By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

Seizing on the scandal involving President Obama’s “open mic” obsequious conversation with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Glenn Beck has announced that Paul Kengor’s explosive new book on Frank Marshall Davis will be published this summer through Beck’s Mercury Ink outlet. Davis was a pro-Moscow communist who helped raise and mentor Obama.

Davis, Beck says, is the key to understanding Obama’s pro-Russian foreign policy.

The new Kengor book carries the title, THE COMMUNIST Frank Marshall Davis: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor. Mercury Ink, which is publishing the book, is the publishing imprint of Mercury Radio Arts, Inc., a multimedia production company owned by Beck.

In the embarrassing “open mic” incident, Obama told Medvedev that he needed some “space” from the Russians before meeting any more of their demands, and that he would have more “flexibility” after being re-elected. Medvedev promised to transmit the information to “Vladimir,” meaning Vladimir Putin, the former KGB officer who is going to assume the Russian presidency for the second time on May 7. Putin has described the fall of the Soviet Union as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”

One of the leading analysts of the international communist movement, Kengor has written that the evidence, including Davis’s 600-page FBI file, demonstrates that “…a mentor of the current president of the United States was a Communist—and not only a party member, but an actual propagandist for Stalin’s USSR…”

Kengor, who is also a professor at Grove City College in Pennsylvania, has written extensively on “progressives” who came under the influence of the old Soviet Union. His most recent book, Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century, has a chapter on Davis.

A member of the Communist Party USA and under FBI surveillance for 19 years, Davis was a mentor to young Barack Obama while he was growing up in Hawaii, for as many as eight years. Kengor’s new book on the subject could be an explosive development in the presidential campaign and possibly jeopardize Obama’s chances for re-election.

Davis, who advised Obama on matters like race relations and college, was listed on the FBI’s security index, meaning that he could be arrested or detained in the event of a national emergency. The FBI material documents Davis’s anti-white and pro-Soviet views, infiltration of the Hawaii Democratic Party, and other activities.

One document from the surveillance of Davis in Hawaii reveals, “Informant stated that DAVIS…had been observed photographing shorelines and beachfronts. Informant advised that it did not appear he was photographing any particular objects.” The information strongly suggests the possibility of espionage or some other form of illegal activity on the part of Davis.

Kengor tells Accuracy in Media that he continues to see Davis’ influence on Obama.

“I do indeed see similarities between Obama and Frank Marshall Davis in that both men made favorable overtures to the Russians at the expense of both our interests and our allies,” he said. “Davis did this far more blatantly, taking Russia’s position against ours on matters ranging from the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan to NATO and Poland and Czechoslovakia, among many others. Obama is giving in to the Russian position on American missile defense, including joint missile defense with Poland and Czechoslovakia.”

He went on, “By the way, remember that Obama had cancelled U.S. plans for that joint missile defense back on September 17, 2009. That day just happened to be the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland. Poles painfully noticed the historical irony. Frank Marshall Davis joined CPUSA and sided with the Russians AFTER that invasion of Poland. The invasion, and the Hitler-Stalin Pact that precipitated it, launched WWII. And none of that dissuaded Davis from joining the Party, which he did in the middle of WWII.”

A political ad from the Republican group American Crossroads, which also highlights the “open mic” controversy, seems to suggest that Obama is acting like a secret Russian agent.

Although the ad is designed to be funny, the subject is a deadly serious one, as it involves relations with an adversary in possession of nuclear weapons that can destroy the United States and which is currently supporting such rogue regimes as Iran and Syria.

Beck’s publication of the book demonstrates his willingness to tackle subjects many would rather avoid.

Beck left Fox News after being told to mute his hard-hitting criticism and scrutiny of billionaire George Soros, a major funder of the progressive movement in the U.S. He now hosts GBTV, an Internet-based television network.

Accuracy in Media published the column, Obama’s Communist Mentor, on February 18, 2008, examining the nature of the Davis-Obama relationship and why it was covered up by Obama. This continues to be one of the most-read columns ever published by Accuracy in Media.

