Legacy of a False Promise – A Daughter’s Reckoning, by Margaret Fuchs Singer

This is a very special book. Written by the daughter of a couple that were accused of being Communists in the 1950s, exposed and subpoenaed before the almighty House Un-American Activities Committee. A daughter whose father broke down and named names, and then lost his prestigious job as a Law professor at the American University and was blacklisted. Were they spies as well?

Margaret Fuchs was thirteen when it happened. Hardly a communist. Hardly a spy. Hardly in an age to be “Un-American”. Still, in a sense, sentenced. As an adult she spent years trying to learn what really happened. Eight years of research – reading FBI files, American University files, conducting personal interviews, and diving into the recently declassified Venona cables. To find a very personal truth. And, as it turns out, a truth that is of interest and some considerable importance to the rest of us as well. About a dark patch of history, about a period when people could be taken down and destroyed on the basis of rumor.

Fuchs Singer’s work is unusual in a number of ways. It recounts in a very touching manner the shame and series of betrayals that her father’s decision to name names brought to her family. Furthermore, it explores the campaign of the liberal anti-Communist movement to publicize its political position while defending a fired ex-Communist professor, the nature and activities of secret Communist underground cells, and the motivation of New Deal government workers who spied for the Soviets.

Legacy of a False Promise is a poignant meditation on family secrets, father-daughter relationships in times of crisis, teenage loneliness in the midst of trauma, and the effects of parents’ actions on the lives of their children. It also serves as a timely reminder of the dangers of sacrificing civil liberties in the name of national security.

This is a very personal book, an honest book, a book where the author lays bare her traumas, her doubts, the problems she has faced, and her work to somehow come to a reckoning – to understand, and heal by working through it all and understand better. And it is well documented, strongly factually based. So were her parents spies as well as Communists? Read and find out!

Reviews:

“Although I may differ with her analysis here and there, I am in awe of Margaret Singer’s brave and relentless attempt to disentangle and illuminate the complex ethical, moral, political and personal issues raised by her experiences growing up as the child of a Communist, turned ex-Communist, turned informer. ”–Victor S. Navasky, author of Naming Names

“Lively, personal, and a nice read. . . . I’ve worked with a number of red diaper babies all trying to come to terms with their parents’ pasts, and I think Ms. Singer is to be congratulated for her persistence in writing this book and her forthrightness in telling her story and that of her parents.”
—R. Bruce Craig, Executive Director of the National Coalition for History in Washington, D.C.

“What a deep respect I have for this courageous and fascinating book. The daughter’s journey, driven by a need to know the truth, is told with understanding and compassion for her parents, yet never flinches in the face of the often troubling information that is being unearthed by her quest. It has the suspense line of a spy thriller and is also an important historic document about the cold war. I couldn’t put it down.”¬—Kim Chernin, author of In My Mother’s House

Tagged as: communist, Margaret Fuchs Singer