“American Betrayal”: A Swedish Perspective

Marten Gantelius is a regular reader and commenter at Gates of Vienna. He was prompted by our reports on the controversy over American Betrayal to buy the book and read it, and now sends this review.

American Betrayal: A Swedish Perspective
by Marten Gantelius

I have finished reading Diana West’s American Betrayal, a book that proved to be very important even for me, as a Swede. I am far from competent to review the book, but there are a few things I’d like to say after presenting a little personal background (If anybody wants a closer look, see my website thecart.se).

In college at the ancient school Katedralskolan in Lund I was a student of mathematics, but my joy was the lessons in French and History — of course because of the exceptionally good teachers. My history teacher was Arne “Laban” Lindström, a legend at the handball club LUGI in Lund. His classes had very little about kings and battles, but were more about how people lived. I’ve never forgotten what he once said to me: “Marten”, he said, “never ever believe a scholar of history!”

After college, I was forced to do 15 months military service in the Swedish Artillery. In 1969, the “modern” Swedish Artillery Defense mainly consisted of German haubitzes m/39. During the service, I read Catch-22. It helped.

As a University student, I read 1984 at a time when the universities were dominated by the “Red Wine Socialists”. I reread the book two years ago because it coincided with my work on “Daily Life Language of Violence”.

I am definitely no littérateur. Since my youth I have used the following strategy: If an author cannot catch my attention in the first ten pages of the book, I put it aside. Several Nobel Prize winners are among the rejected authors. I didn’t treat American Betrayal any differently. But after page 10, I went on reading.

Reading American Betrayal, you might get the impression that Harry Hopkins was the evil snake that manipulated Franklin D. Roosevelt. I don’t buy it. Methinks that FDR already had been a full-blooded Communist for many years when he entered the White House. And that he was in a pact with Stalin from Day One in 1933. Hopkins only did what he was told to do by the two “Uncles”. The rest was theatre. For example, I cannot conclude otherwise than that FDR had full knowledge of the famine in the Ukraine and of the Katyn massacre, etc. And that he fully approved of the murdering. To me, this makes sense, and the actions of Hopkins and many others logical. Did FDR ever make one single vital decision that wasn’t in the interest of Stalin and Communism?

My conclusion: Franklin Delano Roosevelt is the biggest traitor in the history of the United States of America. Furthermore, he was responsible of the “unnecessary” deaths of several hundred thousand American and British soldiers. He was also responsible for the massacre of millions of people behind the Iron Curtain for 45 years. And he knew exactly what he did.

Both FDR and HH died “conveniently” in April 1945 and January 1946, respectively. I won’t say it was planned, but the timing was definitely convenient for Stalin — “Uncle Joe”.

In Western culture there is a reluctance to criticize dead people — especially the newly dead. Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme is one example. Before he was assassinated in Stockholm in 1986, he was highly criticized for his politics and generally arrogant behaviour. After the murder, any criticism was absolutely taboo. The media presented OP as a “saint”, when he was anything but.

This sort of “psychology” certainly did support the massive denial of facts in the postwar hearings in the USA. In my opinion, this cover-up is an important part of the betrayal of the American people.

It is very difficult for a person to say: “I have been a complete fool to have allowed myself to be double-crossed for so many years. Let’s get to the bottom of the facts and make them accessible to the people.” It is much easier — and less hazardous — to keep silent or “follow the stream”. Fortunately, many brave persons didn’t do that. And it is thanks to them that American Betrayal could be written.

I quote Victor Kravchenko from his book I Chose Freedom from 1946 (American Betrayal, pages 73 and 240):

“Even the most gigantic lie, by dint of infinite repetition, takes root; Stalin knew this before Hitler discovered it.”

“The greatest Soviet triumph, it was borne in upon me, was in the domain of foreign propaganda.”

I am inclined to agree with Mr. Kravchenko. Almost seventy years of massive Communist infiltration and propaganda — everywhere — has moved the minds of the whole Western population from individualist thinking to collectivist thinking. Today, it is risky to present facts in any area of Western societies if they don’t coincide with the “Official Map”.

The three collectivist ideologies National Socialism, Communism and Islam have very much in common. Their common aim is global domination, and many of their choices of methods are also the same. National Socialism lasted for fifteen years, Communism for seventy years, while Islam is thriving after 1400 years on stage.

