitt did try to stop FDR.

In 1935, he had written to FDR about the Comintern Congress, and he followed that with a cable to Secretary of State Hull, that included that there had been "...no decrease in the determination of the Soviet Government to produced a world revolution...If this basic postulate of the Soviet Government is understood, there is nothing in Soviet domestic or foreign policy that is not clear.' He went on to explain that Stalin yearned for a US-Japan war, 'after Japan had been thoroughly defeated....to acquire Manchuria and Sovietize China."
Dunn, "Caught Between Roosevelt and Stalin," p. 52.


Somehow.....nothing dimmed FDR's ardor for Stalin and the USSR.

Simpleton?

 

[gipper]

Bullitt did try to stop FDR.

In 1935, he had written to FDR about the Comintern Congress, and he followed that with a cable to Secretary of State Hull, that included that there had been "...no decrease in the determination of the Soviet Government to produced a world revolution...If this basic postulate of the Soviet Government is understood, there is nothing in Soviet domestic or foreign policy that is not clear.' He went on to explain that Stalin yearned for a US-Japan war, 'after Japan had been thoroughly defeated....to acquire Manchuria and Sovietize China."
Dunn, "Caught Between Roosevelt and Stalin," p. 52.


Somehow.....nothing dimmed FDR's ardor for Stalin and the USSR.

Simpleton?

There can be no dispute. FDR was an unbelievable simpleton whose numerous failures caused terrible harm and suffering.

He was surrounded by aides who were Stalinst spies. He choose to believe them over the objections of others like Bullitt...who he held in high esteem, until Bullitt informed him of the true nature of Stalin and the USSR. Then FDR turned on him.

FDR, like many of our presidents, was a horrendous failure...both in foreign affairs and with domestic economic issues. Yet, amazingly, many Americans are clueless of his terrible failures and continue to believe he was a great president. The State's brainwashing has been most effective.

Our current president resembles FDR in many ways.

When will Americans wake up?

 

[PoliticalChic]

Bullitt did try to stop FDR.

In 1935, he had written to FDR about the Comintern Congress, and he followed that with a cable to Secretary of State Hull, that included that there had been "...no decrease in the determination of the Soviet Government to produced a world revolution...If this basic postulate of the Soviet Government is understood, there is nothing in Soviet domestic or foreign policy that is not clear.' He went on to explain that Stalin yearned for a US-Japan war, 'after Japan had been thoroughly defeated....to acquire Manchuria and Sovietize China."
Dunn, "Caught Between Roosevelt and Stalin," p. 52.


Somehow.....nothing dimmed FDR's ardor for Stalin and the USSR.

Simpleton?

There can be no dispute. FDR was an unbelievable simpleton whose numerous failures caused terrible harm and suffering.

He was surrounded by aides who were Stalinst spies. He choose to believe them over the objections of others like Bullitt...who he held in high esteem, until Bullitt informed him of the true nature of Stalin and the USSR. Then FDR turned on him.

FDR, like many of our presidents, was a horrendous failure...both in foreign affairs and with domestic economic issues. Yet, amazingly, many Americans are clueless of his terrible failures and continue to believe he was a great president. The State's brainwashing has been most effective.

Our current president resembles FDR in many ways.

When will Americans wake up?

In a letter to FDR, dated January 29, 1943, Bullitt warned Roosevelt about what would happen if he continued pursuing the policies of appeasement toward Stalin that formed the foundation of the American war strategy. He pleaded with FDR not to 'permit our war to prevent Nazi domination of Europe to be turned into a war to establish Soviet domination of Europe.'

He predicted the Soviet annexation of half of Europe; George Kennan identified that letter as the earliest warning of what would be the result of FDR's policies.
"For the President Personal & Secret: Correspondence Between Franklin D. Roosevelt and William C. Bullitt," Orville H. Bullitt, p. 575-590




FDR replied: "Bill, I don't dispute your facts, they are accurate, I don't dispute the logic of your reasoning. I have just had a hunch that Stalin is not that kind of a man.

