Chapter Eleven
Prelude to a Showdown
It was Cuba as much as any other single factor which made the
the election of 1960.
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blood of
Americans boil and caused the people of the United States to turn away from the Republicans in
About the same time a few Americans among both Republicans and Democrats had
begun to do their homework on the Communist conspiracy. A solid front of pro-American
anti-Communists had begun to emerge from among America's long-suffering silent majority.
In 1958, J. Edgar Hoover came out with his
sometimes totalled more than 10,000 in a single day. The week-long seminars had the same
Masters of Deceit
and during the same year
this reviewer's book was published under the title of
The Naked Communist
. By 1961 both books
Study groups, seminars, radio and TV broadcasts began springing up all over the country.
Soon names such as Dr. George S. Benson, Dean Manion, Dan Smoot, Dr. Fred Schwarz, Robert
Welch, and Billy James Hargis had become familiar to readers and reviewers i
communications media. It was a grass roots movement which, unknown to its participants, was
This reviewer was invited to serve on several of the faculties which were organized to
n the mass
racing toward a head-on collision with the Communist-Establishment coalition.
speak at high schools, colleges and community gatherings. Everywhere the crowds were
tremendous. Herbert Philbrick and the writer were teamed together to speak to audie
nces which
success.
Beginning in Los Angeles with an average attendance of only 200, the seminars increased
until a year later we were meeting in the Los Angeles Sports Arena with daily attendance running
into several thousand. Our speakers were presented on television each
evening with sponsors
paying for two and three hours of expensive TV time.
On October 16, 1961, the biggest anti-Communist rally in the history of the country was
held in the Hollywood Bowl with a filmed telecast which subsequently went from coast-to-coast.
The rally lasted three hours and was called "Hollywood's Answer to Commu
was filled with the executives of the major studios and many of the top stars. George Murphy
nism." The stage
(later U.S. Senator) was the master of ceremonies.
This rally practically monopolized the TV audience in every area where it was shown. In
many cities it was rebroadcast. New York saw it twice.
The rally had four speakers. They were Senator Thomas Dodd, Congressman Walter
Judd, Dr. Fred Schwarz and the writer. Before
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we went on, one of the top executives
magazine asked for a few moments time.
Life
had been ridiculing these seminars in recent editorials, but when advertisers began
canceling contracts running into hundreds of thousands of dollars, C.D. Jackson rushed out to
Hollywood to appear on the program and assure the country that
Life also
wanted to be counted
among the patriots.
When my turn came to speak something unexpected occurred. It was my assignment to
outline some of the practical steps which could be taken to protect the American people from
further Communist subversion. My first suggestion was that we demand a full-scal
e, bipartisan
investigation of the entire U.S. State Department. The crowd rose up in such a roar of approval
of Life
that they virtually took over the program. Several minutes passed before they sat down again.
else.
Four other suggestions were also greeted with overtu
res of approval, but it was clearly evident
that the investigation of the State Department was number one on their list. As we learned later,
it was this particular part of the broadcast which upset the Establishment more than anything
Within just a few days there was a tremendous reaction from New York.
Walter Reuther
Victor Reuther
The Reuther Memorandum
In retrospect it would seem that we had caught the Establishment somewhat by surprise.
But not for long. Walter Reuther and his brother, Victor, who used to write back from Russia
during their training days: "Carry on the fight for a Soviet America!" saw
the telecast of the
Hollywood Bowl rally when it was shown in New York. Being two of the Establishment's most
powerful labor leaders (and principal behind-the-scenes strategists), they quickly drew up a plan
of action. They wrote an extensive memorandum to
outlining the steps which should be taken to promptly stop this highly embarrassing exposure of
the Attorney General, Robert Kennedy,
the inner sanctum. Not since the days of Senator Joseph McCarthy had the members of the secret
power-combine been so emot
ionally disturbed.
Of course, to members of the Establishment, their global socialist society represents the
ultimate dream in human achievement. Therefore, to them, we anti-Communist Americans look
like reactionary conspirators who are guilty of postponing the communal mil
lennium
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with our old-fashioned Constitutional concepts of freedom and self-determination.
Fortunately, the Attorney General's office was kind enough to furnish a friend of the
writer a copy of the Reuther Memorandum. Since then, it has been published. It speaks rather
bitterly of the Hollywood rally:
"In Schwarz's Southern California meetings, as shown in the New York re-telecast a
couple of weeks ago, Senator Dodd's and Representative Judd's heavy handed foreign policy
polemics received little applause, but when W. Cleon Skousen (author of
The Naked
Communist
charged treason in high places, the place went up in a roar of applause."
