Aug 4, 2023·edited Aug 4, 2023Liked by Jeff Stein, Peter Eisner
Peter Eisner, what a GREAT and fair review of the film - although it does make me want to see it, I feel forewarned about it's bias.
The bio-blurb at the end fails to mention that you are the author of several excellent biographical books about real life spies yourself, most of which I've read. So your observations about Ted Hall are supported by extensive knowledge of the field..
"Millions of lives saved?" Does sound high. But I knew two WWII vets, Max Offerle and Ells Schmid, who were prisoners of the Japanese at the time and were scheduled to be executed by an order to "kill all the prisoners." They lived when the surrender was done sooner than expected. I am very happy that they lived, and I had the opportunity to know them.
It's easy to throw around labels, but in what way is that true? The article gives space -- respectfully -- to the legitimate issues raised by the use and ownership of nukes. It also describes the anguish in their own words of two acknowledged traitors to the United States. This is not to support McCarthyism or anything or anyone who came after him. I was looking for a film that provided better context of the conundrum surrounding Los Alamos. The Halls were naive long after they and others came to understand the dangers of Stalinism. His crimes were known as early as 1933. See Malcom Muggeridge that year. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/02/exposing-stalin-famine-in-ukraine-muggeridge-1933). Sending atomic secrets to the Soviet Union was sending a weapon of mass destruction to a dictator who was starving, killing and imprisoning millions of his people. Would one trust that government more or less than the U.S., as jingoistic as it became in that era? Or would one be naive to do so?
More rightwing nonsense. My anti-Stalinism is second to none. But not only were Soviets allies of the US at the time, they were dying by the millions in the struggle against Nazism, thereby engendering sympathy the world over despite Stalin's crimes. Sympathy continued after the war when the US allied with far-right forces around the globe in order to create what might be described as a Nazi-lite anti-Soviet coalition. Soviet acquisition of the A-bomb meant that Washington could no longer continue its one-sided pressure campaign. The issues are far more complex than you seem to realize.
Thanks for engaging with us, Daniel. We appreciate it, but name-calling is discouraged here. In any event, to your point: Mr. Eisner's review included this: "Hall said his decision to pass secrets to Moscow was based on his compassion for humanity and to 'protect the Soviet people,' who were suffering immense casualties as they fought off the Nazi German invasion virtually alone." And this: "“The world has come extremely close to real, actual, total disaster,” Hall says in the 1998 interview. “People, not the government [must] be prepared to insist, to demand, to compel government policies which don’t put the world at risk again.”
"A Compassionate Spy ends with an epigraph rendered in large white type on a plain black screen that reminds us: 'The United States remains the only nation to have used nuclear weapons in warfare.'"
Peter Eisner, what a GREAT and fair review of the film - although it does make me want to see it, I feel forewarned about it's bias.
The bio-blurb at the end fails to mention that you are the author of several excellent biographical books about real life spies yourself, most of which I've read. So your observations about Ted Hall are supported by extensive knowledge of the field..
"Millions of lives saved?" Does sound high. But I knew two WWII vets, Max Offerle and Ells Schmid, who were prisoners of the Japanese at the time and were scheduled to be executed by an order to "kill all the prisoners." They lived when the surrender was done sooner than expected. I am very happy that they lived, and I had the opportunity to know them.
This article is rightwing BS.
It's easy to throw around labels, but in what way is that true? The article gives space -- respectfully -- to the legitimate issues raised by the use and ownership of nukes. It also describes the anguish in their own words of two acknowledged traitors to the United States. This is not to support McCarthyism or anything or anyone who came after him. I was looking for a film that provided better context of the conundrum surrounding Los Alamos. The Halls were naive long after they and others came to understand the dangers of Stalinism. His crimes were known as early as 1933. See Malcom Muggeridge that year. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/02/exposing-stalin-famine-in-ukraine-muggeridge-1933). Sending atomic secrets to the Soviet Union was sending a weapon of mass destruction to a dictator who was starving, killing and imprisoning millions of his people. Would one trust that government more or less than the U.S., as jingoistic as it became in that era? Or would one be naive to do so?
More rightwing nonsense. My anti-Stalinism is second to none. But not only were Soviets allies of the US at the time, they were dying by the millions in the struggle against Nazism, thereby engendering sympathy the world over despite Stalin's crimes. Sympathy continued after the war when the US allied with far-right forces around the globe in order to create what might be described as a Nazi-lite anti-Soviet coalition. Soviet acquisition of the A-bomb meant that Washington could no longer continue its one-sided pressure campaign. The issues are far more complex than you seem to realize.
Thanks for engaging with us, Daniel. We appreciate it, but name-calling is discouraged here. In any event, to your point: Mr. Eisner's review included this: "Hall said his decision to pass secrets to Moscow was based on his compassion for humanity and to 'protect the Soviet people,' who were suffering immense casualties as they fought off the Nazi German invasion virtually alone." And this: "“The world has come extremely close to real, actual, total disaster,” Hall says in the 1998 interview. “People, not the government [must] be prepared to insist, to demand, to compel government policies which don’t put the world at risk again.”
"A Compassionate Spy ends with an epigraph rendered in large white type on a plain black screen that reminds us: 'The United States remains the only nation to have used nuclear weapons in warfare.'"
Informative and well written. Thanks Peter.
Great article Peter. Idealistic yet naive people can do a great deal of harm.