Harry says he's not and that he doesn't want anything in the world but security for his country, and I think that if I give him everything I possibly can and ask nothing from him in return, noblesse oblige, he won't try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace."
William C. Bullitt, "How We Won The War and Lost The Peace," Life Magazine, August 30, 1948, p. 94



Again?

Here is the judgment of Franklin Delano Roosevelt:

"I have just had a hunch that Stalin is not that kind of a man."


And that was after the starvation of the Ukraine and the purges.



I can't wait for the simpletons to post "...but the historians say he was the best....."

 

[PoliticalChic]

Bullitt warned FDR!
FDR ignored the proof that Bullitt provided.

Don't avoid the question as to why FDR continued to support Stalin.


And while mulling that over, consider the following:

Why, ever, sign treaties with the communists? Why?

In 1982, Ronald Reagan asked his arms control advisory committee to conduct a review of Soviet compliance in the 25 years of arms control treaties. It was the first such concerted review ever. The answer to the question of Soviet arms controls compliance was that there was none.
West, "American Betrayal," p. 198.

"The Soviet Union repeatedly violates treaties, and the rest of the world turns their heads and proceeds to enter into still more treaties, which the Soviets violate with impunity."
Joseph D. Douglass, Jr., "Why the Soviets Violate Arms Control Treaties," vii, 83.


Exactly as Ambassador Bullitt warned Roosevelt would be the case.




The only way FDR retains his vaunted appeal is if one refuses to face the reality of history, and acknowledge the multitude of his mistakes.

'Historians' be damned.

 

[Unkotare]

Yet, amazingly, many Americans are clueless of his terrible failures and continue to believe he was a great president. The State's brainwashing has been most effective.

Our current president resembles FDR in many ways.

When will Americans wake up?

There have always been real Americans willing to speak the truth, even in the face of villainy such as FDR's, they just haven't always been heard.


Ralph Carr: Defender of Japanese Americans | Colorado Virtual Library

 

[regent]

So why have the American historians always rated FDR one of the three best American presidents and recently the best American president? Are these noted historians ignorant of American history, are they commies, do they read the wrong history books, how do we explain those historian-ratings? This has been going on since 1948.
Add to that, the American people elected FDR four times how do we now convince America that both the historians and the American people were wrong and some posters are correct?
In 1982 a survey of conservatives gave FDR third best president award, and the population in general gave FDR the same third best.
The general population are lucky if they can name ten American presidents.

 

[gipper]

So why have the American historians always rated FDR one of the three best American presidents and recently the best American president? Are these noted historians ignorant of American history, are they commies, do they read the wrong history books, how do we explain those historian-ratings? This has been going on since 1948.
Add to that, the American people elected FDR four times how do we now convince America that both the historians and the American people were wrong and some posters are correct?
In 1982 a survey of conservatives gave FDR third best president award, and the population in general gave FDR the same third best.
The general population are lucky if they can name ten American presidents.

You need to be able to THINK for yourself. This appears to be something you are incapable of doing. Even after all the terrible decisions and policies imposed by FDR have been revealed to you, you continue to believe the lies.

Sadly you are not alone. Many Americans fully accept the lies.

 

[Steven_R]

Even FDR could see by 1933 that the Soviet Union wasn't going anywhere, that the Romanov line was never going to be restored to the throne, and that the White Russians lost completely. There was no reason to not recognize the Soviet Union and every reason to open up relations with them, namely for free trade in the hopes of getting the US to sell the Soviets anything they couldn't make or grow for themselves.

 

[Sunni Man]

I have no doubt in my mind that FDR was a closet communist and worshipped the USSR as a future role model for America. ..

 

[regent]

So why have the American historians always rated FDR one of the three best American presidents and recently the best American president? Are these noted historians ignorant of American history, are they commies, do they read the wrong history books, how do we explain those historian-ratings? This has been going on since 1948.
Add to that, the American people elected FDR four times how do we now convince America that both the historians and the American people were wrong and some posters are correct?
In 1982 a survey of conservatives gave FDR third best president award, and the population in general gave FDR the same third best.
The general population are lucky if they can name ten American presidents.

