CHAPTER 9Thought and Action
Burnham took a leave from New York University in 1948 so he could spend more time raising awareness of the communist threat.1 He was now free to direct all of his intellectual energies toward fighting communism. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, few Americans spent more time and energy—and came up with more creative ways to undermine communism—than Burnham. The Burnhams even moved from New York to Washington, DC, where Burnham would have more contact with policymakers.
At this point in his intellectual career, Burnham can be described as a right-wing Leninist. Like the Russian revolutionary, he now dedicated his entire professional career to the cause. He wanted to be a man of thought and action—someone whose ideas corresponded to the real world. Marxists laud this as praxis. And like Lenin (the greatest champion of praxis in Marxist history), patience was not a virtue; both men demanded immediate action. The fate of the world hung in the balance.
Burnham became a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative. He joined the Office of Policy Coordination (OPC), a wing of the CIA dedicated to more covert operations.2 Much of Burnham's tenure remains shrouded in classified documents. He refused to talk about his time at the agency.3 What is known comes from the few declassified documents that exist and records Burnham kept himself. The main beneficiaries of Burnham's ideas were other OPC agents.
Usually working from home, Burnham never traveled to the OPC's offices.4 And as in his Marxist days, he had a pseudonym: Kenneth E. Hambley. He procured funding to finance anticommunist publications, including money to translate and publish The Coming Defeat of Communism in foreign languages.5 Through the OPC, “Kenneth Hambley” used the proceeds of this book to help fund a Russian-language anti-Soviet newspaper called Passev.6 Hundreds of copies were covertly distributed to Soviet military personnel in what was now East Germany.7 “Hambley” was reimbursed by the OPC.8 These were part of Burnham's clandestine political warfare activities.
Burnham's mind conjured up myriad ways to thwart communism abroad. For example, 1950 was a Catholic jubilee year. Burnham wanted to use the occasion to exploit the Soviet persecution of Catholic priests by setting up an exhibit in Rome that demonstrated communist persecution of religion. Recommending that the museum be dramatic and accessible, he wrote that specific exhibits could include examples of communist anti-Catholic writing, anti-Catholic cartoons, and revealing statistics about the fate of churches and priests in the Soviet Union. This should be accompanied with lectures and “horror pictures.”9
Soviet propagandists worked diligently to create a cult of Stalin, particularly among the youth.10 Burnham responded by recommending that Americans covertly use the anniversary of Lenin's death to undermine the Stalinist regime. This could best be achieved by popularizing Lenin's “Last Will and Testament,” which scolded Stalin and attempted to limit his influence. Anticommunist propaganda should emphasize that although Lenin crushed dissenters, there were at least some semblances of inner party democracy during his era.11 Burnham maintained that unlike Hitler in Nazi Germany, the leader of the Soviet Union was not loved. He was just feared. US propaganda should counter the notion that Stalin was strong by highlighting his follies. Burnham even wanted to plant a rumor of imminent revolts on Stalin's birthday.12
The anticommunist insisted that the most effective political cartoons used standardized figures, such as Uncle Sam. He wanted standard versions of Stalin, the Soviet secret agent, the commissar, and Red Army generals. Once standardized, these images should never change because variation weakens propaganda.13
The Cold Warrior recommended less benign ways to sabotage communism; when it came to defending America's security, the ends justified the means. Machiavelli insists in Discourses that “when it is absolutely a question of the safety of one's country, there must be no question of just or unjust, of merciful or cruel, of praiseworthy or disgraceful; instead, setting aside every scruple, one must follow to the utmost any plan that will save her life and keep her liberty.”14 In 1953, Burnham assisted Kermit Roosevelt in planning the overthrow of the prime minister of Iran, Muhammad Mossadegh, whom the CIA believed was too pro-Soviet.15 According to another story, while at the OPC, Burnham suggested kidnapping a Soviet spy, who would then be pumped full of “truth serum” in an effort to catch other Soviet spies.16 Because the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) forbade such practices, Burnham and his team would have to do the job secretly.17 For better or worse, the funds necessary could not obtained.18
Burnham spent more time recommending soft power. In October 1949, the People's Republic of China was proclaimed. Two months later, Burnham was asked about the possibility of using political warfare there.19 He said it had to complement and correlate with an overall policy. If there is no offensive plan, then there can be no offensive political warfare. This meant that if the United States did not adopt an offensive military and political strategy in China, the offensive political or psychological warfare was pointless. Writing in “Psychological Warfare in China,” Burnham argues that “from the point of view—above all—of psychological warfare, what sense can it make to attack the Chinese communists by PW methods while at the same time the Chinese government is recognized and traded with?”20 If, however, the US policy was to prevent Chinese communists from expanding power, then a different form of political warfare must follow.21
Psychological war was one prong of political warfare. Burnham believed that it allowed the United States to strike at the heart of the Soviet Empire without resorting to open war. War was always a possible option for Burnham, but not the best one. While at the CIA, he wrote a piece called “Psychological Warfare or Else.” It insists that psychological warfare was the only alternative to the atomic bomb.22 Burnham likens the Soviet Union to a city run by gangsters; they seek to bring the entire world under their control. Their home base is Moscow, so US psychological war efforts must focus there. The best way to weaken the regime was to provoke internal splits within the party in Moscow.23 This should be the goal of psychological warfare.