Anti-communist blogger Trevor Loudon had broken the story wide open, noting that a communist writer had given a March 2007 speech that mentioned Davis’s influence on Obama as possibly having a major historical impact. Obama was then a U.S. senator from Illinois with political connections to communist networks in Hawaii as well as Chicago, where he had been a community organizer and associate of Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

Davis had lived in Chicago, where he was also active in Communist Party actvities, before moving to Hawaii.

Loudon said the information proved beyond doubt that the mysterious “Frank” in Obama’s book Dreams from My Father, a figure influential in Obama’s young life, was actually Frank Marshall Davis, a fact confirmed through sources in Hawaii by Accuracy in Media. The Obama campaign acknowledged the identification while insisting that Davis was just a civil rights activist.

The major media, including many conservative media personalities, did not want to cover the incriminating information about Obama because of its ominous implications and questions about Obama’s loyalty to the U.S. Hence, Obama was elected to the presidency in 2008 without an adequate vetting of his relationship to a major figure in the Moscow-funded Communist Party. Equally significant, as a candidate for a federal political office, Obama did not have to undergo an FBI background check.

We have continued these investigations, noting that a mysterious Obama trip to Russia in 2005 continues to generate concern, as well as the President’s handling of a Russian spy scandal that broke in 2010 and that may have been tied to passage of the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia. Critics say the treaty damaged America’s strategic interests.

One of the spy scandal documents said Moscow wanted its agents to obtain information from sources “close to State Department, government, major think tanks.” The Russians were interested in sources “who are in, or able to infiltrate, United States policy-making circles,” and one of the Russian agents “met with an employee of the U.S. Government with regard to nuclear weapons research.”

But because the Russian spies were quickly sent home, in a development that prevented the high-level nature of the scandal from being examined publicly, the American people were never able to find out how high up in the Obama Administration it went.

Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona said:

“We know the President cancelled plans to station an anti-ballistic missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic. We know the President supported language in the New START Treaty to link missile defense to nuclear reductions. We know the administration is sharing information with Russia, including plans to deploy missile defenses in Europe. We know the President has significantly reduced funding and curtailed development of the U.S. national missile defense system, undermining our ability to effectively intercept long-range ballistic missiles. And we know the President has doubled-down on efforts to reduce our nuclear arsenal while failing to honor his promises to modernize the aging nuclear weapons complex.

“But what we don’t know is what President Obama has in mind for after the election, when he would gain some ‘flexibility’ in negotiating with the Russians. Perhaps the Russians, in whom President Obama recently confided, could shed some light on his missile defense plans for the American people who otherwise have been left in the dark by this President.”

Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma has cited Obama’s statements to Medvedev in a warning about the direction Obama is taking the country.

“Our nuclear arsenal is as much about deterrence as it is about strike capability,” said Inhofe. “Under the New START deliberations, Congress was assured by President Obama that our remaining nuclear assets would continue to be modernized. Based on the cuts and delays to our nuclear arsenal and facilities in his Fiscal Year 2013 budget, President Obama is once again going back on his word.”

Inhofe added, “Another key concern is the reduction of our assets below the New START approved level of 1550. It seems that President Obama is looking at unilateral reductions even further below the agreed upon limits under the treaty. I remember back in 2008 when Secretary Gates said that we must maintain some level of these weapons ourselves to deter potential adversaries and to reassure over 30 allies and partners who rely on our nuclear umbrella for their security.”

Obama dismissed the controversy and claimed he wasn’t hiding anything. “I’m on record,” he said. “I want to see us over time gradually, systematically reduce reliance on nuclear weapons.”

After he was already elected president, The New York Times wrote about how Obama, when he was in college, had written the article, “Breaking the War Mentality,” about his involvement in the anti-nuclear cause on the campus of Columbia University. The article attacked the “military-industrial interests” with their “billion-dollar erector sets” and agitated for a nuclear-free world. The Times noted that Obama “explored going further” than the so-called nuclear freeze movement, an effort on some U.S. campuses that was backed by the Soviet Union and designed to defeat President Reagan’s defense build-up in the 1980s.

Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected].