Noel Field was in idealist who wanted to prevent war, a humanitarian and an American. By the end of his life he was an apologist for Stalin's invasions of Finland and Poland, a supporter of the most repressive state on Earth and a traitor to his homeland.
Marton's book follows Field's life, from the son of an American diplomat to a forgotten pawn of the Cold War. Recruited by the Soviets at the same time as Hiss and Chambers, Field provided the USSR with State Department documents in the 1930s, especially during disarmament talks with other powers. Because of Field's position in the State Department he was no doubt also able to influence AMERICAN policy so it fit in with STALIN's POLICY.
But what I thought was hilarious in this book, in a grim sort of a way, was the untold story of Fields during the last of the Stalin show trials. While Senator McCarthy was revealing the presence of communists in the State Department (an incontrovertible fact, despite the use of the term "Red Scare") Stalin was busy getting rid of those communist leaders in Eastern Europe who did not toe his line. He used Fields, whose work during WWII for a Unitarian aid program enabled many communists to return to their home countries, as broad brush to portray them as spies and saboteurs. While comfortable communists hauled up before the House Un-American Committee refused to name other clandestine communists, Fields named over 500 communists he aided during the war... but not to HUAC. He named them to the Secret Police, who dispatched many of them immediately because they had "suspicious ties to the West." Others got stiff sentences in the Gulag.
Fields allowed himself to be brainwashed into the service of a dictator who had the blood of millions of his hands. He saw the communist system as almost a holy thing and America as a wretched opponent of progressivism. It's a pity the man never devoted a fraction of that enthusiasm towards his country, or at least towards the State Department.
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