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He sure seems like a great guy from his quotes, I guess its pretty key to figure out if he was sincere, or a lying traitor. ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ 13:38, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
I put in the not so great quote "Stalin was one of the giant figures of our time, and will rank with Ivan, Peter, Catherine and Lenin among the builders of that huge edifice which is Russia."
This guy is a pretty interesting historical character....it would be nice to see all sides of him reflected in his Wikipedia page.
I am looking at you Kingturtle.
19:28, 7 May 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.139.166.154 ( talk)
There are many problems with the version I removed, aside from presenting blatant POV opinion as fact (i.e. the question of whether Stone was ever a witting collaborator with Soviet intelligence was settled definitively (and in the negative) by D.D. Guttenplan), the recent additions address the wrong issue. No one is saying that Stone was an agent for the KGB, at least not in the way Rosenberg or Hiss were.
An agent of influence is somoeon who, in Stone's case, was so sypathetic to Soviet aims and goals, that he could be told anything and trusted to report it unquestioningly. This is the crux of Kalugin's statements, not that he had to pay Stone to get an uninvestigated Soviet claim into the American press, but that he did not have pay Stone, as he was such a sycophant, he would do it for nothing. He was used, knowingly or unkowingly to pass Soviet disinformation out to his readers. That is, unless you believe his reports about Korea, reports that have been so completely debunked (from the use of biological weapons by the US, to Stone's statement that the South actually invaded the peace loving North), that they have lost all credibility.
If you are serious about turning the section from months of compromise into a POV screed ala The Nation Magazine (intereting didnt Stone write for them too), then you had best justify this in talk. DTC 00:29, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
"An agent of influence is somoeon who, in Stone's case, was so sypathetic to Soviet aims and goals, that he could be told anything and trusted to report it unquestioningly."
Except that we know that was not true. Stone actually did take a trip to the USSR in 1956 and came back with an unfavorable report. If one wishes to place an emphasis on reporting during World War II, even then Stone wouldn't come out all that bad. In WWII it was not unusual for newspapers to speak of "Uncle Joe." I've never actually seen a quote from any of Stone's publications which descends to that level, but if he did it would hardly constitute evidence that he was a Soviet agent. People pick on Stone over this because they wish to attack his general politics. But if publishing a few PR pieces for a wartime ally in Moscow was enough of a reason to call someone a Soviet agent of influence then you'd be doing better to focus on TIME magazine or THE NEW YORK TIMES. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.69.140.37 ( talk) 02:35, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
I added this information, to be cited shortly when I figure out how, from Myra MacPherson's recent bio of stone. she read the declassified reports from start to finish and they are cited in her bibliography. whether kalugin said he was an "agent of influence", I dont know or care. If the US Government couldnt find any evidence of treason (and stone did consider selling secrets dire treason) I'm thinking that the general debate over whether he ACUTALLY DID ANYTHING to jeopardize the national security of the US is over. VanTucky 05:43, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
I've added a quotation from the 2009 Commentary article by Klehr, Haynes, and Vassiliev. I also changed "not one shred of evidence" to "no evidence," at the top of the section. -- TimScH ( talk) 12:04, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
See Commentary's Trumped-Up Case Against I.F. Stone from FAIR. Nareek ( talk) 12:01, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
This section is rife with problems. The narrative is long and meandering. This is mostly because it consists of accusations and innuendo by a few small circle of writers at Commentary magazine and their thorough debunking. The net effect of this section is to create the appearance of an extensive espionage controversy, although this allegation is confined to a McCarthyist right-wing faction known to routinely accuse dissidents of being soviet agents. This article is giving a tremendous amount of weight to some accusations by a biased organization.
If this section is to remain, it needs to be reduced down to the factual essentials, it needs to be cleared of innuendo, and it needs to answer basic questions about the theory of the crime:
If we can't answer these questions, then the section needs to be drastically reduced so we're not giving undue weight to baseless allegations. Greg Comlish ( talk) 13:35, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
173.77.110.105 ( talk) 00:28, 14 June 2009 (UTC)The campaign to smear Stone bears the hallmarks of a foundation-funded campaign of right-wing media manipulation. The pages from Spies about Stone were excerpted in Commentary, a right-wing journal that has specialized in McCarthy-style attacks on honest liberals and leftists for more than thirty years. Within seconds of its posting on the Internet, it was trumpeted by Matt Drudge. Right-wing bloggers picked it up and without examining the evidence or, in many cases, even bothering to read the article, amplified its false conclusions. This is how modern-day McCarthyism works in an era when Matt Drudge is our authority on what constitutes news: an honest man's reputation is posthumously soiled while the truth is still tying its shoes Eric Alterman, The Nation
I agree it needs to be cut down considerably, but for the opposite reason. The bulk of the section is a defense of Stone, with lots of redundancy (although much of that has been cut) and too little information about the evidence against him. Without getting into the name-calling, I think we can put together a better-edited section. And the accusation of "bias" in the sources applies quite nicely to the left-wing sources used here, like The Nation. --
TimScH (
talk)
19:46, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
I've cleaned up the citation style a little, and added ISBNs for all books. But more work is needed. One problem is redundancy. (E.g., the Macpherson bio appears both here and under "Biographies".)
A bigger problem might be relevance. For example, Donner's Age of Surveillance has no mention of I.F. Stone, at least none found under Google Book Search snippet view. General titles on the McCarthyism period don't have much claim to a place on this list unless they treat I.F. Stone at the chapter level, at least. Some of these books seem to be listed only because they are cited in the section about allegations of spying for the KGB. Of course these works deserve full footnote citations -- these allegations are a noteworthy aspect of a noteworthy figure, and the sources advancing or debating the allegations should be made as accessible as possible, ideally, from a link from the footnote itself. However, if these books don't treat of I.F. Stone extensively, they aren't really "further reading" about I.F. Stone per se. Better to fill out the relevant footnotes with bibliographic information.
At any rate, with ISBN links for all the book titles, it should now be easier for the rest of you (by searching on Google Book Search or on Amazon) to determine relevance and appropriate location for yourselves. Yakushima ( talk) 06:32, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
I have no doubt that Bdell was acting in good faith to clean up a sloppy article, but the numerous edits by Bdell555 have created more POV problems than I have time to delineate. Here are a few examples:
This list is not comprehensive.
Furthermore, none of these edits address the major deficiencies with the section on the accusations: nowhere is it simply written what acts Stone allegedly engaged in and what evidence is there for those accusations. Greg Comlish ( talk) 14:53, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
"I am cutting all of MacPherson's stuff because a plain reading of her 2009 writing suggests she accepts new Soviet archive evidence that BLIN=Stone"
What is this proof? On page 144 of Spies we see what purports to be Vassiliev's handwritten Russian notes. Halfway down the page it says: "'Blin' ('Liberal's' lead)--Isidore Feinstein, a commentator for the New York Post." Liberal, according to the authors, was Frank Palmer, managing editor of Federated Press, a labor wire service. The English text claims that this note comes from an April 13, 1936, memo from KGB New York to Moscow, though whether Vassiliev was summarizing or transcribing we are not told. Farther down the same page is another handwritten Russian text, which claims (in May 1936) that "Relations with 'Pancake' [Stone] have entered 'the channel of normal operational work.' He went to Washington on assignment for his newspaper. Connections in the State Dep. and Congress." (The single quotes around "normal operational work" are clearly meant as the historical equivalent of furious cello bowing on the soundtrack.) "Over the next several years, documents recorded in Vassiliev's notebooks make clear, Stone worked closely with the KGB."
"Even if Spies proved that in 1936 Blin really was Stone (which it doesn't), there is no reason to assume, given Moscow's frequent recycling of cover names, that 1944's evasive "Blin" was the same man. At different times "Bumblebee" was Ethel Rosenberg's brother David Greenglass--or Walter Lippmann!"
"how is who else Kalugin met with relevant? section is already too long"
I.F. Stone, Journalist -- and Spy?
Was "Pancake" working with the KGB? The evidence is inconclusive.
The primary point I'd make here is that of interest is the state of the argument over I.F. Stone's legacy TODAY. The argument over Alger Hiss has shifted over time, and it would be inappropriate to repeat all of the defences of Hiss that were mounted decades ago, primarily because many experts are no longer inclined to support those contentions. To consider this I.F. Stone article, the section on the 1992 allegations pretty much reflects the state of the debate at that time (17 years ago). As such, it is obsolete, and the obsolete material should be cut back. It shouldn't take a public retraction from Stone's defenders for this, it should rather take a consideration of what the angle of the argument CURRENTLY being pursued by Stone's defenders is. That angle places more emphasis on interpreting what, if any, significance is to be assigned to Stone's status as an agent as opposed to denying he was an agent. Bdell555 ( talk) 20:37, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
The new addition "by right-wing critics" to the subject heading "Allegations of being a Soviet agent" is pure POV. The phrase "right-wing" is an attack phrase that serves solely to insinuate that these are fringe allegations and should not be seen as credible. (In fact, the book is a serious scholarly work published by Yale University Press.) Indeed, it's debatable whether it's even accurate to describe Alexander Vassiliev as being on the right at all.
