Supporting Democracy,
Freedom of Speech,
and Political Rights

We are at War with Communism

    [1968]
 


John A. Stormer


Two weeks after Lee Harvey Oswald killed President Kennedy on the streets of Dallas, Texas, FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover warned America with these words:
    We are at war with communism and the sooner every red-blooded American realizes this the safer we will be.[1]
The communists are waging their war against the United States on many fronts - with a variety of weapons. Fire­bombs and sniper bullets are used in the streets of America - missiles and MIGs in Vietnam. Filthy books, dirty movies, and burned draft cards are weapons in the communist war to corrupt America's youth. Less spectacular, but equally deadly battles are being fought with legal briefs before the Supreme Court of the United States.

J. Edgar Hoover issued his warning in December 1963. Since then...
    ... Red bullets have killed three times more Americans in Vietnam than were were killed in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and the Spanish-American War combined.[2]
As these Americans died in Vietnam, firebomb throwing mobs, led by communist-agitated and trained revolutionaries, killed over 150 people, injured several thousand others and destroyed property worth $1-billion in 100 American cities. America is not winning the war with communism because America's people seem strangely unable - or unwilling - to face the fact that we are at war. America is losing the war with communism because the President, the Congress, and the Supreme Court won't decide which side they should be on. Unbelievable? Consider this strange sequence of events:

On July 28, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson told a nation­wide TV audience that America was undertaking a massive military buildup in Vietnam to deal the communists "death and desolation" if that must be the path to a just peace.[3] Within 30 months, nearly 150,000 young Americans were killed or wounded in the effort.

By sending these men to fight in Southeast Asia, President Johnson seemingly recognized communism as an enemy. However, as they suffered and died his administration...
    ... made agreements to sell or give the Soviet Union and her communist satellites hundreds of millions of dollars worth of food, electronic computers, chemical plants, oil refinery equipment, airborne radar apparatus, jet aircraft engines, machine tools for an $800-million auto assembly plant, and military rifles.[4]
Each of these shipments were designated as "non-­strategic" by Washington. However, they all increased the war-making potential of Soviet industry at a time when Russian factories were the major source of supply for the guns, bullets, MIG airplanes and surface-to-air missiles the Viet Cong was using to kill thousands of Americans.

As young Americans fought against communism in Viet­nam, the Supreme Court of the United States...
    ... gave communists the right to teach in America's public schools by declaring a New York state law against communist teachers unconstitutional. Jobs in defense plants were also opened to members of communist action groups by Supreme Court decision.[5]
As young Americans died fighting against communism in Vietnam, President Johnson, the State Department, and the U.S. Senate...
    ...granted the Soviet Union the right to open diplomatic offices in a dozen additional American cities. The treaty was approved even though J. Edgar Hoover had warned earlier that existing Red embassies are the principal bases for the communist espionage network in America.[6]
At a time when the Soviet Union was supplying the MIGs and missiles which were killing American boys in Vietnam, the U.S. Senate approved a treaty with communist Russia which...
    ...denies America the right to fully develop, test, and deploy advanced space-type weapons needed to strengthen our defenses in the future. No inspection provisions were included to safeguard against possible destruction of America by a sneak attack if the communists cheat.[7]
Efforts to stop foreign aid to the communists and their allies have been regularly defeated in Congress. On No­vember 8, 1967, Congressman H. R. Gross (R-lowa) tried to amend the foreign aid bill to prohibit American foreign aid grants to nations which trade with North Vietnam. Congress defeated the amendment by a vote of 200 to 196.[8]

The time has come for Americans to ask, "Which side are they on?"



THE WAR IN THE STREETS

Washington follows the same pattern of "fight them with one hand and aid them with the other" in dealing with the agitators who are fomenting the war in America's streets. Billions of dollars have been appropriated by Congress to finance a "war on poverty." Such spending is supposed to eliminate the slum conditions which agitators exploit to start riots.

Any merit such an approach might have had was can­celled out when communists and other agitators were hired to administer the "war on poverty." Dozens of agitators paid with federal funds were directly involved in provoking the disastrous wave of riots which spread across America in the summer of 1967.[9] Washington, though warned in advance of the activities of the agitators, refused to take action. On May 25, 1967, six weeks before the rioting broke out in Newark, N.J., Police Director Dominick A. Spina sent Sar­gent Shriven, director of the U.S. Office of Economic Op­portunity, this telegram­:

I strongly protest the use of resources and manpower from the United Community Corporation, an agency of the Office of Economic Op­portunity for the purpose of foment­ing and agitating against the organized and democratic government of Newark.

