I THINK I LOVE IVY MEEROPOL
You had to be lucky to catch "Heir to an Execution: A Granddaughter's Story" on one of the HBO channels recently. The documentary was written and narrated by Ivy Meeropol, daughter of one of the two Rosenberg sons left orphans when their parents Julius and Ethel were executed at Sing-Sing prison in 1953. The couple was sent to the electric chair following three years of appeals after their conviction in 1950 for treason for selling atomic secrets to the Soviets. The two boys, after a stint in the Hebrew Children's Center, were adopted by the Meeropol family, friends of the Rosenbergs' lawyer.
Ivy's father Michael spent his life outraged, believing, like most activists on the Left, that his mother and father were innocent. He and his brother Robert made an industry speaking and writing about the horrors of the imperialist capitalist state that murdered their parents. The innocence of the Rosenbergs became an almost religious belief in Jewish households and a cause celebre worldwide among socialists and communists.
Ivy Meeropol is an attractive and disarming young woman who wanted to know the truth. Now in her late 20s, she set out to disturb the ashes of the execution, starting out with conversations with her father and uncle and ranging around the left-wing culture in New York City. She interviewed Morton Sobell (who served 19 years in prison for his role in the spy ring), former communist union leaders, and family members-some of whom she had never met as they changed their names to hide from the shame and scandal of being associated with Ivy's executed grandparents.
Ivy grew up with the consensus of her close family and friends that her grandparents were innocent. And it is true they were turned in by Ethel's brother David Greenglass, a member of the spy ring who tattled to the FBI. She was also told her grandparents were victims of "prosecutorial misconduct" and that their "alleged" activities were justified because they were, according to those who knew them, "good communists" and that "people do not understand that today." Ivy, in a touching scene, drives by Greenglass's shuttered house but is afraid to knock on the door.
I'm thinking this documentary is another whitewash influenced by the Left who are in denial about the guilt of the Rosenbergs. I would have cut it off, but I liked Ivy and her honesty and the story is a good one. She uncovers archival documents, uses news film from the era effectively (the boys visiting their parents at Sing-Sing, for example) and begins to separate the propaganda-on both sides-into a coherent narrative. Her main story line is that she and her family are such nice people, so how could Ethel and Julius be traitors?
I'm glad I stayed tuned. Ivy finally comes to the revelations in the Venona files, intercepted messages from Moscow to American Soviet agents that began in 1942 and continued until 1961 that were declassified in 1995. It is a stunning moment when Ivy learns that her grandfather was a Soviet spy with the code name "Antenna", later changed to "Liberal." Unlike her father and Sobell and others who launched a campaign to discredit Venona when it was divulged, Ivy saw the truth and her father finally gave in on camera and abandoned his pretense that his parents were innocent. And I felt sorry for Michael. Without the outrage against society for the execution of his parents, he is left with the numbing reality that he and his brother Robert were abandoned for politics, bequeathing them a life of anger and rejection.
The faade of the propaganda surrounding the innocence of Ethel and Julius evaporated as Michael's daughter sought and found the truth. Michael and his brother Robert are left with the raw fact that not only were his parents traitors, they sacrificed their children for a sinister regime and a hollow doctrine. The one saving piece of evidence the family has left is that Ethel did not have a code name in the Venona files; perhaps, they hope, she was merely a pawn, providing them with enough rage over her execution to placate their angst over their father's guilt.
With the capitulation of Michael, I felt great relief that this intelligent and disarmingly honest girl struck a blow that can help end decades of propaganda and deception by the Left. The "party line" that America is evil and international socialism good has manipulated academicians and many in the media even after the collapse of the Soviet Union. On campus today, the big lie that denies the depth of Soviet espionage and cultural persuasion on our political culture continues. The unexplained anti-Americanism on the part of a coterie of Americans today is directly connected to the Rosenberg persona: the religious-like conviction that theoretical socialism is to be venerated, requiring denial of patriotism and even death for the cause.
The Rosenbergs and the active Left actually believed in the Soviet "model" of world socialism, even in the face of the murder and atrocity that became the trademark of the movement. Their martyrdom was a torch for the continuing effort to topple American values into the 1960s and '70s.
Little Ivy then has performed a great service, almost in fairy-tale fashion. While it required large-scale diplomacy and saber rattling to bring down the Soviet Union, it was an honest and attractive princess who finished the job on the home front here in America by discrediting the lies and distortions of Soviet propaganda embraced by Michael Meeropol and his legion of fellow travelers.
