Thursday, October 6, 2016

Soviet Spy Ring Bigger Than First Suspected

The massive amount of data which historians have found concerning Cold War espionage has led to a reappraisal of the extent to which the Soviet spy network infiltrated the United States.

Shocking cases, like the fact that Soviet operative Alger Hiss infiltrated the State Department in the 1930s, and was advising President Roosevelt in face-to-face meetings, are merely the tip of the iceberg.

The international communist conspiracy operated an extensive spy network inside both social institutions and government agencies.

Millions of pages of formerly secret documents are now available to scholars. Researching the dark underworld of Soviet espionage inside the United States, historians Stan Evans and Herb Romerstein write:

Looking at this considerable body of data, and matching one set of materials with another, we can draw certain definite conclusions about the scope of Soviet-Communist activity in the United States and other target nations. First and foremost, it’s evident from now-available records that Communist penetration of our government — and our society in general — was, over a span of decades, massive. Hundreds of Soviet agents, Communist Party members, and fellow travelers were ensconced on official payrolls, beginning in the New Deal era then increasing rapidly during World War II, when the Soviets were our allies against the Nazis.

Under the influence of Alger Hiss, FDR made odd policy decisions, ceding millions of square miles - and millions of innocent lives - to Stalin’s expansionist imperialism.

Historians are now learning that, from the 1930s onward, the Soviets had an espionage network larger and more effective than researchers had previously imagined.