Pvt. Elliot West, 102nd Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron, Gen. Omar Bradley’s 2nd Army, circa 1944
Today is the 73rd anniversary of D-Day, the 1944 invasion of Normandy, a.k.a. the long-discussed "second front" -- although, as tallied by a letter appearing in the New York Times in 1943, this "second front" should really have counted as the ninth front.
Why we persist in calling Normandy the "second front" is a long story all about what we would today call "Russian influence." It is laid out in American Betrayal, my book closely examining such "Russian influence." The book digs into the historical record to seek a better understanding of what American government officials, either loyal or in thrall to the Kremlin, were able to accomplish on Moscow's behalf. Such accomplishments -- real "Russian influence" -- helped form the basis of the Soviet Empire that Stalin won in World War II and its aftermath, among many, many other terrible things that wreck us to this day.
D-Day becomes a case study in American Betrayal, which explores the hypothesis that were it not for the massive infiltration of communist agents and their accomplices and soulmates at the highest levels of the US and Allied (and Axis) governments, the destruction of Hitler and his Nazi machine might well have occurred much earlier -- even, in my opinion, before D-Day, but certainly before the European war's end in May 1945. Given that most of the war's carnage took place in its final year, this is a staggering thought. A similar story may be told about the war in the Pacific.
The fact is, the Red Army was still inside Russian borders until late in 1943. To those dedicated to enlarging Stalin's evil empire and bringing communism into Europe, then, the war could actually end too soon....
Such thoughts, of course, shatter that misty arc of national mythology. A certain person (plus cabal) intent on making this entire historical stratum of communist subversion radioactive has privately lobbied against American Betrayal on the grounds that certain sections of the mythology, or "court history" -- where evidence of communist subversion lies buried -- must not be disturbed. As it has been explained to me, one such section is the historical struggle to defeat Hitler, and, apparently, especially where the "forgotten" and voluminous record indicates the Allies were often played as cat's paws of Stalin (also Mao). As one who was so lobbied was told, "no good can come of opening up the Stalin-FDR relationship."
No good to whom?
Keeping silent dishonors the dead, perpetuates the lies we have inherited and which still strangle the Republic.
On a personal note, my father's fight against Nazi Germany began shortly after he walked ashore on a US-secured Normandy beach on D-Day + 2. Wounded at St Lo, he would return to battle and make his way across northern Europe. Somewhere outside the gorgeous town of Monschau inside the German border, he would be evacuated with pneumonia -- shortly before the Germans' final breakout, which we know as the Battle of the Bulge, the costliest American battle in all of World War II.
All of it, conceivably, not necessary to destroy the Nazis once and for all. But all of it essential to ensure that the war lasted long enough for the Red Army to march deep into Europe ...