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I. F. Stone

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I. F. Stone
Stone in April of 1972
Born
Isidor Feinstein

(1907-12-24)December 24, 1907
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
DiedJune 18, 1989(1989-06-18) (aged 81)
Boston, Massachusetts
OccupationInvestigative journalist
SpouseEsther Roisman
Websitehttp://www.ifstone.org

Isidor Feinstein Stone (December 24 1907 – June 18 1989; born Isidor Feinstein, better known as I.F. Stone and Izzy Stone) was an iconoclastic American investigative journalist.[1][2] He is best remembered for his self-published I.F. Stone's Weekly. At its peak in the 1960s, it had a circulation of about 70,000,[3] but was regarded as very influential. In fact, The Weekly was ranked 16th in a poll of his fellow journalists of "The Top 100 Works of Journalism in the United States in the 20th Century".[4]

Biography

Early years

Stone was born Isidor Feinstein in Philadelphia. His parents were Russian Jewish immigrants who owned a store in Haddonfield, New Jersey. His sister is journalist and film critic Judy Stone.[5] He studied philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, and as a student he wrote for The Philadelphia Inquirer.[2]

Stone attended Haddonfield Memorial High School, where he ultimately graduated ranked 49th in his class of 52.[6] He started his own newspaper, the Progress, as a high school sophomore. He later worked for the Haddonfield Press and the Camden Courier-Post. After dropping out of the University of Pennsylvania, he joined the The Philadelphia Inquirer.[2] Influenced by the work of Jack London, he became a radical journalist. In the 1930s, he played an active role in the Popular Front opposition to Adolf Hitler.

Marriage

In 1929, he married Esther Roisman, who later served as his assistant at I.F. Stone's Weekly.[2] They remained married until his death and had three children: Celia (m. Gilbert), Jeremy, and Christopher.

New York Post

Stone moved to the New York Post in 1933 and during this period supported Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. His first book, The Court Disposes (1937), was a critique of the Court's role in blocking New Deal reforms. On the advice of an editor that his political writings would be better received if he were not perceived as Jewish, he changed his name to I. F. Stone in 1937. He would later recall he "still felt badly" about the change, and referred to himself as "Izzy" throughout his career.[7]

The Nation

After leaving the New York Post in 1939, Stone became associate editor and then Washington editor of The Nation.[2] His next book, Business as Unusual (1941), was an attack on the country's failure to prepare for war. Underground to Palestine (1946) dealt with the migration of Eastern European Jews at the end of the Second World War.

At that time he shared many of the Zionists' positions. While he strongly supported the State of Israel, he supported a binational state in which Jews and Palestinians lived together, and he became further sympathetic to the Palestinian cause in the sixties.[2] Being a Jew, his criticisms of Zionism made him the target of Abba Eban's attacks. Along with Noam Chomsky, Stone was called a "neurotic self-hating Jew".[8]

PM

In 1940, Stone joined the progressive afternoon newspaper PM which went under in 1948 and was replaced first by the New York Star and then the Daily Compass until it ceased publication in 1952. A critic of the emerging Cold War, Stone published the Hidden History of the Korean War that same year.[2] One of Stone's more famous books, Hidden History speculated that South Korea initiated hostilities with constant and unprovoked cross-border attacks, and that the United States and Syngman Rhee welcomed the conflict.

I.F. Stone's Weekly

Inspired by the achievements of the muckraking journalist George Seldes and his political weekly, In Fact, Stone started his own political paper, I.F. Stone's Weekly in 1953. Over the next few years, Stone campaigned against McCarthyism and racial discrimination in the United States. In 1964, Stone was the only American journalist to challenge President Johnson's account of the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

During the 1960s, Stone continued to criticize the Vietnam War. His newsletter enjoyed a circulation of 70,000, but in 1971 angina pectoris forced Stone to cease publication. After his retirement, he learned ancient Greek and wrote a book about the prosecution and death of Socrates called The Trial of Socrates, in which he argued that Socrates wanted to be sentenced to death to shame the Athenian democracy, which he despised.

In 1970 Stone received a Special George Polk Award, and in 1976 he received the Conscience-in-Media Award from the American Society of Journalists and Authors.