1(111)
This is not quite accurate, but the Reuther brothers were trying to make a point. Actually
both Senator Dodd and Congressman Judd received excellent applause for their talks. What
bothered the Reuthers was the fact that when I suggested investigating the
hearty approval. The Reuthers could see a tide of American indignation rising at the grass-roots
State Department, the
audience rose to its feet and vigorously demonstrated before the millions of TV viewers their
level. Since this is the key to exposing an
d deflating the power of the Establishment, it was
imperative that we be taken off the air. A few speeches to local audiences wouldn't hurt much,
but a television exposure to millions could soon make the Establishment so contemptible that
every Congressman
and Senator who was found supporting it would be replaced at the next
election.
And that is exactly what we had in mind.
But for the moment, they drove us back to the grass-roots. The Reuther brothers
recommended five tactical maneuvers which turned out to be temporarily devastating to the
grass-roots movement:
1. Muzzle the military by having all speeches cleared through a military and State
Department censuring committee.
2. Use every means possible to stop the flow of funds to
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conservative
organizations. Use Internal Revenue to investigate conservative organizations and remove their
tax-exemption where possible.
3. Use the power of the Federal Communications Commission to regulate (eliminate)
)
conservative programs.
4. Have conservative organizations placed on the Attorney General's "Subversive
Organizations" list in order to provide a "balanced list."
5. Curb the activities of J. Edgar Hoover who "exaggerates the domestic Communist
menace and contributes to the public's frame of mind."
Washington's Campaign To Stomp Out Conservative Educational Programs
The muzzling of the military came almost immediately. Furthermore, all patriotic and
anti-Communist military programs were suspended. Leading military officials who resisted or
objected were forced into retirement or given disciplinary assignments. The Re
position clear in their memorandum:
uthers made their
"The radical right inside the Armed Services presents an immediate and special problem
requiring immediate and special measures....
"... the spectacle of the U.S. Army sponsoring Skousen's reflection on the patriotism of
Franklin Roosevelt and the loyalty of Harry Hopkins, could only have been achieved through the
connivance of inside military personnel."
2(112)
It was clear that as of 1961 the Establishment didn't want people to know about Harry
Hopkins giving atomic secrets to the Soviets any more than it had in the days of Joseph
McCarthy.
[page 96]
Using the Internal Revenue to harass patriotic organizations and their leaders was also
promptly implemented. By using technical decisions (and sometimes reversing previous
decisions) the IRS was able to assess Walter Knott of Knotts Berry Farm a fortune
in taxes.
Billy James Hargis was told that his organization was having its tax-exempt status
suspended because of participation in politics. Of course, no such ruling would ever be applied to
the Ford Foundation's Fund for the Republic.
This reviewer was small fry but likewise received a visit from IRS. I gained the
impression, however, that the examiner knew he was on a vindictive "political" assignment. In
any event, he seemed rather pleased when he returned some time later to announce
that after
going over my records, he had discovered that the Government owed me several hundred dollars!
As far as getting the patriotic educational programs off the air, that was amazingly
successful. They did it through the FCC "Fairness Doctrine." This provided that if you paid for a
program and mentioned subversive individuals or organizations who had be
en exposed by
Congressional committees, those individuals or organizations could demand equal time
free of
charge
to answer. Theoretically the idea sounded perfectly "fair," but in practice it resulted in all
stations excluding any programs which made
specific
references to people or organizations which
had been involved in subversive activities. All future programs had to be in terms of generalities.
Education in broad principles continued on the air, but actual exposure of the subversion being
uncovered b
y Congressional Committees practically died. Station managers were afraid they
would go broke giving free time to those who wanted to answer. Had the "Fairness Doctrine"
required the stations to offer paid time to the offended party, there would have been
no problem.
But, of course, that would not have fulfilled the objective of the Reuther Memorandum.
Robert and John Kennedy
The Kennedy Years
There had been several things in the John F. Kennedy campaign which had led some
people to expect his administration to be an improvement over the last years of Eisenhower. At
least, he had promised to "do something about Cuba." But, as Dr. Quigley boasts
escalate. Here are some examples:
3(113)
, "Kennedy
despite his irish Catholicism, was an Establishment figure."
Instead of conditions improving
the calamities began to
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As early as 1960, the U.S. Communist leader, Gus Hall, had announced that the Party was
going to alienate and radicalize the American Youth. Within a short time, Castro beards, hippy
clothes, filthy speech, Communist salutes, Communist songs, Communist pe
ace symbols, drugs,
pornography, nihilism and riots became the order of the day.
