Talk:Owen Lattimore

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[edit] If ...

If Lattimore actually was a spy, what did he have access to that the Soviets would be interested in? What political/military/scientific info could he have passed to the Soviets? 12/7/05

[edit] IP number edits

There have been many IP number edits to this page, since late November. They collectively appear as slanting the POV of the page to guilt of Lattimore, by sheer bulk of allegations. The side-comments on other individuals are also at odds with what appears, or has appeared, on the relevant pages.

In other words, there seems to be an attempt here to rewrite history. The page should record the scholarly consensus, with proportionate mentions of dissent. No more and no less.

Charles Matthews 09:37, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Mr Mathews, Your comments make it clear that you lack a neutral point of view. What is your agenda? Lanny Budd 30 December 2005

Actually, they do no such thing. Charles Matthews 16:55, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
Actually, they do Mr. Mathews (if that is your real name).
My real name is Matthews. Do you always introduce yourself in this aggressive manner, Mr. Ladd? It goes down very badly on Wikipedia, and that I'll tell you for nothing. Do try to sign your edits, and pay attention to copying from line to line. That might possibly improve the impression you are making. Charles Matthews 09:34, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

-- This article does strike me as curiously biased. I thought that Lattimore was known as one of the United States' foremost scholars on China, with a catalog of many scholarly publications. I thought that was his legacy. I also thought he was absolved after McCarthy accused him. You don't get any of that from this article. It reads like an indictment by a McCarthyist obsessed with communism, rather than an assessment of a man's life. I have no stake in this game. I have no idea if Lattimore was a spy. I just came to this link to learn about Lattimore because I'm interested in Silk Road exploration, and instead I get kooky conspiracy garbage. I can't imagine who would have this kind of weird agenda against a man long-dead. --Splinters 18:54, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bias in this article

This article has a general accusatory feeling about it. Lattimore was acquitted of all charges made against him by Joseph McCarthy, and there is no proof whatsoever that he was an agent of the Soviets, the Communist Chinese or any other related political entity, but this is not made clear in the article.

Further, there are items within the 'Accusations' section that seem to be cited from sources, with no sources given. For example:

"Lattimore's pro-Soviet outlook was expressed in a memo he wrote to the executive director of the Institute of Pacific Relations, a think tank financed by the Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations, which published his magazine:

For the USSR -- back their international policy in general, but without using their slogans and above all without giving them or anybody else the impression of subservience."

What is the source of the quote in italics, and what is the context of the quote in question?

Another example:

"While he was an advisor to Chiang Kai-shek Lattimore allegedly leaked information to the Soviets, and the Soviets considered him to be "working for them"."

Again, what is the source of this blatant allegation? This is sloppy work at the very least. If Lattimore is going to be so accused in this article, let's have it be more properly and professionally done.

In the final paragraph of the 'Accusations' section, it is claimed that 'A conservative organization, Accuracy in Media, claims that Owen Lattimore was correctly identified as a communist infiltrator.' There is a link added. No such accusation is made in the link, only innuendo. Further, the VENONA documents are mentioned here, but there is no link made between these documents and Lattimore. If Lattimore is named in the VENONA papers as a Soviet agent, where is the quote and the link?

This final paragraph is ridiculous and should probably be removed from the article altogether, based on its lack of proper sources and factual accuracy.

In my view...the entire article needs to be revised by someone with better research skills and a non-biased POV.

[edit] Bias

This article should be flagged for its bias. Frontpagemag is not a reliable source.

[edit] McCarthy

The article on McCarthy says he accused this person of being a Communist, not a spy.

[edit] no bias

Lattimore was indicted for perjury! Sorry to the poster above. It is known that he was one Yankeeroman(68.100.231.37 00:08, 27 August 2006 (UTC))

He was never found guilty of perjury...you are thinking of Alger Hiss. And if you do think it was Lattimore, then show some sources. Subotai Feb. 8, 2007

[edit] Bias Removed

I have edited out the irrelevant and unsubstantiated material that had been inserted in this article. DavidCartago 20:20, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Please don't use inflammatory edit summaries. It is also far more polite to ask first for any missing sources. Charles Matthews 22:18, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Drive-by edits

There have been a few here. You are supposed to discuss matters here, not just take out material. There is not a lot of point doing that without making a case and raising the issues properly. Charles Matthews 22:16, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Uoper case

That section title as Lattimore's Theory on the Reciprocation between Civilization and the Environment is not house style. Charles Matthews 22:16, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removed editorial comment on the charges arising from trip to the USSR.

I have once again removed contentious language about the reaction to Lattimore's National Geographic article. When I removed it before, that was not "POV hacking," it was just making the article stick to the facts.

So you mean Lattimore was at no point criticised for this? I think you may be wrong about that. But in any case, as I wrote above just moments ago, it is more polite to ask first about possible sources, rather than simply to cut. If I can explain, there have been a couple of edits, not just one, skewing (as I would see it) that passage, from left and right as it were. I had put it back to what it was before both edits, since neither impressed me. Charles Matthews 22:25, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Of course he was criticized, and my edits left that fact in place, while removing what appeared to be a partisan attempt to expand upon the criticism. DavidCartago 22:39, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Let's try this again

I did not intend to be inflammatory with my headline(s), and apologize for it. The wording in question is rather detailed and even argumentative, which seems disproportionate to the very tiny significance of the National Geographic article in a long scholarly career. I would like to see an attribution for it, and I question the relevance of Henry Wallace's alleged naivete. DavidCartago

[edit] quote half missing

the quote in the article is half missing. Where is the rest of the quote or remove it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hmains (talk • contribs) 05:18, 13 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Nicholas Poppe

1. I have changed his given name from Nikolai to Nicholas since that seems to be the name he took after emigration into the U.S. Or at least amazon gives a whole list of his books when typing Nicholas, as opposed to none when typing Nikolai.

2. I don't think the Wannsee Institute is infamous. The Wannsee conference rightly is, but the Institute does not seem to be directly related (though http://www.ghwk.de/sonderausstellung/villenkolonie/wannsee_institut.htm implies that employees of the institute played a role in mass killings in the Baltics and Poland and worked with the Einsatzgruppen). In any case, it's much less known than the conference.

3. I am not aware of any (even unsuccessful) german attempts to set up puppet governments (i.e. administrations that give an appearance of local souvereignity) in the caucasus. But this may just be my own ignorance. http://www.wpunj.edu/newpol/issue23/oppenh23.htm states that he worked as an interpreter, which seems far more likely. Yaan 16:56, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cleaning up section on Accusations and adding new references

To make the section read more smoothly, I moved some of the detail from the first sentences to a footnote and added reference to M. Stanton Evans Blacklisted by History, which includes a detailed account of the accusations. I added material on the hearings from James Cotton's book and tried to highlight the accusations while also noting Lattimore's responses. cwh (talk) 18:09, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion

As you can see from the additions I have made to the reference section, I am doing some reading about Lattimore. Sometime in the next month or so, I'd like to add more about his scholarly significance and contributions to make the article more balanced between the Cold War and the pre-war periods. This would involve some boiling down and rearranging. I will try to retain the various points of analysis, however. ch (talk) 05:59, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Sounds great to me. The article sure needs a lot of work. Most of the material around his alleged pro-communist politics is currently based on far-right-wing authors like M. Stanton Evans, and there's no sense of what the balance of opinion among modern scholars is on this issue. I don't know enough about the subject to do any serious rewriting myself, but maybe your edits will inspire me to do the needed research to become involved as well. RedSpruce (talk) 15:17, 16 March 2008 (UTC)