All. Every saturday American History tv presents american ories and sunday, book tv brings the latest nonfiction books and authors. Funding for cspan2 from these Television Companies and more including comcast. Comcast is partnering with 1000 clearly centrist to create wifi enabled list so students from low income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. Comcast along with these Television Companies support cspan2 publicly listed in the subject in this revision, it is based on herbert hoover. Role in the proceedings and to some extent the famous magnum opus free and betrayed is definitely one of the main inspirations for the book. I do have to say though, that i do have tome say herbert hoovr had a version of his own world war ii revision that is actually in the news today. Elieve that. Ross dwight, bless his soul, has actually just put in a plug for my book very much in the mode of revisionism. In his New York Times column. Although i gather it is it is something of a subscriber only newsletter. I dont know whether its actually going to appear in the print edition or not. But the shtick that he is kind of pushing here by way of promoting my book and promoting World War Two revisionism, is that he says its a necessary and perhaps healthy correct move to the current blockbuster movie oppenheimer. Certain aspects of the film to do with anticommunism and various fun myths, shall we say, and in hollywood about the alleged lack of any communist influence in washington between about 1933 and 1950. Its rather curious. I mean, since we left off in 1933, that isnt actually a bad place to start. I wasnt originally planning on starting there, but we might as well. One of the first areas in which hoover kind of tussled with roosevelt over foreign policy, aside from on the campaign hustings, im talking about more like behind the scenes where there of corresponding and talking was actually over soviet recognition that is recognition of the soviet union itself which hoover of course along with the two republican president s preceding him actually i suppose all the way back to to some extent you might even say the Wilson Administration had refused to do. There were good reasons they had refused to do that. The bolsheviks were, of course, an outlaw regime. I mean, effectively kind of selfproclaimed outlaws who would annihilated private property, as they put it, rather charmingly, along with russias external debts, along with effectively almost all for corporate obligations, bonds, equities, stocks, they were all annihilated by decree. Us claims were not necessarily the largest in the world. France and france are actually more than a million are deposed bond holders and equity holders. More than a million citizens in france actually had essentially been wiped out by the bolshevik default of february 1918. The us holdings though, if you include it, also private holdings. Corporate holdings totaled somewhere over about 600 million, which had of course just gone poof in 1918. Now, hoover, among other things, he also warned roosevelt about soviet counterfeiting of us dollars in greenbacks, not to say misbehavior. Espionage generally speaking, an outlaw regime that proclaimed itself the enemy of all existing world governments. There was an Organization Called the common during the communist international, explicitly devoted to the overthrow of all existing world governments. It had various clauses, the famous 21 conditions of which perhaps the most notorious was the one stating that the communist parties were actually supposed to maintain shadow governments. Basically plotting to overthrow all the existing governments of the world, etc. There are very good reasons not to recognize the soviet union, to allow them to open up consulates, embassies that would permit, of course, espionage, spies, spying, also to place a kind of stamp of approval. You might say, of the soviet regime, which would also make it easier for the communist party in the various front organizations to recruit the socalled sympathizers, fellow travelers, etc. , etc. Everything that actually did happen, of course, between 1933 and 1938, all those warnings, of course, went to not roosevelt plowed right on ahead. He he would he sort of whittle down the 600 million claim on his own. It was actually i mean, the soviets barely even tried roosevelt just sort of unilaterally said, yeah, im going to knock it down to about 75 million. And then it went off. The soviet foreign minister issued a counter claim saying, well, yeah, but you you nationalized some of our property and retaliate asian and i think thats worth about 141 million. So lets just call it even stephen lets just sort of forget the whole thing and thats pretty much what they did. They forgot the whole thing. They buried it under the rug. The recognition problem was solved. Obviously in the soviets favor no debts had to be repaid. Now, its interesting to to contrast hoovers skepticism there about the intentions of the soviets with roosevelt, who had this. I mean, he was he was an optimist there. Theres something thats admirable there. But what he really thought and its amazing he made the same argument that lloyd george had made in 1921 regarding the original anglo soviet trade agreement, which, believe it or not, is actually still the legal basis for most of the looted art and antiquities cases related to deposed property. Ive actually consulted on a number of those. Its kind of an interesting story of its own. Lloyd george thought that by recognizing or even giving de facto recognition of the service, he would open up these wonderful trade opportunities and the british economy would boom and recover from the depression. And roosevelt thought the same thing. The phrase he used was all we need to do is break the ice. If we just break the ice, you know, all these trade opportunities will blossom and bloom. Now, it wasnt just that this was a kind of willful naivete. It was just vanishingly ignorant. The soviets had an inexhaustible appetite for