This is the latest in a series of exclusive interviews with Dr. Paul Kengor, Cold War historian and professor of political science, on his blockbuster book, The Communist: Frank Marshall Davis, The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor.
The Communist is based on declassified material from Soviet archives, FBI files, and archived articles from Communist Party publications. Among the material reproduced in Kengor’s book are reports from Davis’s 600-page FBI file listing Davis’s Communist Party number: 47544. Kengor’s book provides stunning information that the mainstream media has carefully avoided. Like Breitbart News’s Vetting project, Kengor’s exposé is doing the vetting of Obama that the pro-Obama media refuses to do.
Breitbart News Network: Professor Kengor, you’ve told us some very intriguing things about Obama’s mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, including the interview we did on the troika of Obama, David Axelrod, and Valerie Jarrett, all of whom have common political ancestors in Chicago’s Communist Party circles in the 1940s. Before we get to your latest tidbit, just give us a quick update on what you reported on Obama and Axelrod and Jarrett.
Kengor: No problem. Frank Marshall Davis, a literal card-carrying member of Communist Party USA, was extremely active in Chicago Communist Party circles in the 1940s, before he relocated to Hawaii, where he would meet a young Obama in the fall of 1970. In Chicago, he worked with the political ancestors of both Valerie Jarrett, Obama’s closest adviser, and David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist. As to Jarrett, Frank Marshall Davis worked with her grandfather, Robert Taylor, and her father-in-law, Vernon Jarrett, in communist causes and campaigns. As to Axelrod, Davis worked with the Canter family, Harry and David Canter; before they relocated to Chicago, the Canters actually lived in Moscow and worked for Stalin’s government, with the senior Canter a translator of Lenin’s writings. The Canter family would later mentor David Axelrod in Chicago in the 1970s.
So, in sum, Obama’s mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, worked in communist activities in Chicago with the political ancestors of Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod.
BNN: You can’t make this up.
Kengor: No, you can’t make it up. In the book, I document it meticulously, with sources primarily from official Congressional reports produced by Democrat-run committees.
BNN: Okay, let’s get to the latest bit. You say Frank Marshall Davis is mentioned in the 1995 edition of Dreams from My Father.
Kengor: He’s listed 22 times as “Frank” and referenced dozens of additional times via pronouns and other forms of reference. He appears in every section of Obama’s memoirs, throughout the text, well beyond just Hawaii.
BNN: But “Frank’s” full name was never divulged once, right?
Kengor: That’s right. I’m convinced that Obama avoided doing so because he knew even then that it was a major political risk for him to disclose the full identity of a mentor who was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party, and who was so radical in his Soviet work that the Democrats who ran the Senate Judiciary Committee called him to Washington to testify in December 1956. In fact, Frank Marshall Davis’s politics were so extreme that he was placed on the federal government’s Security Index–meaning that if a war broke out between the United States and Soviet Union, he could have been immediately arrested.
BNN: Our current president had a mentor who was on the Security Index?
Kengor: Yes. With a mentor like that, Barack Obama should have a hard time getting a security clearance for an entry-level government job, let alone entrance into the Oval Office. The American voter, however, found a way around that process.
BNN: Nonetheless, Obama at least partially acknowledged “Frank” in Dreams from My Father, right?
Kengor: That’s right. I think Obama realized he couldn’t ignore Frank altogether, given that the man was such a powerful, abiding influence.
BNN: In 2005, Dreams from My Father was released as an audio version–an abridged audio version. How often is “Frank” mentioned in the audio version?
Kengor: Not once.
BNN: Not one time?
Kengor: Not once. Zero. Nada. “Frank” is completely purged. Blacklisted. Gone.
BNN: Why do you think that is?
Kengor: By 2005, Obama had given his historic Democratic National Convention speech, had just gotten elected to the U.S. Senate, and was commencing a meteoric rise to the presidency. I’m certain that Obama wanted safe distance from “Frank” politically. Like the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, this was another significant radical influence that Obama thus tossed under the bus.
BNN: Is Obama aware that “Frank” was purged from the audio version?
Kengor: Oh, yes. Obama narrates the audio version. The liberals feted him with a Grammy for his sterling narration. And the back cover of the audio states, “This abridgment has been approved by the author.” Obama knows. The only way Obama couldn’t know would be if he didn’t write the original book. Liberals don’t want to go down that road, do they?
BNN: The audio version is abridged. Maybe Obama simply removed, say, the one small section in the Hawaii chapter that mentioned “Frank”?
Kengor: No, that’s not the case. Frank appears in every section of the memoir, all three parts, starting in Hawaii and then when Obama thinks of him later in Africa, Europe, Chicago. It’s not like Frank appears only on pages, say, 15-22. He appears throughout the text. It’s eerie to be reading the book in hard cover, and listening simultaneously to the audio, and see and hear everything the same, line to line, sentence to sentence, paragraph after paragraph, page upon page, and then suddenly, on a dime, out of the blue, come upon a printed sentence or paragraph that mentions “Frank” and–bam–the audio suddenly skips ahead. It’s chilling. It’s clearly deliberate. No question about it. It’s clear concealment.
BNN: Can you give us an example of how “Frank” was selectively removed?
Kengor: Yes, here’s just one: In the 1995 text version, one reference reads: “It was the same dilemma that old Frank had posed to me the year I left Hawaii.” In the 2005 audio version, it reads: “It was the same dilemma posed to me the year I left Hawaii.”
BNN: Has anyone in the mainstream media noticed this?
Kengor: Maybe. Actually, probably. But they haven’t reported on it. Look, that’s not their job. Their job is to protect Obama, not expose him. They aren’t real journalists. They’re political partisans first and journalists second. They’re not honest, or they delude themselves on a grand scale. They’ve sacrificed their noble profession to an ignoble political ideology.
BNN: Have any mainstream media journalists contacted you on this?
Kengor: Are you kidding? No way. Not a chance. They’ll send a team of a dozen reporters to fact-check Sarah Palin’s memoirs or a Romney speech, but not to investigate the president they’ve committed to coddle and preserve.
BNN: Where can our readers go to learn more?
Kengor: My book is available at Amazon.com. Go there and buy a book for yourself and your favorite liberal.
BNN: Do you think liberals will actually read this book?
Kengor: If they’re as open-minded and tolerant and diversity-loving as they claim, then, yes, they’ll read it. But, in reality, they’re very closed-minded and totally intolerant of political viewpoints they disagree with. Let’s see if they can live up to their convictions. Or, like Obama, maybe they’ll relegate this one to their personal blacklist.
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