In 1961 the American image dropped at least a thousand points with the Bay of Pigs
debacle. When this writer lectured in South America, there was a constant demand for an
explanation of the immoral decision to allow 1,400 Cuban freedom-fighters to walk in
to what
could have been a virtual massacre without telling them of the decision by President Kennedy to
withdraw the promised U.S. air cover.
Afterwards, the world watched in amazement as the mighty United States allowed itself
to be blackmailed into raising a ransom of millions of dollars worth of drugs and other goods in
order to get the Bay of Pigs survivors back to the United States.
1962 brought the Cuban missile crisis, because the Kennedy administration allowed the
Soviet Union to mount their ICBM's behind our defense lines and within target range of the
entire United States. The warning speeches of Senator Keating of New York were
contemptuously ignored until the President went on an election campaign tour and found his own
In 1963 the Left-wing forces induced President Kennedy to recommend the passage of a
almost
party members booing when he mentioned Cuba. He cancelled the rest of his trip, raced back to
Washington and immediately announced that a missile site ha
plane. This writer was serving on the Free Cuba Committee and knew that a map of known
d been photographed by a U-2
missile silos had been drawn up by Cubans working on the Soviet project and that this map had
been furnished to the President and the Pentag
on over a year earlier. The map even showed the
number and location of Soviet troops, but knowledge of any such Soviet forces continued to be
publicly denied in Washington.
When the existence of the missiles was finally established there was a demonstration of
profound concern. The President announced to Khrushchev that the missiles and military
personnel must be removed immediately and that the United States would conduct a
n on-the-spot
examination to make certain the stipulation was carried out. It was the kind of a speech
Americans had been anxious to hear. But after the election was over, the most pathetic display of
accommodation was
[page 98]
exhibited by Washington as the Soviets went through the motions
of pretending that the missiles had been removed. Not at any time was there any inspection, and
the same Cuban informants who told Senator Keating about the missiles in the first place
continued to insist that many of t
hem were still there.
whole series of hard-core socialist proposals and these were soon dumped into the hoppers of
Congress. However, there were sufficient Americans awake at the grass-roots l
against these measures and demand that Congress reject them. That is what happened. Even
evel to protest
under Presidential pressure the Democratic dominated Congress refused to pass these bills. The
frustrated Establishment press turned the heat on Congre
ss but to no avail. By September the
prestige of President Kennedy had taken a serious drop in Establishment circles and there was
some question as to what might happen if JFK decided to seek a second term. Then suddenly, on
November 22, President Kennedy
was assassinated by a Marxist revolutionary, Lee Harvey
Oswald, who was connected with Castro's
the United States.
[page 99]
main Communist front-organization here in
Under the emotional shock of this tragic event, the Establishment realized the nation
might react politically and demand that the whole Soviet-Communist apparatus be outlawed.
Establishment spokesmen such as Earl Warren immediately blamed the President's
murder on the
"Radical Right," but when the arrest of Oswald revealed that it had been done by the Radical
Left, the Left-wing machinery went into high gear to assure the American people that Oswald
could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be part of
an international Communist plot. He must
be accepted as merely an isolated psychopathic individual who acted on his own initiative. To
prevent any independent investigation by anti-Communist Democrats and Republicans, the
Communist
Daily Worker
suggested t
hat President Johnson appoint a special commission to do
the investigating with Earl Warren as chairman. Four days later that was precisely what President
Johnson did. The real story of the Kennedy assassination was soon buried beneath an
Establishment-sup
ervised white-wash designed to pacify the American people.
When Congress convened in 1964, President Johnson obliged the Left-wing elements of
his party by exploiting the emotional climate resulting from the President's death and demanded
that the Congress pass the Kennedy bills which they had rejected the previo
us spring. Almost
blindly the Congress went to work and frequently, without any serious attempt to debate many
important aspects of these bills, they began to be passed.
At the grass-roots, observing citizens of both political parties became increasingly
alarmed with what they could see happening. They began scouring the political field for a
candidate who could rally the American people and re-direct the course of the na
tion before it
was too late.
Foremost among the conservative candidates, of course, was Barry Goldwater, the
Senator from Arizona. For several years he had been saying that America was off the track and
had to go back. History was catching up with the American people and what he had
been saying
began to make more and more sense. This was bound to reflect itself politically so it was not long
before the Goldwater-for-President campaign started to roll. All across the country delegates to
the Republican National Convention began announc
ing in advance that they had made an
iron-clad commitment to support Goldwater and
only
Goldwater.
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[page 100]
Chapter Twelve
The 1964 Republican Convention
and the Goldwater Campaign
Senator Barry Goldwater
press,
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