The old title, "Allegations of being a Soviet agent," did a perfectly satisfactory job of indicating that the facts are in dispute. We don't need the source of the allegations in the title any more than the next section title needs to read "1992 allegations and their rebuttal by left-wing defenders." Since my fix has been reverted, I'm attaching the POV tag instead. C76 ( talk) 04:57, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
Having "by right-wing critics" in the header is definitely POV. I have removed it. I have also changed some of the POV language and removed some of the opinions. The sections still need a lot of POV clean up. Kingturtle ( talk) 00:00, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
If Myra MacPherson is a historian, she's not a conventional one. At 1:49:00 in Part I of the video transcript here of a Wilson Center conference she says "...there was much concern even among the CIA that indeed the South might have been trying to push the war more than the North Koreans... As Bruce Cumings [has said,] Izzy's book holds up very well in that way." Who is Bruce Cumings? According to this historian Cumings has "insist(ed) that South Korea initiated the Korean War". The point, here, is to suggest that Wikipedia should not overweight the fringe theory that South Korea was the aggressor in 1950 in its presentation of and use of Stone and/or MacPherson. Bdell555 ( talk) 00:57, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
Mitchell J. Freedman writes on November 7, 2010: Who made decision to delete the following?
In addition, it is often assumed, without evidence, that Stone was pro-Soviet Union and pro-Stalin during the 1930s or beyond when in fact Stone's writings were fairly critical of the Soviet Union and Stalin during that time.[40][41] Stone was a public journalist who aired his views in public. 40. "MF Blog » Blog Archive » I.F. Stone, American". MF Blog. 2009-10-03. Retrieved 2009-12-26. 41. "MF Blog » Blog Archive » Berman Misleads". MF Blog. 2009-10-05. Retrieved 2009-12-26.
I am still trying to understand the rules and mechanics here, but find it rather presumptuous of someone to simply delete something that has been up for much of this year without attempting to contact the person who added the comment. I am the author of the blog sources, and the above statement--and know my subject pretty darned well. I would challenge Klehr or the others in my point, which is that Stone was a public writer and his views were publicized by himself. Stone was not pro-Soviet in most of his writings in the 1930s and that point needs to be stated, as people have assumed his writings were pro-Soviet based upon a misreading of original sources, i.e. his public writings. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mitchell Freedman ( talk • contribs) 06:35, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
Mitchell Freedman responds: I think I understand your point. However, I was citing the books of essays Stone wrote and was showing how people have misread those essays, with quotes. I do see the problem of being a mere blogger and I do strongly support the integrity of Wiki. Still, I was actually quoting Stone himself and the biographer of Stone (Cottrell). Doesn't that qualify as reliable sources?
Also, are you employed with Wiki? Just wondering as I try to learn more here. Thank you for your fast response to my comment last night, by the way. Impressive! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mitchell Freedman ( talk • contribs) 01:26, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
In the very last sentence of the section detailing the espionage allegations against Stone, the term "Stalin-Hitler Treaty" is used. Referring to the pact in such a way is very uncommon and it is almost exclusively referred to as the "Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact". Unless anyone has any objections, I am going to change it. 74.141.153.78 ( talk) 20:57, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
I've removed an old neutrality tag from this page that appears to have no active discussion per the instructions at Template:POV:
Since there's no evidence of ongoing discussion, I'm removing the tag for now. If discussion is continuing and I've failed to see it, however, please feel free to restore the template and continue to address the issues. Thanks to everybody working on this one! -- Khazar2 ( talk) 04:50, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
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This article seems to be fixated on the Sykes-Picot agreement, dragging it in whether it's relevant or not. I removed one semi-nonsensical invocation of it, but other fixes are needed. AnonMoos ( talk) 00:19, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
I wonder why this entry doesn't have anything about what Stone considered one of his best stories -- that underground nuclear tests could be detected 2,600 miles away.
This meant that with a network of seismographic stations around the world, the US could monitor Soviet underground tests to make sure they weren't cheating. This also meant that Edward Teller, and the Atomic Energy Commission, were wrong when they claimed that underground tests couldn't be detected more than 200 miles away.
This is also a classic lesson for journalists on how to report a story by digging into the scientific facts. It's also a classic lesson for journalists on how government officials lie.
Stone told this story many times, and a couple of versions are available on his web site, which gives permission to reuse his works freely. You can also read and use the original articles from his newsletter on his web site. And there are many WP:RS about it, which is why it belongs in the entry.
http://ifstone.org/collectedifstone.pdf
I.F. Stone
The Best of I.F. Stone
Public Affairs Press (2006)
One can always ask questions, as one can see from one of my “coups”—forcing the Atomic Energy Commission to admit that its first underground test was detected not 200 miles away—as it claimed—but 2600 miles away. This is the story of how I got that story— one example of what independent news gathering can be like.
The first underground test was held in the fall of 1957. The New York Times report from the test site in Nevada next morning said the results seemed to confirm the expectations of the experts: that it would not be detected more than 200 miles away. But the Times itself carried “shirttails” from Toronto, Rome and Tokyo saying that the shot had been detected there. Since the experts (viz. Dr. Edward Teller and his entourage at Livermore Laboratory, all opposed to a nuclear test ban agreement) were trying to prove that underground tests could not be detected at a distance, these reports from Toronto, Rome and Tokyo piqued my curiosity. I did not have the resources to check them by cable, so I filed the story away for future use.
