Dupes

  In other words, the media will at times shed light on Obama's grandfather's political radicalism, but they do so almost accidentally, via articles on other subjects, such as Obama's religious faith. It is left to conservative sources, like Glenn Beck, to raise such questions—legitimate and important questions that nonetheless invite the wrath of the progressive choir.

  Barack Obama was close with Frank Marshall Davis in the 1970s, during the formative years of his adolescence. At the time Obama was attending prep school and readying to leave Hawaii for college.16 Obama admits to learning from Davis, knowledge which surely was nothing like the “midwestern values” that former Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius (now President Obama's secretary of health and human services) maintained that Obama had learned in her state.

  In his pre-presidential memoir, Dreams from My Father, Obama was very affectionate toward Davis, and clearly proud of him. We see there that Davis constantly offered advice to the young man: on women, on race, on college, on life. The adolescent listened in awe as Davis passed the time with his grandfather drinking whiskey and swapping stories, and even enlisting the boy into his composition of dirty limericks. “I was intrigued by old Frank,” writes Obama, “with his books and whiskey breath and the hint of hard-earned knowledge behind the hooded eyes.”17

  How much of that hard-earned knowledge, about the world, its events, and the dialectic of history, did Davis pass along to the current president of the United States during these crucial formative years? That remains a riddle. Sadly, an uncritical press has never bothered to ask such simple questions that are usually standard fare for any president.

  They are important questions in many respects. Consider, for instance, that most Americans by the late 1970s and early 1980s were at last convinced that détente with the Soviets was a sham, and that the USSR needed to be dissolved—the emerging view that propelled Ronald Reagan to win forty-four states in 1980. Obama, however, would have learned nothing like that from Davis. Frank Marshall Davis swam against what Ronald Reagan described as the “tide of history,” a “freedom tide” that would “leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history.”

  Instead, as Obama wrote in Dreams from My Father, he was prepping for a college career of hanging out with the “Marxist professors,” attending “socialist conferences,” and “discuss[ing] neocolonialism.”18 The mentor Davis would not have been telling the young Obama about the American exceptionalism that would soon bring freedom to the USSR and Eastern Europe. After all, this was the man who had written that American democracy had become “synonymous with oppression instead of freedom.” Instead, he almost certainly would have instructed Obama in the glory of the Bolshevik experiment—the party line he adhered to in his columns. This was the wrong side of history, but it was the side of Frank Marshall Davis.

  Defining this Davis influence would fill in some gaps. It might lend credence, for instance, to assertions by Dr. John Drew, who was a contemporary of Obama at Occidental College, and who met Obama as a fellow Marxist. Drew was a well-known campus Communist when Obama was introduced to him as “one of us.” “Obama was already an ardent Marxist when I met in the fall of 1980,” said Drew in an interview for this book. Drew is certainly cognizant of the gravity of his statement: “I know it's incendiary to say this,” he added in a separate interview with television journalist Scott Baker, but Obama “was basically a Marxist- Leninist.” He noted how Obama, in Dreams from My Father, wrote that he had “hung out” with Marxist professors, but what Obama did not explain in that book, or clarify, said Dr. Drew, is that Obama “was in 100 percent, total agreement with these Marxist professors.”19

  If Obama was indeed a Marxist when he arrived at Occidental, Frank Marshall Davis likely would have been a prime reason.

  It is fitting that after Occidental, a young Barack Obama transferred to Columbia University. It was 1981, as Ronald Reagan was beginning his crusade to undermine atheistic Communism, and Obama found himself at the home of the extreme Left that wasted the twentieth century wallowing in error upon error regarding Communism and the Cold War. In his memoir, Obama recalls at length the college advice he got from Davis.20 Did Frank Marshall Davis also support his application to Columbia, possibly with a letter of recommendation? We have no idea, since Columbia—contacted for this book, as was Occidental21—has not made those records available, and as the dominant press has not demanded even a glimpse at the files.

  “Frank”

  Not surprisingly, Barack Obama shaded the identity of Frank Marshall Davis in his book. He referred to Davis as simply a “poet” and called him only “Frank,” conspicuously avoiding his full name (yet more reason for the press to ask quesions).22 That said, Obama's memoirs make it clear that “Frank” is Frank Marshall Davis. Likewise, scholars of Davis, plus others with intimate knowledge of the relationship, have attested to the identity.

