Malicious and Pernicious Yearnings of Useful Idiots, a Time Invariant

Kengor: In my book, I comment on, and publish, a May 14, 1983 document from the KGB archives that reveals that Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) reached out to the General Secretary of the Soviet Union's Communist Party, Yuri Andropov, to propose a kind of public relations strategy to counter President Reagan's defense policy initiatives toward the Soviet Union, policies that Kennedy felt were too aggressive.

FP: How did you come in possession of this document?

Kengor: As a result of an article that I wrote on FrontPageMagazine.com, titled, "Reagan's Freedom Fighter," which was about Natan Sharansky.

FP: So what can our interpretation be of this document?

Kengor: My intention in revealing this document was simply to place it in the historical narrative of the Reagan presidency as I did with hundreds of other documents in the book from the Soviet archives and various media archives. It is very important to understand that I tried not to cast judgment on the document or what it alleges that Senator Kennedy did.

Based on the document itself, as well as other Kennedy writings at the time, I believe that Kennedy did this because it was a very dangerous time and Kennedy, like many liberals, was genuinely worried that Reagan was too aggressive in his nuclear arms buildup.

Around this same time, Kennedy wrote a March 1984 article for Rolling Stone magazine in which he said that Reagan officials were "talking peace in 1984 as a prelude to making war in 1985." And he wrote of his "fears about an administration whose officials have spoken of winnable nuclear conflict." That was a reckless, irresponsible allegation, to be sure. Yet, it further illustrates where Kennedy was coming from: Clearly, Senator Kennedy was worried about the U.S.-Soviet confrontation spiralling out of control and going nuclear. He was seeking to defuse a situation that he thought could lead to nuclear war. His motivations were peaceful. This is not to say, of course, that what Kennedy allegedly did was not an example of very poor judgment and does not deserve heavy criticism, which it does. And what Kennedy did was obviously extraordinary.

FP: How are Kennedy’s actions relevant today in your view?

Kengor: First of all, I do not answer that question in the book because, as I said, I don't cast judgment on it in the book. However, if you're asking for my personal viewpoint, I do find it striking that certain American politicians were more worried about Reagan than about Yuri Andropov. In the KGB letter, which was written by the head of the KGB, Viktor Chebrikov, Chebrikov said that Kennedy was "very impressed" with Andropov. So, Kennedy was, By Chebrikov's account, impressed by Andropov but fearful of Reagan. Kennedy literally seemed more trustful of the Soviet dictator than the American president; that's a fair interpretation of Kennedy's thinking, based upon what Chebrikov reported to Andropov in the memo.

This kind of thinking is still common among much of the left today, as many liberals fear the conservative Republican president more than the dictator-enemy the president is trying to defeat. Today, there are many on the left who will tell you that George W. Bush is a greater threat to peace than Saddam Hussein ever was. This is a continuing example of poor judgment by the likes of Ted Kennedy.

FP: Kennedy was “very impressed” with the former head of the KGB? We don’t need to get into a history of the mass crimes that Andropov oversaw and ordered in that capacity. The ruthless suppression of Hungary's bid for freedom in 1956 was just one of them. Saying this about Andropov is the same thing as a person saying he was impressed with the head of the Nazi Gestapo. Where is the outrage on this shameful behavior?

Kengor: The mainstream media doesn't care. I literally have not received a single inquiry from the likes of the New York Times, CBS, or CNN. If not for the web and talk radio, and sources like FrontPage, there would be a total blackout on this revelation, and history would never learn about it. It is an amazing example of media bias, the most extraordinary example that I've ever personally encountered. Truly stunning. It makes me wonder how much history we never know.

It indeed requires a psychological explanation. They don't want to report it because it involves one of their own icons on the Left. So, they simply convince themselves that it doesn't matter or happened too long ago or that no one cares -- or whatever works.

The mainstream media has never been outraged by Communism, and I fear never will be. It should be underscored here that the mainstream media is no different from mainstream academia, which likewise holds the key to reporting official "history."

I have a standard line that I use in speeches to academic audiences, where I quickly run through the various atrocities committed by Communism in the 20th century. Among those lines, I always begin my statement on the 100 million deaths attributed to Communism (twice the total of the World War I and II deaths combined) by The Black Book of Communism by first noting that the book was published by Harvard University Press, so I don't get scoffed at by the elites in the room. Even then, when I fire off a litany of horrific examples of Communist barbarism, students and non-faculty members are riveted, mouths agape, whereas the hardened leftist profs and media people in the room just sneer at me, daggers in their eyes, as if the ghost of Joe McCarthy has just flown into the room and leapt inside of my body.

As Richard Pipes has said, these folks are not necessarily Communist but are anti-anti-Communist; in other words, they don't like anti-Communists, who they detest and perceive as Neanderthals, unsophisticated. So, in the mind of these individuals, to point out such facts on Ted Kennedy would be a kind of modern day McCarthyism, worthy of angry dismissal at the messenger (who is deemed without honor) rather than outrage at the source, who, like them, took on the anti-anti-Communists.

If this doesn't make sense, it is because the line of thinking by these folks doesn't make sense; it is very emotional and quite unthoughtful, and indeed requires a kind of political-psychological explanation that can only be gleaned by probing the pathological depths of the far, hard left.

FP: Indeed. Overall, this whole episode threatens to expose what lurked in their hearts during the Cold War -- in terms of who they were really cheering for. And we just see the extention of that ugly tradition today in our terror war, as the hard Left offers its hand of solidarity to the Islamist jihadists. Chomsky's embrace of Hezbollah is the recent chapter. It's the same malicious and pernicious yearning that Kennedy engaged in with Andropov, but just in a new totalitarian theatre.