The professor-turned-CIA agent insisted that US psychological warfare was as old as the American republic. The Declaration of Independence and Gettysburg Address were early examples.24 Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points must be understood as psychological warfare that undermined the enemy. The United States had robust means of communication, which meant she was amply equipped to engage in psychological. The telephone, telegraph, radio, electronics, printing, and reproduction devices constituted an array of psychological warfare instruments.
In “Psychological Warfare or Else,” Burnham maintains that traditionally, the United States had waited until after the war started to employ psychological warfare, but the best psychological warfare occurred before the battle began.25 He asserts that Hitler used psychological warfare to take the Ruhr, the Saar, and Austria. He never had to fire a shot. The State Department had ably used some psychological warfare, including the Voice of America, books, magazines, and sponsoring trips to America by foreign nationals.26 Burnham contends that the Department of Defense needed to follow suit because wars were not always decided on the battlefield.
Many of Burnham's days at the CIA were consumed with coordinating the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF). Secretly financed by the CIA (how many of the participants knew or cared about this is unknown), the CCF was a direct response to the Soviet-sponsored Scientific and Cultural Conference for World Peace. This event was held in New York in 1949 and was arranged by the National Council of the Arts, Sciences and Professions, a communist organization. The program for the Soviet conference stated that the threat of nuclear war imperiled the democratic rights of all Americans.27 Academics and intellectuals could not feel safe in the “ivory tower.”28 Peace and cooperation between the superpowers had to be promoted through “mutual understanding.”29 The Soviet side maintained that you did not blow up your neighbor just because you did not like the way he treated his wife.30 Organizers of the event gathered under the pretense that they were on the side of peace, the United States on the side of war. Prominent participants and sponsors included W. E. B. Du Bois, Albert Einstein, Charlie Chaplin, Paul Robeson, Henry Wallace, and a host of other scientists, academics, musicians, and journalists.31
Burnham played an important role in the responding American conference, which was held in June 1950 in West Berlin. The New York Times called it “the first major offensive against Soviet propagandists.”32 Inaugural attendees and sponsors included Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, Hugh-Trevor Roper, Benedetto Croce, A. J. Ayer, Sidney Hook, and Arthur Schlesinger. The congress's location of West Berlin demonstrated the United States’ commitment to freedom given that Berlin was the center of the Cold War. A raucous affair, its attendants agreed that no middle ground could exist between freedom and Soviet communism. Arthur Koestler opened the event with a presentation that Burnham must have approved of: Soviet use of the words “peace” and “democracy” meant nothing.33
Burnham presented a paper titled “Rhetoric and Peace.” Irked by communist pretenses of pacificism, the speech maintains that seemingly the “good man” was for peace and his opponents were “reactionaries.”34 Burnham continues that history plays a trick on those easily duped by such language: “After all, is it not the Voice of the Lord of Katyn and Kolyma which, from Bucharest, speaks to the world under the Cominform banner, ‘For a Lasting Peace, For Peoples’ Democracy’? Is it not the government of three hundred divisions that launches the movement of the Partisans of Peace? We have allowed ourselves to be trapped and jailed by our words—this leftist bait which has proved our poison.”35 Burnham states that communists had bound liberals with their own slogans because the progressive man of the noncommunist left is guilt-ridden when he compares himself with the bolder communist.36 Inferiority and even some envy follows.
