The Iron Curtain Over America

In The Iron Curtain Over America, John Beaty presents a sweeping interpretation of twentieth-century American history and foreign policy, arguing that the United States has been subjected to an internal “iron curtain” of censorship, propaganda, political influence, and Communist penetration that has prevented the American people from understanding the forces shaping their country. Drawing on his travels, academic work, and wartime service in U.S. Military Intelligence, Beaty traces his argument from the Teutonic Knights and the development of Germany through Russia and the Khazars, the World Wars, Roosevelt and Truman, the Democratic Party, the press, and American foreign policy. He contends that American intervention in the Second World War was unnecessary, that postwar policy strengthened Soviet power at the expense of Western Christian civilization, and that influential political and ideological interests distorted public understanding of these events. His final chapters call for the removal of Communist influence from government, a foreign policy based upon American national interests, reconsideration of the United Nations, fiscal restraint, and a distinction between the Russian people and their Soviet rulers.