John Barron (1930, Wichita Falls, Texas - February 24, 2005) was an American journalist who exposed Communist activities. Barron, son of a Methodist minister, graduated from the University of Missouri, and studied Russian in the United States Naval Postgraduate School. In 1965, Barron joined the Washington bureau of Reader's Digest. There he wrote more than 100 stories on a wide variety of subjects--notably a 1980 story concerning unanswered questions surrounding the drowning death of Mary Jo Kopechne at Chappaquiddick, which involved Ted Kennedy.
Contents |
Books
- KGB: The Secret Work of Soviet Secret Agents. New York: Reader's Digest Press, 1974. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1974. [pb] New York: Bantam Books, 1974.
- Murder of a Gentle Land with Anthony Paul
- MiG Pilot: the Final Escape of Lt. Belenko, New York: Reader's Digest Press, 1980, ISBN 0-380-53868-7. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980. [pb] New York: Avon Books, 1981.
- KGB Today: The Hidden Hand. New York: Reader's Digest Press, 1983. New York: Berkley Books, 1985.
- Breaking the Ring: The Bizarre Case of the Walker Family Spy Ring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.
- Operation SOLO: The FBI's Man in the Kremlin, Washington, DC: Regnery, 1996, ISBN 0-89526-429-3
Quotations
Matt Schudel in The Washington Post:
| “ | [Barron was] an investigative reporter whose meticulously researched articles and best-selling books helped unravel the mysteries of Soviet espionage and the Khmer Rouge's mass killings in Cambodia. | ” |
Susan Sontag in 1982:
| “ | Imagine, if you will, someone who read only the Reader's Digest between 1950 and 1970, and someone in the same period who read only The Nation or the New Statesman. Which reader would have been better informed about the realities of Communism? The answer, I think, should give us pause. Can it be that our enemies were right? | ” |
John Barron in KGB - The Secret Work of Soviet Secret Agents:[1]
| “ | Contrary to popular supposition, the KGB is not primarily interested in homosexuals because of their presumed susceptibility to blackmail. In its judgement, homosexuality often is accompanied by personality disorders that make the victim potentially unstable and vulnerable to adroit manipulation. It hunts the particular homosexual who, while more or less a functioning member of his society, is nevertheless subconsciously at war with it and himself. Compulsively driven into tortured relations that never gratify, he cannot escape awareness that he is different. Being different, he easily rationalizes that he is not morally bound by the mores, values, and allegiances that unite others in community and society. Moreover, he nurtures a dormant impulse to strike back at the society which he feels has conspired to make him a secret leper. To such a man, treason offers the weapon of retaliation. | ” |
See also
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
- Robert Conquest
- Eugene Lyons
- Isaac Don Levine
- Whittaker Chambers
- Louis Budenz
- Hede Massing
- Elizabeth Bentley
References
- ^ Barron, John (1975). KGB - The Secret Work of Soviet Secret Agents. London: Corgi Books. ISBN 0-552-09890-6. p. 266
External links
- Washington Post obituary by Matt Schudel
- "He shot down Commies" National Review Online column by John Miller
- "Remembering long time Communist conspiracy fighter John Barron" Human Events article by William Schultz
- "John Barron, RIP." by Lowell Ponte at Moonbat Central