American Capital and technology. The problem was they didnt have a lot of money to pay for it. Right. In fact, almost the entire soviet industrial boom of stalins first five year plan was effectively designed by American Capitalists and engineers. I mean, of the most famous stuff, magnetar kursk, the steel city, based on the prototype of u. S. Steel in gary, indiana, which, of course, i remember from the music man. Ive been thinking a lot about the music man since i got out. Gary, indiana. Gary, indiana. That was just one of dozens of u. S. Companies that had actually helped to design stalins blast furnaces, as is metallurgical facilities, the hydroelectric dams and all the rest. There was no lack of interest either on the part of American Capitalist, on the part of stalin and his commissars in the us investing in the soviet union. The problem, of course, was that they kept defaulting on their debt, so they had very little money to pay for it because communism had impoverished the country. So it was kind of based on a false premise, Wishful Thinking and all the rest. And of course, none of these brilliant trade opportunities surfaced. What happened instead, of course, was soviet agents penetrated u. S. Aerospace and pretty much every single major Aviation Factory in the United States. It was a whole team of spies led by a guy called stanislav shemenski, codenamed black mario. I dont know why they gave him a french codename, but they did. And the story i tell in the book is part one of how this all got going in the thirties. It also gave the stamp of approval, as i pointed out, to the communist party of usa. A membership explodes from 33000 to 80000. Thats the simple mathematical answer to the question of how communist influence in the government expanded so much in the 1930s. Just suddenly there are a lot of communists in there everywhere, particularly in washington. So you had communist influence at state to the treasury, most famously with Harry Dexter White in the case of the treasury. And of course, alger hiss and many others at the state department. You also had, again, this this whole team of about 30 soviet spies, you know, working in u. S. Universities, aviation plants. Whats amazing is, is that theres a kind of a postscript to the story, and ill come back to it once we get there chronologically, but eventually really wants to lend Lease Program got going in 1941 the soviet era they didnt actually have to spy anymore. They could just go to any American Factory they wanted and say, give me that, give me that. And it was done. It was given to them. Technology, trade, secrets, actual products, finished products, inputs, whatever they wanted it all goes back to 1933. Now, of course, it didnt all happen at once. It emerged by kind of fits in stages. But roosevelt had a lot to do with this. Roosevelt actually sacked the first Us Ambassador, william bullitt, who was by no means a conserve it of anticommunist. But you know, hed become a little bit skeptical about, you know, the great terror and the mass terror going on. And he showed trials and so on, and it began to be a little bit critical in his dispatches. And so roosevelt, of course, sacked him and replaced him by joseph davies, the most famous for the mission in moscow, but also famous for those of us with an interest in the soviet art laundering business. Husband of Marjorie Merriweather post heiress to the post breakfast cereal fortune whose take from those very lucrative moscow years now graces the walls of the Hillwood Museum outside washington, d. C. She got to buy up all the soviet artwork on the cheap in exchange, i suppose for her husband saying really nice things about stalin to roosevelt and to stalin himself, whom he said was a greater leaders and peter the great, catherine the great and all of them put together. Youre greater even than lenin, he said. That was our ambassador to stalin during the great terror years. Roosevelt also on the advice of, well, soviet agents, along with some their wealth, purged the state department of stalin phobes, and he actually even broke apart of the library of the Eastern European division, where they had assembled all this material on the soviet union because people wanted to learn about what was actually happening there, getting soviet newspapers, journals gone to the winds, virtual book burning. So by the late 1930s to say there was soviet influence in washington would be a considerable understatement. But back to the main story, which is the war. So revision ism, im always called a revisionist. Everyone calls me revisionist. You know what ive decided im just going to embrace the term i dont mind. Fine. Im a revision. Thats what i like to do is revise understanding. Ive never quite understood the idea that youre supposed to write a book in order to just say the same things that everybody else said. If you find new information or if you come up with a new twist or a new interpretation on something, then why not share . Start the conversation, keep it going. So the usual conversation about the war, of course, it all starts with we have, of course, you know, hitler and these revisionist moves. Thats a different kind of revisionism on the european map. That word itself actually comes up in the diplomatic literature on the war. Youve probably heard the idea that the socalled axis powers, they were revisionists. That is, they wanted to revise this, whether it was the washing ten framework or just the general system of the league of nations. The idea of nonaggression, the kellogg, brion pact, etc. They were revisionists. Curiously, of course italy. Its supposedly been on the winning side of the first world war, but youd been supposedly cheated out of her winnings by the greeks and the serbs and other powers. The germans, of course, had lost and been truncated, as have the hungarians, bulgarians and others. But the germans were of course, a more important power. And then, of course, japan also on the victorious side, curiously, but not really happy with the