Never one for nuanced speech, the apocalyptic writer created an uproar when he said flatly: “Moreover, I must add, in order to be fully honest, that I am not, under any and all circumstances against atomic bombs. I am against those bombs now stored or to be stored later in Siberia or in the Caucasus, designated for the destruction of Paris, London, Brussels, Rome, New York and Chicago … and of Western Civilization, generally. But I am for those bombs made in Los Alamos, Hanford, and Oak Ridge, and guarded I not know where in the Rockies or American desert.”37 And how could Western Europeans disagree? Burnham suggests that it was the existence of these bombs (and their potential usage) that prevented Western Europeans from becoming slaves in the Soviet Empire. But what about Black people in the United States that communists used as evidence when demeaning US democracy? Burnham retorts that at least they were not sent to slave camps when demanding more freedom.38
The intransigent anticommunist desperately tried to convince his listeners that the United States could not be passive: Americans had to be willing to use force against communism. Burnham routinely lectured at the Naval War College, the National War College, the Air War College, and the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies. For example, in September 1951, he spoke to the Naval War College on the topic of the philosophy of communism.39 Burnham warns his audience that communist thought was powerful and should not be underestimated. He describes basic Marxist concepts, such as the dialectic and the unity of opposites. Distinguishing between socialists and communists, Burnham proclaims that whereas the former sought to reform society, communists wanted to regenerate it by provoking conflict between the bourgeoisie and proletariat. For communists, this class struggle would lead to revolution and subsequently a “dictatorship of the proletariat”—a transitionary period between capitalism and communism—that in reality was just a dictatorship of the Communist Party.40 This acquisition of power was the real goal of the party:
The problem of the Revolution, therefore, is to prepare, achieve, defend, and expand the Communist monopoly of power. Until the monopoly is complete (that is to say, unchallenged and unchallengeable on a world scale), this is, was, and will continue to be the goal of Communism. If this is understood—that the practical, the strategic goal is the world monopoly of Communist power—then everything essential can be understood through this. And if there is any doubt or confusion on this point, then nothing is understood, and I repeat and emphasize NOTHING, no matter how much formal studying has been done in connection with Communism—NOTHING is understood until this is understood.41
Only when this fact was recognized could the United States successfully confront the behemoth.
Burnham's Containment or Liberation (1953) was the third part of his anticommunist trilogy. Continuing themes from The Struggle of the World and The Coming Defeat of Communism, the book argues that containment was not aggressive enough. The bully on the block does not feel threatened by containment.42 It lacked purpose because it could respond only to Soviet aggression.43 Carl von Clausewitz would not have approved, as the German military strategist stated, “An absolute defense completely contradicts the conception of war.”44 Defensive measures may be necessary, but they must always be part of an offensive strategy that weakens the opponent.45
Using Berlin as an example, Burnham insists in Containment or Liberation that containment had achieved nothing: boundaries were clearly drawn, yet Soviets consistently applied pressure against Westerners by blockading sectors, shooting at planes, raiding houses, kidnapping citizens, and sending their gangs roaming through the streets.46 Rather than replying in kind, Western powers just protested. The author asks: Why can’t the West shoot at Soviet planes or kidnap a communist? Why must communists always sleep secure?
The proponent of liberation maintains that containment had not been working. The line held in Europe, but Europe was not the Cold War's only stage. Burnham relates Soviet and Chinese communism, insisting that Mao's victory had expanded the Soviet sphere.47 And communists had strongholds into Indochina and India. Sure, they were modest, but Mao's communist takeover of China started with small takeovers of the country.48 The West was also losing standing in the Middle East, providing more potential openings for communism.
Burnham wrote that the only area of the world that had grown substantially stronger during the era of containment was the United States. He did approve of the expanding US defense budget, calling it “a factor of the greatest world significance.”49 Unfortunately, the rest of Western Europe had not kept pace. He asserts in Containment or Liberation that the Soviet-supported Polish army was larger than any Western European army.50 This weakness provided the Soviets with confidence, allowing them to feel secure in their control of the satellite states.51 In theory, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) showed Western European strength. In reality, Burnham argues, it was unorganized and dominated by squabbles.
Even as the center of the Cold War shifted from Europe to Asia during the Korean War, Europe was always on Burnham's mind. He maintains in Containment or Liberation that the United States must work with Western Europe to thwart communism because Europe was part of the United States’ “destiny” and “fate.”52 Europeans favored containment because they did not want to be conquered, but they also did not want war. For Burnham, that was not sufficient. Making some of the same arguments he had made about the United States in The Struggle for the World, Burnham says Europe must act like an adult internationally.53 She cannot hide. American policymakers should make Europe understand that “neutralism” was not in her best interest.54
Burnham notes that the heart of communism did not exist in Western Europe, however. The United States needed an Eastern European strategy that focused on liberating satellite states from the Kremlin. Attacking the periphery of the Soviet Empire, such as in Korea, had little impact: “By this Korean action, the enemy has bled American resources, pinned down a sizeable American force in a strategically pointless location, and diverted his opponent from the targets that count.”55 An Asian emphasis would not win the Cold War because the heart of communism did not exist in Korea, an area Burnham compares to fingers.56 Focusing on Asia allowed the communists to consolidate control of the “heartland” unfettered. Maintaining that the Soviet Union was weaker than general opinion recognized, Burnham argues that liberation could be achieved only by weakening the heartland.
The proponent of liberation demands that the American government use more forms of political warfare, or “methods of struggle other than those of formal military warfare, insofar as these methods are guided by a strategic objective.”57 Burnham contends that Soviet communism conquered China primarily by using political warfare; the Soviets sent instructors and organizers into China.58 Soviet political warfare was designed to actually defeat the enemy.59 American political warfare, in contrast, remained inchoate. Americans did invest large sums of money in psychological warfare, also known as propaganda. However, whereas the goal of Soviet propaganda was to defeat the enemy, Burnham laments that the primary goal of American propaganda was to ensure that the United States was loved. He calls this “a profound characteristic of American culture.”60 Burnham maintains that we want Western Europeans to love us for our high standard of living, Eastern Europeans to love us because we will never invade them, and Muslims to love us for our efforts to promote pilgrimages to Mecca through our “magic carpet” program in 1952.61 But what most Americans failed to understand, Burnham moans, was that “in their ardent youth, Americans have not yet learned the tragic lesson that the most powerful cannot be loved—hated, envied, feared, obeyed, respected, even honored perhaps, but not loved.”62 Political warfare and defeating communism should motivate Americans, not a need to be loved.
The book also fired a shot at George Kennan. Burnham's mastery of words and cleverness as a writer reveal themselves here. He could be underhanded. Burnham writes that psychologists say that emotions reveal the real person. Then what does this tell us about Kennan? The hardliner grants that Kennan is anticommunist from a rational perspective, yet his writings did not reveal a heart-felt disdain for communism. His analyses were always “pale” and “abstract.”63 Kennan's most emotional statements found in his American Diplomacy, 1900–1950 (1951) were not directed at the Soviets, but rather against those strong anticommunists who preached against moderation, patience, and tolerance.64 For Burnham, Kennan did not loathe communists, but extreme anticommunists; he could never really win the Cold War. Containment or Liberation argues that Kennan's “realist” foreign policy of containment was appeasement.65 Just as appeasement accepted the existence of Nazism, proponents of containment saw communism as a “legitimate child of human civilization, and therefore [they] wish to bring the Soviet Empire within the family of nations.”66 Burnham placed Secretary of State Dean Acheson in the camp of appeasers, too.67
Burnham's criticism of Kennan was unjust because the diplomat never saw communism as legitimate. He hated communism, believing it was a guise for Russian expansionist predilections. Kennan held that containment provided a way not just to check communism, but to end it. He believed that with proper external pressure, the USSR would wilt. Kennan suggests in “Sources of Soviet Conduct” that American force in the form of containment would “promote tendencies which must eventually find their outlet in either the break-up or the gradual mellowing of Soviet power.”68 In 1948, he called the liberation of Eastern Europe a “long term objective.”69 Although his means softened over the years, Kennan's ends mirrored Burnham. Like Schlesinger, he just preferred playing a waiting game.
Burnham could not wait. The root issue that divided the two Cold Warriors was the same that divided Lenin and some of his fellow Marxists: impatience. Lenin lambasted his comrades such as Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev who denied that Russia was ripe for revolution in 1917. Burnham did the same to his fellow Cold Warriors who sought patience with the Soviet Union. He always believed that the present moment required action. Lenin wrote on the eve of the 1917 Russian Revolution: “The situation is critical in the extreme. In fact it is now clear that to delay the uprising would be fatal…. We must not wait! We may lose everything!”70 America's most impatient anticommunist could not have said it better.
What is liberation and how is it achieved? Burnham quotes in Containment or Liberation a Hungarian exile who says, “Liberation for us, and for all peoples who wish to live in dignity and enjoy equality of rights, must consist in the restoration of national independence.”71 Liberation sought to free the subjects of Eastern Europe and recognize their individual rights. Words alone would not suffice: “Liberation cannot be a Sunday doctrine, but must inform and guide day by day, routine behavior, as well as the great and special actions.”72 Specific ways to achieve this included recognizing the Polish and other “free” governments in exile.73 Communist China should not be recognized. And Burnham wanted captive nations to have their own armies, supported by the West.74 He demanded a free university in Europe, too.75 These were all forms of political warfare that would undermine communism in Eastern Europe:
What could more enhearten the subject peoples or more dismay their rulers than news of a representative of free Poland sitting in the councils of NATO; free regiments marching under the flags of Rumania, Esthonia, Russia; a free Ukrainian unit capturing a hill in Korea or wiping out one of Ho Chi Minh's detachments in Indochina; a class of a thousand young East Europeans graduating from their free university with degrees in administration, agriculture, and engineering; twenty thousand East European, Chinese, and Russian exiles combining military training with agriculture in North Africa; a NATO destroyer manned by Baltic seamen; free spokesmen of all the captive nations received with honor in Whitehall, the Quai d’Orsay, and the Department of State.76
Burnham maintains that the aggressive foreign policy of liberation hadanother advantage over containment: it did not require the United States to flip-flop. Under containment, one day, American forces were at peace. When communists encroached, they resorted to war. Then, when the communists retreated, “peace” ensued. Then war may follow. No such discontinuity existed under a policy of liberation as the same basic principles always held. Under containment, Americans only sometimes were for freedom. Under liberation, Americans always fought for freedom.77 And this put the Soviets on the defensive.78
Parts of Containment or Liberation were reprinted in magazines. For example, several chapters appeared in the conservative journal American Mercury. Other parts of a chapter were published in This Week Magazine, a supplement that was included in many Sunday newspapers. One article title asked, “Can America Liberate the World?”79 Mainly featuring content from the last chapter of the book, this piece includes Burnham's usual criticism of containment, which he argues could be only a temporary measure. If adopted as a long-term policy, it could never work. In fact, it was already cracking, evidenced by the loss of China, troubles in Indochina, and flareups in the Middle East.80 A section subtitled “Goal Is Freedom” maintains that the United States must adopt a goal of liberation for all people living under communist governments. This means national, social, and individual liberation. People must be free from slave camps and secret police. They should be free to worship God (if they choose) and to cultivate their own land. Burnham insists that the United States could win the Cold War if she aggressively sought liberation. He proclaims: “Through such a policy, carried out in action as well as in words, those who believe in liberation are convinced that we can release the energies of all the subject peoples of the Soviet Empire, and thereby weaken and finally shatter its imperial structure.”81 Specific means included “all-sided political warfare” and military action where necessary.
The book contains some possible objections to the policy of liberation, including the following: (1) Our allies may oppose it. (2) It would involve the United States in a crusade. (3) It was none of the United States’ business how Eastern Europe was run. Burnham asserts the general veracity of the first objection, particularly among Western Europeans. They seemingly benefited from containment, something Burnham blames on the American lack of resolve. If Western Europeans saw real American resolve to liberate the people of Eastern Europe, they would be more willing to support the cause because it would be easier to reject a half-heartedly carried out policy. If the United States demonstrated force and will, Western Europe would subsequently follow.
And what is wrong with a crusade, Burnham asks?82 Yes, it was intellectually fashionable to oppose crusades because they seemed dangerous and futile. He reasons that the struggle against communism and the liberation of eight hundred million people deserved to become a crusade. Communism already viewed its mission as a crusade—a crusade to eradicate capitalism and usher in a new era of history. This crusade pitted two antagonistic, irreconcilable forces against each other. Communists maintained this was all historical necessity. And communists did not compromise. They advanced. Burnham argues that if the United States wanted to win, she must interpret the struggle as a crusade. Americans must be willing to declare that their system of political freedom and representative government is better than “tyranny” and the “sovereignty of the secret police.”83 He proclaims that moral equivalency will not win this crusade.
And, of course, Burnham contends, it is America's business what happens in Eastern Europe. US security is at stake. Just because bombs are not currently being dropped does not mean we are safe.
Containment or Liberation was widely read, although it was less popular than his first two anticommunist polemics. Arthur Schlesinger panned it in The New Republic, calling it an “absurd book by an absurd man.”84 Kennan later stated that the book was “a well-written and persuasive book aimed largely against myself and the doctrine of containment.”85 Right around the time the book appeared, confirmation hearings for Kennan's replacement as ambassador to the USSR were underway. Chip Bohlen was asked by Senator Bourke Hickenlooper (R-IA) whether he had read the book. The nominee replied that he had not, although he had read articles written by Burnham. The senator suggested that the future ambassador to the Soviet Union read the book.86 CIA director Allen Dulles requested and received a copy of the book upon hearing that it attacked CIA analysist Sherman Kent. The director told Kent not to worry.87
When the book arguing for the liberation of Eastern Europe appeared in early 1953, some Americans were feeling more threatened by communism's subversive elements at home than its expansion abroad. The Soviet detonation of the atomic bomb, espionage cases, and the Korean War stimulated domestic fears in the United States between 1949 and 1953. Like World War II, this era changed much, both in the United States and in Burnham's mind. When this period began, Burnham collaborated with anticommunist liberals and leftists. At the Congress for Cultural Freedom, he worked with Daniel Bell, Diana Trilling, and Schlesinger. At Partisan Review, he collaborated with leftists such as Mary McCarthy, Dwight Macdonald, and Philip Rahv. But like his collaborations with Marxists, Burnham's association with these people would end in rather dramatic fashion. The rise of Joseph McCarthy was the spark that led to a conflagration between Burnham and his one-time friends.
