Immersed In Red

by Mike Shotwell

  While much more can be added to the profile of Rev. Stephen Fritchman, the foregoing should suffice to demonstrate the rigid and pointed political atmosphere that existed at his Los Angeles church, even though he professed himself a man of strong faith, a supporter of unborn children, and possessing a devotion to radical heresy.

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  CHAPTER 12

  THE PANTHEON OF ENEMIES

  Orville had a long list of political and religious enemies that were subject to unending scorn. The “Jew-hating, fascist collaborators,” Pope Pius XII and Cardinal (later Archbishop) Jozsef Mindszenty, were the two international names that topped the list, emphasizing Orville’s entrenched animosity toward the Catholic Church. They were deserving of the wrath heaped on them from the communist world. Another cleric occupying the pantheon was Bishop Fulton Sheen, an anti-communist and prominent figure in the promotion of the Catholic Church in the United States.

  Unknowingly, I had internalized much of the lessons regarding these religious figures well into my adult life, believing much of what Orville said was accurate. In fact, in the initial draft of my manuscript, I referred to the strong probability that some Roman Catholic priests willfully cooperated with the Nazis. This may be true in some isolated cases, particularly before the war, but after reading my draft, Prof. Paul Kengor referred me to more modern research and writings, including material regarding the Nazi-ordered extermination by Hitler of over one thousand Roman Catholic clerics (primarily Jesuits) in the Dachau death camp, and an estimated three thousand Polish priests liquidated in other Nazi concentration camps. This was all part of a larger plan to eradicate Catholicism in Poland, which had flourished for one thousand years. In Anna Pawelczriska book, Values and Violence in Auschwitz, Hitler is quoted that he wanted his Death’s Head forces “to kill without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language.”

  Perhaps the most important reference work was Lt. General Ion Pacepa’s book on Soviet disinformation, his recounting of firsthand knowledge regarding, among other things, the concerted program by Stalin, and later Khrushchev, to discredit both Pope Pius XII and Cardinal Mindszenty. Reading Pacepa’s book and others, I came to understand how badly I had been misled on this topic. It also brought me in touch with the dreadful and lasting power of disinformation, and the false assumptions that I had been led to believe in during my formative years. Although I hadn’t heard Orville’s ruminations for the past thirty-five years, I realized that the overlay of negativity toward these courageous religious figures had stuck with me all these years later. It was a powerful eye opener.

  Pope Pius XII: The head of the Catholic Church, Pope Pius XII, was crowned pope on March 2, 1939, at the very onset of World War II. His papacy was one of the most difficult ever experienced. He had to deal with the fascist Mussolini, who considered the pope a “disease wasting away the life of Italy.” Then there was Hitler and the Holocaust, Stalin, the communist attacks against Christianity, and the Soviet takeover of the Eastern bloc countries. In 1945, Stalin engineered a disinformation campaign characterizing Pius XII as “Hitler’s pope.” While this belief still exists in some quarters, in general, the slanderous worldwide program failed.

  The staunch anti-fascist/anti-communist resistance, headed by the pontiff, was acclaimed far and wide during and after the war for its courage under extreme circumstances. Jewish groups came forward after the war to recognize and praise Pius for saving tens of thousands of Jews slated for deportation and “progressive extinction.” The pope employed brave tactics, hiding Jews in closets, behind blind doors, under stairways, in underground passages of the Vatican, “converting” them to Catholicism (until the ruse was found out), and creating obstacles of every kind against the authorities responsible for the deportations. In addition, Rabbi Herzog of Palestine (father to a future president of Israel, Chaim Herzog) and the chief rabbi of Rome, Israel Zolli, both lauded the pope’s efforts on behalf of Jews. In fact, Zolli changed his name to Eugenio, Pius’s birth name, to honor him. FDR applauded Pius’s actions with statements of honor; Winston Churchill referred to Pius XII as the “Greatest man of our times;” and Albert Einstein stated, “Only the church protested against the Hitlerian onslaught on liberty.”

  There is so much more that can be written about the courage and steadfastness of Pius XII, including his involvement with the delicate negotiations with Protestant Germans attempting the overthrow of Hitler. But what was important for me was to come to the understanding of the disgraceful disinformation campaign against the Catholic prelates concocted by Stalin, the KGB and their Romanian counterpart, the Securitate.

  Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty: As it turned out, Pope Pius XII’s reputation proved too difficult to besmirch. That didn’t, however, keep the KGB from going after other important Catholic figures. Hungarian Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty fit into their plans.

  Cardinal Mindszenty was imprisoned in Hungary by the Nazis when the Germans invaded in 1944. His alleged crime was using his church in resistance to German barbarism by shielding countless numbers of Jews scheduled for deportation and extermination. Mindszenty, like Pope Pius, used every means possible to shelter Jews, also offering them temporary conversion to Catholicism.

  He was released at the end of the war, but in 1949, during the Soviets regime’s takeover of Hungary, he was again imprisoned on charges that he had collaborated with the Nazis during the war. These falsehoods were part of the coordinated disinformation effort of the NKVD, KGB and Romanian DIE under Romanian president, Nicolae Ceausescu, to discredit Mindszenty.

