Gods of Deception, Part II: Art, History, Fiction and War

As Ben and Noel continue their conversation with novelist and art historian David Adams Cleveland, the group finds themselves going far beyond the world of Alger Hiss. In the second part of this two-part series, the guys learn more about David's award-winning work as an art historian, the ways in which history, research and fiction converge -- and a little about the oft-ignored effects of history on geopolitics.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome

(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. Quick housekeeping note, this is
part two of a two part series, so if you
have not had the opportunity to check out part one
of our conversation with David Adams Cleveland, get the to
your podcast platform of choice and check it out. I

(00:50):
was gonna say a podcast, um, that's of thing, but
it should be why not enjoyed? You know, I can't
help but think about Frank Olsen, you know, in the
mk ulture experiments, the CIA mind control project that ultimately
resulted in his death, whether by misadventure, uh, suicide or

(01:13):
you know, some sort of murderous plot. But he also
plunged his death from a from a high window from
a hotel, and it just kind of makes me think, like, obviously,
you know, the KGB are known to be incredibly ruthless,
it's almost legendary, But I mean the CIA is pretty
ruthless too. I just wondered if there's any analogs that
you see between the two countries and the two organizations. Well,

(01:35):
the c I a UM had to do a lot
of things that most of it's UH operatives didn't enjoy doing.
Reading other people's bail was the joke that was always used, UH.
But in fact, after the Second World War, we were
up against a very aggressive Soviet Union and a very

(01:57):
aggressive KGB UH who being just the latest and hopefully
last example of the KGB trained cadres UH, and so
the CIA was forced to do a lot of things
that in retrospect it might have chosen not to do.
On the other hand, there were rules and regulations that

(02:18):
the CIA officers had to maintain, and by and large,
they stuck pretty much UH to the protocols of their
of their service, whereas the KGB operatives, UH, it was
pretty much anything goes and they were experts at bumping
off enemies UH, front, right and center. So I I

(02:43):
think it's night and day the difference between them, even
though the CIA had to adopt a lot of tough
measures UH in a tough Cold War and and the aftermath, No,
that makes sense. And I mean the mk Ultra situation
I think was one of those where they you know,
had UH certain individuals that were hired to be part
of this program that we're sort of given carte blanche

(03:04):
to do whatever they wanted and test you know, ariosolized
LSD on civilians and and and the like and even
their own you know, I'd like to further pursue, uh,
something we set up at the very beginning of this
conversation David, which is the the burden and the art

(03:25):
of historical fiction. Now, this book is exhaustively research, which
to me is tremendously compelling, and it does something that
a lot of these stories, a lot of these stories
missed the mark on Gods of deception humanizes what could

(03:49):
have otherwise been uh reciting of and of timelines and events.
But here in this story they or is a fascinating framework.
You know, Um, if we weren't talking about Russia, I'd
be more comfortable saying, uh, Matroshka dolls nested in the narrative.

(04:13):
So when and I don't want to spoil this too much.
I think people should experience this on their own. But
our story kind of starts with a judge in his
later years who is thinking back about his life, and
he is Edward Dimmock. He has defended Alger Hiss during

(04:36):
that Cold War trial and he's working on his memoirs
and he's still haunted, and him being haunted by this
leads to um him you know him, I don't want
to say conscripting him, asking his grandson George Altman two

(04:59):
help hidden understand the story the truth that occurs. And
I'm wondering what inspired you to take that approach. That's
one of the things that hooked me at the beginning. Well,
it's just what you said, Ben. I thought it important
as a novelist, as a fiction writer, to humanize the story.

(05:22):
It's enough to uh talk about Aldre Hiss and his
possible crimes and the crime certainly of Stalin and the
KGB which were which were manifest More interestingly, I think
it was to look at the Aldre his case in
terms of free generations of an American family, with the

(05:46):
patriarch of the family, Judge Dimmock, who had who had
defended Aldre Hiss uh in the day, and his writing
his memoir, and he enlists his grandson George Alban who's
a print ston astrophysicists, to help him finish the memoir
and figure out what the truth is. And in fact,

(06:07):
when the story opens, Um, it's right after nine eleven
the year after nine eleven, the judge doesn't even know
the new information that's come out on aldre Hiss. He
doesn't know about the access to Soviet intelligence files or
the Venona decrypts of Soviet cable traffic, which by two

(06:29):
thousand had made it clear that aldre Hiss was a
spy and more importantly, an agent of influence. So all
of a sudden, Edward Dimmick learned this that in fact
his client was indubitably guilty of the of the crimes
that he was convicted for, and and a lot more.

