W. August Mayer has written another excellent book, Uncle Joe, FDR and the Deep State. While the book can be an educational and compelling read in itself, this reviewer recommends that it be read as a companion book to Islamic Jihad, Cultural Marxism and the Transformation of the West, written by the same author.  Mr. Mayer, the webmaster of Pipelinenews.org, again shows his expertise in the field of national security by discussing and analyzing the history of the West in the past century and how it has brought us to present day conditions.

Relying, though not exclusively, on two impeccable sources, the VENONA documents* and the Soviet archives, the latter made available to the public for a brief period under Boris Yeltsin shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, Mr. Mayer details the Soviet penetration of the White House under the four administrations of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.  So broad and wide and deep was this penetration that the White House might have been reasonably considered during this time Soviet-occupied territory.

Actually there were many conditions that facilitated this state of affairs.  To name but a few: FDR's naïveté with regard to the USSR; the massive expansion of the federal bureaucracy enlarging the opportunities for penetration; the benign view of Communism held by FDR and, actually, by much of the nation; the USSR's frequently expressed determination to communize the world; and much of the media who, like today, turned a blind eye to events.

The VENONA documents were not declassified until 1997, though much of what they contained could come under the heading of "suspicions confirmed."  Much of VENONA had previously been exposed through the testimony of American Communist Party defectors Elizabeth Bentley and Whittaker Chambers.  VENONA vindicated them and, to a lesser extent, the late Senator Joseph R. McCarthy.  Both impeccable sources should have made headlines and been the subject of numerous discussions and featured news.  With the exception of the conservative media, they were never given the attention they deserved, as if the mainstream media were using silence to render them insignificant.  Have you ever heard a liberal say, "By golly, Alger Hiss was a communist after all"?

The president often expressed to those around him his admiration for the ruthless dictator of the USSR, Joseph Stalin, and referred to him continuously as "Uncle Joe."  FDR had dreams of co-ruling the world with Stalin after World War II ended in a  a sort of Pax Soviet-Americana.  Joseph Stalin had only dreams of crushing the world under the Soviet boot.  To FDR, he and Uncle Joe were best buds; to Joseph Stalin, FDR was a useful idiot, a term used often by Communist Party members to refer to non-party members who could be willingly duped.  To FDR, being president of the United States for four terms was not enough to sate his ego.  Being co-President of the world would be the ultimate satisfaction.

Most Americans are familiar with the term "Deep State" in the current incarnation – a sort of shadow government staffed by unelected persons existing in parallel with the current government, occasionally intersecting with it, with the purpose of undermining the legitimate government and eventually bringing it under complete control.  The author's sweep of history points out the Marxist-Leninist roots of the Deep State.  Indeed, V.I. Lenin, through his use of "dual power," created a Deep State subsequent to the Bolshevik coup.

The book begins with a critique of the Deep State.  "It is massive structurally, consisting of a network of supremely arrogant, highly intelligent and very powerful embedded senior level government employees as well as elite institutions and their leaders who justify their behavior through a process of reasoning that conflates ends and means, creating a 'unity of opposites,' a term that is entirely consistent with the Marxist dialectic, regardless of whether its practitioners are aware of it by that name or not."

Mr. Mayer continues with an example of a current Deep State active measure.  This concerns the "dossier" described to Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) by former U.K. ambassador to Moscow Sir Andrew Wood.  This dossier was compiled by a former (or then-current – it is a matter of debate) MI6 agent, Christopher Steele.  Senator McCain was interested, and, with his version of patriotism on full display, he saw to it that the "dossier" reached the office of then-FBI director James Comey.

The "dossier" contained information damaging to the candidacy of candidate Donald J. Trump.  The "dossier" has some suspicious origins, but I will leave further revelations about it to the reader.  Hint: Not far down the line, Clinton money was involved. 

The reader will enjoy Mr. Mayer's critique of Director Comey's actions.  A deconstruction of the popular wisdom vis-à-vis the Second World War and its aftermath should intrigue the reader as a student of history.      

While history teaches about the Lend-Lease program that rescued the USSR, it was not the benign anti-Nazi policy its advocates purported it to be.  The testimony of Major George "Racy" Jordan,  who coordinated with the USSR the Lend-Lease program, revealed it to be essentially controlled by the Russians, including the transfer of nuclear material, which appears to coordinate time-wise with the atomic bomb project. 

When World War Two ended, America was a different nation from what it had been, more accustomed to a nanny state and too war-weary to realize that the USSR was the only true winner.

Bringing us to the present, the author cites the behavior of internet social forums and their de facto censorship of news by their selection of what they will permit, albeit they claim adherence to a moral code.  YouTube's definition of 'Islamophobia" (a Muslim Brotherhood concept that has penetrated mainstream language) is dangerously close to the definition of blasphemy under sharia law. 

The author describes the degeneration of the Democratic Party from a liberal and internationalist institution, with a different perspective, surely, than the GOP, but with patriotic motivation, to the present day, where it has moved hard left and has virtually declared patriotism an aberration.

The unexpected election of Donald J. Trump must have been traumatic to the Deep State.  With a new sheriff in town, and one they could not intimidate, extreme measures would be called for.

In describing Marxism-Leninism, the author shares with the reader an insight that very rarely surfaces even with those who are experts in the field.  He recognizes the siren song, the appeal to what is fundamental in the human psyche – a utopian dream.  Whittaker Chambers described Communism as the second oldest religion in the world, begun by the Serpent in the Garden of Eden with the whispered words: "Ye can be as gods."

Mr. Mayer's book is a monograph and a synopsis dealing with salient points of the history of the West in the past century.  It should be read by any interested in understanding the antecedents of the present world situation.  Those in the teaching profession should make it available to their students as an adjunct to their texts.

If we do not heed the words of W. August Mayer and others who have alerted us to the very same situation, then all we hold dear will fall to the children of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin and their convenient bedmate, Islam.  It will be a very long time until the sun comes up again

* From the years 1943 through 1948, the United States was able to intercept and decode some of the communications between the USSR and its embassy in Washington, D.C.  These decoded messages became known as the VENONA transcripts and were declassified in 1997.