Death

He died in 1989 in Boston.[2]

Journalistic style

According to Nation Magazine editor Victor Navasky, Stone's journalistic work drew heavily on obscure documents from the public domain; some of his best scoops were discovered by peering through the voluminous official records generated by the government. Navasky also believes that as an outspoken leftist journalist working in often hostile environments, Stone's stories needed to meet an extremely high burden of proof to be considered credible. Navasky argues that most of Stone's articles are very well sourced, typically with official documents. Navasky described Stone's willingness to "scour and devour public documents, bury himself in The Congressional Record, study obscure Congressional committee hearings, debates and reports, all the time prospecting for news nuggets (which would appear as boxed paragraphs in his paper), contradictions in the official line, examples of bureaucratic and political mendacity, documentation of incursions on civil rights and liberties."[9]

For himself, Stone had this to say about his style of reporting:

"I made no claims to inside stuff. I tried to give information which could be documented, so the reader could check it for himself... Reporters tend to be absorbed by the bureaucracies they cover; they take on the habits, attitudes, and even accents of the military or the diplomatic corps. Should a reporter resist the pressure, there are many ways to get rid of him... But a reporter covering the whole capital on his own — particularly if he is his own employer — is immune from these pressures."

Stone's Work for the KGB

The conservative publication Commentary Magazine alleges that Stone was BLIN, the pseudonym of a Soviet agent uncovered by decrypted KGB telegrams. [10]

Stone had, from time to time during World War II and after, lunched with a Soviet Embassy press attaché named Kalugin. Decades later, in an interview with British journalist Andrew Brown, Kalugin alluded to these lunches with a “well-known American journalist” and said that after the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the journalist would not even permit Kalugin to pay for the lunch.

Brown’s report of these lunches applied the word “agent” to the journalist and referred to the journalist telling Kalugin that he “would never again take any money from us.” But Brown said later, after consulting his notes, that he never understood Kalugin to mean “paid” agent, that he used the word “agent” as meaning “useful contact”, and that the “take any money” reference meant that Stone would not permit a Soviet employee to pick up the check for lunch then, or in future, as had sometimes been done before.[11]

When a New York Review of Books editor asked Brown what exactly Kalugin had said, Brown reinterviewed Kalugin to confirm his understanding. In the second interview, Kalugin flatly denied that he had mentioned Stone as a paid agent and said that the reference to money was that Stone “refused to be paid for the lunch. That’s all.” Brown wrote about this in the New York Review of Books.[12]

Brown’s drafting opened the door to an attack on Stone by Herbert Romerstein, a former employee of the House Un-American Activities Committee. His response to Brown’s letter was published in the December 1992 issue of the New York Review of Books.[13]

Others who interviewed Kalugin and received similar comments opposed to Romerstein’s position include Don Guttenplan, who wrote about Kalugin’s denials in both the Nation and the New York Post, and Myra MacPherson, who interviewed Kalugin in 2006 and was told, “We had no clandestine relationship. We had no secret arrangement. I was the press officer...I never paid him anything. I sometimes bought lunch.”[14]

The press attaché, Kalugin, who was working for the KGB undercover, met with many journalists in Washington, including Walter Lippmann, Joseph Kraft, Drew Pearson, Chalmers Robers and Murray Marder of the Washington Post, and others.[15]

According to Kalugin, Stone had followed a practice of having lunch with a Soviet press attaché from time to time, but had broken off this luncheon relationship after his first visit to the Soviet Union in 1956 and after hearing Nikita Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" denouncing Stalin and the tyranny of his regime. Stone had returned home from this trip to Russia and wrote in his newsletter: "Whatever the consequences, I have to say what I really feel after seeing the Soviet Union and carefully studying the statements of its leading officials. This is not a good society and it is not led by honest men." (italics in original)

Stone's editorial comment that "nothing has happened in Russia to justify cooperation abroad between the independent left and the Communists" cost him several hundred subscribers to the Weekly.[16] It is unclear if this was intended to cover his ties with the KGB.

Kalugin stated that later he had persuaded Stone to lunch with him until after the 1968 Czechoslovakian uprising and subsequent quelling of the revolt when Stone angrily refused to let Kalugin pay for the lunch and stopped lunching with him.

