None Dare Call It Treason (1964)
"A Communist killed JFK"
“Treason never prosper. What’s the reason? For if it prosper none dare call it treason.” - Sir John Harrington, 1561-1612.
“None Dare Call it Treason” (1964) is a Cold War anti-communist book written by American pastor John A. Stormer.
It reads like a “CliffsNotes” retelling of the Cold War, dipping into familiar events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1960 U-2 incident and the John F. Kennedy assassination and interpreting them through the lense of Cold War anti-communism, derogatorily called “McCarthyism”.
Communist Infiltration in America
The first chapter, “Have We Gone Crazy?”, underlines the gravity of the Cold War, stating it has already cost more lives than any “hot” war in history.
The author claims the Communists are winning on all fronts, citing China, Korea and Cuba as examples, and is frustrated with the weakness of the United States.
While the Communists are gearing up for the next world war, US diplomats are wasting time with empty disarmament negotiations and the military is woefully underequipped.
Not only is the US government not doing enough to fight the Communists, but there are also people within it who, unwittingly or knowingly, do quite a bit to help them.
The most common form of collaboration, according to Stormer, is to funnel money or goods to the Soviet Union or Communist-aligned states via foreign aid programs.
Through such programs Czechoslovakia has received nuclear reactors, Bulgaria new railway lines and Poland a 2.5 million dollar “loan” to build Vladimir Lenin Steelworks.
While most contributions are of a “humanitarian” nature, meant to help civilians and build peaceful relations with Communist countries, some practices, such as the reselling of American military surplus at rock-bottom prices, directly strengthen hostile armies.
Stormer brings up an egregious example where a bunch of “obsolete” F-86 Jet Fighters were resold to Yugoslavia for a mere $10,000 a piece, which amounts to roughly $100,000 adjusted for inflation.
Another form of subversion is the manipulation of American foreign policy decision-making.
The author alleges that the State Department is plagued with such activity to the extent that it has effectively become a nest for enemy spies.
Stormer says Fidel Castro’s rise to power in Cuba would have been impossible were it not for the department’s failings, in particular he blames William Arthur Weiland.
Stormer says Weiland, as head of the State Department’s Office of Caribbean affairs, buried intelligence reports stating Castro was a Communist, something Castro himself, at the time, denied.
He laments that Weiland was later promoted, despite his views of Castro having been disproven, and nonetheless to a committee revising the department’s security practices.
Anti-Anti-Communism
We have all been told of the relentless purges of the Red Scare, with a lot of people, especially in the education system and entertainment industry, being fired on the wrongful accusation of being Communists.
However, Stormer portrays the US government as disinterested in removing anyone from office on the allegation of Communist-sympathies, no matter how well founded it may be.
On the contrary, he claims being too fiercely anti-communist is more likely to lead to your dismissial, especially in the military.
In chapter 4, “Words vs. Action”, Stormer cites multiple incidents where planned military anti-communist training programs were cancelled or went ahead, but the arranger was later punished.
In one instance an officer was removed for showing the film “Operation Abolition”, an anti-communist documentary by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA).
In another Don Caron, a forest ranger for the department of Agriculture, was forced to choose between his government job and position as a columnist for an anti-communist newspaper.
One could be forgiven for thinking that these examples are isolated incidents and that dismissal for anti-communism only happens to people of no significance or that the administration wanted to get rid of anyway, but one case contradicts this view.
In chapter 3, Stormer talks about World War II veteran and general Douglas MacArthur who was removed from command during the Korean War, ostensibly for violating a “gag order”, but Stormer claims there was more to it.
When North Korea invaded South Korea on June 25th, 1950 general MacArthur was put in charge of the American intervention. He managed to halt the Communist’s rapid advance and eventually cut off their supply lines at Inchon, forcing the invaders back to the Chinese border.
Yet, the war was far from over.
MacArthur was under strict orders not to conduct strikes inside Chinese territory to avoid provoking a “hot war” against China and possibly the Soviet Union.
This rendered the enemy’s bases and supplies off-limits and prevented the US military from advancing.
From that point on the US could no longer win, just not lose against wave after wave of Chinese “volunteers” who where allowed to resupply on the other side of the Yalu river, before crossing back into Korea.
According to Stormer, this angered MacArthur and while he kept quiet at first, in the end he got vocal about the ridiculous limitations imposed from Washington.
Stormer cites similar critiques raised by MacArthur’s successors, general James Van Fleet went as far as saying the “Rules of Engagement” forced on American troops must have been leaked to the enemy and points the finger at “high diplomatic authorities”.
Stormer concludes the real reason MacArthur was reassigned wasn’t violating a presidential gag order, but at best because he bruised the ego of “appeasement-happy” State Department desk jockeys and at worst because he was perceived as a threat by knowing traitors.
The Media And The JFK Assassination
In chapter 8, “The Press, Radio and TV”, Stormer adresses the media’s role in the Communist conspiracy, saying that while politicians and bureaucrats are the ones undermining the nation, they wouldn’t get away with it if the media had diligently cast light on their treason.
Stormer accuses the media of failing to expose security risks in the appointment of public officials, either by not covering the issue or outright sabotaging those who do.
For example, the media was silent when Secretary of Labor Arthur J. Goldberg was appointed supreme court justice, despite, according to Stormer, having served as chapter president for a Communist controlled lawyers guild and appointed another suspected Communist to a government position.
Stormer further says media coverage of anti-communist organizations, such as the John Birch Society or Christian Anti-Communism Crusade, is invariable negative, with JBS generally portrayed as an object of mockery and CACC-founder Fred Schwarz a con artist cashing-in on a gullible audience.
Having spoken at length about the omission of the Communist threat to American security, Stormer broadens the topic to left-wing media bias in general.
He says the rise of “interpretive reporting” has removed the objective point of view expected of journalists in the past, allowing them to insert their own opinion.
The justification is that it allows experienced journalists to add context the average reader doesn’t have, but Stormer explains this presents a problem when an ultra-liberal reporter covers the speech of a conservative speaker, or vice versa.
In that case they might perceive the speaker as dishonest and feel the need to substitute their “correction” instead, perhaps omitting the crux of the speakers argument in the process.
Stormer cites Willard Edwards, a journalist for the Chicago Tribune, as stating that 90% of the press corps where not only opposed to Richard Nixon, but actively supportive of John F. Kennedy when they faced off in the 1960 presidential election.
On the topic of Kennedy, John A. Stormer says the press coverage of the JFK assassination is the most glaring example of left-wing media bias, proclaiming it an issue about which “volumes could and should be written”.
He blames the media for distorting the case to hide the killer’s motive, making it appear unclear or that the act was purely a result of mental illness, when in reality Harvey Lee Oswald, a known Communist, assassinated the president as an act of left-wing terrorism.
Stormer writes that while the media reports extensively on right-wing violence, the story of a far-left assassin was too inconvenient, so the JFK assassination had to be left “unsolved” in the public mind.
Was The Conspiracy Real?
In this review I have strived to keep my own opinions out and present Stormer’s book as authentically as possible, the goal was to give a sympathetic look inside the “McCarthyite” worldview that has been so maligned.
Though, I think it’s worth weighting in on which claims I find reasonable and which can rightly be dismissed as conspiratorial.
On the topic of Communist infiltration I think the accusations of treason and espionage made by Stormer, Schwarz and others were more accurate than they have been given credit for.
It seems some prominent leftists, like Alger Hiss, had a credible case against them, but were given favorable treatment by the media and left-wing bureaucracies because of their status as champions in the Culture War.
But it also seems ridiculous to claim that whole branches of government, such as the public school system or State Department, where captured by Communists to the extent that it was the patriots who had to tread carefully.
In terms of the Red Scare I think Stormer is correct in saying it was never as one-sided as it has been made out to be.
Anti-communism was always a “redneck” issue in the eyes of the Press and Big City Liberals in general, limiting its cultural impact
There were official investigation committees, such as the HCUA or the Reece Committee, but these where widely derided as “crackpot” institutions and condemned by members of Congress.
It was usually Conservative business-owners who had accused Communists fired, their hand was seldom forced by public outrage. Additionally, left-wing politicians didn’t hesitate to sack public employees “witch-hunting” their allies.
In closing, I think the most significant takeaway is Stormer’s analysis of the JFK assassination.
Harvey Lee Oswald was indeed a Communist, and though Stormer doesn’t mention it he also tried to “defect” to Soviet Russia.
If you are crazy enough to (unsuccessfully) try moving behind the Iron Curtain, you are definitely crazy enough to kill the American president because he is a “dirty Capitalist”.
Oswald’s guilt isn’t all that surprising of a conclusion, he is the one who got arrested on the day of the crime after all.
What is more surprising is how clouded such a simple issue has become and I think Stormer is right to blame bias.
Prior to the assassination the media had painted anti-communism as a “hillbilly” issue and hostile to freedom of the press, so the headline “A Communist killed JFK” wasn’t exactly appetizing.
While I did hear about the JFK assassination growing up, however I never learned Oswald was confirmed to be a “left-wing extremist”, in fact it was not until reading this book I finally made the connection.
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