In my opinion, Communist propaganda today, especially in Western countries, has facilitated the implementation by Muslims of their eternal aim: a global Caliphate (and I judge the countries behind the former Iron Curtain to have the best ability to defend themselves).

During WW2 The Swedish government chose to make the country “neutral”. In reality, that meant that they cooperated with both the Germans and the Soviets. Undoubtedly, the majority of the Swedish elite — Raoul Wallenberg excepted — were pro-Nazi. But the people were not. And those were the ones who rescued and gave shelter to thousands of Jewish refugees.

The actions of the Swedish government during the war were anything but “clean”. But if a “Swedish Betrayal” were to be written today, nobody would publish it. And if, against all odds, anybody were to do so, nobody would write any reviews.

I can only conclude with this: Kravchenko was right.

For links to previous articles about the controversy over American Betrayal, see the Diana West Archives.

17 thoughts on ““American Betrayal”: A Swedish Perspective

  1. FDR appears to me to be a very vain man, and therefore easily manipulated. I do not know whether he was a lifelong Communist, but I would certainly agree that he made some very anti-American decisions (did he make them of was he manipulated?).

    Like Islam, there are no moderate socialists; redistribution of wealth is theft and that is a criminal act. Those who can stomach theft can condone murder.

    However, I think that there is something else going on here as well, and that is the passing away of belief in the sanctity of human life. Progressives, brought up in a ‘eugenics’ environment, felt like gods, having the ability to manipulate the very life and death struggles of lesser beings in a sort of animalistic ritual. I think maybe, for some people, that weilding of the ultimate power brought a sort of sick pleasure. Leaving behind some 15,000 GIs should be enough to blacken anybody’s reputation.

    Just as ‘Benghazi’ should provide the epitaph for the latest encumbent!

    • Truman tried to bring back those 23,000 GI POW’s the Russians captured via a exchange program where he rounded up all the people the Nazis used as slave laborers in Germany and repatriate them to their home countries in the Eastern bloc.

      And the Communists simply executed those we sent back as part of the exchange.

      Today the story of those 23,000 American POW’s and those East European refugees are considered a myth by today’s revisionist Leftist scholars that populate our universities. To me this contemporary rewriting of history is quite scary. It would not surprise me that the works of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn may one day simply be relabeled works of fiction by the literary elite as well.

    • Eugenics is simply good breeding. Only foolish parents and peoples fail to practice a form of eugenics.

  2. “The three collectivist ideologies National Socialism, Communism and Islam have very much in common”

    National socialism’s goal where primarily to create an
    ethno-state for the German people. Hitler had no intention
    to “conquer the world”, that is just allied war-propaganda.
    National-socialism as an ideology was as Hitler put it
    “not for export” and created solely for Germany and German
    conditions. The reason for the war in east (the only war that Hitler really
    desired) was primarily to remove Soviet-Russia as a threat to
    Germany and the rest of Europe and to fulfill Hitler’s fixed
    idea of “Lebensraum” for the German people in the East
    (Which of course is nothing but nonsense on Hitlers side,
    Germany really had no use for such a thing).

    • Hitler and the rest of the NSDAP leadership certainly believed Germany needed “Lebensraum” – i.e. all the land from the Rhine to the Volga. Hitler’s main aim was to allow Germany to compete as a world power with the US, France, the British Empire and the USSR. He grew up in a time of colonies and Empires, after all, and all the other great powers, even Japan, had substantial holdings in 1933. The main lesson that Germans drew from WWI was that Germany lost because of its inability to feed itself in the face of the British blockade (true), and that only a Germany large enough and with enough natural resources to sustain itself indefinitely in the face of enemy blockades would be secure. Hitler really did want to populate the Ukraine with German colonists. But yes, Hitler was not looking to control the world, just to ensure that Germany had a leading and easily defensible position in the world.

  3. ” if a “Swedish Betrayal” were to be written today, nobody would publish it. And if, against all odds, anybody were to do so, nobody would write any reviews.”

    It is time to move beyond the strictures of the past. Anybody with access to a word-processor which can print to PDF can author a book.

    • [Your arguments lack cogency]! I know firsthand that very ill men and women are capable of a lot of evil mischief. People are people – and their illnesses do not necessarily interfere with their abilities to impact the world around them for good or ill.