  Those testimonies are worthy of quoting, because they illuminate so much more. Among the observers is Gerald Horne, who spoke at the reception for the opening of the CPUSA archives at NYU's Tamiment Library. A transcript of Horne's speech is posted at the website of Political Affairs Magazine, the Herb Aptheker publication published by CPUSA, which today carries the subhead “Marxist Thought Online.” Horne began his remarks on a sour note, bemoaning how the history of CPUSA and the global Communist movement “has been distorted grievously by the infestation of anti-Sovietism and anticommunism.” He hoped that “the opening of these wonderful archives should not only lead to a reassessment of the party but help to push back the right-wing which has profited so handsomely from anti-Sovietism and anticommunism.”23

  Horne was optimistic that future generations would not be “seized” with such a jaded view of the former USSR, which “was a supposed ‘Evil Empire.’” Future generations, said Horne, would instead see the wisdom and vision of CPUSA, of the USSR, and of those American Communists who supported the Soviet state. If those future generations looked at the situation rationally, Horne averred, they would “tend to agree” with him and former KGB-thug-turned-Russian-leader Vladimir Putin that “the fall of the USSR was the greatest geo-political catastrophe of the 20th century.” Horne greatly regretted American victory in the Cold War and predicted that rather than asking “who lost China?” future historians may well be asking “who lost the US?”

  Horne finished his lengthy, bitter oration with an unexpected burst of optimism, as he closed with effusive words of praise for Frank Marshall Davis, plus a note of clarification on the then-rising star in the Democratic Party. Taking his comrades back to Hawaii, Horne noted how Davis, “who was certainly in the orbit of the CP—if not a member,” had decamped to Honolulu in 1948 at the suggestion of good friend Paul Robeson, where he “befriended another family.” That family included a young man “who goes by the name of Barack Obama, who, retracing the steps of Davis, eventually decamped to Chicago.” Horne highlighted the fact that in his memoir, Obama “speaks warmly” of Davis and identifies the older man “as being a decisive influence in helping him to find his present identity.”

  Horne recommended that professors have their students read Obama's memoirs “alongside Frank Marshall Davis's equally affecting memoir, ’Living the Blues.’” “When that day comes,” he confidently predicted, “I'm sure a future student will not only examine critically the Frankenstein monsters that US imperialism created in order to subdue Communist parties but will also be moved to come to this historic and wonderful [CPUSA] archive in order to gain insight on what has befallen this complex and intriguing planet on which we reside.”

  Frank Marshall Davis's Modern Dupes

  As with his association with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright at the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Barack Obama has since sought safe distance from Davis, no doubt fearful of how the relationship might have damaged his presidential pursuits.

  Would the Davis link be a liability? In a rational world, yes. Once again, however, the answer hinged on a battle between Communists
and anti-Communists, between liberals and conservatives, between Left and Right, with the dupes in the middle playing the decisive role.

  Though Davis's Communist sympathies were undeniable, some still try to deny them. Dr. Kathryn Takara of the University of Hawaii describes Davis today as a “loving man,” who “did not have a hateful bone in his body,” who studied, knew, and valued “democracy,” and who handed on to Obama “a sense of believing that change can happen” through “living in a diverse world.” Takara told Cliff Kincaid, a conservative who was one of the first to diligently trace the influences of the likes of Davis, that she did not think that Davis's CPUSA membership had been proven.24 “Proven” is the key word in that statement, as it depends on who or what was seeking to do the proving. Davis publicly tried to deny his Communist affiliations, and even pleaded the Fifth Amendment in 1956 before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee.

  Yet other Davis scholars disagree, including the leading authority. “Sometime during the middle of the war [World War II], he [Davis] joined the Communist Party,” recorded John Edgar Tidwell, the University of Kansas professor and Davis biographer, who is the reigning expert on Davis's writing and career.25

  Tidwell has authored or edited several works on Davis. In one volume, he provides the smoking gun, quoting Davis himself admitting in writing that he joined CPUSA. Specifically, in the introduction to the edited volume Frank Marshall Davis: Black Moods, Collected Poems, Tidwell produces a letter by Davis to a Kansas friend named Irma Wassall. Davis was trying to recruit Wassall to CPUSA, in a much more direct way than he typically had done in the open forum of his Honolulu Record column. In that letter, Davis wrote: “I've never discussed this with you and don't know whether you share the typical American uninformed concepts of Marxism or not, but I am risking such a reaction by saying that I have recently joined the Communist party.”26

  Davis then explained his reasoning, noting that Communism was “the only movement that is actually conscious of social evolution and the meaning of various forces at play in the world today.” He added, as a “matter of fact,” that he had “leanings in that direction since I was in college.” It was a “risk” for Davis to finally admit this in writing, but here he did so—in a private letter.

  Thus, Tidwell notes that “despite Davis's public denial of his [Communist] activities,” the “historical record” indicates that the FBI's suspicions of Davis were not based “solely on supposition.”

  That is indeed certain. In fact, the entire six-hundred-plus-page FBI file on Frank Marshall Davis has been released, thanks to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by Cliff Kincaid.27 Kincaid immediately posted the entire file—reflecting some nineteen years of FBI investigation—at his website, where anyone has been able to view the records since 2008.28 Among the links on the website is a select compendium of thirty-four documents, which cover forty pages.29 These pages in particular make it clear—based on repeated witness testimonies—that Frank Marshall Davis was a Communist; they indicate that Davis had CPUSA affiliations going back to 1931 and was an actual member of CPUSA starting in 1943, if not earlier.30 (See Appendix B, pages 506–15.) As one report demonstrates, the FBI even knew Davis's Communist Party card number: 47544.31 Numerous informants and former party members spoke of Davis's membership in the party, in front groups, as a leader of an underground cell group, and as a dues-paying member; they also spoke of the party membership of Davis's wife, Helen (card number 62109).32 Again, these FBI reports have been available on the Web since 2008.

