Owen Lattimore

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Owen Lattimore was a Board member of the communist-dominated Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR), editor the IPR's journal Pacific Affairs and prolific propagandist.

Contents

Early writings

In the years between 1928 and 1945 Owen Lattimore wrote eight books about Asia and China. In Lattimore's first book Desert Road to Turkestan (1928) Lattimore wrote, "I should be inclined to say that a very strong case can be made out for the Soviet position."[1] In a later book, Manchuria, Cradle of Conflict (1935), Lattimore writes, "Russia appears to be the only nation of the modern world that is 'young' enough to have 'men of destiny' It creates its Lenin and its Stalin. . . . Russia, more than China and more than any nation of the West, is launched upon a career of growth"[2] China, which was to become the victim of this communist "growth," is characterized by such adjectives as "aggressive," and "expansionist."

In 1934, in The Mongols of Manchuria, Lattimore again puts forward the idea that Sinkiang, Mongolia and Manchuria might be made into a separate empire under Soviet influence, and he claims the people of Manchuria are not Chinese at all, but Mongolian. In 1935, in his Manchuria: Cradle of Conflict, Lattimore points out that the Soviet Union, China and Japan all have ambitions in Manchuria, but that the Soviet Union has more right there than China or Japan. It was in this book that he pictured China as an aggressor in Manchuria. Through these books runs a strain of admiration for the Soviet Union. In 1942, Lattimore wrote a Foreign Policy Report (September 1, 1942) called Asia in a New World Order after the Pearl Harbor attack. Japan had taken Manchuria. Lattimore alters his picture of Manchuria. He abandons his old line that Manchuria is not Chinese but Mongolian and asserts it is "95 per cent Chinese" and points out that it is a mistake, merely because the country is called Manchuria, to think that the people are not Chinese.

In all these books Lattimore emphasizes that Americans are reluctant to admit that the Soviet Union has any valid claim to be called a democracy, "even when democratic procedures are as plainly stated as they are in the Stalin Constitution."[3] Lattimore places the three principals of Sun Yat-sen, Soviet collectivism and the New Deal as all akin to one another. Lattimore described the Stalinist show trials of the Great purge as "evidence of democracy."[4]

In July of 1938 IPR had a grant of $90,000 from the Rockefeller Foundation to make a study. Dr. Edward C. Carter was managing it. Lattimore wrote to Carter, “I think you were pretty cagey to turn over so much of the China section of the inquiry to Asiaticus, Han-seng and Chi.[5]. They will bring out the essential radical aspects, but can be depended upon to do it with the right touch!” Lattimore went on to say "my hunch is that it will pay to keep behind the official Chinese Communist position, " and "as for the USSR—back their international policy in general, hut without using their slogans, and above all without giving them or anybody else the impression of subservience." [6] Lattimore recommended highly Challenge of Red China, written by a member of the Richard Sorge ring in Japan—Guenther Stein. Of Israel Epstein's Unfinished Revolution in China he said: "When he pleads his case the arguments pile up like a wedge." When Lattimore resigned he was succeeded by Michael Greenberg, a Communist Party member. Lattimore then became a member of the editorial board of another IPR organ, the notorious Amerasia magazine.

Policy subversion

In May of 1941, during the Hitler-Stalin pact, the FBI had issued a notice that Lattimore as a suspected Communist should be considered for custodial detention in the event of a national emergency. [7] Later the same year Lattimore was appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt as American adviser for Kuomintang Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek on the surreptitious and out of process recommendation of KGB operative and Roosevelt adviser Lauchlin Currie[8]. Communist Party USA defector Louis Budenz testified Lattimore had been hand picked by the Comintern "to change the thinking here in Washington and in America on the Communist activities in China and relations to the Soviet Union." Lattimore was thought to be a man "who could put out propaganda and conceal the Communist activity, but still have it carry out the policy of the Communists." According to Budenz "the weight of his discussions was always along the lines of the Soviet policy," but the language employed 'Was non-Soviet in character. " [9]

Pressure exerted by the Institute of Pacific Relations to subvert American foreign policy just prior to the war with Japan cannot be overlooked. On November 25, 1941 Lattimore dispatched an anxious cable to Currie in the White House arguing against a proposed diplomatic understanding between the United States and Japan. Currie's assistant in the White House, Michael Greenberg, was another Soviet operative and part of the Soviet Silvermaster spy organization.[10] The use of the harsh, demanding language toward Japan only strengthened the position of the war party in Tokyo. Japanese Ambassador Nomura found it impossible to reach an agreement because the U.S. demands were extreme.[11] U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull testified later he took a tough line with the Japanese because of the cable from Lattimore to Currie reporting on Chinese morale in the Kuomintang. The cable from Lattimore to Currie was the only documentary evidence Hull presented which influenced his decision to reverse himself and send the ultimatum to Japan when Congress investigated the Pearl Harbor attack. [12]