      Also, the BEST of history is hidden – and far-reaching secrets are able to be kept for many reasons unknown to or misunderstood by the public at large.

  4. Methinks that FDR already had been a full-blooded Communist for many years when he entered the White House. And that he was in a pact with Stalin from Day One in 1933. Hopkins only did what he was told to do by the two “Uncles”.

    This is the wrong lesson to derive from Diana West’s book. It’s the error of going too far. The far more plausible scenario is that FDR for various psychological and sociocultural reasons was vulnerable to being seduced by the ideals of Communism as being more or less harmonious with his own less gnostic (and therefore more incoherent) Socialist ideals, and that Harry Hopkins (and Stalin and others) cleverly exploited that vulnerability.

    • I mean that it would be appropriate to take a closer and more critical look at the personal life of FDR, especially his childhood and youth. That might give us some answers.

  5. 1) MC: You sound like a fan of Ayn Rand. I struggled through “Atlas Shrugged” many years ago, though the self-congratulatory attitude of the principals made me want to throw up. Of course entrepeneurs and innovators should be rewarded, but they could not create and expand businesses without the contribution of the ordinary people who help to bring their ambitions to fruition, and ironically the gap in wealth between rich and poor has widened since Reagan and Thatcher, especially in the US and here in the UK , yet genuinely “left-wing” parties can’t get elected- and please don’t tell me Obama, whatever his faults, is a “socialist”! (Certainly not by European standards).

    A few years ago, I heard a wealthy Swedish businessman on BBC Radio 4, asked whether he resented the state taking so much of his income; he said: “Of course not- the state is us”. This is democracy in action, even if you dislike the outcome.

    I’m sure you- and many followers of GoV- will disagree with me over the extent to which the state should provide welfare, health and education services, but what about defence, in the US and your own country of Israel? Ought not the wealthy to make a proportionately bigger contribution from their rewards?

    2) Martin Gantelius shouldn’t beat himself up too much over Sweden’s record in WW2. Thanks to British commando raids on Norway’s west coast, and the fear that the Western allies might invade through Norway, the Nazis kept several divisions there, and could have overrun Sweden if they thought it necessary. Sweden did supply the Germans with iron ore and ball-bearings, but they also sold the latter to the British, who collected them in unarmed Mosquito bombers- which, on the outward trip from Scotland, often carried secret agents who would join up with the Norwegian Resistance; the Swedish authorities must have known about this. The British and Americans considered violating Swedish neutrality by bombing the factories, but didn’t.

    3) Older readers may recall the “Letter from America” BBC broadcasts by the naturalised American, British journalist Alistair Cooke. In October 1959 he paid tribute to the recently deceased, truly great American, General George Marshall (I have it on cassette, but there’s probably a download). He had (typically) given credit for the plan which bears his name to his subordinates. Cooke also recounted how publishers offered Marshall very generous amounts to write his memoirs; he refused, as he believed some of FDR’s decisions had unnecessarily cost American lives, and he didn’t want to cause unnecessary distress to Rooseveldt’s family. Sadly this kind of integrity is increasingly rare, but it would be interesting (at the least) to know how this relates to Diana West’s discoveries.

    • FDR was vaguely anti British.

      Not hostile as a potential enemy but he was happy enough to dismantle the British Empire. That’s the core problem with FDR.

    • Your criticsms of Ayn Rand are noted. Suggest you also read ‘American Betrayal’ by Diana West.

    • A few years ago, I heard an emaciated gulag prisoner on the radio asked whether he resented the state taking him to prison; he said “Of course not- the state is us”.

  6. I was one of first to join the “Kook Army”. In my opinion, we now need a tough “Linguistic Army”, including every honorable member of the Kook Army and everyone who will join us.

  7. Socialism, in its various manifestations, was “in the air” during the early 20th century. Yes, FDR was a socialist, but I doubt he was an out-and-out Communist rather than a useful idiot. His self-assured patrician upbringing helped him immensely in gathering a following among Americans; and probably helped him to fool himself that he could charm the pants off of Iosip Dzhugashvilli. It probably also blinded him to the places where people like Garry Gopkins wanted to go. Even Cold Warrior Harry Truman believed that the postwar showdown would be between the USA and the British Empire, and it took the Berlin Blockade to shake him out of that illusion.

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