Professors John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr were among the first people to examine the archives of the former Soviet Union when they were opened in the mid-90's, and their research and writing on the topic of Cold War Soviet espionage in America and the Venona transcripts establish them as perhaps the preeminent scholars in that field today.
Their books, The Secret World of American Communism, Venona, Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, and The Soviet World of American Communism , through archival material and decoded Venona communications, helped to demolish any doubt as to the guilt of the Americans who worked as Soviet spies, notably the Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss. They are also able to prove beyond doubt that the CPUSA was funded and directed from Moscow, a fact long denied by the American left.
In fact, these realities are accepted as such most everywhere today, with the exception of American academia, where tenured leftists, masquerading as scholars and historians, continue to ignore or deny these uncomfortable truths.
In this interview with Jamie Glazov of Front Page Magazine, Klehr and Haynes discuss their new book, In Denial, Historians, Communism & Espionage. They liken the ongoing attempt to revise and cleanse the history of American communism and related Soviet espionage to Holocaust denial, in terms of its audacity, and its willful denial of demonstrable and widely accepted fact. It's a good read. Here's a quote from Klehr:
Why does it all matter? Why should people care about arguments among historians about American communists or whether spies like the Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss and Lauchlin Currie and Harry White were innocent or guilty? Because this concerns the history that gets taught in the high schools and colleges and the view that American students have of their country's past. Take Joe McCarthy. He's the poster boy for the view that anticommunism led to horrible persecution in post WWII America. A few years ago the proposed National History Standards for High School mentioned him more times than any other American in that era. He was a demagogue. But how many students understand that hundreds of American communists did spy for the Soviet Union? That there was a serious problem of subversion? ...And these issues are not "merely" historical. Many of the historians we discuss in our book make very clear that their goal is to indoctrinate a new generation of students in order to build a new radical movement...
...For some of the historians we discuss there is a disconnect with reality. They are unwilling to deal with evidence; they are unwilling to employ logic. Instead they retreat into a fantasy world.
UPDATE 12/7: Here's a review of the Klehr & Haynes book by Arnold Beichman, from The Washington Times.
Could you provide me with the author of the "Remembering the HSCA" (november 2003)
Thanks