Isaac Don Levine (January 19, 1892 – February 15, 1981) was a 20th-century Russian-born
American journalist
A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...
and
anticommunist
Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when the United States and the ...
writer
A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, pla ...
, who is known as a specialist on the Soviet Union.
[
]
He worked with Soviet ex-spy
Walter Krivitsky
Walter Germanovich Krivitsky (Ва́льтер Ге́рманович Криви́цкий; June 28, 1899 – February 10, 1941) was a Soviet intelligence officer who revealed plans of signing the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact after he defected to ...
in a 1939 expose of Stalin's purges and other terrorism in the Soviet Union. Later he worked with
Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers (born Jay Vivian Chambers; April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer-editor, who, after early years as a Communist Party member (1925) and Soviet spy (1932–1938), defected from the Soviet underground (1938) ...
, a defector from the American Communist Party, to reveal agents in the United States government.
[
][
]
Background
Levine was born in 1892 in
Mazyr russian: Мозырь
, nickname =
, image_skyline = Mazyr Montage (2017).jpg
, imagesize = 250px
, image_flag =
, image_shield = Coat of Arms of Mazyr, Belarus.svg
, image_map =
, map_caption ...
(then "Mozyr"),
Belarus
Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...
, into a
Zionist
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in J ...
Jewish family. He immigrated to the United States in 1911, where he learned English. He finished high school in
Missouri
Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas to ...
.
Career
Levine found work with ''
The Kansas City Star
''The Kansas City Star'' is a newspaper based in Kansas City, Missouri. Published since 1880, the paper is the recipient of eight Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Star'' is most notable for its influence on the career of President Harry S. Truman and as ...
'' and later ''
The New York Tribune
The ''New-York Tribune'' was an American newspaper founded in 1841 by editor Horace Greeley. It bore the moniker ''New-York Daily Tribune'' from 1842 to 1866 before returning to its original name. From the 1840s through the 1860s it was the domi ...
'', for which he covered the
revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government ...
. He would return to Russia in the early 1920s to cover the
Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policie ...
for ''
The Chicago Daily News''.
He was in Boston to cover the
Sacco and Vanzetti
Nicola Sacco (; April 22, 1891 – August 23, 1927) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (; June 11, 1888 – August 23, 1927) were Italian immigrant anarchists who were controversially accused of murdering Alessandro Berardelli and Frederick Parmenter, a ...
trials in the early 1920s, during which he formed the Citizens National Committee for Sacco and Vanzetti. "His experience there was one of the factors that eventually turned him against the
ommunistParty and toward a career exposing the
KGB
The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
's espionage activities in America and Europe."
Levine worked as a columnist through the late 1920s and 1930s for the
Hearst papers.
In the spring of 1939, Levine collaborated with
Walter Krivitsky
Walter Germanovich Krivitsky (Ва́льтер Ге́рманович Криви́цкий; June 28, 1899 – February 10, 1941) was a Soviet intelligence officer who revealed plans of signing the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact after he defected to ...
, a defector from the Soviet intelligence agency KGB, for a series of articles in the ''
Saturday Evening Post
''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine, currently published six times a year. It was issued weekly under this title from 1897 until 1963, then every two weeks until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely c ...
''. Together they exposed the horrors of Stalin's regime, including the mass purges and murders of tens of thousands, and the deportation of suspected opponents to internal exile and Siberian camps. In November of the same year, the series was collected and published as a book, ''In Stalin's Secret Service'', attributed to Krivitsky alone. (Levine's role in the writing was not revealed at the time.)
In September 1939, Levine arranged a meeting between Communist Party defector
Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers (born Jay Vivian Chambers; April 1, 1901 – July 9, 1961) was an American writer-editor, who, after early years as a Communist Party member (1925) and Soviet spy (1932–1938), defected from the Soviet underground (1938) ...
and President
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As th ...
's security chief,
Adolf Berle. There Chambers revealed, with Levine present, a massive spying operation reaching even into the White House. He identified, among others,
Alger Hiss
Alger Hiss (November 11, 1904 – November 15, 1996) was an American government official accused in 1948 of having spied for the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Statutes of limitations had expired for espionage, but he was convicted of perjury in con ...
in the State Department and, according to Levine,
Harry Dexter White
Harry Dexter White (October 29, 1892 – August 16, 1948) was a senior U.S. Treasury department official. Working closely with the Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr., he helped set American financial policy toward the Allies of World ...
, the author of the Morganthau Plan, in the Treasury Department.
In his biography, the German diplomat
Wolfgang Gans zu Putlitz reports on a meeting with Levine in Jamaica and shortly thereafter at Levine's residence in Connecticut in mid-1941, which had been about a book about von Putlitz's experiences as an employee of the British secret service, but which did not materialize because Levine was only interested in a "fantasized sensational story".
