MacPherson reminds us that in 1992, three years after Stones death, a high officer of the former Soviet Unions former spy service, the K.G.B., revealed that from time to time in the 1960s, Stone did accept luncheon invitations, and the K.G.B. picked up the tab. The K.G.B. agent was Oleg Kalugin, and, in recalling those lunches, he left the impression that Stone might have been a Soviet operative. Stones enemies in the United States, in a delirium of joy, responded to Kalugins remarks by leveling some very serious posthumous accusations at Stone, and they have kept on doing so, as anyone could have predicted.

Eventually, however, Kalugin clarified his remarks. MacPherson has tracked him down to confirm his clarifications, and she concludes emphatically that Stone was not, in fact, a Soviet spy, nor did Kalugin ever mean to suggest otherwise. MacPherson is scathing about the accusations. The attacks, as tawdry as they are untruthful, she writes, have been made by those with a vested interest in portraying Stone as a paid Kremlin stooge because he remains an icon to those who despise all that the far right espoused. She goes on in this irate vein  which would be fair enough, except that carried away perhaps by her own polemical fury, she seems not to notice that in her ardor to rescue Stone from his enemies, she has yanked the rope a little too firmly and has accidentally hanged the man.

MacPherson informs us that Kalugin, having specified that Stone was never on the Soviet payroll, described Stone as a fellow traveler  meaning a friendly supporter of the Soviet cause, though not a disciplined member of any Communist organization. Kalugin explained (in words no admirer of I. F. Stone will want to read) that Stone began his cooperation with the Soviet intelligence long before me, based entirely on his view of the world. Stone was willing to perform tasks. He would find out what the views of someone in the government were or some senator on such and such an issue.

MacPherson beams a benign light on those remarks. She observes that, first, there is a world of difference between merely cooperating with the K.G.B. and actively serving as an espionage agent; and, second, any proper journalist would leap at the opportunity to chat with well-connected functionaries of a foreign power; and, third, many a Washington big shot has conducted back-channel conversations with foreign governments. And so forth, one exculpatory point after another, each of which seems reasonable enough, except that, when you add them up, the sundry points seem to have missed the point. Stone, after all, has been extolled as a god, or, at least, an inspiring model for the journalists of today, and while it is good to distinguish between cooperation and espionage, and excellent to learn that Stone sought out acquaintances in many a dark corner, something about his willingness to perform tasks as part of his longtime cooperation with Soviet intelligence is bound to make us wonder, What on earth was that about?

MacPherson acknowledges that sometimes a slant or bias did creep into Stones journalism  a double standard, as she describes it, which tended to favor the Soviet Union and, in later years, other left-wing dictatorships. Osnos, the publisher of The Best of I. F. Stone, worked for Stone as an assistant in the 1960s and boasts of this in his introduction; and Weber, a freelance writer who edited the anthology, makes plain that he, too, stands solidly in Stones corner. Yet even their book sometimes demonstrates, if only inadvertently, the slant or bias in his work  for instance, his commentary on the death of Stalin in 1953, with its ringing homage: Magnanimous salute was called for on such an occasion. For that matter, even Stones Vietnam journalism, as presented both in MacPhersons biography and in the anthology, looks only halfway prescient today. Stone foresaw that America would lose the war, and he was admirably shrewd about this. But, from reading his articles, you would never have guessed what the consequences of Communisms victory would be  the forced labor camps, the flight of the boat people into the South China Sea, the massacre of huge portions of the population of Cambodia and so forth: topics on which he was not so prescient.
    The Watchdog: a review of All Governments Lie by Myra MacPherson and THE BEST OF I. F. STONE Edited by Karl Weber. Introduction by Peter Osnos (PAUL BERMAN, 10/01/06, NY Times Book Review)

Now I'm not a big fan of psychoanalysis, particularly when applied from a distance, but it's awfully hard not to resort to some pop psychology here.  Stone you see, for all his reputation as a civil libertarian, was also at least a fellow traveler and quite possibly, even probably, a paid agent of the Soviet Union, long after even the responsible Left had finally decided that the USSR was too odious to support.  In addition, at the time of the book's publication, Stone, like Socrates, was quite an old man.

It seems to me that this work could easily be read as Stone's Apology, since the subtexts of the story attempt to reconcile two of the central problems raised by his own life and career but paralleling Socrates.  First, as regards the state and civil liberties, Stone and others had argued during the Cold War that domestic Communists should be protected by Free Speech rights.  They argued for an absolute Free Speech standard, but, unfortunately for them, even Athens, the most idealized democracy in human history, had not applied this standard, executing Socrates for his politico/religious teachings.  Anti-Communists, on the contrary, had argued that Free Speech protections ended at the point where the speaker began advocating the forcible overthrow of the democratic regime.  They maintained, quite correctly it seems to me, that Speech is guaranteed within the context of the Constitution and that those who oppose the very system place themselves beyond the pale.  This is perfectly consistent with our historic treatment of criminals, who forfeit constitutional rights, and Secessionist states, which were forcibly returned to the Union.  Stone ultimately falls back on the argument that Athens acted untrue to its own ideals, but that Socrates forced them to and moreover, this was essential to his apotheosis as a philosophical martyr.  This argument strikes me as inadequate; I'd conclude, instead, that both Athens and America were justified in defending themselves against anti-democratic forces in their midst.

Having failed to convict Athens/America, he likewise fails to acquit Socrates/Stone.  For one thing, the Socrates portrayed here is a pretty repellent figure.  Much of this derives from applying 20th Century standards of human rights and political philosophy to a pre-Christian man, but even on his own terms, Socrates emerges as a pedantic, elitist, condescending, totalitarian.  Can one doubt that when the children of Vietnamese, Chinese and Soviet refugees begin to write our history books in the next century the portrait of those in the West who supported Stalin and Mao and Ho Chi Minh  will be similarly brutal?  Just as Socrates must bear some responsibility for the tyranny of Alcibiades and Critias, so must the I.F. Stone's of our times share in the responsibility for the gulag and the killing fields and the Cultural Revolution.

One of the issues that Stone takes up is why the Athenians waited as long as they did to silence Socrates.  The real answer to this question is once again found in our own Century.  There are always going to be people in our society who fundamentally oppose our system of government and want to impose tyranny.  In general, we tolerate them and assume that they are annoying but basically harmless.  Periodically however, external events lead us to ruthlessly suppress them.  During WWI President Wilson launched one of the most repressive assaults in our nation's history on American radicals.  When WWII broke out it became possible for the Left to destroy Lindbergh and the America First movement.  The outbreak of the Cold War brought blacklisting for Communists.  Most recently, the Oklahoma City bombing meant open season on the militias.  Regardless of which end of the political spectrum these groups represent and irrespective of which political party is in power, even as open a democracy as ours responds with brutal force when threatened from within.

We do not find the "Fire in a Crowded Theater" concept very hard to accept.  You can say what you want until you become a threat to people.  Why do folks have so much trouble applying this standard on a grander scale?  Ideas should, and do, have consequences.  Let citizens advocate Communism, Fascism, Theocracy, whatever they like, as long as they are marginal and unpopular; but as soon as their ideas find traction or a foreign nation with like ideas threatens us, then crank up the House Un-American Activities Committee.  It ain't pretty, but it works.

In the final analysis, the book, despite some significant flaws, is an interesting, charmingly idiosyncratic and always entertaining look at the pivotal drama in the life of Socrates, one of the seminal figures in all of Western thought, and, at the same time, an amusing, though unintended, glimpse into the guilty conscience of I.F. Stone, an icon of the modern Left.

(Reviewed:30-Dec-99)

Grade: (B-) Orrin C. Judd

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