I find your theory about mutuality and exchange very plausible, and where Occam's Razor would seem to point in the Philby case at least. It's not uncommon for governing elites to relate more to their foreign counterparts than to the constituencies they ostensibly represent. Part of the context of McCarthyist hysteria, and how a sweaty dr…
I find your theory about mutuality and exchange very plausible, and where Occam's Razor would seem to point in the Philby case at least. It's not uncommon for governing elites to relate more to their foreign counterparts than to the constituencies they ostensibly represent. Part of the context of McCarthyist hysteria, and how a sweaty drunk bully was able to amass so much influence, was earnest concern across much of the country that the eastern establishment was overly blase about, and sometimes even outright sympathetic, to communism.
Thanks! Occam's razor is a good way to put it. (Although that doesn't mean it's necessarily right!) What's very interesting about McCarthy - this is my understanding - is that he was basically telling the truth. The State Department in particular was full of people who had left-wing backgrounds if not direct ties to the USSR. I've gone partially down another rabitthole that connects to the Elizabeth Bentley/Jakob Golos ring. It turns out that there were, like, an unbelievable number of Soviet spies in the US in the 1940s - so many that it stretches credulity that they weren't part of this orchestrated intelligence-sharing system. Elements of the US system in World War II - probably FDR himself but also the OSS - would have felt that the United States had to be vigorously sharing information with the USSR to keep the Soviets in the war but that it was better to do so surreptitiously (with a "spy ring" as the cover story). Duncan Lee, the assistant to Donovan during the war and later exposed as a Soviet spy, may well have been a point person for this exchange. And I suspect that information for the atomic bomb may have been handed off on this basis. At some point this whole system would have been an open secret in the halls of power, enough so that when McCarthy, as a rogue senator, went public with an aspect of it, it was deeply destructive and the establishment had no really effective line of defense. It's all really complicated stuff and I'm far from having a handle on it. But would like to post about it at some point.
I find your theory about mutuality and exchange very plausible, and where Occam's Razor would seem to point in the Philby case at least. It's not uncommon for governing elites to relate more to their foreign counterparts than to the constituencies they ostensibly represent. Part of the context of McCarthyist hysteria, and how a sweaty drunk bully was able to amass so much influence, was earnest concern across much of the country that the eastern establishment was overly blase about, and sometimes even outright sympathetic, to communism.
Thanks! Occam's razor is a good way to put it. (Although that doesn't mean it's necessarily right!) What's very interesting about McCarthy - this is my understanding - is that he was basically telling the truth. The State Department in particular was full of people who had left-wing backgrounds if not direct ties to the USSR. I've gone partially down another rabitthole that connects to the Elizabeth Bentley/Jakob Golos ring. It turns out that there were, like, an unbelievable number of Soviet spies in the US in the 1940s - so many that it stretches credulity that they weren't part of this orchestrated intelligence-sharing system. Elements of the US system in World War II - probably FDR himself but also the OSS - would have felt that the United States had to be vigorously sharing information with the USSR to keep the Soviets in the war but that it was better to do so surreptitiously (with a "spy ring" as the cover story). Duncan Lee, the assistant to Donovan during the war and later exposed as a Soviet spy, may well have been a point person for this exchange. And I suspect that information for the atomic bomb may have been handed off on this basis. At some point this whole system would have been an open secret in the halls of power, enough so that when McCarthy, as a rogue senator, went public with an aspect of it, it was deeply destructive and the establishment had no really effective line of defense. It's all really complicated stuff and I'm far from having a handle on it. But would like to post about it at some point.