The United Community Corporation has rented... ve­hicles to use to agitate against the Planning Board of the City of Newark and the Board of Education. Persons employed by UCC have told us they have been threatened with loss of their jobs if they do not participate in picketing and demonstrations against the agencies and government of Newark. I feel that this is directly opposed to the purpose of the anti-poverty funds and ask that such practices be stopped immediately. The acceleration of this kind of prac­tice by this anti-poverty agency will undoubtedly lead to riots and anarchy in our city. I request immediate response.[10]

Shriver rejected the pleas of the Newark police official. Six weeks later riots and anarchy did come to Newark. Property worth millions of dollars was burned and looted. After 26 persons were killed and 1000 injured, the flames lighted in Newark spread to Detroit, Milwaukee, Minnea­polis and 40 other American cities.

In the aftermath of the riots, it was disclosed that in city after city across America war-on-poverty officials and employees helped fan the flames of rioting, looting and violence. In Newark, police charged that literature telling how to make Molotov cocktails (firebombs) was produced on mim­eograph machines in Newark war-on-poverty offices. Commenting on the report, the syndicated columnists Novak and Evans said:
    Even the liberals concede this may be so and should be investigated.[11]
Whether facing the war in Vietnam or the war in the streets, Washington fights communism with one hand - and finances it with the other.



THE REAL THREAT

The real threat to America's future comes not from doublemindedness in the White House, communist-agitated mobs, nor a Supreme Court which opens public schools to communist teachers while declaring Bible reading and prayer unconstitutional. Apathetic citizens who read of near-­treasonable acts on the front pages of daily newspapers and do nothing are the real problem. If during World War II, for example, a member of the U.S. Senate had encouraged college students to collect blood for Hitler's SS Troops, it is doubtful whether the American people would have bothered with the formality of a treason trial.

In 1965, while the communists were killing and wounding 1000 Americans a week in Vietnam, Senator Robert Kennedy (D-NY) told students at the University of California that donating their blood for the communist North Vietnamese would be in "the oldest tradition of this country."[12] His statement - in the tradition of Benedict Arnold - provoked little more protest than a few mild editorials in conservative newspapers.

During an 8000-mile cross-country tour in the summer of 1967 New York Times columnist James Reston sensed the deep-seated apathy with which Americans are afflicted. He wrote:
    If you go across the country and talk at random to any­body you meet about the riots and war, you get a very confused and even contradictory impression... In general, people are prosperous and remote from the crises at home and abroad. They are vaguely troubled about Detroit and Saigon, but the fighting does not directly affect the lives of the majority and anyway, they don't seem to feel they can do anything about it.[13]
People are prosperous. They don't like to face unpleas­antness. As long as the average American has money in his pocket, he ignores any sign that warns of serious trouble in Washington - unless his son gets sent to Vietnam, his wife gets mugged or raped on a dark street, or a mob burns his home down. Such an attitude can destroy a country built on the concept of "government of the people, by the people, and for the people."





References


[1] Speech, J. Edgar Hoover, New York City, Dec. 14, 1963

[2] Table, U.S. Casualties in Major Wars, Information Please Almana­c, 1958, Pg. 414

[3] AP, St. Louis Globe Democrat, Jul. 29, 1965

[4] St. Louis Globe Democrat, Oct. 19, 1965; Feb. 21, 1966; Mar. ­21, 1966; Jan. 12, 1964; Minnea­polis Tribune, Sep. 29, 1966; St. Louis Post Dispatch, Aug. 9, 1967

[5] St. Louis Post Dispatch, Jan. 23, 1967; AP, Buffalo Courier Express, Dec. 12, 1967

[6] AP, St. Louis Globe Democrat, Mar. 17, 1967; J. Edgar Hoover, House Subcommittee on Approprations, Mar. 4, 1965; pg. 67-69

[7] Ibid., Apr. 26, 1967

[8] Congressional Record, Nov. 8, 1967

[9] See Chapter IV

[10] Congressional Record, Jul. 18, 1967

[11] St. Louis Post Dispatch, Jul. 18, 1967

[12] St. Louis Globe Democrat, Nov. 19, 1965

[13] St. Louis Post Dispatch, Aug. 10, 1967




From chapter one of John A. Stormer's The Death of a Nation (1968).


John A. Stormer was the author of None Dare Call It Treason, which was - by 1968 - noted by The New York Times as the biggest selling political paperback book in history (not to be confused with None Dare Call It Conspiracy by Gary Allen). A committed Christian, licenced to preach the Gospel by the Lackland Road Baptist Church (Overland, Missouri), Stormer was on the executive committee of the International Council of Christian Churches, a worldwide organisation of 122 denominations who were not affiliated with the liberal World Council of Churches. He also served on the Missouri Republican State Committee, and was state chairman of the Missouri Federation of Young Republicans (1962-64).

The title of the book comes from a poem by Sir John Harrington:
Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason


 
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