The Communist’ Part I: Obama’s Mentor Frank Marshall Davis Exposed

On July 17th, Mercury Ink and author Paul Kengor, PhD, will introduce the world to the real Frank Marshall Davis – the card-carrying member of the Communist Party U.S.A, and who all accounts indicate was Barack Obama’s closest role model and mentor.

Devoid of outrageous conspiracy theories or sensational claims, Kengor painstakingly documents the historical facts of this dynamic, at times even sympathetic character, who walked the path from Republican roots clear through to the radical fringe of unfettered Marxism.

Presently, certain news and commentary outlets are focusing on the more outrageous aspects of Frank Marshall Davis’ life, such as his self-admitted penchant for perverse sexual escapades as well as for taking photos of naked women (including of Stanley Ann Dunham, Obama’s mother).

In fact, the recently released documentary, “Dreams From My Real Father,” even posits that Davis is the president’s true biological father. While much of Davis’ bizarre fetishes and sexual peccadilloes provide subject matter worthy of consideration, Kengor believes that his book, “The Communist,” focuses on the substantive ideological, rather than sensational aspects of Davis’ past.

At the end of the day, according to Kengor, mentors matter – and in no small amount.

The book opens by explaining how Ronald Reagan and Hillary Clinton’s role models were extremely influential in each of their lives, respectively. In fact, typically the first task of any biographer is to examine the mentors of the subject he or she is writing about. Oddly, when it comes to our current president, left-wing biographers have somehow avoided this topic altogether.

Kengor notes that although both Ronald Reagan and Hillary Clinton’s role models were indeed of great import to each of them, their names were rarely mentioned in each of their biographies. Ironically, however, Obama mentioned “Frank” by name no less than 22 times in his memoir, “Dreams From My Father.”

“We’ve had 44 presidents and they’ve all had mentors,” Kengor told me during an exclusive Blaze interview.

“Yet never before in the entire 200-plus year [presidential] history of this country, have we had a president with a mentor who was a card carrying member of the Communist Party."

Kengor takes issue with the fact that no liberal biographer acknowledges that Frank Marshall Davis was Obama’s mentor, yet those same biographers have never denied that Don Jones mentored Ronald Reagan, just as Ben Cleaver guided an impressionable, young Hillary Clinton until her departure to university.

Perhaps the reason no one cares, according to Kengor, is because both Cleaver and Jones “loved America” and were not “pro-soviet members of the Communist Party.” He believes journalists, biographers, and the media in general are guilty of “scandalous neglect” when discussing Barack Obama.

Thanks for the post, looks like a useful book (and hi, by the way!). I’d have to think about whether this statement is accurate: “Yet never before in the entire 200-plus year [presidential] history of this country, have we had a president with a mentor who was a card carrying member of the Communist Party.” A few of the members of FDR’s Brain Trust come to mind for starters, and the Clintons were groomed by a few who weren’t necessarily “card-carrying” but fall into the category of agents of influence and fellow travelers; and I can think of a few other instances. But no Presidential mentors as blatantly associated with the CP as Obama’s open references to Davis’ mentorship, is probably true.

“However, the CPUSA was so riddled with FBI Agents (see Herb Philbrick’s “I led Three Lives,”) that no one can actually tell whose side anyone was actually on.”

Occasionally, but it’s usually not that ambiguous in most cases, and the FBI had very few black agents before L. Patrick Gray became Director. In this case FBI files’ internal references to Davis as well as HUAC records on Davis make it clear Davis was a surveillance target rather than an agent. For instance, right now I’m looking at a 1953 synopsis on Davis by the Honolulu FBI field office that opens with the summary, “Subject. . .writes weekly column (Frankly Speaking) for the Honolulu Record, Commmunist-dominated newspaper. . .Subject was identified as active in the Dorie-Miller Club, Communist Party, in Chicago, Illinois. Was also active in the AID, CRC, and Abraham Lincoln School in Chicago, all of which were cited as subversive by the Attorney General. In Honolulu, subject has been active in the HCRC.” The remainder of the document goes on to mention various instances where the Bureau collected information on Davis by interviewing informants in his orbit. The gist makes it clear the FBI regarded Davis as subversive.

OK Fedora (you named after the hat or the Opera?) the FBI Agents were often hermetically sealed from one another so that they didn't know who was the fuzz and who was the commie. I watched that show faithfully as a child on our 10-inch B&W TV, so I know.

I shall take your meticulous research under advisement. Now, can you or someone tell me the story with Stanley Ann, or Stanley, or Ma Dunham? The whole family's weird saga is making me itch ... a sure sign that an intelligence op is underway. As far as the WH recumbent goes, his whole lightweight Marxist shtick is starting to remind me of the wise-ass HS sophomore "communists" of my careless youth, except he seems to have many fewer IQ points and looks to me like a jerk who failed geometry and blamed it on racism.

Is it just remotely possible that ole Stanley was working an intelligence beat keeping an eye on FMD?

Named after an FBI informant who was codenamed after a hat, so I guess the answer is still hat. I Led Three Lives was a good show, closer to the original case in the early episodes than later when it took more liberty adding dramatic devices. Hermetic sealing might occur in the field, but back in the field office and in Washington the pieces were put back together, and the perspective of the field office is what is reflected in the files on Davis. Cliff Kincaid did an FOIA to get Stanley Armour Dunham's FBI files and was told they had been destroyed in 1997 (five years after his death, so it was evidently at someone else's initiative). This indicates there was a file on him, but does not tell us what it contained.

