Covert Influence Target: American Education—Obama, Ayers, and Counts
American academics
and educators who carried on long-term relationships with Soviets or
communism. They developed both overt and
covert ties to the Soviet Union . An ex-communist, Louis Budenz provided a
guide to understanding the backgrounds of academics who, following the
communist conspiratorial methodology, refused to state their true beliefs or
communist affiliation. Budenz revealed
the actions and affiliations of academics from the 1930s to the 1960s, when it
was impossible to be an overt Marxist in the US .
KGB-sponsored fronts provided academia with cover for their actions in
support of the Soviets. One Columbia University professor, Bernhard Stern,
was a member of 40 communist fronts during the immediate post WWII years. At the same time, Stern testified before
Congress and pled the 5th Amendment, refusing to answer questions on
the grounds that he might incriminate himself.
The 5th
Amendment ploy was regularly used by the communists when faced with
exposure. While pleading the 5th
is not an automatic indictment, and is a Constitutional right, we can now look
back at the historical record and see that virtually every one of the witnesses
before the House Un-American Activities Committee who pled the 5th
were communists. As Budenz, the
ex-communist, pointed out, you cannot identify communists by their words, but
rather by their actions. If it walks
like a duck, it is very likely a duck.
Stern is but one example of the academics who were at the beck and call
of the Soviets, using KGB tactics to spread the noxious anti-American covert
influence payloads. And their use of the
covert action motto—admitting nothing, denying everything, and making
counter-accusations is another confirmation of their covert action links.
In writing my
book, Willing Accomplices’ I examined
the KGB infiltration of the American Kindergarten to 12th grade
(K-12) education system in the early 1900s through the 1960s. The Soviets did not neglect their covert
efforts to infect the roots of American society. As Budenz said, “In undermining a nation such
as the United States ,
the infiltration of the educational process is of prime importance…The
Communists have accordingly made the invasion of schools…the major
consideration in their psychological warfare designed to control the American
mind.” (Budenz, p. 208) In 1937, during
the height of the Popular Front surge of support for socialism, American
communist teachers were exhorted by an article in a Communist magazine to
“…affect the children’s thinking, and they must mobilize other teachers…without
exposing themselves.” (Budenz, p. 209)
The American education mafia was diving deeply into John Dewey’s philosophy
of Pragmatism, which holds that there is no real truth, and no absolute good or
evil. This theory fed into the hands of
the Communist covert influence operators.
Because the leaders of the Progressive
educationists wrote a lot, we have a good record of the communist inspired
philosophies that the transmitted into American classrooms. For example, George
Counts was a carrier of the communist covert influence message into K-12
education. In the late 1920s, through
the early 1930s, Counts traveled extensively in the USSR , where he was surely met and
cultivated by the KGB. His book, Dare the Schools Build a New Social Order?
(1932), reveals the goals of the Soviets in the title, annihilation of the
American social order. Counts’ covert
influence operations were substantial. Russia provided him with a Soviet textbook,
initially used in the Soviet Union as an
indoctrination tool for children in their education system. The Russians provided Counts with an English
translation, which he brought to America and published. His introduction to the book, New Russia's Primer: The Story of the
Five-Year Plan (1931), waxed eloquently and enthusiastically in support of
a collectivized economy. This book is a
good example of a typical communist covert influence payload. Without actually calling for the
communization of American society, and speaking in the coded language of covert
influence, Counts laid the foundation of a logical and reasonable argument.
Readers were left to come to their own conclusion that communism was the only
path possible. In reality, even as
Counts was writing his introduction, Stalin was carrying out unbelievably
grotesque repression of the Russian masses.
Counts’ other writings similarly carried the communist covert influence
message into American schools of education and elementary and high school
classrooms.
John
T. Flynn served on the Board of higher education for New York state from 1933 to 1944. during his tenure on the board of education, New York State undertook an investigation of
communist infiltration of the education system.
Flynn, a self defined liberal, could not believe the charges against
numerous teachers, most of whom he knew personally. The trials conducted by the state resulted in
guilty verdicts for a total of 35 teachers.
According to Flynn, these teachers were not merely Socialists or
leftists, but Communists. Flynn was
shocked to discover the infiltration of his own system by the Communists. Clearly, the Communists were using the covert
influence template of the KGB. Flynn
spelled out very clearly what he saw the communist mission to be: “a seductive
form of propaganda for collectivism – this propaganda takes the form of
teaching openly as possible, cautiously if necessary three things. First, that our American system of private
enterprise is a failure. Second, that
our republic of limited powers is a mistake.
Third, that our way of life must give way to a collectivist society in
which the central State will own and operate, or plan and finance and control,
the economic system.” (Flynn, in Scott and Hill, p. 159) )
Clearly Flynn, an educational bureaucrat, saw the results of the
Communist covert influence operations.
However, unable to see the forest for the trees, he focused on the 35
teachers who were found to be spreading the communist propaganda in his state
schools, and was unaware of the great covert war unfolding around him.
Flynn, on the
front lines of the struggle against the collectivization of American society,
saw the enemy. He quotes from Counts’ 17
volume study of social science in American schools, “… ‘the age of
individualism is closing and a new age of collectivism is emerging.’ The report then proposed that the teachers go
to work upon the minds of their pupils to prepare them for the new collectivist
society.” (Flynn, p. 160)