Dupes How America's Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century

In this intensively researched new book, historian Paul Kengor shines a light on a deeply troubling aspect of American history: the prominent role of the “dupe.” From the Bolshevik Revolution through the Cold War and right up to the present, many progressives have unwittingly aided some of America's most dangerous opponents. Based on fascinating archival information—including previously unpublished FBI files and documents from the Soviet Comintern archives— ‘Dupes' exposes the legions of liberals who often provided fodder for the enemy. Kengor identifies a wide range of figures, from “Potemkin Progressives” like John Dewey, George Bernard Shaw, and H. G. Wells to “Progressives for Obama” like Tom Hayden, Mark Rudd, Jane Fonda, and Bill Ayers; from Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Jimmy Carter to Senators John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, and Dick Durbin; from Hollywood stars like Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall to playwrights like Arthur Miller and Lillian Hellman; from Dr. Benjamin Spock to Dr. Howard Zinn. Perhaps most intriguing of all, Kengor uncovers stunning new evidence of the extensive Communist ties of Frank Marshall Davis, mentor to a young man in Hawaii named Barack Obama. Yet ‘Dupes' also defends such liberal icons as Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman, and John F. Kennedy, showing how they were trashed and demonised by Soviet and American Communists. At the same time Kengor reveals that the ranks of the duped once included an actor named Ronald Reagan—who, of course, became perhaps America's greatest anti-Communist.