Talk:La Follette Committee

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] Espionage?

Nothing in this article shows that there was espionage going on the committee. These guys were spies, sure, but how does that affect the committee's work? Because the Comintern wanted to do away with the labor spy system in the US? Well, guess what, so did most workers. It's important to mention that they were spies in this article, but it seems to me that there needs to be at least one line saying whether or not there's any evidence that the Moscow connection in any way undermined the validity of the committees work and its conclusions. Maybe I'm wrong and there is evidence somewhere, but as it stands, the connection is trivia, not proof of international espionage. Was there any confidential material the commies got a hold of? Was there fabricated evidence? and that sort of thing...Bobanny 20:12, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I've just read this article for the first time. There's absolutely nothing mentioned in the article that justifies the Espionage section. I'm not opposed to it being included if some relevance can be shown, but as it stands, i suggest removing it. Would like to hear from others. Richard Myers 01:38, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I just changed the heading from "espionage" to "communists." The reason it's there is because a book was published a few years back by 2 rabidly anticommunists who were given access to the Comintern archives in Moscow in the 1990s. It's mostly primary documents with evidence that communist members were actually active in such endeavours, though they were either not identified as commies at the time or denied being members of the party. The info should be here just because it's the most recent attention historians have given to this and related topics. It's a bit of a farce, IMO, because these authors don't go much beyond red-baiting, i.e., that the work of this committee and numerous unions, civil rights groups, antiwar groups, etc. was without merit because of commie members. A citation would be nice. Bobanny 04:10, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it is a bit of a farce, and that absent any citation, the section is even more questionable.

I also wonder if the authors of that section would consider it appropriate if someone added similar sections to articles throughout Wikipedia, identifying whether there are neocons (or Republicans!) involved in all the governmental committees?

Thanks for clarifying the section title, it does help a bit. best wishes, Richard Myers 22:37, 22 March 2007 (UTC)