Watching Space Shuttle Discovery soar over the great American monuments in DC on the back of a 747, gutted and consigned to a museum, brought back wonderful memories of America’s marvelous achievements. Yet it also reminded us it was our triumph in the space war that bankrupted the Soviet Union and created a bitterness they shall never forget.
It was a curious thing when, shortly after Obama’s inauguration, new Secretary of State Hillary Clinton handed Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, a large red button meant to indicate a “reset” in American-Russian relations. And reset relations, we did.
President Obama did a “reset” on the space program, gutting ours and making it virtually impossible to do space travel without going through the Russians at an exorbitant future cost. He did a “reset” on plans to build defense missiles in Poland, breaking our promise and disheartening friends and allies.
And it made no sense. There was no need to bargain with Russia, no need acquiesce to her demands. Russia the pitiful remains of the old Soviet Empire, had been plundered of her natural resources by the Oligarchs. She was struggling for new identity, disillusioned with newfound wealth, in the midst of scandal from poisonings of journalists and dissidents. Russia was weak, a non-player on the international stage. Her only treasures were her history, and scattered sites of valuable nuclear material.
“After my (last) election, I’ll have more flexibility,” said President Obama to Russian President Medvedev, reaching out to touch his hand.
“I understand. I will transmit that to Vladimir,” replied Dmitri with a knowing nod. Sounds like the opening to a cheap spy thriller, but this was an actual conversation heard recently between an American president and the leader of that former foe.
We know now the President was rendering our trusted allies, Poland and the Czech Republic, defenseless against the still-looming Russian threat. Furthermore, he was leaving us neutered by agreements to share nuclear secrets we had no reason to share.
This convergence of decisions coupled with that overheard conversation could mean nothing. Or it could mean a great deal. But in order to understand it, we would have to go back in time to the days of the Cold War and the Left’s romance for Mother Russia.
The Venona Files revealed in 1995 that the Soviets infiltrated our government at the highest levels in the 50’s. From Alger Hiss to the Rosenbergs to Hollywood, and later the Civil Rights movement and the anti-war Left, Communist subversives were deeply entrenched. In an 1950 interview with U.S. News and World Report, FBI Director, J. Edgar Hoover made this statement:
The teachings of Communism are directed toward one final result—world revolution and the triumph of international Communism. The achievement of this aim would mean the violent and complete destruction of the American Government. Any person who subscribes to these teaching... is working against American democracy and for the benefit of international Communism's chief leader, Soviet Russia.
The FBI waged war against Communist subversives from its earliest years until the 1980’s when President Ronald Reagan brought the godless “Evil Empire,” soaked in the blood of millions slain by Joseph Stalin, to its knees.
Yet the American Left idolized that empire and its ideology. The KGB was actively recruiting young American college students at the time young Bill Clinton mysteriously showed up in Russia while travel was still forbidden. In their own manifesto, “Prairie Fire,” William Ayres and Bernadine Dorn wrote, “We are a guerrilla organization…We are communist women and men…We need a revolutionary communist party in order to lead the struggle, give coherence and direction to the fight, seize power and build the new society.” The Weather Underground sought the “violent over throw of the United States government.”
The Marxist Barack Obama Sr. came to America and married Ms. Stanley Dunham, who he met in Russian class. Frank Marshall Davis, an editor of a Communist newspaper in Chicago with a damning FBI dossier, was a close friend to Ms. Dunham’s father and later a mentor to his grandson, Barack Obama Jr., referred to affectionately as “Frank” in Dreams from my Father.
From the cousin Obama campaigned for, Kenyan Marxist Prime Minister, Raila Odingo, to Green Job Czar-Communist, Van Jones, to former Whitehouse Communications Director, Anita Dunn whose favorite political philosopher was Mao Zedongto to Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett, daughter in law of Vernon Jarrett, philosophical friend and coworker of Frank Marshall Davis, the circle of Soviet romanticists surrounding the President seems endless.
So, what did the administration mean about resetting relations with Russia? And if this proclivity to “make it up” to the weakened Russians, handing them the tools to reclaim power, is already in place, is the gutted Space Shuttle Discovery a metaphor of what comes next?