Burnham loved McCarthy's goals of exposing communists.88 The means? Burnham tried to walk a fine line by taking a moderate stance. In a piece titled “Editor Meets Senator,” Burnham generally supported the committee's investigations while critiquing McCarthy's reasoning when determining what made someone a communist; he suggested that some of McCarthy's targets had not been proven guilty.89 That was not sufficient for liberals, most of whom deemed McCarthy a demagogue. Schlesinger insisted that the American Committee of Cultural Freedom (the ACCF, an independent affiliate of the CCF that Burnham helped create) formally condemn him.90 Burnham hesitated. He even questioned Schlesinger's anticommunist commitment.91 Burnham called himself “anti-anti-McCarthyite,” maintaining that those who were obsessed with McCarthy were not his team; in fact, they contributed to a “united front” with communists, something that only abetted communism.92 When Daniel Bell and Irving Kristol introduced a resolution condemning McCarthy and communism, Burnham rejected it, insisting that although he was not pro-McCarthy, the senator from Wisconsin should be treated fairly.93
Burnham had to know this would not suffice and his refusal to fully condemn the senator ostracized him. A preface for Medgar Evans's The Secret Fight for the A-Bomb—a book that held American scientists accountable for giving the Soviets atomic secrets—further associated Burnham with McCarthyites.94 Prominent American scientists demanded that he resign from Partisan Review's executive committee, or they would disassociate from it.95 Readers wondered why a “McCarthyite” like Burnham remained on the advisory board.96 Thirteen years after submitting a formal letter of resignation from the worker's party, Burnham did the same from Partisan Review. Friendships were spurned again. Contending that his name on the advisory board meant little, Burnham lamented that the one-time anticommunist bastion seemed to be lowering its standards.97 The anti-anti-McCarthyite wrote that McCarthyism may have been the central issue for Partisan Review, but it was not for him. He did not consider himself pro- or anti-McCarthy; he believed that McCarthy should be lauded for what he had uncovered, just as he should be condemned for his false accusations. Burnham insisted that “McCarthyism” was an invention of “communist tacticians” and that “Eastern seaboard” intellectuals had taken the communist bait and ran with it, promoting the idea that McCarthyism, not communism, was America's biggest threat.98 Partisan Review had fallen for the trick.
This ended his association not just with Partisan Review but also with liberals. He resigned from the ACCF shortly after.99 His tenure with the CIA ended in 1953, as some of its members considered him too pro-McCarthy.100 Philip Rahv wrote that by refusing to condemn McCarthy, Burnham had committed professional “suicide.”101 A National Review editor later maintained that Burnham never harbored any bitterness over the loss of friendships and prestige among liberals.102 Burnham, however, dedicated most of the rest of his professional career to haranguing liberals.
The Web of Subversion (1954) seeks to justify Burnham's anti-anti-McCarthyite positions. Based mostly on Congressional testimony, it analyzes communist espionage in the United States, something Burnham argues was vastly underestimated. In some respects, his attitude toward communism mirrors some contemporary attitudes about racism: communists were everywhere. And they had to be outed. The more latent form was particularly disconcerting: “Our concern,” the anticommunist tells his readers, “is not with open, professed Communists, but only with the underground—the illegal apparatus and the hidden, secret Communist agents and collaborators.”103 The book suggests that the latent communism was scariest because it escaped detection. Burnham insists that “during the 1930s and 1940s, an invisible web was spun over Washington. Its interlaced threads were extended to nearly every executive department and agency, to the military establishment of the White House itself, and to many of the committees of Congress…. In reality one should say there are several interlacing webs, interlocked networks. They are part of the underground.”104 Conspirators occupied different positions, and their functions and motives varied. Communism should never be underestimated.105
Burnham opines that some seemingly good, decent people, unwittingly promoted communism. Although they may not be overtly communist, they still fostered a communist system by working with communists. He asks: What about these obscure American citizens who made up part of the communist web?106 Do they realize they are promoting evil? Burnham contends: “It is possible that some of them, individually, have not understood these truths. If so, this ignorance mitigates [not eliminates] their legal and no doubt moral guilt.”107 The anticommunist watchman insists that communist sympathies can occur in the most mundane activities, such as mailing a letter for a friend, unaware that the letter spreads communist propaganda.108
The Web of Subversion provides another example of the Burnham who saw the world more darkly. He maintains that “there is some reason to doubt that so many lambs in our flock are totally white.”109 For the Marxist Burnham, the world writhed in sin because of the corrupt nature of capitalism. The Managerial Revolution and The Machiavellians describe how a small group of duplicitous, clandestine elites ruled (or will rule) the world. Burnham had found a reason to interpret the Cold War era just as ghastly: communists, or those who unwittingly abetted communism, dominated American society. An invisible web connects them all.
