I Was A Communist For The Fbi

Who is Matt Cvetic? Hero? Scoundrel? Mole? The man who loosely provided the inspiration for the B-Grade cult movie I Was a Communist for the FBI had a life that was marred by alcoholism, damaged expectations, and greed. Cvetic, at the request of the FBI, joined a Pittsburgh branch of the CPUSA in 1943. He became one of many plants in the Party during that decade and gained the nickname &"Pennsylvania&’s most significant mole.&" However, because of his erratic behavior, the FBI fired him in 1950, at which time he surfaced and suddenly became a celebrity through his testimony before the HUAC hearing. Journalist Richard Rovere described Cvetic as a &"kept witness,&" a term that fits those who &"made a business of being witnesses,&" thereby &"befouling due process.&" Cvetic was the subject of a multipart series in the Saturday Evening Post. The articles bordered on fiction, but they gave Cvetic the national exposure he needed to secure a screen deal. Warner Brothers bought the story, made the movie, and enhanced Cvetic&’s celebrity as pop icon. In the mid&–1950s, Cvetic was discredited as a witness by the courts. His career ended and he found a new niche on the Radical Right, yet he died in 1962 after years of fighting to uphold his image with the media. Today Cvetic&’s image is dimly remembered as he continues to fight &"the Red Menace&" on late-night television. Leab juxtaposes Cvetic&’s real life with his reel life. He chronicles his fall from grace, yet admits that Cvetic&’s life offers fascinating and useful insights into the creation, merchandising, and distribution of a reckless professional witness. Leab also writes about Cvetic&’s life prior to his involvement with the FBI, his glory days, and shows that there is much to be learned from the story of an &"anti-Communist icon.&"

The anticommunist crusade of the Federal Bureau of Investigation did not start with the Cold War. Based on research in the early files of the FBI's predecessor, the Bureau of Investigation, the author describes how the federal security officials played a decisive role in bringing about the first anticommunist hysteria in the US, the Red Scare in 1919 to 1920. The Bureau's political role, it is argued, originated in the attempt by the modern federal state during the early decades of the 20th century to regulate and control any organised opposition to the political, economic and social order.

When asked to join the Communist Party as an informant in the FBI, Cvetic was told he would have to give up his life as he knew it. He infiltrated the party and served in his undercover role from 1941-1950. He endured nine torturous years during which he never had a minute of peace or confidence that he would not be discovered as a mole and killed by his comrades in the party. What were the secrets of his survival? Cvetic was what he had to be to do what he had to do. Cvetic could be cruel and kind, violent and gentle, petty, generous, cheap, cunning, naïve, crude, and frankly, dishonest. He learned to live a life of lies. Truthfully, self-preservation was the essence of his existence. www.theendofalldiseases.com www.repayne.com

When asked to join the Communist Party as an informant in the FBI, Cvetic was told he would have to give up his life as he knew it. He infiltrated the party and served in his undercover role from 1941-1950. He endured nine torturous years during which he never had a minute of peace or confidence that he would not be discovered as a mole and killed by his comrades in the party. What were the secrets of his survival? Cvetic was what he had to be to do what he had to do. Cvetic could be cruel and kind, violent and gentle, petty, generous, cheap, cunning, naïve, crude, and frankly, dishonest. He learned to live a life of lies. Truthfully, self-preservation was the essence of his existence. www.theendofalldiseases.com www.repayne.com

At the height of the Red Scare, Angela Calomiris was a paid FBI informant inside the American Communist Party. As a Greenwich Village photographer, Calomiris spied on the New York Photo League, pioneers in documentary photography. While local Party officials may have had their sus-picions about her sexuality, her apparent dedication to the cause won them over. When Calomiris testified for the prosecution at the 1949 Smith Act trial of the Party's National Board, her identity as an informant (but not as a lesbian) was revealed. Her testimony sent eleven party leaders to prison and decimated the ranks of the Communist Party in the US. Undercover Girl is both a new chapter in Cold War history and an intimate look at the relationship between the FBI and one of its paid inform-ants. Ambitious and sometimes ruthless, Calomiris defied convention in her quest for celebrity.

The New York Times–bestselling biography: a “complete and powerful assessment” of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s presidency (Booklist, starred review). Drawing on newly declassified documents and thousands of pages of unpublished material, The Age of Eisenhower tells the story of a masterful president guiding the nation through the great crises of the 1950s, from McCarthyism and the Korean War through civil rights turmoil and Cold War conflicts. This is a portrait of a skilled leader who, despite his conservative inclinations, found a middle path through the bitter partisanship of his era. At home, Eisenhower affirmed the central elements of the New Deal, such as Social Security; fought the demagoguery of Senator Joseph McCarthy; and advanced the agenda of civil rights for African-Americans. Abroad, he ended the Korean War and avoided a new quagmire in Vietnam. Yet he also charted a significant expansion of America’s missile technology and deployed a vast array of covert operations around the world to confront the challenge of communism. As he left office, he cautioned Americans to remain alert to the dangers of a powerful military-industrial complex that could threaten their liberties. Today, presidential historians rank Eisenhower fifth on the list of great presidents, and William Hitchcock’s “rich narrative” shows us why Ike’s stock has risen so high. He was a gifted leader, a decent man of humble origins who used his powers to advance the welfare of all Americans (The Wall Street Journal).

A book to challenge the status quo, spark a debate, and get people talking about the issues and questions we face as a country!

Details the missions of the second-ranking man in the American communist party who was a friend and confidant of such leaders as Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, and Castro, but who was also a spy working for the FBI