| I. F. Stone | |
Stone in April of 1972
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| Born | Isidor Feinstein December 24, 1907 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
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| Died | June 18, 1989 (aged 81) Boston, Massachusetts |
| Occupation | Investigative journalist |
| Spouse | Esther Roisman |
| Website http://www.ifstone.org |
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Isidor Feinstein Stone (December 24, 1907 &ndash June 18, 1989; born Isidor Feinstein, better known as I. Events 563 - The Byzantine church Hagia Sophia in Constantinople is dedicated for the second time after being destroyed by Earthquakes Year 1907 ( MCMVII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year Philadelphia (ˌfɪləˈdɛlfiə Events 618 - Coronation of the Chinese governor Li Yuan as Emperor Gaozu of Tang, the new Emperor of China, initiating three centuries Year 1989 ( MCMLXXXIX) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link displays 1989 Gregorian calendar) Investigative journalism is a type of reporting in which reporters deeply investigate a topic of interest often involving crime Political corruption, or some other Scandal Events 563 - The Byzantine church Hagia Sophia in Constantinople is dedicated for the second time after being destroyed by Earthquakes Year 1907 ( MCMVII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year Events 618 - Coronation of the Chinese governor Li Yuan as Emperor Gaozu of Tang, the new Emperor of China, initiating three centuries Year 1989 ( MCMLXXXIX) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link displays 1989 Gregorian calendar) F. Stone and Izzy Stone) was an iconoclastic American investigative journalist. Iconoclasm, Greek for "image-breaking" is the deliberate destruction within a culture of the culture's own religious Icons and other symbols or monuments The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Investigative journalism is a type of reporting in which reporters deeply investigate a topic of interest often involving crime Political corruption, or some other Scandal [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, "The Top 100 Works of Journalism in the United States in the 20th Century". [4]
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Stone was born Isidor Feinstein in Philadelphia. Philadelphia (ˌfɪləˈdɛlfiə His parents were Russian Jewish immigrants who owned a store in Haddonfield, New Jersey. Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending PLEASE TAKE NOTE************ New Jersey ( is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. [5] He studied philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, and as a student he wrote for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence knowledge truth beauty justice validity mind and language The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn) is a private University located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. The Philadelphia Inquirer is a morning daily Newspaper that serves the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area of the United [2]
Stone attended Haddonfield Memorial High School, where he ultimately graduated ranked 49th in his class of 52. Haddonfield Memorial High School is a four-year comprehensive Public high school that serves students in ninth through twelfth grade from Haddonfield, in Camden [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. The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn) is a private University located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. [2] Influenced by the work of Jack London, he became a radical journalist. Jack London (January 12 1876 &ndash November 22 1916 was an American author who wrote The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and The In the 1930s, he played an active role in the Popular Front opposition to Hitler. A popular front is a broad Coalition of different political groupings often made up of leftists and centrists who are united by opposition to another group Hi and welcome to Wikipedia! Please understand that this article is frequently vandalized and vandalism is reverted immediately
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. Jeremy J Stone was president of the Federation of American Scientists from 1970 to 2000 where he led that organization's advocacy initiatives in Arms control,
Stone moved to the New York Post in 1933 and during this period supported Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. The New York Post is the 13th-oldest Newspaper published in the United States and generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continually The New Deal was the name that United States President Franklin D 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]
After leaving the New York Post in 1939, Stone became associate editor and then Washington editor of The Nation. The New York Post is the 13th-oldest Newspaper published in the United States and generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continually Washington DC ( formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D This article is about the US Publication. For other newspapers magazines and alternate uses by the same name see The Nation (disambiguation. [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. Eastern Europe is a general term that refers to the Geopolitical region encompassing the easternmost part of the European continent. PLEASE TAKE NOTE************ World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including
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. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Israel topics. [2]
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. PM was a leftist daily newspaper in New York City published by Ralph Ingersoll from June 1940 to June 1948, and bankrolled A critic of the emerging Cold War, Stone published the Hidden History of the Korean War that same year. Cold War is the state of conflict tension and competition that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR and their respective allies from the [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. Syngman Rhee or Yi Seungman ( March 26, 1875 – July 19, 1965) was the first president of South Korea.
Inspired by the achievements of the muckraking journalist George Seldes and his political weekly, In Fact, Stone started his own political paper, I. George Seldes ( November 16, 1890 &ndash July 2, 1995) was an influential American Investigative journalist and media critic F. Stone's Weekly in 1953. Over the next few years, Stone campaigned against McCarthyism and racial discrimination in the United States. McCarthyism is a term describing the intense anti-communist suspicion in the United States in a period that lasted roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s List of racism-related topics|Racism by country Racism, by its simplest definition is the belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that In 1964, Stone was the only American journalist to challenge President Johnson's account of the Gulf of Tonkin incident. The Gulf of Tonkin, in Vietnamese: Vịnh Bắc Bộ or in Chinese: Beibu Wan is an arm of the South China Sea.
During the 1960s, Stone continued to criticize the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, or the Vietnam Conflict, occurred in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia His newsletter enjoyed a circulation of 70,000, but in 1971, angina pectoris forced Stone to cease publication. Angina pectoris, commonly known as angina, is severe Chest pain due to Ischemia (a lack of blood and hence Oxygen supply of the heart 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. The Ancient Greek language is the historical stage in the development of the Hellenic language family spanning the Archaic (c SOCRATES is the European Community action programme in the field of Education. The trial of Socrates refers to the Trial and the subsequent execution of the Athenian Philosopher Socrates in 399 BC.
