Book Reviews

that few people accepted as truth at the moment, even though events have invariably sustained the Le vine point of view. When Don Levine was growing up in Czarist Russia before World War I, he was conscious that there was aNew World on the far side of the globe where "live and let live" was the rule and the doctrine of mass terror was unknown. His father wanted to give him an ortho dox Hebrew education, but he per sisted in imagining that the Dnie per River was Mark Twain's Mis sissippi. He read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn in Russian trans lations, along with Fenimore Coop er's The Last of the Mohicans, and when, on the occasion of Mark Twain's death in 1910, a local paper printed a dispatch about the erec tion of a statue to Twain on the river bluffs at Hannibal, Missouri, Don asked the editor if he would like an eyewitness report of the statue's unveiling. When the editor expressed amusement, the young Don took it as encouragement. Accepting the editor's interest as evidence of a bona fide assignment, Don sur prised his skeptical friends by get..

ing a passport, which was not an 573 574 THE FREEMAN September easy thing to do. He arrived in New York in October of 1911, intent on shaking the mud of the Dnieper River banks from his boots in fa vor of real Mississippi mud. In pursuit of his dream he wound up in Kansas City, where the mud was Missouri mud. Intent on making himself as much of a native as pos sible, Don entered a high school in the most exclusive residential area of the city. He was going to be a midwest American, and nothing else. Came the Revolution The Russian Revolution inter vened. The trouble with Don Levine was that he knew Russian,and there was a journalistic market for informed articles on what was hap pening as Kerensky rose and fell and the Bolsheviks made their bid to take over. Don translated some Russian handbills for Garet Gar rett, then the managing editor of the New York Tribune, and they turned out to be the first news bul letins of the Revolution. This curi ~ ous news beat made Don an expert, and it wasn't long before the boy who had wanted above all to be a midwest American found himself back in Russia, working for Victor Lawson, the publisher of the Chi cago Daily News.

Don Levine was never taken in by the Bolsheviks, which meant that he had "liberal" America to fight. On the other hand, he didn't make the journalistic mistake of thinking Lenin and Trotsky were in danger of defeat by the White Russians and Admiral Kolchak. Cleaving to the truth, Don de scribed Trotsky, for example, as a great actor in a live drama, but no hero or genius. Lenin, to Don, had a closed and unoriginal mind and did nothing to change the inner character of the State. And when Don Levine wrote the first extend ed biography of Stalin, he saw him as a Tammany Hall figure, a "boss" without idealistic features. (This was before the big trials and purg es of the Nineteen Thirties had re vealed the real bloodiness of the Stalin character.) Out of phase with the Western "liberals" who insisted on seeing the Russian "experiment" even un der Stalin as something holy, Don Levine remained a minority voice among the intellectuals of the Twenties and the Thirties. His pat tern, which was that of the youth who insisted on pointing out that the naked emperor was indeed nak ed, was set, and it was perhaps a foregone conclusion that he would be unable to get President Frank lin D. Roosevelt to listen to Whi t taker Chambers's revelations about the extent of Soviet spy infiltra tions at the time of the Nazi-Soviet Pact.

Levine met Chambers-or "Carl,"

1973 EYEWITNESS TO HISTORY 575 as he had been known when he was a Communist courier - through Herbert Solow, a specialist in So viet intrigue who later became a most gifted editor of Fortune mag azine. It took a good deal of doing to get Chambers together with As sistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle, who was willing to guaran tee, at least implicitly a promise of immunity from prosecution to an ex-spy who could furnish evidence that would benefit the country. Chambers was a most reluctant wit ness (he had no vindictive spirit against Alger Hiss), but he told enough about the spy rings work ing in Washington to frighten Berle. When the information went to the White House, however, Roosevelt scoffed at it. So nothing happened for seven long years until the House Committee on Un-Amer ican Activities, reacting to the Cold War, started digging into the sub ject of Soviet penetration of the Washington bureaucracies.

Insights and Revelations The Chambers story is a high spot in Don Levine's book, but it is only one of a number of revelations that correct the historical record of our times. Don Levine ferreted out more facts bearing on the as sassination of Leon Trotsky than anybody else was able to dig out. He had interesting contacts with Albert Einstein, who was willing to help him when it came to expos ing the Nazis but who timidly froze up when asked to apply an anti totalitarian· standard to the machi nations of the Communist Party. He investigated the slaughter of the Romanoff royal family, giving us unforgettable pictures of what happened both before and during the hail of bullets that cut down Czar Nicholas, Czarina Alexandra and their five children in the cellar at Ekaterinburg. With his knowledge of the ter rorist mind and tradition, Don Levine was probably the first jour nalist to grasp the meaning of Lee Harvey Oswald's assassination of President Kennedy. Oswald brought the Che Guevara-Maoist terror to American soil, where it was to rage throughout the later Nineteen Sixties, resulting in the murders of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy and in the dis ruption of universities all over the country.

No Compromise with Communism, But a Balance of Powers Levine's final chapter shows him going against the prevailing hopes of detente with the Communists. The conflict between tyranny and freedom won't end, he says, until there is a world of free men ev erywhere. But he sees "a road to safety for the United States and the rest of the free world" in the 576 THE FREEMAN September contest between Moscow and Pe king for the domination of Asia. He has listened respectfully to ref ugees from the Chinese interior province of Sinkiang who say, "The salvation of the free world lies in the continuance and acceleration of the Sino-Soviet conflict." He wor ries a bit about a possible J apa nese-Chinese entente in Asia and an embryonic Russo-German rapprochement in Europe. He hopes these won't be allowed to sprout, for if they do it is bound to aug ment the burden of the arms race the U.S. must carry.

Therefore, Levine suggests, the U.S. should strengthen ties with West Germany and Japan, leaving Russia and Red China to their own devices. HANDSOME BLUE LEATHERLEX FREEMAN BINDERS $2.50 each ORDER FROM: THE FOUNDA nON FOR ECONOMIC EDUCATION IRVINGTON-ON-HUDSON, NEW YORK 10533 the Freeman VOL. 23, NO. 10 • OCTOBER 1973 Is Escape from the PovertyTrap Possible? Bertel M. Sparks 579 The blessings of freedom are possible to those not bound by the burdens and temptations of the welfare state. The American Dream John E. Nestler 593 When principles give way to materialism, the dream becomes a nightmare. Challengesof the CommunicationsExplosion Philip Lesly 598 Examining new patterns in our human climate that challenge our stability and progress. Appeal to the Intellect Leonard E. Read 609 If we would attract, we must appeal to the best, not the worst, in ourselves and in others. Who Profitsfrom East-WestTra.de? Eugene Guccione 612 The record of successful market exchange with socialists is very discouraging - to non-social ists.