  In prison for six years, Cardinal Mindszenty was regularly tortured and forced to sign bogus confessions. Other incriminating documents were later exposed as well-crafted forgeries. The forgers escaped to the West and they described their role in the elaborate forgery factory in Moscow. (In his 1987 memoir, communist journalist, George Seldes, expressed his tacit agreement with all the spurious charges against Mindszenty, disregarding all evidence to the contrary. His communist world view remained unshakable to the end of his life.)

  Mindszenty was eventually freed during the short-lived Hungarian revolution of 1956, but in 1959, when the Soviets again exerted power, he sought refuge in the American Embassy where he lived in safety for 15 years, until the country was freed from Soviet domination following the collapse of the empire. Afterwards, he moved to Vienna and wrote his memoirs, vivid with descriptions of the horrors and Godlessness of both the German and Russian totalitarian states.

  Cardinal Mindszenty was certainly no collaborator with Hitler, and to even hint at it is a revolting example of historical tampering. On the contrary, he was a great man who suffered untold hardships, and can only be described by any freedom loving person as a decent, courageous and extraordinary individual who stood steadfast against fascist and Soviet inhumanity. He was, above all, a credit to mankind and to his religion.

  In order to understand the attacks against Pope Pius XII, Cardinal Mindszenty, and other Catholic figures, it is crucial to understand the mechanism of disinformation developed and carried out by the Soviet propaganda machine. One of the most valuable resources for understanding this is Lt. Gen. Ion Pacepa. Pacepa, who defected to the United States in 1978, was the head of the Romanian DIE (Soviet Dizinformation Department) under the Romanian secret police, the Securitate, which was the creation of the repressive communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu. The Securitate was considered the most ubiquitous and brutal police force in the world at the time. Lt. Pacepa’s book, Disinformation, details the Soviet’s worldwide mechanism to influence and control a multitude of cultural and political areas. As the head of the Romanian arm of that endeavor, Pacepa was required to enforce and guide assignments under Ceausescu. The magnitude of this operation was staggering. Pacepa’s quote regarding the size of the operation he directed was, “there were more in the Soviet Bloc working on “dezinformatsiya” than in the armed forces and defense industry.”

  Some of the tactics of the disinf
ormation program included forging documents and confessions; destroying the reputation of political leaders; denigrating Christianity and Judaism, including the scurrilous attacks on Pope Pius XII and Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty; defaming American soldiers; infiltrating and controlling the World Council of Churches (WCC); planting four thousand agents of influence in the Islamic world; fanning the flames of resentment against the US and Israel; and convincing the rest of the world that the US government masterminded the assassination of President Kennedy.

  The byword for the agency’s manual was “you can get anything you want with disinformation.” The Soviets developed the methodology to largely displace boots-on-the-ground espionage, seeing it as the best way to affect public opinion and world affairs. The process begins with a seed of truth that is then cloaked in a series of lies and half-truths. The resulting piece of information is then planted within a trusted source, known to the general population, which disseminates it with a credibility that is not questioned. The source may or may not know the validity of the information.

  Pacepa’s intimate knowledge of all aspects of the clandestine disinformation programs allowed him to expose the ugly methods employed by the Soviet Secret Service and their eastern bloc allies. He later revealed a massive trove of damaging information regarding Ceausescu, which not only precipitated the dictator’s downfall, but also made Pacepa a target for assassination by both the Romanian police and the Soviets.

  At Ceausescu’s trial more than ten years later, the accusations and evidence described in detail in Pacepa’s book was instrumental in the dictator’s conviction, and was largely responsible for Ceausescu’s and his wife’s fitting date with the firing squad immediately after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1989.

  Pacepa’s Disinformation, along with his first book, Red Horizons, are considered the best insider works on the processes of the Soviet disinformation system. They are well worth reading for a firsthand perspective on this still current topic, one that is almost impossible for Americans and others in the West to fully comprehend, let alone recognize.

  Bishop Fulton Sheen: There is not enough room in this book to discuss all of the figures in Orville’s perceived enemies against communism, but a few more that stand out in my memory are worth discussing. Another Catholic Church prelate that produced copious bile in Orville’s gut was Bishop Fulton Sheen who was known for his preaching and especially his work on radio and later television between 1930 and 1968.

  The Venerable Archbishop Sheen combined his vigorous anti-communist message with an almost equally strong anti-racist message that placed him well ahead of the curve as an advocate for civil rights in the 1950s.But because he was an anti-communist, he was considered by the left as a denizen of the lower order of humanity. Later, in 1967, Sheen became a vocal opponent of the war in Vietnam, but even that didn’t accrue to his credit with Orville.

  In 1945, largely due to the influence of Bishop Sheen, Daily Worker editor, Louis Budenz, converted to Roman Catholicism and renounced communism. He contacted J. Edgar Hoover and offered to provide the FBI with information on former members of the Communist Party. His testimony rocked the party and was devastating to the Daily Worker. All told, he was interviewed for three thousand hours by Hoover’s agents. Budenz’s name became anathema to the party, and to Orville and his friends.