Next spring, Stassen, then Eisenhower’s chief disarmament negotiator, testified before the Humphrey Disarmament Sub-committee of the Senate that a network of stations a thousand kilometers (or 580 miles apart) could police a nuclear test ban agreement and detect any underground tests. Two days after his testimony the AEC issued its first official report on the Nevada explosion for publication the following Monday. This said that the Nevada underground explosion had not been detected more than 200 miles away. The effect was to undercut Stassen’s testimony. If the Nevada blast could not be detected more than 200 miles away then a network of stations 580 miles apart would not be able to police an agreement. I recalled the New York Times report of the previous fall, dug it out of a basement file and telephoned the AEC press office. I asked how the AEC reconciled its statement in the report about to be released that the blast was not detected more than 200 miles away with the reports from Rome, Tokyo and Toronto the morning after that it had registered on seismographs there. The answer was that they didn’t know but would try to find out.
In the meantime I decided to find me a seismologist. By telephoning around I learned there was a seismology branch in the Coast and Geodetic Survey, where I duly found a seismologist and asked him whether it was true that Tokyo, Rome and Toronto had detected the Nevada underground blast. He said that he did not believe the claims of these three foreign stations but he showed me a list of some 20 U.S. stations which he said had certainly detected it. One of these was 2600 miles north of the test site in Fairbanks, Alaska, another was 1200 miles east in Fayetteville, Arkansas. I copied the names and distances down. When he asked why I was so interested, I said the AEC was about to release a report for the following Monday claiming that the explosion was not detected more than 200 miles away. When he heard the AEC angle, he became less communicative. I had hardly got back to my office when the phone rang; it was the AEC press relations man. He said “We just heard from Coast and Geodetic. There must be some mistake. We’ll reach Nevada by teletype in the morning and let you know.” When the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy later investigated the incident, the AEC claimed it was an “inadvertent” error.
http://ifstone.org/weekly/IFStonesWeekly-1958mar10.pdf
March 10, 1958: Vol. 6, No. 10
Dr. Teller's Campaign Against A Ban on Testing
http://ifstone.org/weekly/IFStonesWeekly-1958mar17.pdf
March 17, 1958: Vol. 6, No. 11
Why the AEC Retracted that Falsehood on Nuclear Testing
http://www.ifstone.org/weekly/IFStonesWeekly-1958mar24.pdf
March 24, 1958: Vol. 6, No. 12
How the AEC Got Itself Whitewashed
-- Nbauman ( talk) 02:33, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
Stone is mentioned only in passing in the Oshinsky book. The passage is not an invitation to cite the primary source letter, nor is it an open door for pinning Oshinsky's general observations on Stone. Oshinsky writes that the letter was signed after the Great Purge but he does not say explicitly or even imply that Stone knew about this. Binksternet ( talk) 15:19, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
What about this article on Stone? Holland, Max (2009). "I. F. Stone: Encounters with Soviet Intelligence". Journal of Cold War Studies. 11 (3): 144–205. ISSN 1520-3972. Holland is cited elsewhere in the wiki article, but 'Encounters' also discusses the 1939 letter on p. 182, and elsewhere Stone's knowledge and attitude towards the purges, etc. NPalgan2 ( talk) 20:19, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
Proposed Change So would this work for most? "On August 4, 1939, Stone along with four hundred other writers and intellectuals signed a letter condemning anti-Soviet attitudes in the United States, called for better relations between the two countries, described the USSR as a supporter of world peace, and said "The Soviet Union considers political dictatorship a transitional form and has shown a steadily expanding democracy". The letter was published in September 1939. Historian David Oshinsky noted that the letter was written after millions of Soviet Citizens had been killed during the Great Purge and the Holodomor, along with being published shortly after the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was known in the United States and during the same month that the Soviet invasion of Poland began. [1] [2] Upon hearing of the Pact, Stone denounced the actions of the Soviet Union and would criticize it and the CPUSA, which repeated the views of the USSR about the war. For this the CPUSA denounced him as one of the leading "Imperialist war-mongers" until Operation Barbarossa which caused a change in communist views of the war." Holland, Max (2009). "I. F. Stone: Encounters with Soviet Intelligence". Journal of Cold War Studies. 11 (3): 182–184. ISSN 1520-3972. 3Kingdoms ( talk) 23:58, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
References
Stone joined four hundred other writers and intellectuals in signing a letter calling for better relations between the USSR and the US; the letter was published on August 10, 1939. Shortly afterward, the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was announced, enabling the Soviets to divide Poland with Nazi Germany. Stone sharply criticized the belligerence of the Soviet Union, breaking with the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). The shocking news of Soviet aggression in late summer 1939 marked a turning point in Stone's views; he cut ties with Soviet agents and accepted the inevitability of US intervention in the mounting world war. For this the CPUSA denounced him as an "Imperialist war-monger".