Prof. Anthony Kubek has written that Lattimore, by this one act, designed to accomplish the Soviet objective of promoting war between the United States and Japan -- did more to promote the Sovietization of China than in any other act of his career. All Comintern designs for conquest of China hinged upon destroying Japan and the balance of power in the Pacific. [13]

In 1942 Lattimore along with Currie tried to get a commission in military intelligence for Frederick Field of IPR and " Amerasia".

When, on June 15 1943, Lattimore instructed Joseph Barnes[14] to replace non-Communist Chinese of the Office of War Information (OWI) with Communists, OWI did so. On July 14 Thomas A. Bisson, in the Institute of Pacific Relations publication, Far Eastern Survey, referred to Maoist forces as the "democratic China." This disinformation was widely repeated among journalists and academics. In July and August 1943, the Chinese Communist forces -- in the midst of the war -- joined with the Japanese armies to inflict a serious defeat on the Kuomintang allies with the United States. [15]

At President Roosevelt's request, he accompanied US Vice-President Henry Wallace on a mission to China in 1944, for the US Office of War Information.[3]. During this visit, which overlapped the D-Day landings, Wallace and his delegation stopped over in Siberia and were given a tour of the Magadan concentration camp at Kolyma. In a travelogue for National Geographic, Lattimore described this Siberian gulag as a combination of the Hudson's Bay Company and the TVA, gushing about how strong and well-fed the inmates were and ascribing to camp commandant Feliks Nikishov “a trained and sensitive interest in art and music and also a deep sense of civic responsibility.”[16] Nobel Laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote in the Gulag Archipelago that the city of Magadan was founded as a Soviet Gulag, and would not have existed otherwise.[17] Commentator Cal Thomas wrote in 2007,

"While many Westerners recall Nazi-run death camps like Auschwitz and Buchenwald, few remember Soviet death camps named Kolyma and Magadan. True, Alexander Solzhenitsyn mentioned them in "The Gulag Archipelago" as did Varlam Sjalamov in "Tales from Kolyma," but as the late Swedish journalist Andres Kung wrote, "There are people who have still not heard of these communist extermination camps -- even though the communists preceded the Nazis in creating such camps and killed an even larger number of people in their camps."[18]

In 1944, Lattimore told Dr. Karl Wittfogel that the emperor of Japan should be removed and that as far as Korea was concerned "the best solution would be to let Russia take it over." At a State Department conference later he submitted a ten-point program which included recognizing the Chinese Communist government, turning over Formosa and Hong Kong to them and stating that no aid should be sent Chiang's forces.[19]

Senate investigations

According to his FBI file, Lattimore was suspected of engaging in espionage for a foreign power as early as 1927, while in Shanghai.[20]

On December 14, 1948, Alexander Barmine, former Charge d'Affairs at the Soviet Embassy in Athens, Greece, advised Federal Bureau of Investigation agents that then-GRU (Soviet Military Intelligence) chief General Berzin informed him prior to his 1937 defection that Owen Lattimore was a Soviet agent.[21]

Lattimore was identified by U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy as a Communist and under Party discipline. Former Communist Party member Louis Budenz corroborated McCarthy's claims and detailed how Lattimore had been of service to the Communist Party in the Amerasia case.

In a unanimous report, the McCarran Committee classified Lattimore as a "conscious articulate instrument of the Soviet conspiracy". [22] Lattimore wrote a letter of introduction for Haakon Chevalier to KGB operative, Lauchlin Currie. Chevalier was attempting to obtain a Government job during this period of time. Chevalier is a known Soviet Secret Intelligence Service (KGB) contact and was associated with numerous members of the Communist Party on the West Coast. Currie also recommended Lattimore to President Roosevelt to serve as a special advisor to Chiang Kai-shek. Currie gave evidence in New York to a grand jury investigating Lattimore's role in the publication by Amerasia magazine of secret State Department documents. In December 1952, Lattimore was indicted for perjury.[23]

