Recent Articles

Warnings From A Soviet Defector (Reader’s Digest, 1944)

A fascinating article written by a man who just seven years earlier had been a senior officer in Stalin’s army. In order to escape the dictator’s purges, General Alexander Barmine (1899 – 1987) defected to the West in 1937 and made his way to the U.S. where he began writing numerous articles about the NKVD operations in North America. This article concerns the Soviet infiltration of labor unions, the Democratic Party and the U.S. Government.

American P.O.W.s Massacred (Yank Magazine, 1945)

Nine Americans recalled witnessing the deliberate torture and killing of American prisoners of war by their Japanese captors on the Pacific island of Palawan.

The American began begging to be shot and not burned. He screamed in such a high voice I could hear him. Then I could see the Jap pour gasoline on one of his feet and burn it, and then the other. He collapsed…

A Day in the Life of F.D.R. (Literary Digest, 1937)

The attached article presented a dusk till dawn account of one day in the life of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882 – 1945).
Written during his first term (prior to the war), the journalist recounted who the reoccurring players in his life were, the time of his rising, the preferred meals, the length of the meetings, distractions, recreations and other assorted minutia -but you’ll not read the word wheelchair once. This is a fine example of the press black-out that was in place in order to prevent the public any knowledge whatever of Roosevelt’s paralytic illness, which rendered him paralyzed from the waist down (he suffered from Guillain-Barré syndrome which he contracted in 1921).

Read a 1945 interview with FDR’s economic adviser, Bernard Baruch; click here.
Click here to read about the four inaugurations of FDR.

‘Doughboy’s General” (Reader’s Digest, 1944)

This column summarizes General Bradley’s early life and career with a good deal of space devoted to his leadership during the North African Campaign:

Chosen over dozens his senior in service, he was sent to North Africa in February 1943 as deputy to General Patton. In May he succeeded Patton. On several critical occasions his tactical skill and remarkable sense of timing surprised the Germans and soundly defeated them. One of his favorite maxims: ‘Hit the enemy twice: first to find out what he’s got; then, to take it away from him.’

Starvation in the Worker’s Paradise (Current Opinion, 1921)

The first Soviet famine lasted from 1919 through 1923; some historians have placed the death toll as high as five million:

[Lenin] is held responsible for the policy which has brought about a consumption of so great a proportion of the seed wheat that the fields cannot be sown. For the first time since Bolsheviki gained power, says the Berlin Lokalanzeiger, Lenin is a cipher.


Click here to read about the blackmail and extortion tactics that American Communists used in Hollywood during the Great Depression…

A Look Back at the Berlin Air-Lift (Pathfinder Magazine, 1949)

Last week, after the Russians announced they would lift the blockade on May 12 [1949], the airlift took a bow and added a modest nod at the 324-day record:


• 189,247 flights;

• 1,528,250 tons delivered;

• best day’s work: April 16 with 12,947 tons hauled in 1,393 flights.


– [and if the West had not chosen to answer the Soviet challenge in Berlin] there might never have been an Atlantic Pact or a Western German state. The Communists might have gone amok in France and Italy. Russia might have won the Cold War in the first heat.

To Live in Occupied Tokyo (Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1947)

A breezy account of American occupied Tokyo as reported by a literary magazine:

Regardless of the festivities, the War Crimes Trials proceed as usual and the accused sit with earphones listening intently as the defense presents the China Phase.
Japan seems to be striving toward Democracy, their interest in government affairs has broadened, and the voting in the national elections showed their arousal.

Should you like to read how the city of Kyoto fared during the Second World War, click here.

The Audience Laughed at the First Talkies (Film Spectator, 1930)

Upon viewing one of the earliest sound movies this film reviewer did not find it odd in the least as to why the audiences laughed uproariously while listening to perfectly ordinary dialog during the viewing of one of Hollywood’s newest offering War Nurse (directed by Edgar Selwyn):

It was not so much [that they chortled] at these isolated bits of dialogue that the audience laughed, as it was a resort to laughter caused by the absurdity ceaseless chatter that prevails throughout the entire production.


From Amazon: Shattered Silents: How the Talkies Came to Staystyle=border:none

A Saboteur in the Royal Flying Corps (Rob Wagner’s Script, 1938)

The American writer Willis Gordon Brown recalled his days as a fighter pilot with the R.F.C. and the curious series of crashes that lead to the discovery of a German saboteur within their midst.

To the Germans this man was a highly respected hero giving his life for the fatherland; to us he became a rat of the lowest order.

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