I'm not sure Charles Pierce has read many congressional hearing transcripts, or at least none during the Red Scare years from 1945 through 1960. Contrary to his latest article in Esquire, this Congressional testimony from Erik Prince (Mr. Blackwater; Betsy DeVos' brother) is not "unbelievable" conduct on his part, or really all that interesting, except for two things, having read the transcript myself:
1. The Washington Post article that so upsets Erik Prince has very specific facts that shows him to have been a go-between for the Trump campaign and Russians, which Prince completely denies. Someone is not telling the truth, in other words.
2. I love Prince's statement in his testimony that if the FDR could work with Stalin to defeat "Nazi fascism," then Trump can work with Putin to defeat "Islamic fascism." (page 37 of transcript)
This gets to my overall point I have made from the start of the imbroglio over Trump's relationship with the Russians: What Prince conveniently leaves out of his heartfelt formulation is that was, in its essentials, Alger Hiss' position, and Hiss went to jail because the government used perjury to put him jail because he lied about knowing a then Communist, Whittaker Chambers, and passing him information in 1937 (nothing treasonous about the information provided, one should add). Hiss and others were people who supported working with the Soviet Union to combat international, armed fascism of Germany, Italy, Japan, and then, after World War II, wanted to continue some cooperation with the Soviet Union in a post-nuclear bomb world.* These people were hounded out of government as spies, stooges, etc. The language of the questions from Schiff and Hines are similar to those of then Congressman J. Parnell Thomas and others (Joe McCarthy was often a buffoon in his questioning, so let's not count him in this particular moment), and Prince's answers are fairly similar to the answers New Deal Internationalists gave, including worrying about leaks of supposedly false information to prominent newspapers, and appeals to values of civil liberties. And if it turns out the Washington Post was correct in it essentials, and the information provided is put before a prosecutor, does that mean we should put Erik Prince in jail for perjury, too?
The funny thing too is that one can read Prince's overall testimony, and wind up feeling that he is part of a movement of International Corporate Fascism. The way he talks about his trips around the world, the people he meets, his worldview and the worldview of those he meets with, his going in and out of government high officials' offices, are fodder for conspiracy theorists who believe wholeheartedly in the Trilateral Commission and Agenda 21. It is not as if those groups do not promote a groupthink among elites. It is just that it is systemic, not conspiratorial.
The funny thing too is that one can read Prince's overall testimony, and wind up feeling that he is part of a movement of International Corporate Fascism. The way he talks about his trips around the world, the people he meets, his worldview and the worldview of those he meets with, his going in and out of government high officials' offices, are fodder for conspiracy theorists who believe wholeheartedly in the Trilateral Commission and Agenda 21. It is not as if those groups do not promote a groupthink among elites. It is just that it is systemic, not conspiratorial.
Anyway, as I have said, I can make the argument that Trump is not a traitor, and was and is simply trying to pursue a mutual cooperation strategy with Putin against Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. But having said that, one needs to recognize that Alger Hiss was merely trying to promote a multi-polar world, consistent with the idea behind the United Nations, that included the Soviet Union, and that Hiss' and other New Deal Internationalists' goal was to avoid a third World War, having then lived through two World Wars over just a few short decades. This seemed especially urgent when the A-bomb had been shown to have such destructive power. In short, one can make the argument that each of these matters is a criminalization of politics--and that the adage remains true since the 1790s, which is that most foreign policy disputes in U.S. history mask what are pure domestic partisan politics (Gordon Wood's "Empire of Liberty" is an excellent retelling of the 1790s, where Federalists and Democratic-Republicans, led respectively by Hamilton and Jefferson, accused each other of treason: Hamilton being accused of treasonous support for the British, and Jefferson accused of being a traitor, acting on behalf of the French).
Oh well. I am not sure how much Erik Prince was a player in this...well, let's use the word Cold Warriors of the right loved to use at that time, "treason."** It would be fun to unmask those who spoke to the Post and find out what or who they were relying on. I always found it interesting how credulous right wingers and historians like Khlehr and Haynes have been about trusting US based Soviet spies' memoranda to their superiors in Moscow, which spies supposedly recruited and worked with people like Hiss, when all these historians and others would have to do is watch "Ninotchka" with Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas, or read Graham Greene's "Our Man in Havana," to understand how the world really works, particularly in this area.
But as I love to say on Facebook, I sit back, and munch on the popcorn, as I see people on the right wing suddenly deciding to mouth the language of civil liberties, parse whether someone is committing treason, or merely seeking a change in our foreign policy against larger threats, etc. Munch, munch, munch. Oh, and I often like to add, where is the apology to Alger Hiss, and especially Harry Dexter White?
*I put "some" in italics because, as Conrad Black (no liberal) wrote at page 1,080 in his magisterial biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt about Hiss' appearance at the Yalta Conference in early 1945:
“….Hiss’ chief contribution at the (Yalta) conference was a sensibly reasoned argument against giving the Soviet Union three votes in the international organization. In this as in all other matters, while he was competent and unexceptionable in his functions, Hiss had no influence whatever on Roosevelt or American policy at Yalta.” (Parenthesis added; quote in italics)
Black also noted FDR had never met Hiss before Yalta and never spent a minute alone with FDR at Yalta per Charles Bohlen, a long time US diplomat.
**One recalls the famous Joe McCarthy speech that was carried into the hearts of many Americans, which speech is often entitled, "Twenty Years of Treason." It essentially asserted the entire New Deal was tainted with what right wing people often spoke about, well before McCarthy, in conflating "foreign," "international" and "atheism" with "Communism." M.J. Heale's book on the subject of anti-Communism in American history is quite good about tracing this phrasing and conflation.
But pass the popcorn on this one. I had no idea about Erik Prince, and now can enjoy watching the International Corporate Fascist set being treated like Alger Hiss.
