King, the ones here in the States--can't speak for the Party in Canada, but I rather expect it was the same deal--were indeed dupes, because they failed to see the hand of the KGB pulling the strings of their puppet party, all the way from Moscow. The Soviets liked to pretend that the various foreign CP's were independent, but the opening of the KGB files has proven otherwise. Those of us that worked against the KGB during the Cold War were well aware of it, but those on the left with some remaining sympathy for former party stalwarts still refused to believe the degree of Soviet penetration of the Western democracies, both through the puppet parties and through American and Canadian KGB recruits who distanced themselves from the party for cover purposes. A number of trials at the end of WWII showed the extent to which our Soviet "allies" were working against us at the time--but some still refused to believe. Some, like Kim Philby in Great Britain, remained true to "the cause" even through the crushing of the revolt in Hungary and the Prague spring.
And Lindbergh never favored fascism. Sorry to see you bought into that old wive's tale. FDR, for all his other qualities, was an extremely vain man. Lindy was the only American more popular than FDR. FDR actually sent Lindy to Germany to assess their air power. Lindy returned and reported that we'd better get busy building up our own. The majority of Americans at the time (including Lindbergh) were basically isolationists. Just because they didn't want to enter WWII prior to Pearl Harbor didn't make them fascists. But it was convenient for FDR to make Lindbergh look like a fan of Hitler, even when Lindy brought back a very valuable assessment on the buildup of the Luftwaffe. And if he could make Lindy less popular by making him appear to be pro-German, so much the better for his own ego.
And Brent, I'd say that being smarter than the man who invented the Internet (and maybe global warming too!) is no small achievement.
Last edited by L. Brown; 11/21/07 08:16 PM.
