Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism.

• Author: Francis, Charles
• Position: Book Review
• Pages: 67(4)

TREASON: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism

By Ann Coulter

Crown Forum, New York, 2003

The subtitle to Treason--"Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism"--neatly summarises what this book sets out to establish.

Ann Coulter has never sought to disguise her distaste for the liberal-left, which in the United States controls the Democrat Party. Her incisive criticisms are well justified by a wealth of research.

Treason is not always easy reading, but, for anyone who wants to understand the last sixty years of United States history and the present divisions which became so apparent in the recent Presidential election, it is essential reading.

While F.D. Roosevelt was President, there was a very significant infiltration of the U.S. government by Soviet agents. This infiltration was typified by Alger Hiss, who in 1944 at Yalta was chief adviser to the ageing Roosevelt, when so much of Eastern Europe was abandoned to the Soviet Union.

What had happened was not only a major disaster for the United States, but, if the full truth came out, inevitably would have been enormously damaging to the credibility of the Democrats.

In 1938 Whittaker Chambers, who had been a Soviet agent, came to realise that he was involved in something very evil, and defected from the Communist Party. Chambers knew not only many of the names of those working in the Soviet network but also precisely what they were doing.

In 1939, deeply concerned by the Hitler-Stalin pact, Chambers went to see Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle and, over some hours, provided him with a vast amount of information.

He named, amongst others, Alger Hiss and his...