Tip'o'chapeau. "Destroyed" files. ROTFLMFAO!

Now about Stanley Ann. She was a denizen of that mighhty mirky NGO world where The State Department, The CPUSA, and The Intelligence Services often collide ... part Ford Foundation ...Part KGB ...Part ONI, CIA, NSA, FBI (when they are lucky).

Would love to debrief the old Karachi Station Chief or maybe séance old Kim Philby to get the whole story on her. The Geithner clan was in on this scam, too. In fact, Geithner Sr. was Stanley Ann's mentor or controller or something ... again ... were they on our team? Their team? Both teams?

A mystery wrapped in an enigma this whole Obama era. I am not too long for this planet ... I gotta know .... who is this guy?!?

Peter Geithner, Timothy's father, and Ann Dunham were both active in the Ford Foundation's Asian operations during the same period from 1981 to 1984. Peter was in charge of Ford Foundation grant disbursement in Asia, and Ann was working in the Foundation's Southeast Asia regional office in Jakarta, Indonesia. The Ford Foundation's Asian operations were rooted in the US postwar occupation of Japan, and spanned the entire sphere of US influence in Asia, so there were probably numerous degrees of bureacratic remove between Peter and Ann. Without additional information, I wouldn't assume he was her mentor or controller or was even directly aware of her. He did hold the purse strings for the organization she worked for, though.

As for where that money was coming from I can tell you that the Ford Foundation was the biggest conduit for funding CIA operations at this time, and that the Foundation's policies in Asia reflected the goals of John D. Rockefeller III, a key figure in post-WWII US Asia policy. Rockfeller founded the Asia Society in 1956 on the model of the Institute of Pacific Relations. IPR as you may know was a Rockefeller-supported Asian policy think tank which had been infiltrated by a Soviet intelligence network that had penetrated the OSS and the early CIA. Early CIA leaders had the notion that they could counter Soviet influence by supporting liberal groups that were socialistic rather than CP-controlled. Of course such groups were often CP-infiltrated and could just as easily be turned towards Soviet and Chinese ends, not to mention that they were socialistic in their own right. This US policy of supporting liberal groups abroad was implemented first in Europe in the early 50s and later in Asia and the Third World through operations like the Peace Corps of the Kennedy-Johnson era, the human rights groups that proliferated in the 1970s with support from the Ford and Carter administrations, etc.

Ann came into this whole orbit while teaching English in Jakarta during the late 60s and early 70s. Through her Chinese second husband (whose family had been killed during an Indonesian revolt against Dutch colonists in the 1940s, and who had subsequently become a cartographer for the Indonesian government), she became involved with a series of American-Indonesian liaison groups. During this period USAID had recently been extended to Indonesia following the ouster of Sukarno, who had aligned himself with the Asian Communist bloc and was supported by Western Communists. Of course the intent of USAID here was to serve US policy, but as in Vietnam, volunteers could also be recruited to other ends. The Vietnam antiwar movement was being steered towards sympathy for the Indonesian Communist cause by George McT. Kahin, who had been tasked by the IPR's Owen Lattimore in 1949 with developing an academic challenge to Dutch colonialism in Indonesia. Meanwhile Soviet-sponsored antiwar groups like COLIFAM were using Jakarta as a launch pad to run operations into Vietnam. It was a common tactic for groups like that to infiltrate their own people into USAID-supported groups.

If I continue on this line of thought I'll have to write a whole article, so I'll cut myself off there, but I think those are some background items relevant to some of your questions.

Early CIA leaders had the notion that they could counter Soviet influence by supporting liberal group ....Of course such groups were often CP-infiltrattd ....USAID here was to serve US policy, but as in Vietnam, volunteers could also be recruited to other ends. ...etc.

Thank you, Fedora. That's indeed the murky part. I had heard (from a fairly good sources) that Geithner and Stanley Ann were on close enough terms for him to have brought her into the fold.

I can personally tell you that today's USAID is a far-out Leftist operation whose typical political slant is a lot closer to Bill Ayers' than my own. NGO staffs are even moreso.

Thanks again Fedora, you have many many pieces of puzzles that have long baffled me!

Thank you as well. If there is additional information about the nature of the Geithner-Dunham relationship, that would certainly be significant.

There has been a lot of bureacratic struggle over control of USAID since the Nixon administration, often over its relationship to the Executive Branch and the State Department. Nixon and Congress (with a strong antiwar bloc led by Ted Kennedy, etc.) fought over USAID’s direction from 1970 to 1973. In 1978 Senator Hubert Humphrey introduced legislation to roll USAID into a new cabinet-level agency. This general period was concurrent with the post-Watergate shakeup of the intelligence community, which vastly increased the degree of left-wing influence in such agencies. It might be informative to pinpoint where Dunham’s group fit into the landscape of those bureacratic battles.

The other place I’d look to shed light on this is the Indonesian antiwar movement and its overlap with the Vietnam antiwar movement. If I find anything interesting on this I’ll ping you.

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