Burnham describes the extent of communist activity, such as the existence of “cells,” or groups of communists that had infiltrated American institutions. One example was the Ware Cell, centered around Harold Ware, a member of the Department of Agriculture.110 Other important members of this cell were John Abt and Nathan Witt, also members of the Department of Agriculture, Victor Perlo of the Treasury Department, attorney Lee Pressman, and Alger Hiss.111 Hiss's infamous odyssey began in 1948 when Whittaker Chambers accused the former State Department member of being a Soviet spy. Hiss denied the charges in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee and even denied knowing Chambers. Evidence to the contrary was presented, and Hiss was found guilty of perjury (the statute of limitations on treason had passed) in a celebrated trial.
According to the Web of Subversion, the public record showed that communists had infiltrated virtually every conceivable public institution: the administrative staff at the White House; the Departments of State, Treasury, Army, Navy, Defense, Justice, Agriculture, Labor, and Commerce; six Congressional committees; the Bureau of Ordinance; the Signal Corps; the Office of Strategic Services; the National Labor Relations Board the Works Progress Administration; the War Production Board; the Foreign Economic Association; the Exchange Commission; and the Bureau of Census were just part of a litany of examples Burnham used to show how wide and deep the web of subversion extended.112 President Roosevelt kept Hiss by his side at Yalta, Burnham reminds the reader.113 And those collaborating communist agents moved seamlessly from one agency to another, slowly climbing the ladder and subsequently influencing US policy. Burnham suggests that given its prominent role in shaping US foreign policy, communist infiltration of the State Department was particularly disconcerting. How deeply the web of subversion had entangled the State Department would never be known, but communist influence was undeniable.
Even the highest office in the land had been penetrated by communists. Burnham again reminds the reader that Alger Hiss had been Roosevelt's assistant at Yalta. Owen Lattimore, another suspected communist agent, was Roosevelt's personal envoy to Chiang Kai-shek, and “Mrs. Roosevelt's hospitality has extended still further toward the left.”114 Examples include Harry Hopkins and David Niles. Americans should be aware, and afraid.
This did not even include “fellow travelers, sympathizers and mere dupes” who wittingly or unwitting promoted communism. 115 And that was just in the government. Communist activity permeated all levels of society, including the most important American institutions. Burnham insists, “Thickly or tenuously the web has extended into most social institutions: trade unions, churches, the educational system, the press, the movies, the theater, radio and TV, foundations, book publishing, pacificist organizations, civil rights and other reform groups.”116 Communists were everywhere.
How deeply had these fundamental institutions of US politics and life been stained by communists? Burnham suspects that we would never know because many communists were not publicly identified, but they were quietly allowed to resign to avoid scandal and public embarrassment.117 And to what extent had America's armed forces—the institution designed to protect our freedom—been ensnared? Again, he contends, “we cannot give a precise quantitative answer.”118 Burnham's emphasis about the unknowability of the number of communists provided fertile soil for the idea that it was widespread. Because we did not know, it could be 1 percent, 10 percent, or 50 percent, or it could even be true that the vast majority of people have been inflicted with this evil. We just did not know. All the more reason to remain vigilant. In The Web of Subversion, Burnham calls communism a “chameleon.”119 More common than most people realized, it took many different forms; it could be difficult to see and define.
The idea that invisible malignant agents exert powerful influence over this visible world remains an enduring legacy of the medieval and early modern eras, when people believed that concealed Satan and his subtle minions sought dominion over the world.120 The powerful Satan did not announce his arrival, nor was he immediately perceived. But for some of the learned, his influence was nearly ubiquitous. The hiddenness is significant because the believer can attribute a vast array of phenomena to the evil. The more hidden the evil becomes (whether it be Satan's minions, communism, or racism), the easier it becomes to assert its influence. If the evil were visible, it could be refuted by simply stating that no one saw it, and therefore, it could not have existed when and where it allegedly struck. Making the evil latent allows one to maximize its influence.
How much damage had the evil communists done? Burnham claims that this was difficult to delineate (again, meaning it could be great). He notes that communists existed at every level of government. And the US government had made mistakes in its policies toward communists. For Burnham, examples abounded: the Soviets received nuclear secrets. Alger Hiss's position meant he had access to all classified information. And US foreign policy toward China had failed since China fell to the communists, something Burnham blames on communist influence or the “web of subversion.”121 Analysis of US policy in Yugoslavia led to the same conclusion: during World War II, there were two anti-Nazi groups, a procommunist one led by Tito and an anticommunist group led by Mihailović. The United States had backed Tito, facilitating the spread of communism in the Balkans.122 Burnham insinuates that by connecting the dots, you could see how communist infiltration had damaged America and the world.