From 1946 to 1950, Levine edited the anticommunist magazine ''
Plain Talk'', financed by
Alfred Kohlberg. He also joined the board of the
American China Policy Association, whose chairman was Kohlberg.
[
]
In March 1948, Levine joined the American Jewish League Against Communism (AJLAC).
[
] On December 9, 1948, Levine provided testimony to the
House Un-American Activities Committee
The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged dislo ...
in the
Alger Hiss
Alger Hiss (November 11, 1904 – November 15, 1996) was an American government official accused in 1948 of having spied for the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Statutes of limitations had expired for espionage, but he was convicted of perjury in con ...
case, regarding Communist espionage in the US government.
[
] AJLAC helped form the
Joint Committee Against Communism, and Levine was known to be a board member of the latter in 1954. (Kohlberg helped finance both AJLAC and the joint committee.)
He declined to join ''
The Freeman
''The Freeman'' (formerly published as ''The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty'' or ''Ideas on Liberty'') was an American libertarian magazine, formerly published by the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE). It was founded in 1950 by John Chamberlai ...
'' magazine. He did work for a time with
Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a United States government funded organization that broadcasts and reports news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Caucasus, and the Middle East where it says tha ...
in
West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 ...
instead. There, he co-founded the
American Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia
The American Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia (ACLPR, AMCOMLIB), also known as the American Committee for Liberation from Bolshevism, was an American anti-communist organization founded in 1950 which worked for the liberation o ...
, based in
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and H ...
.
Personal life and death
Levine married and had a son with his first wife, Robert Don Levine (November 15, 1924 – July 21, 2013).
He later married again, to a woman named Ruth. His son became a public affairs specialist.
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Levine died on February 15, 1981, at age 89, in his home in
Venice, Florida
Venice is a city in Sarasota County, Florida, United States. The city includes what locals call "Venice Island", a portion of the mainland that is accessed via bridges over the artificially created Intracoastal Waterway. The city is located in Sou ...
.
Representation in other media
Levine appeared as himself, in a cameo as one of the witnesses to the
John Reed era, in the movie ''
Reds'' (1981).
Levine is featured briefly in Walter Isaacson’s documentary ''Einstein: His Life and Universe'' (2007). He and
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
were friends, but they eventually fell out over their political differences.
Works
Books written by Levine himself:
*''Russian Revolution'' (1917)
* ''Resurrected nations; short histories of the peoples freed by the great war and statements of their national claims'' (1919)
*''Man Lenin'' (1924)
*''Stalin'' (1931)
** ''Stalin, der Mann von Stahl'' (1931)
* ''Red Smoke'' (1932)
* ''Mitchell, pioneer of air power'' (1943, 1958, 1972)
*''Stalin's Great Secret'' (1956)
*''The Mind of an Assassin'' (1959, 1960, 1979)
*''I Rediscover Russia'' (1964)
*''Intervention'' (1969)
*''Eyewitness to History'' (1973)
[
* ''Hands off the Panama Canal'' (1976)
Books written in collaboration:
* Maria Botchkareva, ''Yashka: My Life as Peasant, Exile, and Soldier'' (1919)
* Kaiser William II, ''Letters from the Kaiser to the Czar, copied from government archives in Moscow unpublished before 1920 (1920)
* Vladimir Zenzinov, ''Road to oblivion'' (1931)
* ''Plain Talk: an anthology from the leading anti-Communist magazine of the 40s'' (1976)
Articles edited or written by Levine:
* '' Plain Talk'' (1946-1949)
* ''"]GULAG
The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
"–Slavery, Inc." (map) (1947)
Levine also wrote the screenplay for the biographical movie ''Jack London
John Griffith Chaney (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to ...
'' (1943).
See also
* Joint Committee Against Communism
* Plain Talk
* Alfred Kohlberg
* Walter Krivitsky
Walter Germanovich Krivitsky (Ва́льтер Ге́рманович Криви́цкий; June 28, 1899 – February 10, 1941) was a Soviet intelligence officer who revealed plans of signing the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact after he defected to ...
References
External links
*
Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library
Emory University
Isaac Don Levine papers, circa 1914-1978
{{DEFAULTSORT:Levine, Isaac Don
1892 births
1981 deaths
People from Mazyr
People from Mozyrsky Uyezd
Belarusian Jews
Jews from the Russian Empire
Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States
American people of Belarusian-Jewish descent
American anti-communists
Jewish anti-communists
Jewish American writers
American male journalists
20th-century American journalists