Читать книгу An Affair of State онлайн

54 страница из 86

While others in the Department had blinded themselves to the Soviet menace, it had always been plain to him, and he had never dodged speaking his mind on it. Sometimes this had not made him popular in the Department. In the first two Roosevelt administrations, when the Reds and their allies--the C.I.O., the New Dealers, the radicals and social planners--had been running the country, he'd been buried in the Visa Division. He'd been able to perform useful services there, however. He'd guarded the dam of immigration quotas, restrictions, and regulations against the stream of refugees from Germany. It wasn't that he had anything against the Jews, although of course he was glad too many didn't get into the Department. It was simply that the National Socialists regarded Communists as their first enemy, and therefore it could be assumed that most of the people getting out of Germany were Communists.

He was in the Mediterranean area when the Spanish war flared, and he was able to use his influence to keep a steady stream of supplies going to Franco, and to discourage American enlistments and other help for the Reds.