Miriam Schneir, writing in The Nation, claimed that Kalugin's memoirs merely mention Stone as one of many "leading journalists and politicians" Kalugin knew in Washington, DC and that "KGB headquarters never said [Stone] had been an agent of our intelligence service..." The only mention of a money matter between Kalugin and Stone was that after the Soviets crushed the Prague Spring, Stone "angrily" refused to let Kalugin pay a lunch tab and (in Schneir's words), "They never met again. End of story."[17]

In their book Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, historians John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr state BLIN in VENONA Project cables is Stone.[18] Venona transcript #1506 October 23 1944, from the New York KGB office to Moscow after a meeting with Vladimir Pravdin states he is "not refusing his aid" but "had three children and did not want to attract the attention of the FBI." Allegedly Stone’s fear "was his unwillingness to spoil his career," since he "earned $1500.00 per month but... would not be averse to having a supplemental income." The FBI, however, never identified Blin/Pancake as Stone but argued among themselves about who Blin was and had another suspect for being Blin named Ernest K. Lindley, who also had three children.[19] It was not until KGB documents became available after the fall of the Soviet Union that the debate was resolved.

Some FBI agents argued that Blin should have been someone “whose true pro-Soviet sympathies were not known to the public...” and hence would not be Stone.[19] Indeed, Stone was not showing any fear of attracting FBI attention as Blin was. On the contrary, Stone suggested to the Soviet press attache Kalugin that they lunch at Harvey’s, a favorite Hoover haunt, to ‘tweak his [Hoover’s] nose.”.[19]

Blin further indicated he wasn't adverse to having a supplementary income.[20]

Walter and Miriam Schneir writing about this particular passage[21] remark at length on the difficulties with the Venona materials (their hearsay nature, with many steps between a conversation and the sending of a cable; language difficulties; possibility of imperfect decryption; etc.), concluding, "the Venona messages are not like the old TV show You Are There, in which history was re-enacted before our eyes. They are history seen through a glass, darkly."

In a 1992 Nation article, D. D. Guttenplan erroneously claimed that the evidence shows clearly that Stone was never a witting collaborator with Soviet intelligence, while leaving open the question of exactly what the Soviets may have meant by the term "agent of influence."[22] Guttenplan was writing before subsequent evidence from KGB archives confirmed Stone's role as a traitor and KGB spy.

Cassandra Tate of the Columbia Journalism Review argues that knowledge of Stone’s involvement with the KGB is based on a few lines at the end of the KGB officer's speech and that after some research into Stone's history she concluded that he was not an "agent" and claims there is no evidence he was a collaborator with the agency.[23]

In 2009, Harvey Klehr, John E. Haynes, and Alexander Vassiliev describe KGB files seen by Vassiliev explicitly naming Isidor Feinstein (that is, Stone) as Blin and describing the KGB's relationships with him, in 1936, as having "entered the channel of normal operational work." Other files describe various tasks Stone performed for the KGB in the 1930s. Klehr, Haynes, and Vassiliev speculate that Stone broke with the KGB after the Nazi-Soviet Pact and that later KGB contacts were in the nature of trying to reactivate the previous relationship. They conclude: "The documentary record shows that I.F. Stone consciously cooperated with Soviet intelligence from 1936 through 1938. An effort was made by Soviet intelligence to reestablish that relationship in 1944-45; we do not know whether that effort succeeded. To put it plainly, from 1936 to 1939 I.F. Stone was a Soviet spy",[24] (see also Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America).[25]

But Jim Naureckas writing for FAIR [26] says Stone was “just gossiping” and picks apart the “nefarious” and “tendentious” way in which “relatively innocuous behavior” is magnified from basically only one anti-fascist maneuver. As for Stone being listed as an “agent”, he notes that Walter Lippmann was listed as an agent also.

Legacy

Composer Scott Johnson makes extensive use of Stone's voice taken from a recorded 1981 lecture in his large-scale musical work, How It Happens, completed in 1991 on commission for the Kronos Quartet.

The 2008 Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards[27] lists Stone's The Trial of Socrates as one his three favorite books.

