NYT editor discusses his father’s Communist past

posted at 10:30 am on November 6, 2007 by Bryan

This has to be the least surprising article of the day. After all, the New York Times was home to Walter Duranty, the reporter who won a Pulitzer whitewashing Stalin’s genocide. The New York Times also employed Harrison Salisbury, the reporter who accused the US of targeting women and children in North Vietnam. His reporting made LBJ gun shy, prolonged the war and contributed to the Communist victory there. In the current war, the New York Times has repeatedly disclosed top secret information that only helps the terrorists escape detection. So now we find out that one of its old hands was an old Communist. How…unsurprising.

The article is an interview with Andrew Rosenthal, editor of the NYT’s editorial page. His father, Abe Rosenthal, wrote for the NYT for decades. I don’t want to make too much of this, since Abe could have renounced Communism at some point (though the article doesn’t say if or when he did), but it’s just not shocking that the Times had at least a former Commie on its staff.

Do you want to talk about your father’s unlikely party affiliation?
His communism?

Yes.
That was quite a revelation. My father was a member of the Communist Youth Party, or whatever it was called at the time.

This was a letter that you found from your aunt?
It was a letter from my aunt Ruth, who I never met, to her husband, George Watt, who was fighting in the Spanish Civil War in the Abraham Lincoln brigade. And they corresponded. She wrote one day that she had gone down to youth headquarters. Because it was “Sonny’s” first day as a party member.

And we’re sure Sonny was Abe?
There is no other Sonny. That was him.

There is one surprising part in that: That a NYT writer’s affiliation with Communism would be seen as “unlikely.”

(h/t NROC)

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Does this mean we can now officially refer to Times Square as Red Square?

trubble on November 6, 2007 at 10:41 AM

He thinks Montclair, NJ, is the “last liberal bastion”? What does that tell you about where his compass points?

rivlax on November 6, 2007 at 10:43 AM

The first time Arthur said to me, “We should immediately withdraw from Iraq,” was in April of 2004.
He was ahead of the page.

Yeah, because nothing says “being ahead of the page”, like surrendering to terrorists in a recently-liberated country.

We did a huge piece on why we were wrong on WMD’s—it filled the entire page.

It’s easy to be an armchair quarterback the day after the game, isn’t it?

amerpundit on November 6, 2007 at 10:45 AM

Did the apple fall far from the tree?

Mallard T. Drake on November 6, 2007 at 10:46 AM

In the words of R. Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket,

“Well. No sh*t.”

Dr.Cwac.Cwac on November 6, 2007 at 10:53 AM

Abe was actually a good guy. And was anti-communist, at least as an adult.

He wasn’t a conservative, but he was often at odds with liberals, and I think that’s what led the Times to push him out.

Attila (Pillage Idiot) on November 6, 2007 at 11:06 AM

Rosenthall …

“And we’re working very hard on the Republicans. I know this is goofy, but we will pick a Republican candidate, too. We always do. My explanation to people is that we believe in democracy.”

Well, straightaway I’m impressed with this so-called journalist’s vocabulary. “Goofy” really brings it home. Inexplicable might have been a better choice of words, considering the source.

One would think choosing a candidate from each party would be fair and balanced reporting. Rosenthal makes it clear he doesn’t ride that bus, by offering an explanation for going counter to normal NYT policy.

Nope, no bias at the New York Times.

fogw on November 6, 2007 at 11:14 AM

Andy Rooney admitted he was a Communist as a kid in his autobiography. I suspect there are legions of commies and former commies who have written for the East Coast media and legions of their red diaper babies who have taken up the struggle in their place.

Tantor on November 6, 2007 at 11:39 AM

“Did you see Minority Report with Tom Cruise? There was a scene in the movie on a subway and everybody was sitting there reading a paper. And they were basically just plastic sheets of something. And it [the text] appears on there. Something like that, which costs a minimal amount to buy, has a battery that is easy to replace, or you just throw away and recycle. And you can receive your subscriptions on it. Whatever you want. Arranged however you want. That’s passive and wireless, and therefore updatable. That starts to sound like a replacement for the newspaper” AR
This guy is amazimg he can see the futurepresent.This sounds alot like the internets on a laptop to me.

sonnyspats1 on November 6, 2007 at 11:45 AM

Be careful about throwing stones too quickly.

