All Governments Lie: The Life and Times of Rebel Journalist I. F. Stone [Paperback]

Myra MacPherson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 8, 2008

Boasting equal parts scholarship and style, "All Governments Lie" is a highly readable, groundbreaking, and timely look at I. F. Stone -- one of America's most independent and revered journalists, whose work carries the same immediacy it did almost a half century ago, highlighting the ever-present need for dissenting voices.

In the world of Washington political journalism, notorious for trading independence for access, I. F. "Izzy" Stone was so unique as to be a genuine wonder. Always skeptical -- "All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out," he memorably quipped -- Stone was ahead of the pack on the most pivotal twentieth-century trends: the rise of Hitler and Fascism, disastrous Cold War foreign policies, covert actions of the FBI and CIA, the greatness of the Civil Rights movement, the horror of Vietnam, the strengths and weaknesses of the antiwar movement, the disgrace of Iran-contra, and the class greed of Reaganomics. His constant barrage against J. Edgar Hoover earned him close monitoring by the FBI from the Great Depression through the Vietnam War, and even an investigation for espionage during the fifties.

After making his mark on feisty New York dailies and in The Nation -- scoring such scoops as the discovery of American cartels doing business with Nazi Germany -- Stone became unemployable during the dark days of McCarthyism. Out of desperation he started his four-page I. F. Stone's Weekly, which ran from 1953 to 1971. The first journalist to label the Gulf of Tonkin affair a sham excuse to escalate the Vietnam War, Stone garnered worldwide fans, was read in the corridors of power, and became wealthy. Later, the "world's oldest living freshman" learned Greek to write his bestseller The Trial of Socrates.

Here, for the first time, acclaimed journalist and author Myra MacPherson brings the legendary Stone into sharp focus. Rooted in fifteen years of research, this monumental biography includes information from newly declassified international documents and Stone's unpublished five-thousand-page FBI file, as well as personal interviews with Stone and his wife, Esther; with famed modern thinkers; and with the best of today's journalists. It illuminates the vast sweep of turbulent twentieth-century history as well as Stone's complex and colorful life. The result is more than a masterful portrait of a remarkable character; it's a far-reaching assessment of journalism and its role in our culture.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Stone (1907–1989), the man behind I.F. Stone's Weekly and a congenital prober behind official facades, remains enormously relevant today, in an era of too much journalistic acquiescence. MacPherson (Long Time Passing) hasn't written a conventional biography——as her subject left no private papers—but has woven in a study of the press (especially establishmentarian Walter Lippmann) and "Stone's running commentary on twentieth-century America." A child of Jewish immigrants, Stone (born Isador Feinstein) was, according to a friend, driven by insecurity and curiosity. A newspaperman for decades, he became "an eclectic craftsman," with a reformist and intellectual bent; even at 19 he quit a job to chase the Sacco and Vanzetti execution. "Izzy," as he was called, emerges as a challenging, complex fellow, an ebullient workaholic adored by his wife. Columnist and reporter, on the left but a self-described nonconformist, Stone issued sound judgments on the Holocaust and the Cold War, yet, the author allows, could be too willing to give the Spanish Loyalists and the Soviets the benefit of the doubt. Near the end of his life, Stone taught himself ancient Greek and wrote The Trial of Socrates, a hit. But his legacy was earned by a willingness to read documents in depth and apply his eclectic, passionate intelligence—and MacPherson brings all this to life in this terrific and timely book. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* With painstaking research, MacPherson offers a penetrating look at one of the nation's most respected journalists and a tour de force of five decades of challenge to the principles of press freedom in a democracy. A man of astonishing energy and intelligence, Stone began his career at 15 as editorial writer in 1923 for the Philadelphia Record and later the New York Evening Post. He went on to write for the Nation, PM, and his own I. F. Stone's Weekly. Suffering poor vision and eventual deafness, Stone eschewed coziness with high-placed sources, relying instead on meticulous research and low-level government workers who had a better feel for what was actually happening. A descendent of Russian Jews, Stone was born too late for the height of the radical socialist era but maintained progressive ideals and was highly skeptical of government policies. He opposed Joseph McCarthy's Red-baiting, the Vietnam War, and FBI surveillance of citizens. He himself was a lifelong target of the FBI. MacPherson chronicles the internecine strife on the Left during and since the cold war era, with Stone battling away at the excesses of capitalism. Interviews with friends, family, and colleagues offer a personal look at a complex man: demanding, prickly, passionate, and iconoclastic. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 592 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (April 8, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416556796
• ISBN-13: 978-1416556794
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,260,081 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspiring story of a true journalist watchdog, October 23, 2006

By 

Dr. H. David Prensky (Palm Beach, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: All Governments Lie: The Life and Times of Rebel Journalist I. F. Stone (Hardcover)

I had been looking forward eagerly to All Governments Lie, Myra MacPherson's thorough study of I.F. Stone's work and times. I had a deep personal interest in the project and confess to being absolutely delighted with the results.

