| − | On New Year's Day, 1945, [[Secretary of State]] [http://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/stettinius-edward-reilly Edward R. Stettinius, Jr.] told [[Harry Hopkins]] (whom [[Iskhak Akhmerov|Akhmerov]] called "the most important of all Soviet war-time agents in the United States," according to Gordievsky)<ref>Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=mVpWH51F7toC The Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet Espionage and America's Traitors]'' (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2001) ISBN 0895262258, p. 212; cf. Thomas Fleming, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=EyZ3AAAAMAAJ The New Dealers' War: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the War Within World War II]'' (Basic Books, 2001) ISBN 0465024645, pp. 320-321; Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=9TWUAQ7Xof8C The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB'' (New York: Basic Books, 2000), ISBN 046500312, p. 111</ref> that he had a meeting scheduled for the next day with [[Franklin Roosevelt|Roosevelt]], to which he was to bring "people who would be involved in the forthcoming [[Yalta conference|conference" at Yalta]], in [[Soviet]] [[Crimea]]. According to the Secretary, [[FDR]] "did not want to have anyone accompany him in an advisory capacity, but he felt Messers. Bowman and [http://images.library.wisc.edu/FRUS/EFacs/1945/XL/0525.gif Alger Hiss ought to go]." "Bowman" was Isaiah Bowman, the president of Johns Hopkins University [http://www.jhu.edu/~jhumag/0900web/red.html who hired] [[Owen Lattimore]] ("a conscious articulate instrument of the Soviet conspiracy" according to the [[Senate Judiciary Committee]]),<ref>Senate Judiciary Committee, Report: [http://ia360610.us.archive.org/0/items/instituteofpacif1952unit/instituteofpacif1952unit_bw.pdf Institute of Pacific Relations] (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1952), pp. 214-218 (PDF pp. 222-226)</ref> whose "intimate friend and patron at the [[White House]]" was [http://www.salon.com/news/col/horo/1999/12/06/weisberg/index3.html Soviet spy] [[Lauchlin Currie]]. The Soviets bugged the U.S. quarters, and [https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol49no3/html_files/FDR_Teheran_12.htm listened avidly]. With less than three months to live, Roosevelt suffered "occasional blackouts of memory, and loss of capacity for mental concentration." According to one source, "At Yalta [Roosevelt] could neither think consecutively nor express himself coherently."<ref>William Henry Chamberlin, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=JGQhAAAAMAAJ&pgis=1 America's Second Crusade]'' (Regnery, 1950) ASIN 0865977070, p. 206. At Teheran, Roosevelt actually chose to stay in the Soviet embassy, because it had [http://www.britannica.com/bps/additionalcontent/18/22491229/The-Yalta-Myth larger quarters].</ref> | + | On New Year's Day, 1945, [[Secretary of State]] [http://history.state.gov/departmenthistory/people/stettinius-edward-reilly Edward R. Stettinius, Jr.] told [[Harry Hopkins]] (whom [[Iskhak Akhmerov|Akhmerov]] called "the most important of all Soviet war-time agents in the United States," according to Gordievsky)<ref>Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=mVpWH51F7toC The Venona Secrets: Exposing Soviet Espionage and America's Traitors]'' (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 2001) ISBN 0895262258, p. 212; cf. Thomas Fleming, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=EyZ3AAAAMAAJ The New Dealers' War: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the War Within World War II]'' (Basic Books, 2001) ISBN 0465024645, pp. 320-321; Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=9TWUAQ7Xof8C The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB]'' (New York: Basic Books, 2000), ISBN 046500312, p. 111</ref> that he had a meeting scheduled for the next day with [[Franklin Roosevelt|Roosevelt]], to which he was to bring "people who would be involved in the forthcoming [[Yalta conference|conference" at Yalta]], in [[Soviet]] [[Crimea]]. According to the Secretary, [[FDR]] "did not want to have anyone accompany him in an advisory capacity, but he felt Messers. Bowman and [http://images.library.wisc.edu/FRUS/EFacs/1945/XL/0525.gif Alger Hiss ought to go]." "Bowman" was Isaiah Bowman, the president of Johns Hopkins University [http://www.jhu.edu/~jhumag/0900web/red.html who hired] [[Owen Lattimore]] ("a conscious articulate instrument of the Soviet conspiracy" according to the [[Senate Judiciary Committee]]),<ref>Senate Judiciary Committee, Report: [http://ia360610.us.archive.org/0/items/instituteofpacif1952unit/instituteofpacif1952unit_bw.pdf Institute of Pacific Relations] (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1952), pp. 214-218 (PDF pp. 222-226)</ref> whose "intimate friend and patron at the [[White House]]" was [http://www.salon.com/news/col/horo/1999/12/06/weisberg/index3.html Soviet spy] [[Lauchlin Currie]]. The Soviets bugged the U.S. quarters, and [https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol49no3/html_files/FDR_Teheran_12.htm listened avidly]. With less than three months to live, Roosevelt suffered "occasional blackouts of memory, and loss of capacity for mental concentration." According to one source, "At Yalta [Roosevelt] could neither think consecutively nor express himself coherently."<ref>William Henry Chamberlin, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=JGQhAAAAMAAJ&pgis=1 America's Second Crusade]'' (Regnery, 1950) ASIN 0865977070, p. 206. At Teheran, Roosevelt actually chose to stay in the Soviet embassy, because it had [http://www.britannica.com/bps/additionalcontent/18/22491229/The-Yalta-Myth larger quarters].</ref> |
| | During pre-conference negotiations with British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, "Mr. Hiss brought up the question of China," according to Stettinius, "and stressed the importance which the United States attaches to U.S.-British-Soviet encouragement and support for an agreement between the [[Comintern|Commintern]] [sic] and the Chinese Congress [sic]."<ref>Edward R. Stettinius Jr., ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=v9N3AAAAMAAJ&pgis=1 The Diaries of Edward R Stettinius Jr , 1943-1946]'', edited by Thomas M. Campbell and George C. Herring (New York: New Viewpoints, 1975), ISBN 0531055701, p. 229. The official State Department record uses the passive voice to expunge Hiss' role in this maneuver: "The desirability of unity being achieved between the [[Kuomintang]] and the [[Communists]] was raised, and reference was made to the President having some doubts as to whether the British desired this unity." Meeting of the Foreign Ministers, February 1, 1945, 10:30 A.M., on Board H. M. S. "Sirius" in Grand Harbor. United States Department of State, ''[http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/FRUS.FRUS1945 Foreign Relations of the United States. Conferences at Malta and Yalta, 1945]'' (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1945), [http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=goto&id=FRUS.FRUS1945&isize=XL&submit=Go+to+page&page=502 p. 502] Press accounts relying on this bowdlerized official account thus reported, e.g.: "Alger Hiss, whose role at the Yalta conference long has been a subject for hostile speculation, spent his time there [http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F40C11F6345A107A93CAA81788D85F418585F9 exclusively on planning for the United Nations]."</ref> The British, due to their interest in Hong Kong and Singapore, had influence with the [[Kuomintang]], but none with the [[Communists]]; the Soviets, who did have influence with the Communists, were not present. The only effect Hiss had in bringing up the issue therefore was to co-opt the British to pressure the Chinese government into acquiescing to a [[Kremlin]]-backed power-sharing arrangement with the rebels, thus granting a measure of legitimacy to forces dedicated to its destruction—a policy that would prove [http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?1c1d76bb-290c-447b-82dd-e295ff0d3d59 catastrophic for the Chinese].<ref>After the fall of the Nationalist Chinese government, Communist Chinese dictator Mao Zedong "was responsible for [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1069136,00.html well over 70 million] deaths in peacetime, more than any other 20th-century leader," according to Jung Chang, a former [http://www.harpercollins.com/harperimages/ommoverride/teacher_guide_wild_swans.pdf member of Mao's Red Guards]. Jung Chang, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=3EZwAAAAMAAJ Mao: The Unknown Story]'' [Jonathan Cape, 2005] ISBN 0-224-07126-2, p. 3</ref> | | During pre-conference negotiations with British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, "Mr. Hiss brought up the question of China," according to Stettinius, "and stressed the importance which the United States attaches to U.S.-British-Soviet encouragement and support for an agreement between the [[Comintern|Commintern]] [sic] and the Chinese Congress [sic]."<ref>Edward R. Stettinius Jr., ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=v9N3AAAAMAAJ&pgis=1 The Diaries of Edward R Stettinius Jr , 1943-1946]'', edited by Thomas M. Campbell and George C. Herring (New York: New Viewpoints, 1975), ISBN 0531055701, p. 229. The official State Department record uses the passive voice to expunge Hiss' role in this maneuver: "The desirability of unity being achieved between the [[Kuomintang]] and the [[Communists]] was raised, and reference was made to the President having some doubts as to whether the British desired this unity." Meeting of the Foreign Ministers, February 1, 1945, 10:30 A.M., on Board H. M. S. "Sirius" in Grand Harbor. United States Department of State, ''[http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/FRUS.FRUS1945 Foreign Relations of the United States. Conferences at Malta and Yalta, 1945]'' (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1945), [http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/FRUS/FRUS-idx?type=goto&id=FRUS.FRUS1945&isize=XL&submit=Go+to+page&page=502 p. 502] Press accounts relying on this bowdlerized official account thus reported, e.g.: "Alger Hiss, whose role at the Yalta conference long has been a subject for hostile speculation, spent his time there [http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F40C11F6345A107A93CAA81788D85F418585F9 exclusively on planning for the United Nations]."</ref> The British, due to their interest in Hong Kong and Singapore, had influence with the [[Kuomintang]], but none with the [[Communists]]; the Soviets, who did have influence with the Communists, were not present. The only effect Hiss had in bringing up the issue therefore was to co-opt the British to pressure the Chinese government into acquiescing to a [[Kremlin]]-backed power-sharing arrangement with the rebels, thus granting a measure of legitimacy to forces dedicated to its destruction—a policy that would prove [http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?1c1d76bb-290c-447b-82dd-e295ff0d3d59 catastrophic for the Chinese].<ref>After the fall of the Nationalist Chinese government, Communist Chinese dictator Mao Zedong "was responsible for [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1069136,00.html well over 70 million] deaths in peacetime, more than any other 20th-century leader," according to Jung Chang, a former [http://www.harpercollins.com/harperimages/ommoverride/teacher_guide_wild_swans.pdf member of Mao's Red Guards]. Jung Chang, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=3EZwAAAAMAAJ Mao: The Unknown Story]'' [Jonathan Cape, 2005] ISBN 0-224-07126-2, p. 3</ref> |