You need to be able to THINK for yourself. This appears to be something you are incapable of doing. Even after all the terrible decisions and policies imposed by FDR have been revealed to you, you continue to believe the lies.

Sadly you are not alone. Many Americans fully accept the lies.

In thinking for myself I decided that historians, particularly the noted experts know more of history than I do, and even more history than all of we posters with our politics holding sway over our thinking apparatus. I also accept the premise that MD's know more medicine, lawyers more of law, and astronomers more of space than I do.
FDR is probably one of the presidents that has had more scrutiny than most, perhaps Lincoln a little more, Even FDR's dog Fala was involved in the research when accused of political malfeasance. Most books about FDR today are rehashes of things not so well known to the general public but now given a political slant, and it sells books to Republicans.
Would a revelation about Polk's presidency create a similar excitement?

 

[Unkotare]

So why have the American historians always rated FDR one of the three best American presidents and recently the best American president? Are these noted historians ignorant of American history, are they commies, do they read the wrong history books, how do we explain those historian-ratings? This has been going on since 1948.
Add to that, the American people elected FDR four times how do we now convince America that both the historians and the American people were wrong and some posters are correct?
In 1982 a survey of conservatives gave FDR third best president award, and the population in general gave FDR the same third best.
The general population are lucky if they can name ten American presidents.

You need to be able to THINK for yourself. .

That is NOT regent's strong suit.

 

[PoliticalChic]

So why have the American historians always rated FDR one of the three best American presidents and recently the best American president? Are these noted historians ignorant of American history, are they commies, do they read the wrong history books, how do we explain those historian-ratings? This has been going on since 1948.
Add to that, the American people elected FDR four times how do we now convince America that both the historians and the American people were wrong and some posters are correct?
In 1982 a survey of conservatives gave FDR third best president award, and the population in general gave FDR the same third best.
The general population are lucky if they can name ten American presidents.

Why would you believe that 'historians' show any more propensity toward objectivity and learning then you do?

Oh.....because you and they believe the same thing!!!!


Let's examine said view.

1. "The leading academics find that the greatest modern Presidents are those that have made government bigger and more powerful, and have expanded the reach of the presidency, i.e., Woodrow Wilson and FDR. By the same token, those Presidents with a limited-government POV, such as Harding, Coolidge and Reagan, are treated dismissively by journalists and historians."
Hayward, "The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Presidents: From Wilson to Obama"



2. Elizabeth Bentley identified up to 150 Soviet spies working in the Roosevelt administration. Her allegations were proven once the KGB archives were opened in 1991.
"Yet the consensus of several generations of American historians (backed by many journalists and other opinion leaders) routinely mocked, ridiculed, and dismissed her as a fraud and montebank."
Haynes, Klehr, and Vassiliev, " Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America," p.543-544.

a. The only possible explanation is the mentality- actually, the psychosis- of historians, journalists, and other opinion makers that makes them impervious, and even hostile, to facts. Even more so to the ineluctable implications of these facts, which are devastating to the conventional wisdom and venerated mythology. And this is the ultimate impact of Communist influence, the Communist conspiracy that Roosevelt and Truman laughed off: it is the complete subversion of logic itself. It is so simple, so irrational, yet it has happened: the complete separation of fact from implication. There is a name for the gaps between fact and implication, between implication and judgment....it is called "political correctness."
Diana West, "American Betrayal," p. 81.

b. For decades, the Communist Party of America, the CPUSA, had been doing exactly what the "historians" had denied. And still do.
Haynes and Klehr, "In Denial: Historians, Communism, and Espionage."



I hope you have enjoyed....and learned from....your tutorial.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Even FDR could see by 1933 that the Soviet Union wasn't going anywhere, that the Romanov line was never going to be restored to the throne, and that the White Russians lost completely. There was no reason to not recognize the Soviet Union and every reason to open up relations with them, namely for free trade in the hopes of getting the US to sell the Soviets anything they couldn't make or grow for themselves.