Further reading

See also

References

  1. ↑ Desert Road to Turkestan by Owen Lattimore (Boston, 1928), pg. 247.
  2. ↑ Manchuria, Cradle of Conflict by Owen Lattimore (Rev. 1935), pg. 293.
  3. ↑ Asia in a New World Order, by Owen Lattimore, Foreign Policy Report, September 1, 1942.
  4. ↑ Pacific Affairs, September, 1938.
  5. ↑ Hans Moeller, Chen Han-seng and Chi Chao-ting. Source: U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Report on the Institute of Pacific Relations, Washington 1952.
  6. ↑ United States Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security Hearings, July 26, 1951.
  7. ↑ McCarthyism: Waging the Cold War in America, Newly Uncovered Secret Data Confirm Wisconsin Senator's Major Charges, Human Events, M. Stanton Evans, 05/08/2003.
  8. ↑ Testimony of Stanley K. Hornbeck, February 15, 1952. Ibid., Part 9, pp. 3209-10.
  9. ↑ Testimony of Louis Francis Budenz, August 22, 1951. Institute of Pacific Relations, Hearings. Part 2, pp. 522-23.
  10. ↑ Elizabeth Bentley's testimony in Institute of Pacific Relations, Hearings, Part 2, Exhibit No. 1ll, 112, pp. 433-434.
  11. ↑ Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time, Carroll Quigley, Collier-Macmillan, 1966, pg. 741. ISBN 0-945001-10-X
  12. ↑ Testimony of Cordell Hull, November 23, 1945. Pearl Harbor Attack, Part 2, 434-435 and Unnumbered Volume, pp. 36-37.
  13. ↑ Communism at Pearl Harbor, How the Communists Helped to Bring on Pearl Harbor and Open up Asia to Communinization, Dr. Anthony Kubek, Dallas Texas, Teaching Publishing Company, 1959. Dr. Anthony Kubek was the Editor of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, Report on the Morgenthau Diaries. The records of the Morgenthau Diary Study, 1953-65 consist largely of copies of portions of memorandums, correspondence, transcripts of meetings, and other records preserved by Secretary Morgenthau in order to document his tenure. The original records are in the custody of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, NY. In 1965, the SISS issued a two volume committee print entitled Morgenthau Diary (China), Edited by Dr. Anthony Kubek, containing entries from the records at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library selected to illustrate the implementation of Roosevelt administration policy in China. According to Dr. Kubek, the subcommittee wanted to produce a documentary history on the subject and "also indicate the serious problem of unauthorized, uncontrolled and often dangerous power exercised by non-elected officials," specifically Harry Dexter White. White was a major figure in Senator William Jenner's investigation of interlocking subversion in Government departments in 1953. The bipartisan investigation lasted for twelve years, and the Subcommittee's Report took another two years to write. [1] Dr. Anthony Kubek also is a recognized expert on the subject of U.S. Naval Intelligence's Operation Magic, the effort to crack Japanese diplomatic ciphers. [2]
  14. ↑ Tongue-Tied, Time magazine, Feb. 07, 1944.
  15. ↑ The Yalta Betrayal, Felix Wittmer, Claxton Printers, 1953, pg. 36.
  16. ↑ Paul Johnson, The Survival of the Adversary Culture (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1988) ISBN 1560005548, p. 180
  17. ↑ Islands of Slavery, Time magazine, June 24, 1974.
  18. ↑ Monument to murder, By Cal Thomas, Washington Times, June 13, 2007.
  19. ↑ United States Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security Hearings, August 7 and October 1, 1951.
  20. ↑ FBI Report, "Owen Lattimore, Internal Security - R, Espionage - R," September 8, 1949 (FBI file: Owen Lattimore), p. 1 (PDF p. 2)
  21. ↑ FBI Report, "Owen Lattimore, Internal Security - R, Espionage - R," September 8, 1949 (FBI File: Owen Lattimore, Part 1A), p. 2 (PDF p. 7)
  22. ↑ US Senate, 82nd Congress, 2nd Session, Committee on the Judiciary, Institute of Pacific Relations, Report No. 2050, p. 224.
  23. ↑ Buckley, Jr., William F. and Bozell, L. Brent (1954, 1995 Printing). McCarthy & His Enemies, The Record And It's Meaning. Regnery Publishing Inc.. ISBN 0-89526-472-2.  McCarthy, Joseph (1953). Major Speeches and Debates of Senator Joe McCarthy Delivered in the United States Senate, 1950-1951. U. S. Government Printing Office. ISBN 0-87968-308-2.  McCarthy, Joseph (1952). McCarthyism: The Fight for America: Documented Answers to Questions Asked by Friend and Foe. The Devin-Adair Company. ASIN B0007DRBZ2. )

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