Plain Talk

*Plain Talk*
Editor	Isaac Don Levine
Frequency	monthly
Founder	Isaac Don Levine, Alfred Kohlberg
First issue	October 1946
Final issue	January 1950
Country	United States
Based in	New York City
Language	English
ISSN	0190-4140
OCLC	1604676

Plain Talk was a monthly, American, anti-Communist magazine that lasted for 44 months (1946–1950). The editor-in-chief was Isaac Don Levine.[1]

Description

Plain Talk featured articles by many conservative writers of the time, including John Chamberlain, Suzanne La Follette, Eugene Lyons, George S. Schuyler, and Ralph de Toledano.[2][3] The magazine was published on a monthly basis.[4]

History

In the 1970s, Levine wrote that in July 1946 Benjamin Mandel (a "guide to the mission" of the magazine), had accompanied by Father John F. Cronin and Alfred Kohlberg, approached Levine at his Norwalk, Connecticut, home. Kohlberg funded $25,000 for it plus a free office, plus funding for five staffers.[1]

The magazine was established in 1946[2] and the first issue appeared in October 1946.[3] Due to low circulation and readership levels the magazine ceased publication in May 1950. Former U.S. President Herbert Hoover had provided some funding, but, "half-hearted," it did not succeed in shoring up the magazine.[1]

Connected to the magazine was the name Theodore Cooper Kirkpatrick, who, with fellow ex-FBI agent Kenneth M. Bierly, was implicated in "pirating" of security informants for Plain Talk magazine and soon thereafter for Counterattack newsletter. Kirkpatrick and Bierly also used FBI information to capitalize upon their FBI association. Kirkpatrick and Bierly joined with a third ex-FBI agent, John G. Keenan, first to form "John Quincy Adams Associates" in Washington, DC, and then "American Business Consultants, Inc.," in New York City, publisher of Counterattack newsletter.[5][6][7]

Demise

Starting in 1950, several writers and editors from Plain Talk subsequently worked for The Freeman, which was founded later that year and acquired the Plain Talk subscription list.[2][3]

Personnel

Works

An anthology of articles from the magazine was published in 1976.[3]

Plain Talk magazine (October 1946–May 1950)[9]
Plain Talk: An Anthology from the Leading Anti-Communist Magazine of the 40s (1976)[1]

gollark: Nope.

gollark: Deprecating it is printing a warning but *allowing it to work*.

gollark: No, it's not.

gollark: And break stuff badly.

gollark: No, that'd be annyoying.

References

Don Levine, Isaac (1976). Plain Talk: An Anthology from the Leading Anti-Communist Magazine of the 40s. New Rochelle, New York: Arlington House. pp. xii–xiv. Retrieved 3 March 2018.
Critchlow, Donald T. (2007). The Conservative Ascendancy: How the GOP Right Made Political History. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-674-02620-9.
de Rosa, Peter L. (1999). "Plain Talk 1946-1950". In Lora, Ronald; Henry, William Longton (eds.). The Conservative Press in Twentieth-Century America. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 461–469. ISBN 0-313-21390-9. OCLC 40481045.
"Isaac Don Levine, 89, Foe of Soviet". The New York Times. 17 February 1981. Retrieved 21 February 2016.
Guide to the Ernie Lazar FBI FOIA Files on Anti-Communism and Right Wing Movements TAM.576. Tamiment Librdary. March 2015. Retrieved 3 March 2018.
"Guide to the Church League of America Collection of the Research Files of Counterattack, the Wackenhut Corporation, and Karl Baarslag TAM.148: Descriptive Summary". Tamiment Library. July 2014. Retrieved 2 March 2018.
"Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television". Billboard. 9 September 1950. pp. 4, 18, 59, 61 (John Quincy Adams Associates).
Robb, David L. (2012). The Gumshoe and the Shrink: Guenther Reinhardt, Dr. Arnold Hutschnecker, and the Secret History of the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon Election. Santa Monica Press. p. 21. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
Levine, Isaac Don (ed.). "Plain Talk". LCCN 48002775. Cite magazine requires |magazine= (help)