On March 5, 2008, the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University announced plans to award an annual I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence and an associated I.F. Stone Workshop on Strengthening Journalistic Independence.[28]

In 2008 The Park Center for Independent Media at the Roy H. Park School of Communications created the Izzy Award, named after Stone. The award goes to "an independent outlet, journalist, or producer for contributions to our culture, politics, or journalism created outside traditional corporate structures" for "special achievement in independent media." [29]

References

  1. ^ "I.F. Stone Dies; 'Conscience of Investigative Journalism'". Los Angeles Times. June 19, 1989. Retrieved 2008-04-14. [He] published his first newspaper as a New Jersey schoolboy of 14 and proceeded to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted for the rest of his life. He worked for seven newspapers, was Washington correspondent for The Nation magazine and wrote 13 books. Although his politics were well to the left of center, Stone was best known for a conservative-looking four-page paper, I.F. Stone's Weekly, which he published with his wife, Esther, for 18 years. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Flint, Peter B. (June 19, 1989). "I.F. Stone, Iconoclast of Journalism, Is Dead at 81; His integrity was inspiration and annoyance for decades". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-07-21. I. F. Stone, the independent, radical pamphleteer of American journalism hailed by admirers for scholarship, wit and lucidity and denounced by critics for wrongheadedness and stubbornness, died of a heart attack yesterday in a Boston hospital. He was 81 years old and lived for many years in Washington. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  3. ^ I.F. Stone Weekly (sic), Spartacus Schoolnet, accessed online 21 December 2006.
  4. ^ Top 100 Works of Journalism in the United States in the Twentieth Century, New York University, 1999.
  5. ^ Muckraker, The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 20, 1989. Accessed October 28, 2007. "Born in Philadelphia and raised in Haddonfield, N.J., Mr. Stone worked many years on newspapers in South Jersey, Philadelphia (including a brief period for The Inquirer) and New York..."
  6. ^ Klaidman, Stephen (April 15, 1977). "I. F. Stone Returns to College at 68: Stone Starts A New Career As a Scholar". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2008-04-13. I. F. Stone, a college dropout turned publisher of an incisive Washington newsletter bearing his name, began his academic career rather inauspiciously. He graduated 49th in a class of 52 from Haddonfield (N.J.) High School. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  7. ^ Patner, Andrew, I.F. Stone: A Portrait, New York, Pantheon Books, 1988. 13.
  8. ^ Christiana Voniati's interview with Noam Chomsky
  9. ^ Navasky, Victor, I.F. Stone, The Nation, posted July 2, 2003, July 21, 2003 issue, accessed September 9, 2006.
  10. ^ I.F. Stone, Soviet Agent—Case Closed
  11. ^ Andrew Brown, New York Review of Books, October 8, 1992, “The Attack on I.F. Stone”
  12. ^ Andrew Brown, New York Review of Books, October 8, 1992, “The Attack on I.F. Stone”
  13. ^ "The Attack on I. F. Stone: An Exchange," New York Review of Books, December 3, 1992
  14. ^ MacPherson, Myra, "All Governments Lie," 2006, p. 326
  15. ^ Oleg Kalugin. "The First Directorate."
  16. ^ Robert C. Cottrell. "Izzy." pp. 189–190.
  17. ^ Miriam Schneir, "Stone miscast," The Nation, November 11, 1996.
  18. ^ Venona: Soviet Espionage and the American Response 1939–1957, Part II: Selected Venona Messages on the website of the United States Central Intelligence Agency. Table of Contents. Accessed online September 9, 2006.
  19. ^ a b c Myra MacPherson. "All Governments Lie." 2006.
  20. ^ John Earl Haynes, Venona : Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, Yale University Press, August 11, 2000.
  21. ^ "Cables Coming in From the Cold", The Nation, July 5, 1999 issue.
  22. ^ D.D. Guttenplan, "Izzy an Agent?", The Nation, August 3/10, 1992; Romerstein's letter in response and Guttenplan's "Stone Unturned," September 28, 1992. For a more comprehensive critique of Romerstein's limitations see Stephen Schwartz, "A Tale of Two Venonas" in The Nation, January 8, 2001.
  23. ^ Tate, Cassandra, Who's out to lunch here? I. F. Stone and the KGB, Columbia Journalism Review, November/December 1992. Accessed online September 9, 2006.
  24. ^ I.F. Stone, Soviet Agent—Case Closed
  25. ^ John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander Vassiliev with translations by Philip Redko and Steven Shabad, Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), ISBN: 978-0-300-123990-6, pp. 146-53. They write (p. 150) Quote Stone assisted Soviet intelligence on a number of tasks, ranging from doing some talent spotting, acting as a courier by relaying information to other agents, and providing private journalist tidbits and data the KGB found interesting. Unquote. See also: Don Guttenplan, in a review of the book Spies (The Nation Magazine, May 25, 2009 edition) says, “Spies never explains why we should believe KGB officers, pushed to justify their existence (and expense accounts) when they claim information comes from an elaborately recruited ‘agent’ rather than merely a source or contact.” He says the authors of Spies distorted a report from VENONA 1506 and never proved that Blin was Stone in 1936. He says some charges merely showed that Stone “was a good reporter”. He notes that Walter Lippmann is quoted in Spies as having professional contacts with “a Soviet journalist with whom he traded insights and information.” This is the same man (Pravdin) whom Stone is said to have avoided. Guttenplan's assessment simply says there is no reason to believe KGB archives. Unfortunately, Guttenplan offers no reason why KGB documents written under penalty of recall to Moscow to face death should NOT be believed. Guttenplan offers no evidence that contradicts the KGB documentation. He merely says he does not believe them, but offers no evidence why. Guttenplan offers a minority apologist opinion.
  26. ^ [1]
  27. ^ John Edwards' favorite books
  28. ^ See nieman.harvard.edu, or the "Release notes". On the same day, ifstone.org went public, containing further information on the Harvard project.
  29. ^ The Izzy Award, Izzy Award Home Page, Park Center for Independent Media, retrieved 19-03-2009