In the 1930s a lot of good people turned to communism (before Stalin kissed Adolph’s ass with the non-aggression pact). Up until the invasion of Poland (when the world saw Stalin would make a deal with any devil), the communists were the only significant global political movement firmly opposed to Nazism. The western democracies were doing little or nothing to oppose Hitler. Furthermore, in the US FDR’s programs often seemed to pick the worst aspects of communism and fascism (not sure if there were positive aspects).

As we all know, most US commies turned away from all the Red during the ’40s and ’50s. Now its popularity comes and goes like fashion. I always enjoy meeting college pukes that are reading and believing Marx and Lenin. The vast majority of them turn into the strongest supporters of free markets you’ll ever meet, once they get jobs.

doufree on November 6, 2007 at 11:46 AM

Hey Bryan,

Where’d you get that Harry and the Hendersons screencap from?

You evil man.

Dave Shay on November 6, 2007 at 11:50 AM

I found this hilarious:

We have Stanley Fish, who is our curmudgeonly semiconservative guy.

Anyone who describes Stanley Fish as even SEMI-conservative is seriously deluded. The former head of Duke’s English Department, a “semiconservative” — ROFLMAO!

Lehuster on November 6, 2007 at 12:03 PM

He thinks Montclair, NJ, is the “last liberal bastion”? What does that tell you about where his compass points?

Holy crap thanks for posting that. I’d have missed it. I live in Montclair so this is especially amusing to me.

Dash on November 6, 2007 at 12:09 PM

Did the apple fall far from the tree?

Mallard T. Drake on November 6, 2007 at 10:46 AM

And is he a red apple as well?

Rick on November 6, 2007 at 12:09 PM

Geez, do they all have to look like that? Creepy!

sharinlite on November 6, 2007 at 12:20 PM

They’re not liberals. They’re Bolsheviks.

Ali-Bubba on November 6, 2007 at 12:22 PM

We don’t call them communists or socialists anymore…they are lumped together and called progressives.

right2bright on November 6, 2007 at 12:33 PM

Disgusting.

I often wonder how these people think. I often chalk it up to a vast difference in values because I am from the South (pull yourself up by the bootstraps individualism) and they are from the North (old money and elitism).

____ Yankees.

Loundry on November 6, 2007 at 12:55 PM

We don’t call them communists or socialists anymore…they are lumped together and called progressives.

right2bright on November 6, 2007 at 12:33 PM

Please do not deny “progressives” their hard-earned scare quotes!

Loundry on November 6, 2007 at 12:57 PM

We don’t call them communists or socialists anymore…they are lumped together and called progressives.

right2bright on November 6, 2007 at 12:33 PM

I thought they were (collectively) called Democrats now??

Rick on November 6, 2007 at 1:21 PM

Looking at the thumbnail pic: Ace writes for the NYT? No wonder he keeps quiet about his identity!

Oh well, it’s out now.

see-dubya on November 6, 2007 at 1:29 PM

Be careful about throwing stones too quickly.
In the 1930s a lot of good people turned to communism (before Stalin kissed Adolph’s ass with the non-aggression pact). Up until the invasion of Poland (when the world saw Stalin would make a deal with any devil), the communists were the only significant global political movement firmly opposed to Nazism.

doufree on November 6, 2007 at 11:46 AM

In the late 20′s, the Communist/Stalinist collectivization began in Ukraine. As a result, and by the early 30′s, millions of Ukrainians died of collectivized starvation. This extermination was by design, inasmuch as Ukraine was separatist and, also, anti-Communist and anti-Stalinist. This resulted in the purging of the kulaks, the collectivization of the land, the extermination of millions of Ukrainians [by designed starvation] – all for the glory of Stalin and the Communist Utopia. I would suggest reading The Harvest of Sorrow - by Robert Conquest.