The Web of Subversion reads like one of the politically charged and ideologically driven articles that are the norm in American media today. It relies on guilt by association. The work is based on truths, but it was filled with half-truths and suggestions that could never really be proven or disproven, such as the assertion that communist subversion led to the victory of communism in China. This made it seductive, allowing the believer to rationalize the worst possible scenario. After all, it could not be disproven that communist agents had played a critical role in shaping US foreign policy. Given this, it was not irrational to believe that they did. Soon after its release, a condensed conversion was published by the John Birch Society.123
The book received mixed reviews. Arthur Schlesinger exploited the book's weaknesses by arguing that the author was “fundamentally uncritical.”124 Schlesinger conceded that there had been “systematic Soviet espionage activity within the United States government.”125 It was a legitimate problem. Burnham failed, however, because he did not discriminate among the various accusations; he accepted them all at face value. For Burnham, if person x said person y was a communist, it must be true. Certainly, sometimes it was true, but often, the evidence was weak. Schlesinger contended that the accusations against men like John K. Fairbanks and John Vincent Carter were less credible. Moreover, Schlesinger argued, the anticommunist failed to prove any significant influence of the communists. Yes, communists had served in all departments, but Burnham did not prove that they significantly influenced policy. Finally, the reviewer noted that Burnham asserted communist influence without seeking to explain it with other, more rational, alternatives. For example, yes, there were communists in the State Department, and yes, the United States chose the procommunists over the anticommunists in Yugoslavia. But Burnham failed to acknowledge that the English had supported Tito months before the Americans did and had urged the United States to do the same. Did that mean Churchill was caught in some web of communist espionage, too?
Irving Kristol was moderately impressed, stating that the work “presents a terse and lucid summary of what has been discovered by various investigating committees about Communist espionage networks in the United States government.”126 But like Schlesinger, he describes some of the book's flaws, writing that Burnham was “strong on first causes, weak on contingent ones.”127 Kristol believed that Burnham sometimes overstated his case. For example, Burnham wrote that American communist party boss Earl Browder bragged that thirteen thousand US soldiers were party members. It was too bad that Burnham had not provided details about how these men had shaped policy, maybe because it was negligible. The same held true for Burnham's contention that McCarthy discovered a secret communist cell at Fort Monmouth. Unfortunately, the author gave no evidence for the claim, leading Kristol to speculate that Burnham “has deduced it from—if one may say so—underground premises.”128 Kristol audaciously challenged Burnham's use of logic.
During the first half of the 1950s, Burnham also wrote for The Freeman, a conservative libertarian journal that in many ways was a precursor to the National Review, both in style and substance. He continued flailing at anyone who he believed assisted the communist cause. Some of his notable targets were Chip Bohlen, Owen Lattimore, and John Paton Davies. In a piece titled, “Was Bohlen a Blunder?,” he criticizes President Eisenhower's nomination for ambassador to the Soviet Union for making concessions to the Soviets at Yalta.129 Burnham also implicates Lattimore and Davies as two of many “dupes” at the Institute of Pacific Relations who unwittingly promoted communism by blocking Western attempts to thwart Communist conquest of China.130
Burnham was not a perfect fit at The Freeman. Unlike most of the contributors, he was not a laissez-faire capitalist. But he generally espoused social libertarianism, at least valuing individual freedom in the abstract. His most memorable piece, titled “No Firecrackers Allowed,” begins in Burnham's characteristic sardonic style: “Last Fourth of July was a good day for meditation in our locality. The hot holiday quiet was unbroken by snap of firecracker, boom of daybomb, or whish of rocket. The torpedoes and cap pistols were silent. In the evening there were no pinwheels, Roman candles, or even hand-waved sparklers to contend with the late-settling summer darkness.”131 A few states resisted laws against fireworks, but Burnham surmises these outlaws would soon surrender to the forces of “Progress.” Thankfully, Burnham maintains, this meant fewer children would lose fingers and eyes. And fewer babies—prone to mistake firecrackers for Tootsie Rolls—would develop stomach aches. Of course, with nothing else to do on the national holiday, more kids would demand evening drives, an equally dangerous endeavor. Burnham notes sarcastically that we know that when government restricts our freedom, it is always for our good. He remains wistful for his youth, a time when hearing the morning's first firecrackers created the same excitement as opening Christmas presents.
But this piece also has a serious side. It tells the reader that freedom is not always lost overnight in dramatic fashion. Liberty can erode gradually. Our freedom to travel had been restricted because of passports. Even before we received our paychecks, taxes are taken out. Some workers are forced to join unions. Again, the government tells us it is for our own good, but what if we disagree? Burnham concludes that the issue is not necessarily the deprivations of liberty—some of which were necessary—but instead how easily the citizens acquiesce. For the next Fourth of July, he pledged to supply some bootleg liquor, a copy of The Federalist Papers, and loud fireworks, just to remind people of what the Fourth of July was all about.132 These antistatist ideas would suit Burnham well during the final phase of his writing career.