(06:51):
And I wanted to have show how that played out
in three generations of the family. So you have the George,
you have the Judge so Or and his three daughters
and his grandchildren who are involved in going through the
elements of the Algre His Spy case. And we see

(07:12):
how each generation had reacted to the story. And we
find out as the story evolves that the impact of
the Algre His case did terrible damage in the family.
It impacted the judge and his wife's marriage, UH, it
impacted their their three children, one of them Um, the

(07:36):
son who goes off to Korea. UH. And so I
wanted to humanize it, and also there is in the
book there are letters from Priscilla Hiss, there are people
who have talked to algre His, So we do get
a certain insight um into algre His and his family life,

(07:56):
his his son, um and his wife. Why. I think
by humanizing it, you make it not just clearer in
terms of what the truth is, but also how the
truth plays itself out over free generations of of an
American family. Now, that's really interesting and it makes me

(08:17):
wonder when you're writing a work like this that's based on,
you know, real historical facts and also relatively recently uncovered
details that kind of re contextualized one of those historical facts,
how do you decide where the sort of new story
that you're going to tell is where it comes from,

(08:37):
which parts need to remain just like steadfast truth, and
which parts can kind of meander a little bit to
serve your narrative. Well, for the most part, I like
to think that night percent of the facts in the
book are accurate, and uh they have been. They've come

(08:57):
out recently from the owner decrypts and the access to
Soviet era files, So most of the history is accurate.
Where I have as a novelist taken charge of of
the narrative is when I've gone into the heads, say
of Priscilla Hiss. Priscilla Hiss his letters um, and she

(09:21):
talks about in her letters how difficult it was, although
we don't know if she's really being truthful about this.
That the fastest. One of the most fascinating things about
the trial was that Whittwaker Chambers, who testified against Hiss,
testified about his years of being involved with his family.

(09:42):
They went on vacation together, they went bird watching together,
they spied together, they did all this stuff. He took
their documents and photographed them, brought them back in the morning,
They had meals together. They were friends. Whittaker Chambers actually
was was very fond of Aldre his and Priscilla his.

(10:04):
And yet Priscilla Hiss writes at least letters that I
used in the book, how difficult it was to be
faced by Whittaker chambers uh testimony and the trial. And
later in the book he wrote Witness where he talks
about their life together as friends of the family and this,
that and the next thing, and she says, gosh, so

(10:26):
much of it was just like the kind of people
we were I understood it, and yet he's lying. And
that brings in the idea that I used in the
Book of Parallel Universes, which is where our Princeton astrophysics
UM guy George Altman is brought in. Because there's two
worlds out there. There's the world where aldre Hiss is

(10:48):
guilty in the the world where aldre Hiss is innocent,
and the two worlds collide and they don't overlap. And
how you figure out which is which, I think makes
the narrative pretty interesting. And there's a there's another question

(11:09):
on this note I'd like to I'd like to explore
with you. Speaking of parallel worlds, David, you stand astride
a few parallel worlds of your own. You are an
art historian, UH extensively published art historian. I'm thinking in
particular of a history of American Tonalism, which I believe

(11:33):
has been published in three different additions at this point.
How do you and I can I I can experience
um your I can experience your love of art and
history in in reading Gods of Deception, UM and Times. Betrayal,

(11:55):
by the way, is next on my list. But what
drew you to historical fiction? From the world of art history.
Do you feel that those are um somehow separate or
distinct pursuits or do they inform one another, and if so,
in what ways they do inform each other? But at

(12:18):
the same time, there's no way I could be working
on an art history project and writing a work of
fiction at the same time. They're very different muscles, very
different kind of brains. I think. Starting with the art history,
I like telling the stories about artists and bringing artists
to life and bringing their works to life. I like

(12:41):
that narrative context. And what I did, uh in the
History of American Tonnalism, which is about American landscape painting
from around eighteen eighty and nineteen twenty, was bring that
whole world back to life and the great artists of
that period that would be Georgianist and William McNeil Whistler,

(13:02):
among others. Uh and uh this was largely forgotten talk
about times betrayal, uh the title of a novel. These
guys were forgotten about for about seventy years until I
came along and kind of wrote the book on them
and sort of brought that world back. So I liked
getting justice for great artists. I liked the feeling that

(13:26):
there is justice in this life and that these artists
and their reputations can be revived for for future generations.
At the same time, I find in writing fiction that
my love of landscape painting in particular UH informs my writing,
and that I like to feel that any given moment,

(13:47):
any um, any chapter, any scene that's set in the book,
that you can feel the quality of the light, the temperature,
the humidity, the sea, and um, that those ephemeral atmospheric
elements that are that one loves in great landscape paintings

(14:10):
can inform the writing as well, getting the reader a
feeling that they're there and that the sense of time
and place is very real. I think that's a really
good way of putting it. You know, I wanted to
ask you. I'm a huge something Ben and I and
and Max are all huge fans of art and art
museums and you know, graphic novels and just there's so
many ways that it can be used to tell amazing stories.