There are those who lack a moral compass.
They are known as Liberals.

And they write posts as you have.





"There was no reason to not recognize the Soviet Union..."

Really?

Let me provide two:


1. From the OP:
Four previous Presidents and six Secretaries of State had refused to do same. What did they know that FDR didn't know.....or did he.


2. Then, there was this.....
a. The Great Purge revelations from Soviet archives, historians now estimate that nearly 700,000 people (353,074 in 1937 and 328,612 in 1938) were executed in the course of the terror, with the great mass of victims merely "ordinary" Soviet citizens: workers, peasants, homemakers, teachers, priests, musicians, soldiers, pensioners, ballerinas, beggars.


One might say, how could FDR have know this when he recognized the USSR in 1933?
True.
But he could have rescinded same...


And he did know of this:

b. The Ukrainian Famine 1932–1933...estimated at between 5 and 10 million people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin

c. Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, set in motion events designed to cause a famine in the Ukraine to destroy the people there seeking independence from his rule.
The History Place - Genocide in the 20th Century: Stalin's Forced Famine 1932-33




Perhaps you'd like to re-think "There was no reason to not recognize the Soviet Union..."

 

[Steven_R]

Even FDR could see by 1933 that the Soviet Union wasn't going anywhere, that the Romanov line was never going to be restored to the throne, and that the White Russians lost completely. There was no reason to not recognize the Soviet Union and every reason to open up relations with them, namely for free trade in the hopes of getting the US to sell the Soviets anything they couldn't make or grow for themselves.

There are those who lack a moral compass.
They are known as Liberals.

And they write posts as you have.

Right, because if Wilson, Coolidge, Hoover, and Roosevelt just closed their eyes really really tight and wished really really hard there would be a world that the USSR didn't exist in. And they would reside in that world instead of the world we have were international politics sometimes requires making deals with the Devil and getting in bed with tyrants.

 

[Peterf]

So why have the American historians always rated FDR one of the three best American presidents and recently the best American president? Are these noted historians ignorant of American history, are they commies, do they read the wrong history books, how do we explain those historian-ratings? This has been going on since 1948.
Add to that, the American people elected FDR four times how do we now convince America that both the historians and the American people were wrong and some posters are correct?
In 1982 a survey of conservatives gave FDR third best president award, and the population in general gave FDR the same third best.
The general population are lucky if they can name ten American presidents.

You need to be able to THINK for yourself. This appears to be something you are incapable of doing. Even after all the terrible decisions and policies imposed by FDR have been revealed to you, you continue to believe the lies.

Sadly you are not alone. Many Americans fully accept the lies.

In thinking for myself I decided that historians, particularly the noted experts know more of history than I do, and even more history than all of we posters with our politics holding sway over our thinking apparatus. I also accept the premise that MD's know more medicine, lawyers more of law, and astronomers more of space than I do.
FDR is probably one of the presidents that has had more scrutiny than most, perhaps Lincoln a little more, Even FDR's dog Fala was involved in the research when accused of political malfeasance. Most books about FDR today are rehashes of things not so well known to the general public but now given a political slant, and it sells books to Republicans.
Would a revelation about Polk's presidency create a similar excitement?

The problem with putting one's trust in 'experts' is knowing which experts to choose. This really matters in the case of historians. Their trade is to select facts and then interpret them. A liberal historian worth his salt will be able to make a plausible case indicating that FDR was a wise as Solomon. A conservative historian will have no difficulty in portraying FDR as a naive fool. (My view as it happens). Your search for history devoid of a 'political slant' is doomed to fail.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Even FDR could see by 1933 that the Soviet Union wasn't going anywhere, that the Romanov line was never going to be restored to the throne, and that the White Russians lost completely. There was no reason to not recognize the Soviet Union and every reason to open up relations with them, namely for free trade in the hopes of getting the US to sell the Soviets anything they couldn't make or grow for themselves.

There are those who lack a moral compass.
They are known as Liberals.

