David Brinkley criticized for program on Roosevelt
[Sent to the ABC television network and appeared in the Holland Sentinel, 8 February 1982]
Gentlemen:
Lately, all the television networks have aired programs about President [Franklin D.] Roosevelt. Many times I heard the comment that he was the most admired of men and the most hated of men.
When the subject came to Tehran and Yalta, some expressed the view that he made "mistakes" because of his naivete and because of bad advice. I can, with reluctance, accept that. Others used hairsplitting dialectic, asking how he could have sold something that he did not have. My response is that he did, in fact, sell what did not belong to him, namely Human Freedom.
Still, in the name of many nations that were once free, in the name of millions of enslaved people, in the name of thousands murdered by Communists, I object most strongly to that part of Mr. Brinkley's broadcast of January 29 where he presented Mr. Hiss and Mr. Harriman as witnesses for the defense of President Roosevelt's actions at Yalta.
It is as if Hitler were called as a witness for Adolf Eichmann to whitewash the murder of Jews! Hiss and Harriman were President Roosevelt's advisers at Yalta. Hiss was later convicted and sent to prison by an American court for his Communist affiliations and Harriman is a longtime Soviet apologist.
The use of such witnesses to justify Yalta is preposterous, a mockery to the millions of people affected.
Mr. Brinkley's handling of Yalta lets one assume that he is on the same side as Hiss and Harriman.