To review the new book, The Secret World of American Communism, by Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes of Yale University, the London Spectator commissioned David Caute, who has long been devoted to a viewpoint opposite from that of its authors. Drawing on recently opened Soviet archives, the book offers documentary proof that the American Communist Party was largely a cover for an extensive Soviet spy ring, vindicating hotly contested accusations by Whittaker Chambers and others frequently characterized as Cold War "witch hunt" leaders.

In his own 1978 book, The Great Fear: The Anti-Communist Purge Under Truman and Eisenhower, Caute concluded that the supposed communist threat was a ruse on the part of Joe McCarthy and others to stifle dissent and restrict American liberties. In his review, Caute writes: "The Soviet threat, whether real or perceived, served as a pretext for reversing the New Deal and keeping Negroes in their place." Faced with the book's evidence, Caute also complains the Yale scholars received generous foundation support for their research.

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