Rather than comment on it, I’ll just set up a link to the article which was introduced in a suprise move by a sunday Book Review editors:

Here is the introduction:

Up Front

By THE EDITORS

“For many years now Paul Berman, a self-described “literature-and-politics man,” has rigorously examined the contradictions of ideological commitment, most recently in his books “Terror and Liberalism” and “Power and the Idealists.” Berman’s own ideological path has taken some interesting turns. A participant in the Columbia University protests of the late 1960’s, he later wrote skeptically about leftist governments in Latin America.

This week Berman reviews “ ‘All Governments Lie’: The Life and Times of Rebel Journalist I. F. Stone,” by Myra MacPherson, and “The Best of I. F. Stone,” edited by Karl Weber. Berman did not meet Stone, but in an e-mail message said, “I revered Stone during my time in the Vietnam antiwar movement, and for many years later — even if I always knew that in the old-fashioned anti-Communist corners of the left, some people had their reservations. Today, when I look back on the whole of his career, the old complaints about him make more sense to me.”

Stone’s legacy, Berman notes, is seen today in the journalistic reflex “to focus so intently on the deeds and misdeeds of our own government as to blind ourselves sometimes to other ghastly goings-on around the world.” ”

Read it here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/books/review/Upfront.t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=review&pagewanted=print

and here is the article:

The Watchdog

By PAUL BERMAN

“Does the memory of the independent-minded, hearing-impaired, liberally leftist, reliably humorous, ever quizzical and wonderfully prolific journalist I. F. Stone have anything to offer to us today? Myra MacPherson has written a biography under the Stone-quoting title “ ‘All Governments Lie,’ ” in order to demonstrate that Stone and his journalistic achievements do have something to offer, and Karl Weber and the publisher Peter Osnos have brought out an anthology of 65 articles called “The Best of I. F. Stone” in order to demonstrate that MacPherson is right. And it is easy to see what the biographer and the anthologists have in mind.”

Read it all here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/books/review/Berman.t.html?ref=review

Dyer, he did a lot of harm to this country and he knew what he was doing.

“hindsight is 20/20.”

This is pretty stupid, Potter. Would you say the same of someone who was a cheerleader for the Nazis till 1946 and then changed his mind?

he may have been a political idiot, but he was of use mostly to people who already thought the way he did.

I agree with 1/14′s post which says:

September 22nd, 2006 at 4:37 pm

“His rather sympathetic biographer Robert Cottrell wrote that “there was something disingenuous in [Stone’s] willingness to suspend judgment or to refuse to criticize still more forcefully the terror that was being played out in Soviet Russia…. What could not be denied was that Stone, like many of his political and intellectual counterparts, continued to afford Russia and even Stalinist communism something of a double standard, fearing that to do otherwise would endanger … the very possibility of socialism”. ”

This has been my impression also after heaving read his newsletter for many years as well as a number of his books.

People interested in going beyond snippy poster’s comments should read:

Author Stone, I. F. (Isidor F.), 1907-

“The hidden history of the Korean War.” New York, Monthly Review Press, 1952.

Any good library should have the 1952 Ed.

The book is a revelation.

Dyer, you are being too generous. IF Stone was a useful idiot most of his life, either for old left or the new left. I also see no difference between him and Chumpsky.

( note: change “worship” to “appreciate” and we get closer to what is trying to happen here and on the show. This thread started off negative and a corrective was called for.)

from the above post: Don Solomon Says:

It’s easy to disprove the above comment from one of the sentences of his quoted in the web site linked above”

in other words: “proved it time and again” = “right about everything”

Sounds familiar.

Is this also then out of context and self-serving as well complaining about being out of context while using the same source?

However, if he was right then Chomsky who had argued that there was no difference between the press in the US and the Soviet Union must have been wrong.

People, you can’t have it both ways!

This was the first mention of Chomsky on this thread and I don’t recall anyone anywhere saying that Chomsky was always or that I F Stone was always right.

The above argument amounts to small army of straw men. And to use a tired phrase and echoe what has been said but not heard re looking at I F Stone from this vantage point : hindsight is 20/20.

First, any one can takes quotes out of context.

Second, people who worship Stone (pun intended) seem not to want to read his comments critically. They take it for granted that he was right about everything as one poster above said:

.

Don Solomon Says:

September 28th, 2006 at 4:28 pm

“Stone was right when everyone else was wrong, and he proved it time and again….”

It’s easy to disprove the above comment from one of the sentences of his quoted in the web site linked above”

Stone criticism of Stalinism came late in the game, it happened after Stalin’s death and after Khruschev denounced him at a party meeting. By that time tens of thousands of former Communsits world wide had already left the party having shown the kind of terror that was being inflicted in the Soviet State.

Even after attacking the Communinst terror in 1956 he still had to say that

“The more one studies Russian hisotry the more one sees how deep were the roots of Leninism in Russian radical thinking of the nineteenth century…. [S]ocialism in Russia is there to stay…. Russian industrialization, despite Russian solvenliness and that callous waste of men and manpower one feels in Russia, has advanced on giant boots, thanks to economic planning…. ”

In other words he is still arguing that there was a deep historical inevitebility to Russian Bolshevism. He also states that Soviet Communism (socialism) is “here to stay.”

Still, I do giving him credit for finally coming to his senses. What is troubling is that it took a speech by Bolshevik leader to dissilusion him.

The work of Orwell, of Arthur Koestler, and many others (and not just Trostkyites) wasn’t enough for him.

Even a Marxist inspired website said this about him:

“It has been claimed that Stone sought to sever his ties with the KGB after traveling to the Soviet Union in 1956 and hearing Nikita Khrushchev’s speech denouncing Stalin and the tyranny of his regime. According to Kalugin, It is true that Stone sought to sever ties in 1956, but the latter explanation appears to be apocryphal (Kalugin eventually persuaded Stone to maintain his ties).

A plausible alternate explanation for the break is that in 1956 the Soviets invaded Hungary. Stone apparently severed all ties to the Soviets after the 1968 Czechoslovakian uprising and subsequent quelling of the revolt.”

http://dictionary.laborlawtalk.com/I._F._Stone

The guy wasn’t perfect by any means and people tend to want to excuse his failings because of his opposition to the Vietnam war.

Well, I too opposed the Vietnam war in the early 70′s, but after studying the subject closely for many years I have come the to conclusion that I was wrong. Had we supported Hubert Humphrey in 1968 there would not have been the sharp turn to the right.

One other point, Stone is quoted as saying that:

“Whatever the shortcomings of the Western press, there is no comparison between it and the Soviet press….”

For once he was right.

However, if he was right then Chomsky who had argued that there was no difference between the press in the US and the Soviet Union must have been wrong.

People, you can’t have it both ways!