And they write posts as you have.

Right, because if Wilson, Coolidge, Hoover, and Roosevelt just closed their eyes really really tight and wished really really hard there would be a world that the USSR didn't exist in. And they would reside in that world instead of the world we have were international politics sometimes requires making deals with the Devil and getting in bed with tyrants.

1. "...wished really really hard there would be a world that the USSR didn't exist in."
(Ending a sentence with a preposition??? Yikes!)

Without the aid and support of FDR there would not have been a USSR operated as the Lenin-Stalin open-air abattoir as it was under communists.

Scholars at the State Department suggested that not supporting the USSR would have been a good idea....they were purged, lost their careers under FDR.



2. In 1975, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn compared America's historic aversion to alliance with czarist Russia to Roosevelt's rush to recognize a far more repressive and infinitely more violent Bolshevik Russia in 1933.

a. "On December 6, 1917, the U.S. Government broke off diplomatic relations with Russia, shortly after the Bolshevik Party seized power from the Tsarist regime after the “October Revolution.”
Office of the Historian - Milestones - 1921-1936 - Recognition of the Soviet Union, 1933

b. "Four Presidents and their six Secretaries of State for over a decade and a half held to this resolve," i.e., refusal to recognize the Soviet government. That was written by Herbert Hoover, one of those four Presidents. He wrote it in his Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover's Secret History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath by George H. Nash, published posthumously, obviously, in 2011, pg 24-29.



3. Before the Russian Revolution, the number of executions by the czarist government came to seventeen (17) per year, according to Solzhenitsyn. He pointed out that, in comparison, the Spanish Inquisition, at its height, destroyed 10 people per month.

a. But, during the revolutionary years 1918-1919, Lenin's Cheka executed, without trial, more than one thousand (1,000) people a month.

b. Stalin's purges: more than 40,000 a month!




Stevie, you remain both a confirmed dunce, and a good Liberal.
Or...is that redundant?



At least I taught you not to claim that there was 'no reason' not to recognize the USSR.

 

[PoliticalChic]

So why have the American historians always rated FDR one of the three best American presidents and recently the best American president? Are these noted historians ignorant of American history, are they commies, do they read the wrong history books, how do we explain those historian-ratings? This has been going on since 1948.
Add to that, the American people elected FDR four times how do we now convince America that both the historians and the American people were wrong and some posters are correct?
In 1982 a survey of conservatives gave FDR third best president award, and the population in general gave FDR the same third best.
The general population are lucky if they can name ten American presidents.

You need to be able to THINK for yourself. This appears to be something you are incapable of doing. Even after all the terrible decisions and policies imposed by FDR have been revealed to you, you continue to believe the lies.

Sadly you are not alone. Many Americans fully accept the lies.

In thinking for myself I decided that historians, particularly the noted experts know more of history than I do, and even more history than all of we posters with our politics holding sway over our thinking apparatus. I also accept the premise that MD's know more medicine, lawyers more of law, and astronomers more of space than I do.
FDR is probably one of the presidents that has had more scrutiny than most, perhaps Lincoln a little more, Even FDR's dog Fala was involved in the research when accused of political malfeasance. Most books about FDR today are rehashes of things not so well known to the general public but now given a political slant, and it sells books to Republicans.
Would a revelation about Polk's presidency create a similar excitement?

"FDR is probably one of the presidents that has had more scrutiny than most,..."


This is an important point, reggie.

Your statement is patently untrue, if 'scrutiny' suggests critical analysis.

Studies of FDR tend to be hagiographic in nature, rather than objective in the same way as one would find studies of Jesus in a monastery, or discussions of Mohammed in a madrasa.


And for the same reasons.


Notice, you have not been able to find any errors of a factual nature in my presentations....merely disagreements with conclusions.

 

[bendog]

And reagan armed bin laden. And Lincoln extended the war by two years because he failed to identify men who could run the war. TR left early to visit Africa instead of avoiding WWI.

No one is perfect. The question is whether they marshall thier resources and respond to a need.