The Waterbury Democrat., 1943-09-07

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 There was Q squib in the paper the other day reporting that the UBA had bought 5000 copies of John Roy Carlson's exciting book, "Under Cover. These were to be sent to spots where reading of them could do the most good-and 1t can do plenty Carlson's book is a diary of that hob-nobbings with the govt wreckers. The names ue names aren't especially new, since many of them have made the papers and the police blotters lots of times. But his general picture of the plot ters, planting their hats and their subversive stink bombs around the country, makes 0 whale of @ piece of reading It is Q pleasure to re- port that 1t is a best seller in all the key cities. It is @ sell-out in spite of or maybe because of some efforts to crack down on 1t.
 The antis talked tough to the publisher, who kept his upper lip stiff, and to some merchants, who crawled. But the good old public, kept smelling out its moola and now the author and publisher can chortle: Thanks for the adv"
 It might be worth mentioning that the forces that tride to muzzle the book never had raised their voices to get the band of men and women with sedition to trial . Those &C., cused all figures in the book, and would in the evidence . {. It is a good bet that whatever charges any, body brought against Carlson would fit the cases against the alleged seditionistS. Why not holler for THEIR trial and clean up both mat terS at once? Carlson is just an- other guy who has found out that you can get unpopular with some quote Americans unquote faster by working for the govt than by work ing against 1t. That's why they're spouting the gag around Washing ton about & burglar whose lawyer promised him he'd have the charge reduced to treason.
 Carlson, Armenian born, now a citizen, got jolted into his under covering. He saw Archbishop Leon Tourain murdered in the Armenian cathedral uptown by what later turned out to be members of the Dashnak, Armenian fascist out Then he picked up an anti-Semitic pamphlet in the subway -. "This Is getting too much like Hitler's world" he thought, and decided to find out who and what were turn ing the fascist wheels .. He passed himself off as an Italian, a Duce worshipper, and took the name of George Nagnanelli. He won the con- fidence of plotters by editing stink sheet, guessing correctly that anybody who played that dirty was a cinch to get himself loved by them What they didn't know, but sadly found out, was that he was delivering all his data to MT. Whis- kerS. They all talked like gabby drunkS once they felt they were safe. They were born braggards, and the only way they could feel smart was to say so.
 Tho thing they were trying to sell was hate. Hate Roosevelt, hate Jews, hate Catholics, hate-ahove everything else - democracy The ones among them who could spell kept hleating about repub- hc aS an improvement over de- mocracy. They couldn't tell you -l.e difference. They just yelled what they were told to, and that was one of the "mustS" from Berlin {. Carlson argues that lots of them are Suaart-but his book makes liar cut of the claim. They were incredibly dumb on occasion. A punchy package thief displays more cunning than some of them-mear- ing the leaders It goes without saying that the rank and file were dopes just e couple of jumps ahead of the strait jacket squads.
 The funniest of all the outfits Carlson describes is the Phalanx |. |. This was one of the armed uitS, making with the rifles and brag- ging about taking over. They drilled in basements and military'd all over the joint like small fry playing cops and robbers Their leaders had been educated at the B movies and got so blood-thirsty in their threats that they began to scare themselves
 .. They referred to themselves as the "iron guard" and told chumps that they recruited nobody except men with iron guts. They were al the toughest dreaming of marching on Washington, where the FBI hauled the Brooklyn branch off to the cooler. From that moment on the iron guard wouldn't be caught with cap pistol.
 Never blessed with much courage, as you might guess from the fact that 1t took dozen of them to beat up an aged Jewish storekeeper, the boys really got bad case of the butterflies after Pearl Harbor. .. They hated America just as much and loved Hitler more, but they had to be careful whom they mentioned 1t to . They began to wear their heads on turn tables, and they walked down the street looking in all directions at once, like three-time losers trying to watch the Baumes law Instead of hooting at America, they began to put a patriotic ribbon on all their mouthings '. Another proof that they are a dumb lot of clucks is seen in the fact that they kept SnnRaxyirfiYan fhava SaI,rae 0,1 y,a aY,ar oS paper, that Carlson took care to get to places where 1t would snap back and bite them . Everything they did showed it isn't a good idea to think Pearl Harbor cured isolation ism. Plenty-a good, big plenty of isolationists never got to be ex- isolationists. That's not news. They're so themselves in all the things they do and stand for.