I mention a deep personal interest and the reasons for this are many. For starters: I am a contemporary and there aren't too many of us left. It is true that he was 10 years my senior but still we shared depression and war and cold war years. I can't say that we knew each other, although we did meet on a few widely scattered occasions, but I did attend his school, The University of Pennsylvania. There in his home town of Philadelphia, I moved in circles that included relatives and friends with whom he had grown up. That enables me to say that I had a good second hand acquaintance with him.

I introduce myself in this manner to justify the comments I am about to make about the book. I confine myself to just one area of the book's treatment of the life of the man the author calls "the rebel journalist". I felt warm satisfaction in the way she swept into the garbage pail the ludicrous charge that Stone was guilty of espionage for the Soviet Union. She is convincing on the subject and reminds us of what should put an end to this baseless gossip. The F.B.I. never found one shred of evidence, and it was not for lack of trying.

J. Edgar Hoover was a stubborn, determined man when he had a hated target in his sights. He despised Stone to the point where he had made up his mind to get rid of him. To him the Stone threat was in the same class as those of Martin Luther King and Albert Einstein and we recall the viciousness and relentlessness of his attempts to ruin them. On the matter of the espionage smear, I can state with warm satisfaction now, because of this book: "Case closed!"

On a related theme, Ms MacPherson demonstrates a level of insight and understanding not always displayed by writers discussing her book. She comprehends, as they do not, that one had to have lived through the epoch to realize how it was possible to have taken pro-Soviet stands in the 1930s and '40s. With the hind sight of this century one can sneer at one who was so blind as to be taken in by Joseph Stalin. But for one who lived through the period, and Ms. MacPherson did not, I am in a position to make some points on this.

Those of us who lived during those years with our eyes and ears open, were aware of the threat that soon developed into the nightmare of World War II. We saw in Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia and Hitler's various menacing moves what the world would be faced with if measures weren't taken. Yet it was only the Soviet representative at the League of Nations during the mid to late 30s, Maxim Litvinov, who stood up and made the much needed accusations and called for collective security. The Italian and German n delegations walked out and the representatives of the great democracies remained cowed and silent. Let me add to this the shameful memory of the Spanish Civil War and the so called Non-intervention Committee. Only The Soviet Union and Mexico came to the aid of the legitimately elected government of Republican Spain.

Many highly respected people wrote admiringly of the Soviet Union, from the muckraking journalist, Lincoln Steffens, to Beatrice and Sidney Webb to Ambassador Joseph E. Davies to the saintly Hewlett Johnson, Dean of Canterbury Cathedral.

If you weren't there then, it's easy to look back now and ask: "How could he not have known?" Well, Myra MacPherson wasn't there then, but she has the insight to reveal the situation that existed and to explain the way decent people lined up.

This book is a must reading for younger generations who know so little about these times.

40 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars You Don't Have to Agree with Him, September 6, 2006

By 

C. Kurdas (Brooklyn, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: All Governments Lie: The Life and Times of Rebel Journalist I. F. Stone (Hardcover)

With the hindsight of several decades, it is easy to poke holes in I.F. Stone's writings. Yes, his notion of combining a free society with socialism was utopian. Yes, his economic arguments tend to be wooly in the extreme. Yes, he was wrong in denying the Soviet connections of some of his communist friends. Stone's books stay fresh despite those mistakes because he was right about a lot: governments, racism, wars.

He was so right that what he says about the cold war and Korea and Vietnam provides insight into the wars America wages today. Beyond the light he sheds on specific events, Stone offers an alternative model of journalism. His journalism, based on a close reading of all sources, is independent of the powers that be. Today's news reporting is dominated by the hypocrisy of the "he said, she said" model: include a counter-quote and the story supposedly becomes neutral. Stone was not politically neutral, but he was independent and truthful. He did not regurgitate the received view. He would not have fallen for the addled rationales that skewed public opinion in favor of starting the war in Iraq.

MacPherson's biography is a great way to get to know the irrepressible, fiercely intelligent and marvelously funny Izzy--a man who retains his curiosity and innocence even as he fights against injustice and idiocy and is beset by malignant bureaucrats and scheming politicos. It's not about his private life, but the book does bring the man to life.

Through Stone, one understands American history with all its grandness and squalor, in ways rarely available from history books. MacPherson has done a service to the Republic in bringing together this mass of material and preserving the memory of an outstanding American. Anybody who cares about the country should read it.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book for smart people!, October 22, 2006

By 

Joseph Cowart - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: All Governments Lie: The Life and Times of Rebel Journalist I. F. Stone (Hardcover)

I.F. Stone, a great reporter, told the truth to power without giving it a second thought. Would that the current crop of investigative reporters had done the same. This book, beautifully written by former reporter Myra MacPherson, through ten years of interviews and research, puts Stone in context to his times, and will make you wish there was such a person watching Washington today. Buy this book now.