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He sure seems like a great guy from his quotes, I guess its pretty key to figure out if he was sincere, or a lying traitor. ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ ¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸ 13:38, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
I put in the not so great quote "Stalin was one of the giant figures of our time, and will rank with Ivan, Peter, Catherine and Lenin among the builders of that huge edifice which is Russia."
This guy is a pretty interesting historical character....it would be nice to see all sides of him reflected in his Wikipedia page.
I am looking at you Kingturtle.
19:28, 7 May 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.139.166.154 ( talk)
There are many problems with the version I removed, aside from presenting blatant POV opinion as fact (i.e. the question of whether Stone was ever a witting collaborator with Soviet intelligence was settled definitively (and in the negative) by D.D. Guttenplan), the recent additions address the wrong issue. No one is saying that Stone was an agent for the KGB, at least not in the way Rosenberg or Hiss were.
An agent of influence is somoeon who, in Stone's case, was so sypathetic to Soviet aims and goals, that he could be told anything and trusted to report it unquestioningly. This is the crux of Kalugin's statements, not that he had to pay Stone to get an uninvestigated Soviet claim into the American press, but that he did not have pay Stone, as he was such a sycophant, he would do it for nothing. He was used, knowingly or unkowingly to pass Soviet disinformation out to his readers. That is, unless you believe his reports about Korea, reports that have been so completely debunked (from the use of biological weapons by the US, to Stone's statement that the South actually invaded the peace loving North), that they have lost all credibility.
If you are serious about turning the section from months of compromise into a POV screed ala The Nation Magazine (intereting didnt Stone write for them too), then you had best justify this in talk. DTC 00:29, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
"An agent of influence is somoeon who, in Stone's case, was so sypathetic to Soviet aims and goals, that he could be told anything and trusted to report it unquestioningly."
Except that we know that was not true. Stone actually did take a trip to the USSR in 1956 and came back with an unfavorable report. If one wishes to place an emphasis on reporting during World War II, even then Stone wouldn't come out all that bad. In WWII it was not unusual for newspapers to speak of "Uncle Joe." I've never actually seen a quote from any of Stone's publications which descends to that level, but if he did it would hardly constitute evidence that he was a Soviet agent. People pick on Stone over this because they wish to attack his general politics. But if publishing a few PR pieces for a wartime ally in Moscow was enough of a reason to call someone a Soviet agent of influence then you'd be doing better to focus on TIME magazine or THE NEW YORK TIMES. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.69.140.37 ( talk) 02:35, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
I added this information, to be cited shortly when I figure out how, from Myra MacPherson's recent bio of stone. she read the declassified reports from start to finish and they are cited in her bibliography. whether kalugin said he was an "agent of influence", I dont know or care. If the US Government couldnt find any evidence of treason (and stone did consider selling secrets dire treason) I'm thinking that the general debate over whether he ACUTALLY DID ANYTHING to jeopardize the national security of the US is over. VanTucky 05:43, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
I've added a quotation from the 2009 Commentary article by Klehr, Haynes, and Vassiliev. I also changed "not one shred of evidence" to "no evidence," at the top of the section. -- TimScH ( talk) 12:04, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
See Commentary's Trumped-Up Case Against I.F. Stone from FAIR. Nareek ( talk) 12:01, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
This section is rife with problems. The narrative is long and meandering. This is mostly because it consists of accusations and innuendo by a few small circle of writers at Commentary magazine and their thorough debunking. The net effect of this section is to create the appearance of an extensive espionage controversy, although this allegation is confined to a McCarthyist right-wing faction known to routinely accuse dissidents of being soviet agents. This article is giving a tremendous amount of weight to some accusations by a biased organization.
If this section is to remain, it needs to be reduced down to the factual essentials, it needs to be cleared of innuendo, and it needs to answer basic questions about the theory of the crime:
If we can't answer these questions, then the section needs to be drastically reduced so we're not giving undue weight to baseless allegations. Greg Comlish ( talk) 13:35, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
173.77.110.105 ( talk) 00:28, 14 June 2009 (UTC)The campaign to smear Stone bears the hallmarks of a foundation-funded campaign of right-wing media manipulation. The pages from Spies about Stone were excerpted in Commentary, a right-wing journal that has specialized in McCarthy-style attacks on honest liberals and leftists for more than thirty years. Within seconds of its posting on the Internet, it was trumpeted by Matt Drudge. Right-wing bloggers picked it up and without examining the evidence or, in many cases, even bothering to read the article, amplified its false conclusions. This is how modern-day McCarthyism works in an era when Matt Drudge is our authority on what constitutes news: an honest man's reputation is posthumously soiled while the truth is still tying its shoes Eric Alterman, The Nation
I agree it needs to be cut down considerably, but for the opposite reason. The bulk of the section is a defense of Stone, with lots of redundancy (although much of that has been cut) and too little information about the evidence against him. Without getting into the name-calling, I think we can put together a better-edited section. And the accusation of "bias" in the sources applies quite nicely to the left-wing sources used here, like The Nation. --
TimScH (
talk)
19:46, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
I've cleaned up the citation style a little, and added ISBNs for all books. But more work is needed. One problem is redundancy. (E.g., the Macpherson bio appears both here and under "Biographies".)
A bigger problem might be relevance. For example, Donner's Age of Surveillance has no mention of I.F. Stone, at least none found under Google Book Search snippet view. General titles on the McCarthyism period don't have much claim to a place on this list unless they treat I.F. Stone at the chapter level, at least. Some of these books seem to be listed only because they are cited in the section about allegations of spying for the KGB. Of course these works deserve full footnote citations -- these allegations are a noteworthy aspect of a noteworthy figure, and the sources advancing or debating the allegations should be made as accessible as possible, ideally, from a link from the footnote itself. However, if these books don't treat of I.F. Stone extensively, they aren't really "further reading" about I.F. Stone per se. Better to fill out the relevant footnotes with bibliographic information.
At any rate, with ISBN links for all the book titles, it should now be easier for the rest of you (by searching on Google Book Search or on Amazon) to determine relevance and appropriate location for yourselves. Yakushima ( talk) 06:32, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
I have no doubt that Bdell was acting in good faith to clean up a sloppy article, but the numerous edits by Bdell555 have created more POV problems than I have time to delineate. Here are a few examples:
This list is not comprehensive.
Furthermore, none of these edits address the major deficiencies with the section on the accusations: nowhere is it simply written what acts Stone allegedly engaged in and what evidence is there for those accusations. Greg Comlish ( talk) 14:53, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
"I am cutting all of MacPherson's stuff because a plain reading of her 2009 writing suggests she accepts new Soviet archive evidence that BLIN=Stone"
What is this proof? On page 144 of Spies we see what purports to be Vassiliev's handwritten Russian notes. Halfway down the page it says: "'Blin' ('Liberal's' lead)--Isidore Feinstein, a commentator for the New York Post." Liberal, according to the authors, was Frank Palmer, managing editor of Federated Press, a labor wire service. The English text claims that this note comes from an April 13, 1936, memo from KGB New York to Moscow, though whether Vassiliev was summarizing or transcribing we are not told. Farther down the same page is another handwritten Russian text, which claims (in May 1936) that "Relations with 'Pancake' [Stone] have entered 'the channel of normal operational work.' He went to Washington on assignment for his newspaper. Connections in the State Dep. and Congress." (The single quotes around "normal operational work" are clearly meant as the historical equivalent of furious cello bowing on the soundtrack.) "Over the next several years, documents recorded in Vassiliev's notebooks make clear, Stone worked closely with the KGB."
"Even if Spies proved that in 1936 Blin really was Stone (which it doesn't), there is no reason to assume, given Moscow's frequent recycling of cover names, that 1944's evasive "Blin" was the same man. At different times "Bumblebee" was Ethel Rosenberg's brother David Greenglass--or Walter Lippmann!"
"how is who else Kalugin met with relevant? section is already too long"
I.F. Stone, Journalist -- and Spy?
Was "Pancake" working with the KGB? The evidence is inconclusive.
The primary point I'd make here is that of interest is the state of the argument over I.F. Stone's legacy TODAY. The argument over Alger Hiss has shifted over time, and it would be inappropriate to repeat all of the defences of Hiss that were mounted decades ago, primarily because many experts are no longer inclined to support those contentions. To consider this I.F. Stone article, the section on the 1992 allegations pretty much reflects the state of the debate at that time (17 years ago). As such, it is obsolete, and the obsolete material should be cut back. It shouldn't take a public retraction from Stone's defenders for this, it should rather take a consideration of what the angle of the argument CURRENTLY being pursued by Stone's defenders is. That angle places more emphasis on interpreting what, if any, significance is to be assigned to Stone's status as an agent as opposed to denying he was an agent. Bdell555 ( talk) 20:37, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
The new addition "by right-wing critics" to the subject heading "Allegations of being a Soviet agent" is pure POV. The phrase "right-wing" is an attack phrase that serves solely to insinuate that these are fringe allegations and should not be seen as credible. (In fact, the book is a serious scholarly work published by Yale University Press.) Indeed, it's debatable whether it's even accurate to describe Alexander Vassiliev as being on the right at all.
