Bill O'Reilly claims that Stalin had George Patton assassinated

Sometimes you read things online that make you drop your jaws in sheer amazement( this is a frequent observation on this blog I know), but an upcoming book by Fox News commentator( or"faux news" as critics have long dubbed it) Bill O'Reilly claiming that the NKVD( as the Soviet Secret Police was then known) assassinated US Army General George "Blood n'Guts" Patton at Stalin's orders in a staged car accident in December of 1945 must surely rank as the most self-evidently ludicrous assertion in quite a while.

Now the issue is NOT that Stalin or his secret police are little ministering angels who would NEVER dream of taking the life of another human being(clearly he and they have the blood of millions on their hands, from the mass slaughter of collectivization in the late 20s and early 1930s, the show trials and purges of the late 1930s and the "Katyn Forest Massacre" in 1940 along with Ramon Mercader's murder of Trotsky later that year), but that there is NO evidence that Patton's death was any thing other than a tragic accident

(after all people DO die in car accidents, be they the former Princess Diana of Wales or old "Blood n'Guts"-).

The rationale behind the "hit" on Patton by the NKVD seems to be that upon his return to America he was going to"bad mouth" the USSR to the American press.

I for one cannot take this claim seriously- for a start is O'Reilly claiming that the

US military authorities( which included Patton's boss Dwight "Ike" Eisenhower) and presumably the then President Harry S.Truman wilfully covered up the assassination of a popular US Army general by the Soviets??/ This would have put the Kennedy assassination, Vietnam and Watergate in the shade when it came to cover-ups!

Not even "Tailgunner Joe" McCarthy went down this road- or O'Reilly implying that McCarthy was part of this conspiracy as well?!

When informed of Patton's death, Stalin seems mildly surprised and that was all. No, contrary to O'Reilly's ramblings along with films like the 1978 one "Brass Target", I have never had good reason to think that Patton(like our own Princess Diana) died in anything other than a tragic car accident!

Anybody think as I do?

Terry

II wouldn't say O'Reilly is correct but I wouldn't automatically rule his theory out, either. Governments lie to their citizens all the time

Evidence can be ignored, suppressed and/or faked - especially considering war time propaganda. All records made at that time were made by the U.S. Military, not civilian investigators or free press, therefore it's entirely conceivable that whatever content appearing in any report concerning this issue was authored, reviewed/edited and authorized by military and government officials. They had total control of what information was documented and what information was not documented. If Patton had been killed by the Soviets, then I could definitely see why U.S. leaders wouldn't want the public to know. Such a revelation would have embarrassed the U.S. Government, U.S. Armed Forces and related intelligence agencies in the eyes of the world and would have immediately lead to further world war, this time against Soviet Russia.

The idea of the U.S. Government altering or withholding information from the public (you know; lying) isn't new and isn't surprising. In fact, it's been proven since that the government misleads the public constantly. There's really no way to be entirely sure what happened to Patton, but automatically trusting government/military records from that (or any) era is probably a mistake.

So either the government or a Talking head at Fox News lied....and in other news water is wet.

Lol. Yes!

Its bill oreily , sooo yea, don't believe a word

I shouldn't single out Fox really....I should have said the media in general. I just feel like their lies are sometimes more ridiculous and easy to detect.

I heard O'reilley pitch his case on Glenn Beck. He didn't lay out the whole book, but he mentioned enough oddities in the circumsarnces leading to Patton's death to make me think it was suspicious, so I don't find it unreasonable to offer Stalin as a suspect and make a case for it. Historians throw around theories all the time, and unless we've read the book, we can't comment on how strong his evidence is.

Are users on CV interested in threads like this?... I always wonder...

- TAS

Most of the time, I don't care about this OP's threads. But this one was too ridiculous for me to ignore.

