Endorsed by top military leaders:
|
Lt. Gen, George E. Stratemeyer, USAF (ret.), says: "I congratulate you on your book and the service you have performed for our country. If my health would permit it I would go on a continuos lecture tour gratis and preach your book and recommendations. My "Iron Curtain Over America" will be on loan continuously and I intend to recommend its reading in every letter I write. |
| Lt. Gen. Edward M. Almond, USA. (ret.), says: "It is an inspiration to me to find an author with the courage and energy to research and to secure the publication of such information as you have assembled in order that the poorly informed average American may know wherein the real threats to our Country lurk. Your book is a magnificent contribution to those who would preserve our American ideals." |
 |
Vice Admiral T. G. W. Settle, U.S.N. (ret.), says: "The Iron Curtain Over America" is a most pertinent and excellently presented treatise on the cancer on our national set-up. "I hope this book has had, and will have, the widest possible dissemination, particularly to our leaders-in Washington, and in industry and the press, -- and that our leaders who are "uncontaminated" will have their serious attention engaged by it." |
 |
Lt, General P. A. Del Valle, USMC (ret), says: " I am impelled to write to you to express my admiration of your great service to the Nation in writing this truly magnificent book. No American who has taken the oath of allegiance can afford to miss it, and I heartily recommend it as an honest and courageous despeller of the fog of propaganda in which most minds seem to dwell." |
 |
Col. John Beaty The author of "The Iron Curtain Over America" has written, or collaborated on, a dozen books. His texts have been used in more than seven hundred colleges and universities, and his historical novel, Swords in the Dawn, published originally in New York, had London and Australian editions, and was adopted for state-wide use in the public schools of Texas. His education (M.A., University of Virginia; Ph.D., Columbia University; post-graduate study, University of Montpellier, France ), his travel in Europe and Asia, and his five years with the Military Intelligence Service in World War II rounded out the background for the reading and research (1946-1951) which resulted in The Iron Curtain Over America. |
To The Reader
Many authors of books on the current world scene have been White House confidants,
commanders of armies, and others whose authority is indicated by their official or
military titles. Such authors need no introduction to the public, A Prospective reader is
entitled, however, to know something of the background and experience of an unknown or
little-known writer who is offering a comprehensive volume on a great and important
subject.
In the spring of 1926, the author was selected by the Albert Kahn Foundation to
investigate and report on world affairs. Introduced by preliminary correspondence and
provided with numerous letters of introduction to persons prominent in government,
politics, and education, he gained something more than a tourist's reaction to the culture
and institutions, the movements and the pressures in the twenty-nine countries which he
visited. In several countries, including great powers, he found conditions and attitudes
significantly different from the conception of them which prevailed in the United States.
Though previously successful in deposing of his writings, he was unable, however, to get
his observations on the world situation published, except as the Annual Report of the
Foundation and in his friendly home special foreign correspondent, and in the Southwest
Review, in whose files his "Race and Population, Their Relation to World Peace"
can still be seen as a virtual prognosis of the oncoming war.
After his return to America in the autumn of 1927, the author kept abreast of world
attitudes by correspondence with many of the friends he had made in his travels and by
rereading French, German, and Italian news periodicals, as well as certain English
language4 periodicals emanating from Asia. World trends continued to run counter to what
the American people were allowed to know, and a form of virtual censorship blacked out
efforts at imparting information. For instance, though the author's textbooks continued to
sell well and though his novel Swords in the Dawn (1937) was favorably received, hes book
Image of Life (Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1940 ), which attempted to show Americans the grave
world-wide significance of the degradation of their cultural standards, was granted, as
far as he knows, not a single comment in a book review or a book column in New York.
Indeed, the book review periodical with the best reputation for full coverage failed to
list Image of Life even under "Books Received".
In 1940 - as our President was feverishly and secretly preparing to enter World War II and
publicly denying any such purpose - the author, a reserve captain, was
"alerted," and in 1941 was called to active duty in the Military Intelligence
Service of the War Department General Staff. His first assignment was to write, or help
write, short pamphlets on military subjects, studies of several campaigns including those
in Western Europe and Norway, and three bulletins on the frustration of an enemy's
attempts at sabotage and subversion
In 1942, the author became a major and Chief of the Historical Section (not the later
Historical Branch of the War Department Special Staff). In his new capacity, he supervised
a group of experts who prepared a current history of events in the various strategically
important areas of the world. Also, he was one of the two editors of the daily secret
"G-2 Report," which was issued each noon to give persons in high places,
including the White House, the world picture as it existed four hours earlier. While Chief
of the Historical Section, the author wrote three widely circulated studies of certain
phases of the German - Russian campaign.
In 1943 - during which year he was also detailed to the General Staff Corps and promoted
to lieutenant colonel the author was made Chief of the Interview Section. In the next
three years he interviewed more than two thousand persons, most of whom were returning
from some high mission, some delicate assignment, or some deed of valor - often in a
little-known region of the world. Those interviewed included military personnel in rank
from private first class to four stars, diplomatic officials from vice-consuls to
ambassadors and special representatives of the President, senators and congressmen
returning from overseas investigations, missionaries, explorers, businessmen, refugees,
and journalists - among the latter, Raymond Clapper and Ernie Pyle, who were interviewed
between their next to the last and their last and fatal voyages. These significant people
were presented sometimes individually but usually to assembled groups of officers and
other experts from the various branches of G-2, from other General Staff divisions, from
each of the technical services, and from other components interested in vital information
which could be had by interview perhaps sex weeks before being received in channeled
reports. In some cases the author increased his knowledge of a given area or topic by
consulting documents suggested during an interview. Thus, from those he interviewed, from
those specialists for whom he arranged the interviews, and from study in which he had
expert guidance, he had a unique opportunity for learning the history, resources,
ideologies,
capabilities, and intentions of the great foreign powers. In its most essential aspects,
the picture was terrifyingly different from the picture presented by our government to the
American people!
After the active phase of the war was over, the author was offered three separate
opportunities of further service with the army - all of them interesting, all of them
flattering. He wished, however, to return to his home and his university and to prepare
himself for trying again to give the American people the world story as he had come to
know it; consequently, after being advanced to the rank of colonel, he reverted to
inactive status, upon his won request, in December, 1946. Twice thereafter he was recalled
for a summer of active duty: in 1947 he wrote a short history of the Military Intelligence
Service, and in 1949 he prepared for the Army Field Forces an annotated reading list for
officers in the Military Intelligence Reserve.
From 1946 to 1951 the author devoted himself to extending his knowledge of the apparently
diverse but actually interrelated events in the various strategic areas of the present-day
world. The goal he set for himself was not merely to uncover the facts but to present them
with such a body of documented proof that their validity could not be questioned.
Sustaining quotations for significant truths have thus been taken from standard works of
reference; from accepted historical writings; from government documents; from periodicals
of wide public acceptance or of known accuracy in fields related to America's foreign
policy; and from contemporary writers and speakers of unquestioned standing.
The final product of a long period of travel, army service, and study is The Iron Curtain
Over America. The book is neither memoirs nor apology, but an objective presentation of
"things as they are." It differs from many other pro-American books principally
in that it not only exhibits the external and internal dangers which threaten the survival
of our country, but shows how they developed and why they continue to plague us.
The roads we "travel so briskly lead out of dim antiquity" said General James G.
Harbord, and we must study the past "because of its bearing on the living
present" and because it is our only guide for the future. The author has thus turned
on the light in certain darkened or dimmed out year tremendously significant phases of the
history of medieval and modern Europe. Since much compression was obligatory, and since
many of the facts will to most readers be wholly new and disturbing, Chapters I and II may
be described as "hard reading." Even a rapid perusal of them, however, will
prepare the reader for understanding better the problems of our country as they are
revealed in succeeding chapters.
In The Iron Curtain Over America authorities are cited not in a bibliography or in notes
but along with the text to which they are pertinent. The documentary matter is enclosed by
parentheses, and many readers will pass over it. it is there, however, for those who wish
its assurance of validity, for those who wish to locate and examine the context of quoted
material, and especially for those who wish to use this book as a springboard for further
study.
In assembling and documenting his material, the author followed Shakespearean injunction,
"nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice." Writing with no goal except
to serve his country by telling the truth, fully substantiated, he has humbly and
reverently taken as his motto, or text, a promise of Christ the Saviour as recorded in the
Gospel According to Saint John (VIII, 32):
And Ye Shall Know The Truth And The Truth Shall Make You Free.
Only an informed American people can save America - and they can save it only if all
those, to whom it is given to know, will share their knowledge with others.