Stalin’s Secret Agents: The Subversion of Roosevelt’s Government

This latest effort by conservatives to discredit FDR and his administration accuses many in the Roosevelt administration—including FDR’s closest adviser, Harry Hopkins—of acting in Soviet interests. The authors say that the bombing of Pearl Harbor, for instance, was partly the result of pro-Soviet American diplomats aiding Stalin in deflecting a Japanese attack on the U.S.S.R. Former Indianapolis News editor Evans (Blacklisted by History) and former federal and congressional intelligence adviser Romerstein (The Venona Secrets) blame the Soviet infiltration of the federal government in part on an ailing and unfocused FDR. At Yalta, they say, reputed Soviet agent Alger Hiss persuaded the president to make inordinate concessions to Stalin. Even Eleanor Roosevelt, say the authors, was “at the top” of “pro-Red policy influences.” Instead of political and military expedience, the authors see Soviet sympathy, as in Harry Hopkins’s efforts to keep Stalin in the WWII alliance. The authors present a controversial case that is undermined by source material that even they admit is “fragmentary and episodic.” Agent: Alexander Hoyt, Alexander Hoyt Assoc. (Nov.)