Further reading

  • Oleg Kalugin. (1994). The First Directorate. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press.
  • Frank J. Donner. (1980). The Age of Surveillance: The Aims and Methods of America’s Political Intelligence System. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
  • Victor S. Navasky. (1980). Naming Names. New York: The Viking Press.
  • Miriam Schneir, "Stone Miscast," The Nation, November 4, 1996.
  • Ellen Schrecker. 1994. The Age Of McCarthyism: A Brief History With Documents. Boston: St. Martin's Press.
  • Ellen Schrecker. 1998. Many are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America. Boston: Little Brown.
  • Stanley Sandler. 1999. The Korean War, University Press of Kentucky
  • Myra MacPherson. 2006. "All Governments Lie." New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
  • The Estate of I.F. Stone. 2006. "The Best of I.F. Stone." New York, NY: PublicAffairs.
  • John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander Vassiliev with translations by Philip Redko and Steven Shabad, Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009) (ISBN 9780300123906) "I.F. Stone: The Icon" pages 146-52.

Publications

  • The War Years, 1939-1945 ISBN 0316817775
  • The Court Disposes (1937)
  • Business as Usual (1941)
  • Underground to Palestine (1946) ISBN 0394502744
  • This is Israel (1948)
  • The Hidden History of the Korean War, 1950-1951 (1952) ISBN 0316817708
  • The Truman Era, 1945-1952 ISBN 0394719085
  • In a Time of Torment, 1961-1967 (1967) ISBN 0224614649
  • The Haunted Fifties (1969) ISBN 0394705475
  • Polemics and Prophecies, 1967-1970 (1970) ISBN 0316817473
  • The Killings at Kent State (1971) LCCN 73148389
  • The I.F. Stone's Weekly Reader (1973) ISBN 0394488156
  • The Trial of Socrates (1988) ISBN 0385260326

Biographies

  • Andrew Patner. (1988). I.F. Stone: A Portrait, Pantheon.
  • Robert C. Cottrell. (1992). Izzy: A Biography of I.F. Stone, New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.
  • Myra MacPherson. (2006). ALL GOVERNMENTS LIE - The Life and Times of Rebel Journalist I.F. Stone, Scribner.

Awards

  • Newspaper Guild of New York Honors Page One Must for "Underground to Palestine" awarded in 1947
  • The Eleanor Roosevelt Award
  • The George Polk Award of Long Island University
  • American Library Association Intellectual Freedom Award
  • John's Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies Award
  • Lifetime Achievement Award from Haddenfield High School (I.F. Stone's high school)
  • A.J. Liebling Award for Journalistic Distinction
  • Columbia University Journalism Award
  • National Press Club Journalists' Journalist Award
  • ACLU Award
  • The First Amendment Defender Award of the Catholic Univ. Law School
  • The Florina Lasker Civil Liberties Award from NY Civil Liberties Union
  • The Le Prix Charles-Leopold of the Mayer Institut de France 11/77
  • The Sidney Hillman Foundation Award
  • The Professional Freedom and Responsibility Award of the Association for Education In Journalism & Mass Communications
  • The ACLU Award
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