To quote the late George Orwell, there are some ideas so self evidently ludicrous that only an intellectual could take them seriously- no working man or woman in their right senses would( Orwell was referring to a belief amongst British leftists and other useful idiots that US forces were present in wartime Britain NOT to fight the Germans but to suppress a putative Marxist revolution). Let's take O'Reilly's arguments apart piece by piece- (a) there was no autopsy performed as to determine cause of death, ERGO there must have been foul play! Following his argument, FDR( whose death back in April 1945 was also not accompanied by an autopsy) was also surreptitiously "bumped off "by the Soviets( jusr before his death Roosevelt had angrily told a friend "Averell is right- we can't do business witrh Stalin-he has broken every agreement since Yalta!") (b) upon his return to the US and subsequent retirement from the US Army, Patton was going to "bad mouth" the USSR to the American people- if that was the reason for his murder by the NKVD, then why didn't it also go after former British PM Winston "Winnie" Churchill to prevent him making from his now notorious "Iron Curtain" speech at Fulton College, Missouri in March 1946???

The US military authorities(and by implication President Harry S.Truman and his putative successor Dwight "Ike" Eisenhower) covered up the assassination.

Am the only person(and I am not even an American citizen)who is profoundly shocked by the traducing of two men who whatever criticisms could be made of their public policies or even private lives( we now know that "Ike" carried on an affair with Kay Summersby, his driver) have well earned their place in history and the esteem of not just their fellow citizens but the judgement of history, and by a self proclaimed "conservative" at that and neither of whom can return from the grave to defend their reputations(much like Pope Pius XII and Captain Bligh)???

To quote Joseph Welch during his televised cross examination of "Tailgunner Joe" McCarthy, I would ask Mr O'Reilly- "have you no shame sir, have you no shame???"

if Mr O'Reilly had even a scintilla of decency, he would not only withdraw his scurrilous book, but would make an abject apology to the families not just of the late General Patton but to the implicit canard levelled at Truman and Eisenhower!!!

I rest my case!

Terry

Heh, heh...

- TAS

@paracelsus:

1. Have you read the book to get O'Reilley's arguments or are you just getting your information on O'Reilley's case from summaries and/or reviews which were hostile to the book?

2. It's odd that you are acting as if dead people are beyond the realm of criticism. Historians constantly dig up dirt and make accusations about dead people regardless of whether those people are typically viewed as good or bad.

3. The quote is not "Have you no shame?," but "Have you no sense of decency?"

The idea that either "Ike" or Harry Truman would wilfully cover up the murder of a popular US Army general by Soviet agents(-or anyone else) is self-evidently absurd to any thinking individual( American or otherwise). Whilst the now deceased politico/leaders are fair comment for criticism, it usually falls within a certain spectrum of reasonableness- anything other goes into what the late John F.Kennedy aptly dubbed"nut country"( such as the continuing claim that Truman ordered tha atom bombings of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki not to save American soldiers' lives but to "intimidate" the Soviet Union, although WHAT he was trying to intimidate the USSR from doing has never been made clear: forcibly Sovietizing Eastern Europe, launching first the Berlin Blockade of 1948-49 and the Korean War apparently). I have given my reasons as to why I think Mr O'Reilly's reasoning is specious in both my OP and subsequent replies!

As for not having read the book, again : SO WHAT? I don't need to look at child porn, jihadist beheadings and nude pictures of female celebrities to find them unappealing!

The reason I ask if you read the book is that you are claiming O'Reilley's arguments are complete nonsense, yet you haven't read them. You are talking about how it's awful to suggest that Ike could be involved in covering up a murder, yet I've seen nothing where O'Reilley suggested Ike was part of it. Where have you found that O'Reilley accuses Ike of covering up this murder?

I don't find it out of line to accuse any historical figures of anything. I've found that most of the Presidents we've had have done at least one thing I find abominable. Murdering Patton would put Ike high up on my nefarious Presidents list, but covering up a murder for political interest would actually be pretty mild compared to the crimes of other Presidents, so I'm not sure why you find this one accusation so unbelievable.

For clarity, I'm referring to the accusation you claim O'Reilley is making with no evidence to support his idea even though you will not read the book to see if O 'Reilley actually made the accusation or what evidence be offered.

The reasonable approach would be to listen to evidence before making a judgment.

One of these things is not like the other...

None of those other things require you reading them to actually know what the factual basis for the argument is.

You, as per usual, are basing your argument on ignorance.

Once again Bill O'Reilly.....LOL. He finds things funny about Patton's death and writes a book about it involving Russia's secret police, right when the US is having problems with Russia. Way to take advantage of a situation. What's more funny is that he finds his conspiracy more believable than the odd things that happened when JFK was killed. Lol. This guy should be sent to Guantanamo on the charge of being a dumbass.