Accordingly, I have a hard time with your statement that “the communists were the only significant global political movement firmly opposed to Nazism.” So what? Both “political movements” were “movements” of extermination and suppression. Accordingly, the Communists were no better than the Nazis. There is no room for any Soviet apologists, whatsoever. The fact that the Soviet Union opposed the Nazis is irrelevant. The Eastern Front was simply one grotesque evil, battling another. The Great Purges of the mid-30′s, the police state and the creation of the Gulag system [resulting in the extermination of even more millions] all serve to prove that the Communists and the Nazis were one and the same – pure, unadulterated evil.

OhEssYouCowboys on November 6, 2007 at 1:35 PM

This is kind of a stretch to make some point, re: NYT is so left wing because its employees are proto-commies or some such thing.

Well, typically people join commie party groups not out of blind ignorance only to get converted, but rather because such groups align with their own existing personalities and belief systems.

Neo on November 6, 2007 at 2:29 PM

Be careful about throwing stones too quickly.

In the 1930s a lot of good people turned to communism (before Stalin kissed Adolph’s ass with the non-aggression pact). Up until the invasion of Poland (when the world saw Stalin would make a deal with any devil), the communists were the only significant global political movement firmly opposed to Nazism. The western democracies were doing little or nothing to oppose Hitler. Furthermore, in the US FDR’s programs often seemed to pick the worst aspects of communism and fascism (not sure if there were positive aspects).

doufree on November 6, 2007 at 11:46 AM

We can throw all the stones we want to at the commies. You are correct the Communist opposed the Nazis, but that didn’t make them the good guys. Both the Communist and the Nazis were socialist and totalitarian. The Communist just wanted the power for themselves, like so many other political factions at the time. They were both evil. But Hitler had more political strings to pull and eventually the power fell to him. The Communist may have been just as bad if they would have won the power struggle. And let me remind you that in American politics Communism and Nazism are both on the left because they are both socialistic and totalitarian.

Communism, Nazism, socialism, fascism, it’s all pretty much the same thing, no property rights, no freedom, little or no capitalism, they are all totalitarian in nature. For the most part, its only the uniforms that change.

Maxx on November 6, 2007 at 2:52 PM

Do you want to talk about your father’s unlikely party affiliation?
His communism?

Yes.
That was quite a revelation. My father was a member of the Communist Youth Party, or whatever it was called at the time.

So the libtard never suspected a thing when daddy came home and spouted Stalinist propaganda?

For all I know, that might actually be true. Considering this guy’s career path, odds are he probably lived in a bubble where he never even met anyone more conservative than his father.

logis on November 6, 2007 at 3:08 PM

Though the Wikipedia is a dubious source, it tends to confirm my impression that Abe — were he still alive –would be considered an evil neocon. Salon — another dubious source — confirms my impression that his last columns for the NYT were “a bastion of conservatism on the largely liberal-leaning editorial pages.”

Karl on November 6, 2007 at 3:13 PM

Guys-
Either I’m old (is 46 old around her?) or you guys are really young- but do you really not know who AM Rosenthal is? I assume that’s the Abe we’re discussing.
He and Bill Safire were the rotating conservative columnists at the times- both GREAT men.
He would certainly be considered a neo-con today, and if I had to guess, probably a [Scoop] Jackson Democrat to the core.
If he was stinkin’ commie, he sure epitimized Churchill’s quote about growing up and having brains. (google it).
Seriously, he was one of the only columns I used to read- almost all the others had me pulling the hair out of my head.
Demonize the NYT-good
Demonize AM Rosenthal- bad

marks on November 6, 2007 at 3:38 PM

Joe McCarthy isn’t looking so crazy now.

SoulGlo on November 6, 2007 at 4:20 PM

Papa was rolling stone, wherever he laid his manifesto was his home.

Teddy on November 6, 2007 at 4:54 PM

This is the New York Times, where one Sulzberger replaces another Sulzberger as publisher and one Rosenthal replaces another Rosenthal as editor. You know, the same New York Times that criticized Commentary magazine for “nepotism” when they named John Podhoretz editor, a position his father Norman held for a long time.

rokemronnie on November 6, 2007 at 7:25 PM

Demonize the NYT-good
Demonize AM Rosenthal- bad
marks on November 6, 2007 at 3:38 PM

Tass and Pravda had shills who presented alternate viewpoints as well. That doesn’t necessarily mean they were “angelic” people.

And by the same token, of course it’s more than a little idiotic to imagine that either Rosenthal was ever acting at cross-purposes to the New York Times.

logis on November 6, 2007 at 8:51 PM

Joe McCarthy isn’t looking so crazy now.
SoulGlo on November 6, 2007 at 4:20 PM

Have you ever read Ann Coulter’s Treason? Joe McCarthy’s accusations weren’t merely sane. And they weren’t merely justifiable; all of his accusations were proven to be 100% TRUE by now-declassified Soviet documents.

I suppose some people can debate whether the folks McCarthy accused were “demons,” but that’s really beside the point. They weren’t just sympathetic to Communism, they were all directly working for the intelligence agencies of enemies of the United States of America.

logis on November 6, 2007 at 9:02 PM

I Agree With Ann Coulter

Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com
Wednesday, July 9, 2003

As might have been expected, Ann Coulter has created a firestorm with her sensational new best-selling book, “Treason – Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism.”

Naturally, liberals and Democrats – pretty much the same thing – are infuriated at being indicted as a class of dedicated anti-Americans who, beginning with the Cold War, found much to be admired in the international communist conspiracy and much to be hated in their own United States of America.

Unexpected has been the reaction of such conservatives as Andrew Sullivan who are offended by Ann’s no-holds-barred polemical style and appear to have been infected by the anti-Joe McCarthy virus.

In “Treason” Coulter tells us that everything we know about Joe McCarthy is a lie. She lays out the evidence for this assertion but her critics ignore it. It is, to them, an article of faith that Joe was the devil incarnate, and no one can be allowed to shatter that illusion.

“The myth of ‘McCarthyism’ is the greatest Orwellian fraud of our times,” she wrote. “Liberals are fanatical liars, then as now. The portrayal of Senator Joe McCarthy as a wild-eyed demagogue destroying innocent lives is sheer liberal hobgoblinism. Liberals weren’t hiding under the bed during the McCarthy era. They were systematically undermining the nation’s ability to defend itself, while waging a bellicose campaign of lies to blacken McCarthy’s name.”

It is claimed that McCarthy was wrong in claiming that there was a plague of Communist subversion afflicting the government. Release of the Venona intercepts and other documents concerning the extent of communist subversion disproved that lie.

It is claimed that Joe McCarthy persecuted innocent people and that Americans trembled in fear that they would be caught up in Joe’s net, but the record shows that no such reign of terror ever existed. The only people who trembled were those with secrets concerning their flirtations with Communism or who had something else to hide. And the liberals can’t point to a single one of those people Joe ever attacked. As Coulter insists, McCarthy’s only targets concerned subversives in the government.

McCarthy was castigated for attacking Gen. Ralph Zwicker, who was portrayed by the media and the liberals as a staunch and honest Army officer. But in testimony before the McClellan Committee on March 23, 1955, Zwicker denied giving McCarthy aide George Anastos derogatory information about Irving Peress, – who McCarthy charged had been promoted despite the fact he was a communist – in their telephone conversation of Jan. 22, 1954.

http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/7/8/211358.shtml

Speakup on November 6, 2007 at 10:15 PM

Shocked.

saint kansas on November 7, 2007 at 3:30 AM

The communist apple does NOT fall far from the tree!

georgej on November 7, 2007 at 8:09 AM