That Only America Could Have Produced: Chambers, Schlesinger, Nixon, and Hiss

Liberty Island Magazine ^ | July 14th, 2020 | Scott Seward Smith

[tbw2]

Among the multitudes that America used to contain were Whittaker Chambers and Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

A few months ago I happened to reread both Chambers’ autobiography Witness and Schlesinger’s Journals 1952-2000 one after the other. These two men are of different generations: Chambers lived from 1901 to 1961 and Schlesinger 1917 to 2007. They are of completely different temperaments, milieus, politics, and tastes.

But there are some fascinating overlaps that have some bearing on the difficult passage we are traversing today as a nation.

[tbw2]

That Only America Could Have Produced: Chambers, Schlesinger, Nixon, and Hiss
https://libertyislandmag.com/2020/07/14/that-only-america-could-have-produced-chambers-schlesinger-nixon-and-hiss/

[ProtectOurFreedom]

The author concludes: “There is a comfort to the familiarity of our fiery moment because we know that it will pass.”

He is overly confident of that. Many people believe we are in the “Bleeding Kansas” antebellum period 1854 to 1861 when irreconcilable differences finally tore the nation apart.

[Robert DeLong]

Well it may indeed pas, but the country may also pass as well.

[Yardstick]

There is a comfort to the familiarity of our fiery moment because we know that it will pass. And for all those who confront the ever-present crisis with a temporary rage, the majority console themselves with a Chambers-like faith. And one day we will see our enemies over the wall playing catch with their grand-children and chat idly at a book party with those who we believe were traitors. Sic transit Gloria mundi.

I'm really struggling with the idea of peacefuless. I have had a personal situation that has reminded me of the much larger situation that we face. The question of when to be peaceful and to absorb the wrongs against us and when to fight is a really tricky one. Our God has placed us in very difficult circumstances and entrusted us to carry out his will. What an honor he has given us, but what a difficult honor.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Yes. It may “Pass” in a way we don’t like.

[GraceG]

Things move faster than Rome, but Rome was not eternal, neither are we.

[nathanbedford]

Communism, he writes, “is the vision of man’s mind displacing God as the creative intelligence of the world.”

Your insightful comment:

Yes. It may “Pass” in a way we don’t like.

Indeed, the present-day threat is as extensional to the survival of the Republic as the situation in 1860. But in another way your observation should be augmented with the insight that it will never pass.

It will never pass because the problem is one of soul sickness which is the eternal condition of fallen man rather than the transient Nixon- hating obsessions of that generation's Arthur Schlesinger.

In short, the problem of Alger Hiss of two generations ago, or of Ruth Bader Ginsburg of today, is that they would be God. That utopian obsession has been in our DNA since Genesis where we learn that the struggle will never end as long as humans are bent on playing God. In today's orgy of iconography in which we are creating a new human God in Ruth Bader Ginsburg it is essential to remember Whittaker Chambers' observation that, as intelligent as Ruth Bader Ginsburg was, that intelligence was essentially animated to displace God.

[timestax]

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

I may be one of the few, if only Freeper alive on this website who actually heard and met/talked to Whitaker Chambers, shortly before his death. He gave a talk to our Boys’ Club about the Pumpkin Papers, his questioning of communism and then his turn to Christianity. And he looked like he always did in a somewhat crumbled trenchcoat.

Schlesinger was many things, from Communist/Party dupe to liberal Democrat to making up things later in life. Schlesinger wrote for “Class and Society” in the late 30’s, a CPUSA “intellectual” magazine (I have two issues from 1938/39 and he’s in one of them).

His name shows up in a number of Appendix IX references re sponsors of CPUSA/CIO fronts from the late 1930’s thru 1944 but not much else afterwards. (He became a Roosevelt Liberal/Socialist and didn’t like the CPUSA).

He was also a good to fair historian, depending on what work of his you read. I feel that he was all over the place, looking to be a part of the power structure, esp. under JFK/LBJ. Nothing sinister, just a partially blind liberal for the rest of his life.

Here’s a story you’ve never seen in print. One of my classmates in an experimental “Summer Seminar on Strategic Affairs” or something like that, 1976-77, Un. of Miami, DC office, under Leon Goure’, the well respected Soviet/Communism exper, was, the late Lt. Gen. Daniel Graham (Deputy Dir, CIA/ DIA, Vietnam Intelligence, “High Frontie”, later SDI-Star Wars space defense systems.

He sat next to me. One day he showed me a column by Schlesinger in the Wall Street Journal wherein, besides being an all-out attack on him for his “space defense” systems advocacy, accused Danny of “slowly walking down the halls of Congress” lobbying for it (as close to an accurate reconstruction of what he wrote without having the article in front of me).

Danny looked at me and said “I wasn’t even in the country at the time he said I was at Congress” (About 98% accurate quote).

Then he asked me “What can I do about it”?. As the only journalist in the class (others were military, diplomats, intelligence veterans), I said, “Two things”.

{This is almost an exact quote of what I said) - “First, write a letter to the editor of the WSJ and tell him about Schlesinger’s error and ask if you can write a Letter to the Editor correcting Schlesinger”.

He did it and it was published, a relatively small letter of about 100 or so words.

Then I said to Danny that after getting an answer about having them publish your letter on correcting Schlesinger, ask the WSJ if you can write a long column (like Scheslinger did), explaining what the space defense system in question was, the threat it was addressing, how it would work, etc.

He did. They published it, dead-center Op-Ed Page. Never heard from Schlesinger again on that issue.

End of story.

We both had smiles on our face. Score one for the good guys.

Schlesinger, not as bad as traitor Seymour Hersh but a foolish little man in a world he was losing touch with.

Next, as I was telling Ronald Reagan about how to challenge Jimmy Carter for the presidency ....

[Gene Eric]

Monica Crowley, what say you?

[Rockingham]

From this old war horse: part of the value of peacefulness is that it helps us take up new fights unencumbered by old ones.

[T-Bird45]

...sponsors of CPUSA/CIO fronts from the late 1930’s thru 1944 but not much else afterwards. (He became a Roosevelt Liberal/Socialist and didn’t like the CPUSA).

More likely Schlensinger figured out what caused his fellow traveler Henry Wallace to fall out of political favor and read the tea leaves on how to maintain some level of acceptance that could keep him employed. More pragmatic than dogmatic, if you will.

[Robert DeLong]

Yeah that was what I was alluding to as well.

[Hardastarboard]

That is a profound observation.

[tbw2]

Nor can we solve it without becoming swiss cheese as a nation.

The only theoretical solution is something like DM Wozniak’s science fiction book “The Perihelion”. We divide between the red lands and the blue core cities, each with its own laws. The cities put up barriers and monitor citizens. Any blue core resident can leave but not come back, while redlanders need permission to enter and are monitored too.

The cities remain connected by air and rail and ignore the rest of the country.

[bitt]

p

[bitt]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDVT-8tUfiE

Reagan

[timestax]

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks MMtGR. Great personal account.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3885809/posts?page=10#10