No big surprise, really. I.F. Stone was the media darling around Washington for 50 years. Mainstream journalists adored him for his “independence,” “feistiness” and “watchdog” instincts as a muckraking weekly newsletter publisher.
He was also, it now turns out, a paid agent of the Stalin-era KGB.
Claims that the Soviets had co-opted Stone have been debated by historians and heatedly denied by his admirers; the initial evidence was inconclusive.
But now come John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, the two leading experts on Soviet espionage in America, who’ve written a new book based on 1,100 pages of notes taken by former KGB officer Alexander Vassiliev, who was given access to some of the spy agency’s historic files.
Turns out his muckraking wasn’t very equal opportunity, which many un-bedazzled journalists knew years ago. Muckrakers like Stone, and his predecessor muckrakers at the turn of the century (the 20th, not the 21st) all had communist connections or leanings. The notion that journalists who “want to change the world” a lefties is not a new one.
UPDATE: Should we be worried that Google CEO Eric Schmidt used an I.F Stone reference while squiring Maureen Dowd around San Francisco:
His tour ended with cold comfort, as he observed that longer life expectancies may keep us on life support. “For people who still love print, who like to hold it, feel it, rustle it, tear stuff out, do their I. F. Stone thing, it’s important to remember that people are living longer,†he said.
UPDATE: Correction made above. A colleague told me that I.F. Stone’s real name was Izzy and that all the references to him as Iffy were from detractors.