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. The George Polk Awards are a series of American journalism awards issued annually by Long Island University in Brooklyn. The Conscience-in-Media Award is presented by the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA to Journalists that the society deems worthy of recognition The American Society of Journalists and Authors ( ASJA) was founded in 1948 as the Society of Magazine Writers and is an organization of independent nonfiction writers in the
He died in 1989 in Boston. [2]
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. Victor S Navasky (b July 5, 1932) is a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. 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. "[8]
For himself, Stone had this to say about his style of reporting:
Evidence from decrypted KGB telegrams from America to Moscow suggests that someone code-named Blin was approached by the KGB during the Second World War, when the U. S. and Soviet Union were allied. But some have suggested that Blin was Stone. But these Venona telegrams provide "no evidence" whatsoever that the KGB succeeded in recruiting Blin to do anything. [9] As indicated below, there are many reasons to think Blin was someone else. Furthermore, records of investigations of Stone through the 1970s by the FBI, CIA, Army, State Department, and U. S. Postal Service have been declassified; years of tailing by agents, informants, illegal car searches, and even pawing through his trash produced not a shred of evidence of clandestine activities. [10]
Stone had, from time to time, during World War II and after, lunched with a Soviet Embassy press attaché named Kalugin. There is no evidence that Stone knew that Kalugin was working for the KGB but he was. And 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]
But Brown’s unfortunate drafting had opened the door to an attack on Stone by Herbert Romerstein, a former employee of the House Unamerican Activities Committee. His point of view is amply described in his response to Brown’s letter in the December, 1992 issue of the New York Review of Books. [13]
A companion response by a lawyer Martin Garbus, who had had dealings with Romerstein, calls Romerstein “utterly untrustworthy”. Garbus, who had interviewed Kalugin himself said that Kalugin had told him that Romerstein had “misreported” a conversation which Romerstein had had with Kalugin. Garbus said “the entire story circulated by Romerstein and Accuracy in Media, the right wing pressure group, is scurrilous and false. ” [14]
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. ” [15]
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. [16]
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 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 conclusion 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. [17]
Kalugin stated that later, Kalugin 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, said 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. Washington DC ( formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D The Prague Spring ( Czech: Pražské jaro, Slovak: Pražská jar) was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during End of story. " [18]
In their book Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, historians John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr identify Stone as BLIN in VENONA Project cables. The Venona project was a long-running and highly secret collaboration between Intelligence agencies of the United States and United Kingdom that involved [19] 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. Events 4004 BC - Creation of the world begins according to the calculations of Archbishop James Ussher 42 BC - Year 1944 ( MCMXLIV) was a Leap year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Vladimir Pravdin or Roland Abbiate (born August 15, 1905) He was born in London and lived at one time in the United States during the early twenties " 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. " But the FBI never identified Blin/Pancake as Stone but argued among themselves about who Blin was and had another suspect for being Blin who also had three children named Ernest K. Lindley. [20]. Some FBI agents noted that Blin should have been someone “whose true pro-Soviet sympathies were not known to the public. . . ” and hence could not be Stone and the agents gave other reasons also. [21] Indeed, Stone was not showing any fear of attracting FBI attention as was Blin. 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. ”[22]. So Blin may have been afraid of attracting Hoover’s attention but Stone was not. Hence Blin was not Stone.
Klehr and Haynes, who reported the cable contents, state that there is no evidence in Venona that the KGB had recruited Blin. [23]
Walter and Miriam Schneir writing about this particular passage[24] 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. Not to be confused with Heresy. Hearsay is a legal term referring to the use of out of court statements as evidence ), concluding, "the Venona messages are not like the old TV show You Are There, in which history was re-enacted before our eyes. You Are There is the fourth album by Japanese Post-rock band Mono, released in 2006 They are history seen through a glass, darkly. "
In a 1992 Nation article, D. D. Guttenplan claims 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". [25]
Cassandra Tate, of the Columbia Journalism Review, argues that accusations of Stone’s involvement with the KGB are 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 there is no evidence he was a collaborator with the agency. The Columbia Journalism Review (CJR is an American magazine for professional journalists published bimonthly by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism [26]
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. Scott Johnson (born 1952 is an American Composer known for his pioneering use of recorded speech as musical melody Kronos Quartet is a String quartet founded by Violinist David Harrington in 1973
The 2008 Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards[27] lists Stone's The Trial of Socrates as one his three favorite books. Johnny Reid "John" Edwards (born June 10 1953
On March 5, 2008, the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University announced plans to award an annual I. The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University was established at Harvard in 1937 in memory of Agnes Wahl Nieman's husband Lucius W F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence and an associated I. F. Stone Workshop on Strengthening Journalistic Independence. [28]
"You may just think I am a red Jew son-of-a-bitch, but I'm keeping Thomas Jefferson alive. " [on journalistic marginalization of him]
"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out. " [29]
"I am going to tell you a number of things, but if you really want to be a good journalist you only have to remember two words: governments lie. " [30]
Blin is referenced in the following Venona decrypts: