Rating: 
Summary: ANOTHER BITTER OLD MAN TRIES TO CASH IN
Review: Ronald Radosh was born to proud communist parents. He attended red elementary and high schools (whose curriculum could match any modern-day college campus) and even spent his childhood summers at socialist camp. His life story reads like the perfect description to yield a grown-up replication of Hillary Clinton or Bella Abzug. But something went right along the way.From a very young age, he embodied a devotion to the truth (or at least, like his parents, what he honestly believed was valid), and this veracity eventually lead him astray (or home depending upon one's point of view.) Ironically, the term "fellow travelers" has become cliche in communist circles, and Mr. Radosh uses it generously throughout this work, but he, the ex-communist, is the one who "traveled" away from a dead-end philosophy, while the so-called "travelers" continued to ram into brick walls, getting nowhere at all. The drive to satisfy his inquisitive nature lead to many disappointments with communist ideals, but three incidents seemed to cement his conversion from the failed mindset. Along with a select ruck of fellow travelers he was invited to spend a month in Cuba--an offer he joyously accepted. However, touring the island prison, he painfully learned that the Cuban reality was a far cry from communist lure. Despite communism's promise of complete equality, he encountered a nation where the ruling class lived like kings while the working class lived in hopeless squalor and dissenters and eccentrics were subject to arbitrary institutionalization, torture, and execution. Touring a mental hospital where innocent dissidents routinely underwent lobotomies tore Mr. Radosh's heart. However, his reaction was not shared by Castro's other American toadies; one of whom dismissed the author's concerns with the seriously spoken statement, "We have to understand that there are differences between capitalist lobotomies and socialist lobotomies." A second transmogrifying occurrence, that pays loud testimony to Mr. Radosh's integrity, was his undertaking the writing of what would become the definitive biography of the Rosenbergs. As a teenager, he had protested the spy couple's execution, fully convinced that they were innocent scapegoats murdered by a tyrannical government who had framed them for a false crime. He knew the Rosenberg sons, and in his circle Julius and Ethel were icons of unsurpassed stature. Upon the government's release of all documentation regarding the espionage case, Mr. Radosh determined to provide the martyred Rosenbergs posthumous exoneration. He was cataclysmically dismayed when the evidence conclusively proved that they were indeed guilty as charged. Many people with such strongly held convictions would have abandoned the project rather than publish a book that thoroughly refuted them. It speaks volumes about his character that he concluded his work despite having to change the thesis 180 degrees. Yet this inspiring honesty was not seen admirably by much of the left. "The Rosenberg Files" author earned widespread ostracization by his leftist peers, even many of those who agreed with its verisimilitude. Too many felt that the myth of the Rosenberg image should maintain its luster to sustain the cause--regardless of what the facts proved. The third and final disillusioning upheaval he experienced happened during Nicaragua's Civil War. Like all good leftists, he supported the Sandinista regime, and all like all good truth-seekers, he wanted to comprehensively investigate the issues involved. Embarking on a hegira to the Sandinista camps during the war, he was shocked by abundant human rights abuses in stark contrast to all the agitprop about the regime's liberation. Mingling with a veritable who's who of leftism, he humorously relates his meetings with Bianca Jagger. The internationally renowned airhead seemed especially defensive of one particularly brutal Sandinista general. The origin of her support soon became obvious, as he regularly arrived at the motel late at night and disappeared into her suite until the wee hours of the morning. Appalling many of his fellow traveling ideologues, by agreeing to venture someplace they would never go--The Contras' Camps, he was again rattled to see humanitarianism and a thrust for democracy and fairness. Publicly siding with the freedom-fighting contras once again earned him the wrath of his fellow travelers, but this time he moved on leaving them all behind. Ironically, it was the aimless fellow travelers who have repeatedly sacrificed their ideals to maintain allegiance to a cause whose bankruptcy constantly reveals itself. Ronald Radosh was the one who remained true to his principles--human rights, equality, fairness, and openness. He may have the liked platitudinous rhythms of socialism, but like anyone secure in his beliefs felt that further investigation is always beneficial. Although he bravely confesses that his misguided actions were extremely negative, he is correct in acknowledging that now "the capacity for harm is diminished because so many stood solidly behind America while we tried to bring it down. The country is stronger for having encountered and withstood us." Interestingly, while Mr. Radosh eventually found a rich sense of inner peace and self-respect, his adherence to ideals--rather than ideology--stands as a bold example that all of us, fellow travelers as well as those who never boarded, should emulate.
Rating: 
Summary: "Anticommunism was the moral equivalency of rape"
Review: To quote Hayden's "Students for a Democratic Society". This is an excellent book about the Left's blindspot--either willfull or self-deluded--towards the atrocities of the Soviet Union and Communist movements in general. Radosh begins in the late 30s early 40s--when Leftist attacked FDR as a war-mongerer during the Nazi-Soviet pact--and ends w/ Bianca Jagger strutting around nude during the anti-Sandinista Nicuaraguan elections in the late 80s. The stories and anecdotes Radosh brings out are entertaining and in ways, frightening, because of the depth of the willful ignorance of Communist atrocities within the Leftist collective consciousness. Michael Lerner, Bob Scheer, Ed Asner...these people still walk around w/ a hefty amount of credibility to the crowds they play to. That's disturbing. Radosh also returns to the Rosenberg case, and shows how the Venona taps confirm the guilt of the Rosenbergs. He also tells of the Leftist reactions to this, either denial (like many reviewers below, many of which don't even address the consequences of the Venona "secrets") or worse, "The facts are irrelevant, we need the Rosenbergs as heroes". I'm only giving it four stars, because I think that David Horowitz' Radical Son is a better overall biography (more personal and honest), and Horowitz explains the personal appeal of and rationale behind Leftism. Radosh's book is more of a summary of Leftist vomit, like the above quote from the SDS, but it's still an excellent book about one side of the political spectrum during the Cold War.
Rating:
Summary: "Anticommunism was the moral equivalency of rape"
Review: To quote Hayden's "Students for a Democratic Society". This is an excellent book about the Left's blindspot--either willfull or self-deluded--towards the atrocities of the Soviet Union and Communist movements in general. Radosh begins in the late 30s early 40s--when Leftist attacked FDR as a war-mongerer during the Nazi-Soviet pact--and ends w/ Bianca Jagger strutting around nude during the anti-Sandinista Nicuaraguan elections in the late 80s. The stories and anecdotes Radosh brings out are entertaining and in ways, frightening, because of the depth of the willful ignorance of Communist atrocities within the Leftist collective consciousness. Michael Lerner, Bob Scheer, Ed Asner...these people still walk around w/ a hefty amount of credibility to the crowds they play to. That's disturbing. Radosh also returns to the Rosenberg case, and shows how the Venona taps confirm the guilt of the Rosenbergs. He also tells of the Leftist reactions to this, either denial (like many reviewers below, many of which don't even address the consequences of the Venona "secrets") or worse, "The facts are irrelevant, we need the Rosenbergs as heroes". I'm only giving it four stars, because I think that David Horowitz' Radical Son is a better overall biography (more personal and honest), and Horowitz explains the personal appeal of and rationale behind Leftism. Radosh's book is more of a summary of Leftist vomit, like the above quote from the SDS, but it's still an excellent book about one side of the political spectrum during the Cold War.
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