John Stewart Service and why I don't buy any of the Franken allegations [View all]

[grantcart]

First of all lets admit the obvious: Sexual assault is a grossly under reported crime in the US. It is, IMO, the greatest and darkest 'secret' that America covers up. I would also submit that the greatest number of unreported assaults happen in what is generally referred to as "date rape" where a couple are in a private and intimate environment and the male goes beyond what the female consents to. Three out of the four women that I had serious relations with in High School and College were victims of this kind of assault and I would not be surprised if 1 out of 3 women faced this kind of assault.

There are also a lot of improper activities (mostly by males) at the work place. When I became an executive in the only US company I worked for I took over for an executive that was being cashiered out because of 11 allegations of improper sexual contact, which was ironic because one of the services this company provided was consulting on how to manage awareness campaigns and reduce risk to companies.

My first task was to evaluate the claims. Two were confirmed rather easily and another two were strongly likely and the executive admitted to these four. There were four more that could have been possible but seemed unlikely and three more that could not have been possible because the dates that the accusers were certain of the executive wasn't in California but at our headquarters in Chicago.

The fact is that some women will make false claims in hopes of filing a claim. So even though we know that allegations are underreported it does not mean that all allegations that are reported are true.

It also doesn't mean that where there is smoke there is fire.

Take John Stewart Service for example.

Service grew up in China the son of missionaries for the YMCA. He joined the foreign service and was sent to the Dixie Mission which was the US military headquarters in China during WWII. He was sent by General Stillwell to make contact with the Mao Zedong and the leadership. Service correctly predicted that the corruption of the Nationalist regime had undermined their support and that the Communists were building a strong organization from the base up and that they would eventually gain power. The reactionary right targeted him and the other "China Hands" (other Americans that had grown up in China and served in the State Department).

In 1945 Service returned home for an extended visit and, as is the custom of the State Department, he was made available to journalists who wanted to get information on a "background basis". One of the people he met with was Phillip Jaffe a reporter for the Amerasia Journal that focused on American Asian interests. Service gave Jaffe copies of 8 articles he had written on general conditions in China, a practice that is common for State Department officers. No classified information was provided and Service was unaware that Jaffe was a Communist.

Service was eventually targeted and persecuted for years. The FBI documented every spec of his life and took it to a grand jury and in what may be the only time in US history a federal grand jury not only didn't indict Service but not a single grand juror voted for indictment.

The Republicans went after him and Senator McCarthy targeted him. He was hounded and investigated a dozen times by both the State Department and Congress and cleared every time. He was eventually fired on the premise "where there was smoke there must be fire", simply the number of investigations must mean something. Eventually the Supreme Court cleared him. Yet after he died an unscrupulous Wall Street Journal writer invented 2 phone interviews where Service 'confessed' to his misdeeds. During his life he was never abel to see the evidence against him and after his death the reactionary right still manufactured lies against him.

Losing Service and the rest of the China hands had a terrible impact on the US. Had we maintained a close relationship with China they would not have cooperated with their natural enemies, the Russians. It is possible that the Korean War would have been avoided or negotiated at the halfway point. Vietnam could have been avoided but we will never know.

When you look at the Franken allegations there are two elements that are completely different from all of the other "predators". First Weinstein, Spacey, Toback, Halperin, Oreskis, Lauer, and Rose all involve the predator actually doing something of a sexual nature: masturbating, forcing sex, inviting to a hotel room, exhibiting their penis.

None of the accusers of Franken accuse him of any of this behaviour but only inappropriate touching, and all of it in public.

The first accuser has been completely discredited because there are videos which show her doing exactly what she accused Franken of against Robin Williams. It is clear from the pictures from the USO tour and her Playboy appearance that she is a woman who used her sexuality as a device to promote her own self interests.

Here is what makes the allegations against Franken so improbable. If you have a predator they are most likely to make advances and attempt sexual activity outside of the camera range, not right in front of it. If Franken was a real predator then there would be stories from the people he worked with who he met in offices with closed doors and his female work associates have all come out in support for him.

Just like Service and his reporting on China, Franken is a prime target for the radical right. He is the one that pressed the case against Fox News and O'Reilly et al. It was his books that established the foundation so that when the allegations came out no one believed the denials. The first accuser against Franken played along with the birther nonsense showing that she has no regard for a standard of truth. The last accuser presented a picture which frankly shows that Franken's arms are too short to reach around the parka to grab her breast but as Trump supporting Republican she is suspicious, not because she is a Republican but because she supports Trump when he is caught doing things much worse than what she is complaining about.

Franken took thousands of pictures and worked with hundreds of women. None of the women that worked with him have seen anything suspicious and the women that are accusing (only 2 of which have become public) him are accusing him of being a predator, but only of light touching and doing it in public before cameras. If Franken was a predator then he wouldn't have been settling for touches he would have escalated. Franken is a goof and may have been in some goofy pictures but the evidence against the man who may well be the most photographed Senator serving in the Senate isn't there.

It would be a tragic mistake for Democrats, out of a sensitivity to a terrible problem, to allow the radical reactionaries target an innocent and great Democratic leader.