McCarthy & American Jews

11/17/08 | Vanity

[ckilmer]

There are also sad little tradgedies that go the other way.

Katherine Graham owner of the washington post was married to phillip graham. She took his name and had some kids by him. The post was her family’s business but her dad let Phillip run it while Katherine raised the family in the 40’s & 50’s. In the early 60’s Phillip and Katherine had a falling out. He tried to take ownership of the business and then he took a mistress and then he committed suicide.

A very strange story that makes no sense until you add a couple pieces of information to the story. Katherine’s family were liberal new deal jews. Phillip was a liberal new deal christian. They were both secular progressives. None of this is particularly significant until you add one last piece of information. Phillip was one of the very few people in the who were told of the venona cables by Col. Carter Clarke, the head of Army intelligence.

The revelations “deeply concerned” Mr. Graham. Graham knew that the Democrats were in trouble. VENONA was a time bomb that could explode and destroy the party of the New Deal . . . So his staunchly liberal paper did not endorse a candidate in the 1948 presidential election, and in 1952 he campaigned for Eisenhower over Adlai Stevenson. Mr. Graham never revealed that he knew the VENONA secret.

Its clear that there was a radical disconnect between what Phillip knew and what he experienced at the Washington Post.

Venona didn’t destroy the democratic party. Rather it destroyed Phillip Graham.