way shed been treated in the postwar period. Now, supposedly, according to the traditional literature, and ive read it, you know, im no ill give it its due the soviet union i guess was not a revisionist power. The soviet union, we are told, was interested in collective security. And in fact it was because of the benighted anticommunist prejudice of the western democracies, of people like Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain of the british conservatives, not the french, quite as much because they at least tried to come to terms with the soviets more than the british did, or like those roosevelt critics in washington that everyone thought that the soviets were no good. And thats why collective security failed. Well, there are a couple of problems with that argument to begin with. Stalin didnt believe in collective security. He didnt use the word, didnt talk about it. He wrote this big book in 1938. Usually called the short course, this kind of bible of communism, the updated version of marxism, leninism, according to stalin, circa 1938, the word collective security does not appear in that book. Now its true he did have a kind of a front man, Foreign Affairs commissar maxim levine off, who every so often would make these noises about standing up to hitler himself, being jewish. He had good motivation to do so, and he was kind of a useful front man for that purpose. But in fact, it went off, was demoted from the european desk in 1937. Not a lot of people know this. He wasnt actually running stalins european policy. Now, in addition to this, the problem when it came to Something Like lets say the czechoslovak crisis, which led to the notorious munich agreement of 1938, was it the idea that the soviet union was going to enter a collective Security Agreement on behalf of czechoslovakia, slightly problem. Mattick the soviet union did not border czechoslovakia, nor and i do want to emphasize this again did the soviet union border germany in the 1930s . So the idea of the soviets being able to aid czechoslovakia in any way they would have required for soviet troops to transit either poland or romania. The same problem had come up again in the summer of 1939, when the french and british said this notoriously ill fated mission to moscow. The last gasp effort of collective security. And were told, quite bluntly and in fact, you know, helpfully by the soviets, if you want us to do anything against germany, were going to have to invade poland and romania first. So did you ask them, do we have your permission in their permission to invade poland and romania and the french and the british that kind of look around . You know, were not really sure. And so we said, well, you didnt do your homework, please ask. And the french believe it, they actually did go and they asked the polish government, you know, can we get permission for stalin to invade you . And they were told, no, we dont want stalin and the red army to invade polish. So theres not entirely the soviets fault, but in fact, they had no way of actually aiding czechoslovakia in 1938, even if they wanted. Yeah, they could have mobilized some troops near the border. And so on. But of course this is all based on a false premise. In the same way roosevelts recognition policy was based on a false premise, it was that the soviets saw the world the same way that the western democracies did, that he cared about collective security or the territorial integrity of czechoslovakia or Something Like that. Of course not. I mean, as he put it at one point, yes, czechoslovakia. And we at the time being, we share common enemies, that is all. In fact, the soviet risk bonds to munich. Its quite interesting. Weve all been told about munich ad nauseam. Every time a tv talking head waxes, gop litical rally. Oh, munich, munich minute we have to stand up to aggression. Munich, munich, munich. We cannot have appeasement. How did the soviets respond to munich . They cackle old. I mean, pretty much literally. You can actually hear the cackling in the prov, the headline about how poland is digging a grave for her own independence in poland. Munich. Interesting. Everyone forgets this part to. But in fact poland after nazi germany, Adolph Hitler made their claim is on the sedate land because of the german population there. Poland also made her own push into czech territory, along with hungary and they carved up czechoslovakia together, poland in nazi germany, everyone forgets this too, who actually effectively allied between 1934 and 1939, the soviets and this is stalin. Hes already kind of thinking ahead. He realizes that by setting a precedent, by overturning the territorial integrity of czechoslovakia, also encouraging polish aggression and getting the poles to rather foolishly team up alongside nazi germany and in helping to erase the boundaries of a neighbor state. Were digging a grave for polands independence. In fact, you can start to see as early as 1938 the idea of a polish partition, and it starts to show up, not in germany, but in soviet theoretic journals and then in izvestia and finally in pravda and then in hints and conversations between soviet diplomats, you had stalins youre not living off. He was a front man of no great significance. People like vacuum can people like stalins envoys who were answering to him personally, they all Start Talking about partitioning poland and theyre talking explicitly about doing so with the germans. The other thing you begin to see in the winter of 1938 to 1939, again when stalin was allegedly, oh, hes being betrayed by the western democracies because they didnt trust him. Hes already negotiating behind the scenes with German Government officials, bureaucrats, even to some extent industrialists. The soviets have already presented the germans with a military Technology Wish List 18 pages long. Of all, the german German Military hardware, they have their eyes on, they want to import. So the pressure for what would eventually become the socalled molotovribbentrop pact form more forma