Let me add that I attended the Venona Conference where the revelations were exposed that concluded Ivy Meeropol's odyssey. I spoke briefly with the Meeropol brothers and Morton Sobell, who did his best to sabotage the conference. And Sobell and his fellow travelers have been effective in keeping Venona from the front pages and television news programs. It is a scandal of great magnitude that the media have ignored Venona: It settles the main arguments that have divided us politically since the 1930s. Yet the mass media and the academic professions have ignored it. Now that the brave Ivy Meeropol has pierced the cover-up, our national mass media should own up to their responsibility to report the truth. After Ivy's epiphany with the truth, perhaps the Marxists on campus will finally say the three little words we all want to hear: "We were wrong."
Ivy's courage and honesty could put us back on the path of being Americans without the sinister influence of dead and gone Soviet propaganda. For too long international socialist doctrine has influenced our national agenda, wielding half-truths and undermining our self-esteem. I think I love Ivy Meeropol.
NOTES FROM LA-LA LAND
Here's the scoop: NC State chancellor Mary Anne Fox went to see the rather dim Molly Broad, president of the 16-campus UNC system of colleges and universities, to say she was only looking for an additional $15,000 or so in her salary to fend off offers she was receiving, making it clear that she loved her job and wanted to stay. To Fox's surprise and dismay; Broad took it upon herself to announce that Fox was leaving for the University of California-San Diego. Fox was understandably very upset but not as upset as we citizens ought to be that Molly Broad is the president of our university system. The problem is that she is so incompetent no one else will offer her a job so we can be rid of her.
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I am delighted to learn that plans are underway to erect a memorial in Washington, DC, honoring the victims of communism. According to the latest count, over 100 million people were murdered in its name from 1917 to 1992.
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Ronald Reagan said one thing that was not mentioned in the coverage I saw and read during his weeklong funeral services. When hounded by reporters that he was spending too much on defense while attempting to cut taxes, Reagan simply said: "When it comes to the security of the United States, I don't look at the budget." Sound advice today.
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Go to www.metronc.com and click on the button that takes you to my radio show on 1360 WCHL-AM in Chapel Hill and listen to the interview with FCC lawyer Wade Hargrove. You are not getting the scoop in the local news that FCC chairman Michael Powell (and yes, the son of Colin) is cracking down on broadcast obscenity since the Bono and Janet Jackson and Howard Stern events. I also interview Hal Crowther (we agree on nothing); famous criminal defense attorney Joe Cheshire (the death penalty is discussed); cartoonist and novelist Doug Marlette (he is working on a new book); art museum Director Larry Wheeler (big plans for the future) and UNC J-School professor Chuck Stone.
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Who continues to outrage is the ridiculous Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair. He is a limousine liberal from hell but now it's time to put him away for sponsoring an essay contest that asks for entries around the theme: "because you are American, why do you feel like the rest of the world hates you?" What an idiot, and not even a useful one.
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Just back from DC where I lunched with Bruce Hoffman, the keynote speaker for the Second Raleigh Spy Conference, and presenter Dennis Pluchinsky, the threat analyst expert from the State Department. Both will be here September 1-3 joining Kim Cragin, the acknowledged guru on suicide bombers; Tom Kimmel, the grandson of the Admiral who took the rap for Pear Harbor (he compares the Japanese attack to 9-11); Nigel West, the UK intelligence expert who will address the terrorist campaign by the Irish Republican Army; and Dr. James Leutze, who taught military affairs at UNC-Chapel Hill in the 70's and 80's, hosted the international television program Globe Watch and last year retired as chancellor of UNC-Wilmington. Go to www.raleighspyconference.com to register or call the NC Museum of History at 919-733-3076.
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The World War II monument in DC lacks a sense of emotion, coming over as an Albert Speer on a bad day production for a small town. I think World War II is the most significant event in human history so I was mildly disappointed. But I was surprised that I liked the FDR monument. The controversy over its design and construction stretches over 50 years right through the Bauhaus era during which one artist suggested 12 rocks strewn on a hillside. The controversy over depicting FDR in a wheel chair caught my attention and, sure enough, when I first saw it, I was disappointed.
However, as I approached it, I changed completely. With him sitting there in human size I felt I could speak with him... and I did, reminding him he was too soft on Stalin. The entire monument project is quite affecting and appealing. Divided into sections of stone and water features (and other statuary) by his administrations, at the conclusion there he is sitting with no leg braces with his faithful dog larger than life.