  One of Sheen’s noteworthy presentations came in February 1953, when he forcefully denounced the Soviet regime of Joseph Stalin, using a reading of Shakespeare’s burial scene from Julius Caesar, substituting Shakespeare’s characters with prominent communist leaders’ names including Stalin, Lavrenty Beria, Georgy Malenkov, and Andrew Vishinski. He concluded by saying, “Stalin must one day meet his judgment.” The irony was that the dictator suffered a stroke a few days later and died within a week.

  J. Edgar Hoover: Among secular personalities, J. Edgar Hoover, appointed director of the FBI in 1924 and who remained in that position until his death in 1972, was another figure who was in the pantheon of American “fascist leadership.” Orville described Hoover to me as a paranoid, closet cross-dresser, a consummate showman who kept dossiers on American political leaders of both parties, and therefore controlled the government with his robotic, crew-cut agents. Orville had a wry smile on his face when telling these questionable stories.

  Hoover was a complicated man in many ways, but let it not be forgotten that he was greatly admired and appreciated by FDR, President Lyndon Johnson, and the American public at large. The Kennedys, however, didn’t like Hoover because of the dossier he kept on Jack’s infidelities, including his relationship with Mafia leader Sam Giancana’s girlfriend, Judith Campbell Exner. To me, or any American citizen for that matter, there were certainly areas of concern, such as Kennedy’s alleged ties to the Mafia and its relationship to the planned assassination of Fidel Castro, as well as his chronicled affair with Marilyn Monroe, with its own mob overtones.

  It is apparent Hoover was obsessed with his job. His top priorities were rooting out Nazi and communist influences in the US government and fighting organized crime, while building the FBI into a modern, advanced institution. He has been derided by the American left for years, including the diatribes constantly recited by Orville. But once again, Hoover’s concerns about the high degree of communist influence in the government, in scientific circles, and in the media and the entertainment industry, were borne out through testimony by former communists, and the many Soviet documents and files that have come to light.

  William F. Buckley, Jr.: With his bird-like features, rapier wit, and enormous intellect, William F. Buckley, Jr. represented a conservative fortress that was the bane of communists the nation over. Orville disliked the very mention of his name. Buckley’s weekly TV program, Firing Line, aired from 1966–1999. In addition, he founded the publication, The National Review, in 1955, and added to his exposure with a nationally syndicated newspaper column. These three media vehicles helped propel him into the role of the conservative conscience of the Republican Party for over thirty years. The power of his message, and his charismatic persona were instrumental in paving the way for Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980.

  Historian George Nash stated Buckley was, “arguably the most important public intellectual in the United States in the past half century.” His core message was described as a, “fusion of laissez-faire economics, melded with traditional American political conservatism, and anti-communism.” Buckley was a constant thorn in Orville’s side and he belittled him as nothing more than a “pseudo-intellect” and “puppet of big business;” a machine that simply spit out unintelligible gobbledygook. He was characterized as the handmaiden of J. Edgar Hoover, the CIA and American imperialism. But Buckley’s intelligent and cultured presentation created a difficult wall to penetrate, which irked Orville to no end, feeling as he did that communists and leftists had garnered the corner on intelligent thought. Having the Catholic Buckley throwing darts at communism and leftist ideology was almost unbearable.

  Whittaker Chambers: A former high-level American communist, Whittaker Chambers (1901–1961), was perhaps the most hated figure in Orville’s pantheon of “criminals.” He was labeled a “turncoat,” a “consummate liar,” a “stool pigeon,” and was considered beneath pond scum. Chambers and Elizabeth Bentley, who Orville spoke of with similar epithets, were two of the foremost people to testify before Congress about communist party intrusion into the US government. The damage done to the party as a result was enormous.

  Chambers attended Columbia University, fertile ground for the recruitment of young communists. He left the university in 1925 after causing some literary controversy. Shortly afterwards, he met a member of the communist underground (an even deeper layer of espionage), with whom Chambers and his wife became good friends. He became a Marxist and joined the Communist Party that same year. He also launched into a vigorous study of communist literature and, after reading a work by Lenin, became deeply affected by the crisis of the middle class and his own family, “
a malaise from which communism promised liberation.” Chambers’ biographer, Sam Tanenhaus, wrote, “Lenin’s authoritarianism was precisely what attracted Chambers; he had at last found his church.”

  When I read Chambers’ extraordinary book, Witness, I saw several parallels with Orville’s life; specifically, Orville’s involvement with the Lutheran seminary and his preaching, and his transformation to socialism and communism because of his Bible education; the institution of communism became his new church, too. Chambers wrote for and edited the communist publications the Daily Worker, and New Masses, combining his superb literary talents with the goals of communism. In 1932, he was recruited into the Communist underground, and shortly after, his main controller became Josef Peters. Peters introduced Chambers to Harold Ware, the head of the communist underground cell in Washington. The members of that cell included Lee Pressman, Alger and Donald Hiss, John Abt, Charles Kramer, Nathan Witt, Marion Bachrach, Nathanial Weyl, and Victor Perlo; all of them members of Roosevelt’s New Deal administration. Chambers became the courier between New York and Washington for stolen documents, all delivered to Boris Bykov, the Soviet GRU station chief.