For those unfamiliar with the arcania of WWII history let me tell you that Harry Hopkins was one of the most important and influential men in the entire conflict. He sat, almost literally, at the right hand of President Franklin Roosevelt having been given, at FDR's insistence, a bedroom in the White House. If Roosevelt, as president of the USA, was the most important man in the war, then Hopkins, whose advice Roosevelt swallowed whole, must rank very high indeed. So the question arises - again - was he a Soviet agent?
Breitbart.com (who else?) are running a series of essays by Ms. Diana West who has written a book called American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on our National Character. She begins her attack on Hopkins reminding us that in early 1942, as Lend-Lease, a project enthusiastically supported by Hopkins, flowed across the Atlantic and eventually into Russia, in the Pacific some 150,000 American and Filipino soldiers held out for months without any assistance what so ever. Of course, in the opinion of some, that American force built up by the massive egotist, Gen. MacArthur, should never have been there in the first place because it was increasingly obvious that at that time they were on the wrong side of the Pacific rim.
In her second essay, Ms. West makes a more specific charge of treachery against Hopkins by accusing him of surreptitiously passing nuclear materials, including uranium, to Stalin. This is a story which has gained ground since the British historian, Christopher Andrew, wrote a book in collaboration with Vasily Mitrokhin, a former KGB archivist who spent years surreptitiously copying every KGB document he could and hiding them under the floorboards of his house. MI6 managed to smuggle both him and his archive out of Russia - frightfully well done, Mr. Bond! - and eventually he and Prof. Andrew wrote their book which contains specific charges of pro-Soviet treachery against Harry Hopkins. Ms. West seems to be ploughing a field already well harrowed by an earlier book, The Treachery of Harry Hopkins by Reed Irvine and Cliff Kincaid. It is certainly difficult to believe that a nation like Russia, invaded, pillaged and ruined by war could produce an atomic bomb within four years of the end of the war - without a little help from somewhere! The British A-bomb was not tested until 1952!
I am not so sure that Harry Hopkins was an out-and-out communist agent acting for the Soviets. His whole history, like that of his boos, the President, was of progressive Left-wing politics and sympathies. Roosevelt's admiration for all things Soviet and his abiding suspicion of all thing British is well known. Hopkins was employed by him as an advisor not least because Hopkins's entire adult life had been in the cause of Left-wing projects during the depression. Thus, both of them, with their political noses always in the air, were unable to see the blood seeping under the doors of the Kremlin. Does this myopia in regard to Marxist regimes combined with complete disdain for the 'old enemy' with its imperialist history remind you of another, more contemporary, American president?
Please note, the 'Memsahib' is going into hospital tomorrow (Wednesday) for surgery on her toes. As she will be bed-bound for some time this means that once again I am 'promoted' to being chief cook and bottle-washer as well as laundryman! This might have an effect on my blogging - on the other hand, I might spend even more time up here in order to have a rest!