  But none of this has stopped modern-day liberals and Davis defenders from falling to the usual lines of retreat—that is, suspecting the anti-Communists of a Red-baiting witch hunt.

  Professor Takara has adopted a line on Davis that could have been written by Davis himself: “Any group that was progressive was considered communist,” she said.33 As we have seen, Davis adopted precisely this argument, repeatedly, in his Honolulu Record column.

  Takara's statement reflects a standard exaggeration from the Left. Speaking of allegations against other “progressives” handily diverts from the central question of whether Davis himself was a Communist.

  Even in death, then, Frank Marshall Davis can still count on non-Communist liberals to help dismiss the charges of anti-Communists. And that is especially the case given that Davis's star pupil has risen to the level of Democratic Party icon and forty-fourth president of the United States.

  As Hillary Clinton learned during the 2008 Democratic primary, and as was parodied on Saturday Night Live at the time, the American mainstream media adored Barack Obama. That made it difficult for legitimate investigations into Obama's record and his past to get any pickup in the press—and if the mainstream media did pick up a story, it was usually to dismiss it. Herb Romerstein and Cliff Kincaid learned this when they held a May 22, 2008, press conference on Capitol Hill to announce the release of two new reports the veteran investigators had produced on presidential candidate Obama's association with extremist elements from the American Left, from Davis to domestic terrorist Communists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

  At the press conference, Romerstein discussed the report on Davis, who he correctly noted was an influential figure in Obama's early life. Romerstein added that Davis had been a member of CPUSA. He developed that fact very carefully in his report, which contained more than a half-dozen primary-source exhibits and other forms of reliable documentation. More than that, he showed that (as we have seen in this book) Davis and his comrades worked to undermine the dearest liberal causes because of their lockstep subservience to the Comintern and the USSR, including flip-flopping on issues as grave as Nazism and World War II based entirely on Stalin's position. Romerstein highlighted another unsavory aspect of Davis's career, demonstrating (again as we have seen) how Davis exploited and subverted the NAACP and the larger civil-rights movement. Laying out this case at length, Romerstein quoted letters from NAACP members like Roy Wilkins and Edward Berman. Berman, recall, wrote Wilkins to warn that “Comrade Davis” and his cohorts were out to “destroy the local branch of the NAACP” after having done the same at another branch, where they “recently ‘sneaked’ into the organization with the avowed intent and purpose of converting it into a front for the Stalinist line.”

  Romerstein, in short, laid out a well-documented and legitimate case. As noted, too, he was an extremely credible source, probably the single most respected authority on American Communism. He was such an authority that the Library of Congress had tasked him to produce an analysis of the Venona papers when the U.S. government finally declassified them in the 1990s. One reason he had earned such a strong reputation as an expert on Communism is that he was fair, precise, nuanced, and knowledgeable, constantly exhorting other researchers to distinguish between “good guys and bad guys,” between mere suspects and the genuinely guilty, between anti-Communist liberals and gullible liberals, between small “c” communists and party members, between practicing Communists and former Communists who cooperated with the FBI.34

  None of that seemed to matter to Dana Milbank, the popular columnist for the Washington Post. Milbank was one of the few high-profile mainstream journalists who bothered to attend the Romerstein-Kincaid press conference on Capitol Hill. Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that he was there to mock the event.35 Milbank did not disappoint. He described the press conference as a new Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, as the 2008 version of the Swift Boat veterans, and cruelly described Romerstein as “a living relic from the House Committee on Un-American Activities.” The whole thing, reported Milbank, sounded “like a UFO convention.” He pooh-poohed the legitimate, quite compelling contention, raised by Romerstein and Kincaid, that Barack Obama's past affiliations were so “dodgy” (Milbank's word) that Obama would have difficulty getting a government security clearance.36

  At the press conference, Milbank asked whether Romerstein and Kincaid were trying to argue that Barack Obama was a communist.37 In other words, what was the point
of this hoopla if Obama was not a communist?

  Of course, no one claimed that Obama had been a member of CPUSA. That was not the issue. The larger point was that Obama's associations were revealing, as was his struggle to distance himself from those associations once some researchers began investigating them. The facts were that many of Obama's friends had been dedicated Marxists, Maoists, and Stalinists; he was party to a long-running personal and professional association with people from the most extreme Left; and he cited some of these people—such as Frank Marshall Davis—as no less than mentors. For any person, such influences from the past are formative. This is why biographers do not hesitate to look at their subjects’ mentors.38 These influential figures are, in fact, the first go-to figures in any historical-biographical narrative. They are never irrelevant or to be completely ignored. The fact that the current president happens to be a liberal Democrat, and his mentor a closet Communist, does not suddenly push the inquiry out of bounds.