Please read this story, “1940 Election Most Corrupt In History; Senate Concludes Presidency Buying Probe,” in context with what I earlier posted at LRC , advising readers to remember and reflect upon the mysterious events surrounding the nomination of “dark horse” presidential candidate Wendell Willkie at the 1940 GOP National Convention as they view what is anticipated to unfold in Tampa in August. With what we now know about the covert activities of the British and their War Party allies in the Roosevelt administration and the northeastern seaboard Establishment, this frank account, “Sworn To Secrecy,” by muckraker George Seldes was directly on-target. Note the anti-British tone. It was written during the Nazi-Soviet Pact period (1939–1941) in which Communists and their fronts, under Soviet direction, maintained a phony non-interventionist stance and charged England and France with starting WWII (which was denounced as an “imperialist” struggle).

 Investigative journalist Seldes was the legendary critic of the mainstream media of that day. Seldes was the author of over 20 powerful and illuminating books on a wide variety of subjects. He was the editor (from 1940 to 1950) of In fact, a four page weekly newsletter which pioneered press criticism and exposure of lies and duplicity by government, corporate, and media officials. George Seldes has been one of my personal heroes because of his constant stress upon power elite analysis in perceiving events. Seldes was also (although he strenuously denied it) a secret member of the Communist Party. His original In fact co-editor Bruce Minton was also a secret Communist and witting agent of the Party’s espionage apparat. Seldes later admitted that the newsletter had been founded at the instigation of the top CPUSA hierarchy and secretly funded by loans from Communist Party leader Earl Browder. According to Minton, the Party wanted an American version of Claud Cockburn’s muckraking London political weekly, The Week (1933–1941). Cockburn was a British Communist journalist specializing in disinformation and agitprop to advance Soviet foreign policy goals and strategies. His publication was secretly subsidized by the Soviet government. Interestingly, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a dedicated and enthusiastic reader of The Week.

The Best of Charles Burris