@silkyballfro94: If stupidity was a criminal offense half this site would be in prison.

@lunacyde: True, but more like 95%. Myself included.

So because I haven't actually read Bill O'Reilly's book I cannot know whether his argument is valid- following the logic of my critics arguments I should read conspiracy theory style tomes such as "The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion"(which posits an international Jewish conspiracy) before dismissing this claim as manifestly preposterous. FYI I have been critical of both Truman and Eisenhower as Presidents( as I was for FDR for his naive -with the benefit of hindsight- trust of Stalin) but the idea that Truman (who once aptly observed of his successor "Tricky Dicky" Nixon- "he does not lie just because it is in his interests to do so-he lies because it is in his very nature!" or Eisenhower would wilfully sign off on connivance (and had the NKVD actually assassinated Patton, there is NO way either he or President Truman could NOT have been aware of this fact) of this murder.

Strange though it seems to Mr O'Reilly, people die in car accidents such as my late countrywoman Diana, the former Princess of Wales , "Blood n'Guts" Patton or die of natural causes -such as FDR or a quarter of a century later, Patton's boss, Eisenhower- or is he (O'Reilly that is) going to suggest that the ubiquitous NKVD( or the KGB as it was in 1969) killed both men?

To my mind his book's argument has the same semantic overtones as snickers about FDR being in reality "President Rosenvelt" and his "Jew Deal", that JFK had a secret hotline running between the Vatican and his Oval Office or that Barack Obama is not just a Kenyan-born Muslim but the bastard son of Malcolm X!

I can't believe that I'm being criticized for defending the US( I am usually criticized by posters for being too critical)!

Terry

Lmao Bill O'Reilly

@paracelsus:

I, and I believe Lunacyde as well, do not want you to either defend or attack the United States. We just want you to listen to people's views before condemning them.

Yes, I am suggesting that you should have to listen and understand an idea before dismissing it. Crazy, I know.

Personally, I don't believe in 911 conspiracies or reptilian conspiracies, but I would listen to someone's evidence before I dismissed them. You don't even know what O'reiley's evidence is. The thing you find so ridiculous, that Ike would cover up a murder, is apparently not something O'Reilley even suggested, so you are dismissing a theory as ridiculous for an assumption you made about an idea you will not hear.

This would be like me saying, "I won't support Barack Obama because his book 'dreams from my father' is so obviously full of lies. You can't steal other people's dreams. Are we really supposed to believe in that crap? I haven't read the book and have little idea what the book says, but I'm not going to read a book so full of lies."

Bill is hilarious but I prefer Lawrence O'donnell

@blade_r: My reaction exactly.

Contrary to what some may claim I am NOT an especial admirer of Eisenhower( he was a Republican remember and my attitude to Republican conservative Presidents is well known; hint I am NOT in favour of them), but I for one find it hard to believe that Mr O'Reilly has sources available to him in 2014 that an official US Army investigation in 1945(which concluded that Patton died in a car accident ;see his "Wikipedia" entry and that for the 1978 film-which I have on video- "Brass Target"). It is true that back in those far off days Americans(at least white ones) were more trusting of the US Government and its agencies including the military than they would be in coming decades( pace Kennedy assassination Vietnam War, Watergate, and more recently Iraq) and that there was no Internet to spread conspiracy theories, but I STILL feel that it doesn't seem credible that the Government would cover up the murder of a popular US military leader by Soviet agents- after all not even Joe McCarthy made this claim!

Terry

When peddling a product, outrageous claims are often made.

Just in case anybody is taking OP seriously, Para has never read the book he's criticizing nor even checked anything other than the basic premise of the book. All his criticism is based on conjecture and assumptions about a book he has never read. If you point this out to him, Para will claim be doesn't need to be informed about the contents of the book to condemn it and then ignore further attempts at reason.

To me, judging something before you see the evidence is not a sign of wisdom.

Now that several prominent historians of WWII(and Patton's grandson) have expressly rubbished O'Reilly's claims I trust that is the end of this matter(or is he going to claim that they are part of the cover up as well)!