The old title, "Allegations of being a Soviet agent," did a perfectly satisfactory job of indicating that the facts are in dispute. We don't need the source of the allegations in the title any more than the next section title needs to read "1992 allegations and their rebuttal by left-wing defenders." Since my fix has been reverted, I'm attaching the POV tag instead. C76 ( talk) 04:57, 24 July 2009 (UTC)
Having "by right-wing critics" in the header is definitely POV. I have removed it. I have also changed some of the POV language and removed some of the opinions. The sections still need a lot of POV clean up. Kingturtle ( talk) 00:00, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
If Myra MacPherson is a historian, she's not a conventional one. At 1:49:00 in Part I of the video transcript here of a Wilson Center conference she says "...there was much concern even among the CIA that indeed the South might have been trying to push the war more than the North Koreans... As Bruce Cumings [has said,] Izzy's book holds up very well in that way." Who is Bruce Cumings? According to this historian Cumings has "insist(ed) that South Korea initiated the Korean War". The point, here, is to suggest that Wikipedia should not overweight the fringe theory that South Korea was the aggressor in 1950 in its presentation of and use of Stone and/or MacPherson. Bdell555 ( talk) 00:57, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
Mitchell J. Freedman writes on November 7, 2010: Who made decision to delete the following?
In addition, it is often assumed, without evidence, that Stone was pro-Soviet Union and pro-Stalin during the 1930s or beyond when in fact Stone's writings were fairly critical of the Soviet Union and Stalin during that time.[40][41] Stone was a public journalist who aired his views in public. 40. "MF Blog » Blog Archive » I.F. Stone, American". MF Blog. 2009-10-03. Retrieved 2009-12-26. 41. "MF Blog » Blog Archive » Berman Misleads". MF Blog. 2009-10-05. Retrieved 2009-12-26.
I am still trying to understand the rules and mechanics here, but find it rather presumptuous of someone to simply delete something that has been up for much of this year without attempting to contact the person who added the comment. I am the author of the blog sources, and the above statement--and know my subject pretty darned well. I would challenge Klehr or the others in my point, which is that Stone was a public writer and his views were publicized by himself. Stone was not pro-Soviet in most of his writings in the 1930s and that point needs to be stated, as people have assumed his writings were pro-Soviet based upon a misreading of original sources, i.e. his public writings. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mitchell Freedman ( talk • contribs) 06:35, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
Mitchell Freedman responds: I think I understand your point. However, I was citing the books of essays Stone wrote and was showing how people have misread those essays, with quotes. I do see the problem of being a mere blogger and I do strongly support the integrity of Wiki. Still, I was actually quoting Stone himself and the biographer of Stone (Cottrell). Doesn't that qualify as reliable sources?
Also, are you employed with Wiki? Just wondering as I try to learn more here. Thank you for your fast response to my comment last night, by the way. Impressive! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mitchell Freedman ( talk • contribs) 01:26, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
In the very last sentence of the section detailing the espionage allegations against Stone, the term "Stalin-Hitler Treaty" is used. Referring to the pact in such a way is very uncommon and it is almost exclusively referred to as the "Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact". Unless anyone has any objections, I am going to change it. 74.141.153.78 ( talk) 20:57, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
I've removed an old neutrality tag from this page that appears to have no active discussion per the instructions at Template:POV:
Since there's no evidence of ongoing discussion, I'm removing the tag for now. If discussion is continuing and I've failed to see it, however, please feel free to restore the template and continue to address the issues. Thanks to everybody working on this one! -- Khazar2 ( talk) 04:50, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
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This article seems to be fixated on the Sykes-Picot agreement, dragging it in whether it's relevant or not. I removed one semi-nonsensical invocation of it, but other fixes are needed. AnonMoos ( talk) 00:19, 4 April 2021 (UTC)
I wonder why this entry doesn't have anything about what Stone considered one of his best stories -- that underground nuclear tests could be detected 2,600 miles away.
This meant that with a network of seismographic stations around the world, the US could monitor Soviet underground tests to make sure they weren't cheating. This also meant that Edward Teller, and the Atomic Energy Commission, were wrong when they claimed that underground tests couldn't be detected more than 200 miles away.
This is also a classic lesson for journalists on how to report a story by digging into the scientific facts. It's also a classic lesson for journalists on how government officials lie.
Stone told this story many times, and a couple of versions are available on his web site, which gives permission to reuse his works freely. You can also read and use the original articles from his newsletter on his web site. And there are many WP:RS about it, which is why it belongs in the entry.
http://ifstone.org/collectedifstone.pdf
I.F. Stone
The Best of I.F. Stone
Public Affairs Press (2006)
One can always ask questions, as one can see from one of my “coups”—forcing the Atomic Energy Commission to admit that its first underground test was detected not 200 miles away—as it claimed—but 2600 miles away. This is the story of how I got that story— one example of what independent news gathering can be like.
The first underground test was held in the fall of 1957. The New York Times report from the test site in Nevada next morning said the results seemed to confirm the expectations of the experts: that it would not be detected more than 200 miles away. But the Times itself carried “shirttails” from Toronto, Rome and Tokyo saying that the shot had been detected there. Since the experts (viz. Dr. Edward Teller and his entourage at Livermore Laboratory, all opposed to a nuclear test ban agreement) were trying to prove that underground tests could not be detected at a distance, these reports from Toronto, Rome and Tokyo piqued my curiosity. I did not have the resources to check them by cable, so I filed the story away for future use.
Next spring, Stassen, then Eisenhower’s chief disarmament negotiator, testified before the Humphrey Disarmament Sub-committee of the Senate that a network of stations a thousand kilometers (or 580 miles apart) could police a nuclear test ban agreement and detect any underground tests. Two days after his testimony the AEC issued its first official report on the Nevada explosion for publication the following Monday. This said that the Nevada underground explosion had not been detected more than 200 miles away. The effect was to undercut Stassen’s testimony. If the Nevada blast could not be detected more than 200 miles away then a network of stations 580 miles apart would not be able to police an agreement. I recalled the New York Times report of the previous fall, dug it out of a basement file and telephoned the AEC press office. I asked how the AEC reconciled its statement in the report about to be released that the blast was not detected more than 200 miles away with the reports from Rome, Tokyo and Toronto the morning after that it had registered on seismographs there. The answer was that they didn’t know but would try to find out.
In the meantime I decided to find me a seismologist. By telephoning around I learned there was a seismology branch in the Coast and Geodetic Survey, where I duly found a seismologist and asked him whether it was true that Tokyo, Rome and Toronto had detected the Nevada underground blast. He said that he did not believe the claims of these three foreign stations but he showed me a list of some 20 U.S. stations which he said had certainly detected it. One of these was 2600 miles north of the test site in Fairbanks, Alaska, another was 1200 miles east in Fayetteville, Arkansas. I copied the names and distances down. When he asked why I was so interested, I said the AEC was about to release a report for the following Monday claiming that the explosion was not detected more than 200 miles away. When he heard the AEC angle, he became less communicative. I had hardly got back to my office when the phone rang; it was the AEC press relations man. He said “We just heard from Coast and Geodetic. There must be some mistake. We’ll reach Nevada by teletype in the morning and let you know.” When the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy later investigated the incident, the AEC claimed it was an “inadvertent” error.
http://ifstone.org/weekly/IFStonesWeekly-1958mar10.pdf
March 10, 1958: Vol. 6, No. 10
Dr. Teller's Campaign Against A Ban on Testing
http://ifstone.org/weekly/IFStonesWeekly-1958mar17.pdf
March 17, 1958: Vol. 6, No. 11
Why the AEC Retracted that Falsehood on Nuclear Testing
http://www.ifstone.org/weekly/IFStonesWeekly-1958mar24.pdf
March 24, 1958: Vol. 6, No. 12
How the AEC Got Itself Whitewashed
-- Nbauman ( talk) 02:33, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
Stone is mentioned only in passing in the Oshinsky book. The passage is not an invitation to cite the primary source letter, nor is it an open door for pinning Oshinsky's general observations on Stone. Oshinsky writes that the letter was signed after the Great Purge but he does not say explicitly or even imply that Stone knew about this. Binksternet ( talk) 15:19, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
What about this article on Stone? Holland, Max (2009). "I. F. Stone: Encounters with Soviet Intelligence". Journal of Cold War Studies. 11 (3): 144–205. ISSN 1520-3972. Holland is cited elsewhere in the wiki article, but 'Encounters' also discusses the 1939 letter on p. 182, and elsewhere Stone's knowledge and attitude towards the purges, etc. NPalgan2 ( talk) 20:19, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
Proposed Change So would this work for most? "On August 4, 1939, Stone along with four hundred other writers and intellectuals signed a letter condemning anti-Soviet attitudes in the United States, called for better relations between the two countries, described the USSR as a supporter of world peace, and said "The Soviet Union considers political dictatorship a transitional form and has shown a steadily expanding democracy". The letter was published in September 1939. Historian David Oshinsky noted that the letter was written after millions of Soviet Citizens had been killed during the Great Purge and the Holodomor, along with being published shortly after the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was known in the United States and during the same month that the Soviet invasion of Poland began. [1] [2] Upon hearing of the Pact, Stone denounced the actions of the Soviet Union and would criticize it and the CPUSA, which repeated the views of the USSR about the war. For this the CPUSA denounced him as one of the leading "Imperialist war-mongers" until Operation Barbarossa which caused a change in communist views of the war." Holland, Max (2009). "I. F. Stone: Encounters with Soviet Intelligence". Journal of Cold War Studies. 11 (3): 182–184. ISSN 1520-3972. 3Kingdoms ( talk) 23:58, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
References
Stone joined four hundred other writers and intellectuals in signing a letter calling for better relations between the USSR and the US; the letter was published on August 10, 1939. Shortly afterward, the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was announced, enabling the Soviets to divide Poland with Nazi Germany. Stone sharply criticized the belligerence of the Soviet Union, breaking with the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). The shocking news of Soviet aggression in late summer 1939 marked a turning point in Stone's views; he cut ties with Soviet agents and accepted the inevitability of US intervention in the mounting world war. For this the CPUSA denounced him as an "Imperialist war-monger".