| | [[Image:Ukraine-famine-holodomor.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Victims of [[Stalin]]'s [[Holodomor|Terror-Famine]], Ukraine, 1933. ''Image courtesy Julien Fonjallaz (Switzerland)'']]In 1933, Frankfurter sent Hiss a [http://www.salon.com/books/feature/1999/06/01/hiss/index.html telegram] [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/8-5testimony.html urging him] to join [[President]] [[Franklin Delano Roosevelt]]'s [[New Deal]] as assistant general counsel to the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA). At the peak of [[Stalin]]'s [[Holodomor|Terror Famine]] (during which the [[Soviets]] killed some 14 million<ref>Robert Conquest, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=Bp31GmfH-6YC The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine]'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987) ISBN 0195051807) p. 306</ref> people through [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/26/AR2008042602039_pf.html collectivization of agriculture]), the AAA [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/9551/Agricultural-Adjustment-Administration curtailed U.S. farm production] in order to [http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2007/01/the_new_deal_an.html drive up food prices] in the depths of the [[Great Depression]].<ref>“During the Great Depression of the 1930s, agricultural price support programs led to vast amounts of food being deliberately destroyed at a time when malnutrition was a serious problem in the United States.... For example, the federal government bought 6 million hogs in 1933 alone and destroyed them. Huge amounts of farm produce were plowed under, in order to keep it off the market and maintain prices at the officially fixed level, and vast amounts of milk were poured down the sewers for the same reason. Meanwhile, many American children were suffering from diseases caused by malnutrition.” (Thomas Sowell, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=gbfTLG_HmGEC Basic Economics]'' (New York: Basic Books, 2007) 3rd Ed., ISBN 0465002609, p. 56) As Gene Smiley, emeritus professor of economics at Marquette University, writes in ''[http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/GreatDepression.html The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics]'': "Reduced production, of course, is what happens in depressions, and it never made sense to try to get the country out of depression by reducing production further. In its zeal, the administration apparently did not consider the elementary impossibility of raising all real wage rates and all real prices." [http://www.economics.hawaii.edu/research/seminars/02-03/02-21.pdf One] [http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/421169 study] found that such [[New Deal]] policies prolonged the [[Great Depression]] by about [http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-Depression-5409.aspx seven years].</ref> | | [[Image:Ukraine-famine-holodomor.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Victims of [[Stalin]]'s [[Holodomor|Terror-Famine]], Ukraine, 1933. ''Image courtesy Julien Fonjallaz (Switzerland)'']]In 1933, Frankfurter sent Hiss a [http://www.salon.com/books/feature/1999/06/01/hiss/index.html telegram] [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/8-5testimony.html urging him] to join [[President]] [[Franklin Delano Roosevelt]]'s [[New Deal]] as assistant general counsel to the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA). At the peak of [[Stalin]]'s [[Holodomor|Terror Famine]] (during which the [[Soviets]] killed some 14 million<ref>Robert Conquest, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=Bp31GmfH-6YC The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine]'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987) ISBN 0195051807) p. 306</ref> people through [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/26/AR2008042602039_pf.html collectivization of agriculture]), the AAA [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/9551/Agricultural-Adjustment-Administration curtailed U.S. farm production] in order to [http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2007/01/the_new_deal_an.html drive up food prices] in the depths of the [[Great Depression]].<ref>“During the Great Depression of the 1930s, agricultural price support programs led to vast amounts of food being deliberately destroyed at a time when malnutrition was a serious problem in the United States.... For example, the federal government bought 6 million hogs in 1933 alone and destroyed them. Huge amounts of farm produce were plowed under, in order to keep it off the market and maintain prices at the officially fixed level, and vast amounts of milk were poured down the sewers for the same reason. Meanwhile, many American children were suffering from diseases caused by malnutrition.” (Thomas Sowell, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=gbfTLG_HmGEC Basic Economics]'' (New York: Basic Books, 2007) 3rd Ed., ISBN 0465002609, p. 56) As Gene Smiley, emeritus professor of economics at Marquette University, writes in ''[http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/GreatDepression.html The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics]'': "Reduced production, of course, is what happens in depressions, and it never made sense to try to get the country out of depression by reducing production further. In its zeal, the administration apparently did not consider the elementary impossibility of raising all real wage rates and all real prices." [http://www.economics.hawaii.edu/research/seminars/02-03/02-21.pdf One] [http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/421169 study] found that such [[New Deal]] policies prolonged the [[Great Depression]] by about [http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/FDR-s-Policies-Prolonged-Depression-5409.aspx seven years].</ref> |
| − | The agency was the brainchild of FDR's [[Secretary of Agriculture]] ([http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=W000077 and future] [[Vice President]]), so-called "[http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F4061FF83C5C16738DDDAB0994DB405B838FF1D3 farm dictator]" [[Henry Wallace]], who was reportedly "most impressed" with [http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/VP_Henry_Wallace.htm Soviet collective farming]. Wallace would run for [[President]] in 1948 on the [[Communist]]-inspired<ref>Arthur Schlesinger, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=LLyNX6hMDCIC A Life in the Twentieth Century: Innocent Beginnings, 1917-1950]'' (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2000) ISBN 0618219250, pp. 455-456</ref> [[Progressive]] Party ticket, finally recanting [http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/05/09/almost.great.men/index.html his support] for the [[Soviet Union]]<ref>Had [[FDR]] died a few months earlier, [[Henry Wallace|Wallace]] would have become President; Wallace once said if he were to become President, he would appoint [http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/venona/1944/18nov_lawrence_duggan.pdf Soviet agent] [http://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/18/weekinreview/witching-hour-rethinking-mccarthyism-if-not-mccarthy.html?pagewanted=all Laurence Duggan as Secretary of State]</ref> in 1952.<ref>Henry Agard Wallace, “Where I Was Wrong.” ''This Week'', September 2, 1952</ref> | + | The agency was the brainchild of FDR's [[Secretary of Agriculture]] ([http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=W000077 and future] [[Vice President]]), so-called "[http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F4061FF83C5C16738DDDAB0994DB405B838FF1D3 farm dictator]" [[Henry Wallace]], who was reportedly "most impressed" with [http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/VP_Henry_Wallace.htm Soviet collective farming]. Wallace would run for [[President]] in 1948 on the [[Communist]]-inspired<ref>Arthur Schlesinger, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=LLyNX6hMDCIC A Life in the Twentieth Century: Innocent Beginnings, 1917-1950]'' (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2000) ISBN 0618219250, pp. 455-456. In 1955, the [[SISS|Jenner subcommittee]] identified the Progressive Party on its list of subversive organizations as [http://www.joincalifornia.com/party/Independent%20Progressive a Communist front].</ref> [[Progressive]] Party ticket, finally recanting [http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/05/09/almost.great.men/index.html his support] for the [[Soviet Union]]<ref>Had [[FDR]] died a few months earlier, [[Henry Wallace|Wallace]] would have become President; Wallace once said if he were to become President, he would appoint [http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/venona/1944/18nov_lawrence_duggan.pdf Soviet agent] [http://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/18/weekinreview/witching-hour-rethinking-mccarthyism-if-not-mccarthy.html?pagewanted=all Laurence Duggan as Secretary of State]</ref> in 1952.<ref>Henry Agard Wallace, “Where I Was Wrong.” ''This Week'', September 2, 1952</ref> |
| | In response to a query about candidates for employment at AAA, [[Lee Pressman|Pressman]], already at the agency, wrote, "I have talked to Alger Hiss and [[Nathan Witt|Nat Witt]] who are considering" taking posts at AAA (Hiss would later deny under oath that he had discussed the position with Pressman).<ref>Allen Weinstein, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=YRyoAAAAIAAJ&pgis=1 Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case]'' (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), ISBN 0394495462, p. 133</ref> | | In response to a query about candidates for employment at AAA, [[Lee Pressman|Pressman]], already at the agency, wrote, "I have talked to Alger Hiss and [[Nathan Witt|Nat Witt]] who are considering" taking posts at AAA (Hiss would later deny under oath that he had discussed the position with Pressman).<ref>Allen Weinstein, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=YRyoAAAAIAAJ&pgis=1 Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case]'' (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), ISBN 0394495462, p. 133</ref> |