(14:33):
I am a fan of being able to walk into
a gallery, look at a piece of art, and have
it affected me viscerally. I think it's really interesting and
and and and an important thing to have some historical
context or to know a little bit about the artist
who made it and maybe what inspired them. But I
think ultimately it's not successful if it doesn't hit me

(14:53):
in some way, and just by looking at it, can
you kind of talk about that, like the sort of
like viscerality of art and the way it affects you,
just like cold versus having that context, and how those
two things can coexist. I think that's right. I think
that going into a gallery uh. And I've been involved
in the art world one way or the other for

(15:15):
many years. My son, Carter Cleveland is the founder of
artsy dot net, which is the largest on site art
site in the world now for buying and selling and
studying and finding out about art. So we've been involved
with art for a long time. And I'm a great
believer that art really, uh enhances our life. Living with

(15:41):
art enhances our life. That having art on the walls
is important not just for the good effect it has
on your own life, but because you're supporting artists living
or dead, or or however it may be. And I
agree with you that I think that one's reaction to
art is fundamentally visceral. Uh. You either love it or

(16:04):
you don't, and there's certain things that are gonna grab
you or not. I think that having some background on
the artists and some background on their time helps you
in terms of your ability to see the world and
the the or if you will have a narrative background

(16:25):
that produced that are and that may eventually help you
evolve certain ways to like different kinds of art from
what you may be used to or what you're you're
drawn to viscerally. But in the end, uh, it's really
your eyeballs, bathing your eyeballs and the beauty of art

(16:45):
that matters. And Uh, in the end, that's the great
joy and the great pleasure to be had bathing your eyeballs. Yeah,
this is going to recur on our show, sir. This
is an know the time is flying away from us
and I can only imagine how how strange it must

(17:07):
be to have um to have works like Gods of
Deception out in the world, which was published just in
April of this year. Correct, Uh? Is that correct? So
when you have you know, it must be similar to
the experience of walking out of another universe into you know,

(17:32):
or like seeing an amazing exhibition or seeing works of
the old masters and then walking out into the world.
And this inspires one of one of our last questions
as we wrap up, what do what do we ideally
want the readers and the audience to come away with

(17:56):
from the experience of Gods of Deception? Do we what
do we as readers take forward into the greater world? Well,
I think that God's Deception, both as the historical novel
and as a work of fiction, should make us aware
of the dangers. Certainly that the Soviet Union once upon

(18:20):
a time post along with the KGB, and I think
uh speaking of going from one world to the next, uh,
leaving the world of God's of Deception and then finding
us right back in that same world with Putin's invasion
of Ukraine. Because the title God's of Deception speaks to

(18:43):
the mentality of many of the Soviet agents who and
the KGB, who thought themselves in the forefront of history
that they were going to revolutionize the world and they
were going to become the heads of stay or they
were gonna overturn uh countries by the power of their
revolutionary ideas. So UH, for me, I have found that

(19:08):
God's of Deception came out right during the Putin's invasion
of the Ukraine, and Putin being a great admirer of
Stalin and being trained by the KGB. His entire leadership
circle are all x KGB agents. They know the ropes,
they used, the same false flags, big lies, you name it,

(19:31):
ultimately backed up by brutal force that Stalin was so
adept at. So Putin is still there, and the ways
of the Soviet Union are still there. And I think
the only reason that I'm hopeful at this point in
terms of Putin in the Ukraine is that we seem

(19:53):
to evolve to the point where defensive warfare seems to
be in the ascendency with smart weapons, and I think
the Ukrainians are managing to put up a terrific fight
against the Russians and against Putin, and hopefully with the
ascendancy of defensive weapons, it's gonna make the Russian invasion

(20:14):
increasingly more devastating for Putin and that in the end
he will fail and hopefully his people will overthrow him.
And I think the Chinese will think twice about the
possibility of invading Taiwan at this point, again seeing what's
happened in the Ukraine. So the gut world of God's
deception is still with us. There are still lessons to

(20:38):
be learned. But at the same time, uh, I think um,
from a literary standpoint, the humanity of this one American
family and the trials that they went through, UM, through
the altra his years and where they came out in
the end is a hopeful uh one for the for
the future. I gotta ask you really quickly a little

(21:06):
bit of for a bit of a hot take. Do
you think Putin bit off more than he can shoe?
Do you think he knew what he was doing? Was
it just sort of a power play that was ill
informed or uh, it just seems like people are not
behind him in his own government and things are just
going horribly awry. Is he making a decision based on
the past that no longer like he's sort of out

(21:26):
of his element now? Like? What what do you think
is going on with Putin? Now? I think Putin was
absolutely devastated, surprised by what happened on the initial months
of the invasion of Ukraine, how his forces were really
just taken apart piece by piece. I think he was amazed,

(21:48):
I thought he I think he probably thought, oh, this
is just gonna be another great KGB operation. We're gonna
run in there and we're gonna overthrow KiB and it
will be over in a in in a few days.
I think he was. He was mightily surprised. On the
other hand, being a KGB guy, being the head of

(22:09):
a totalitarian government. He's got no place to go, no
place to hide. He cannot retire from the scene. He's
got nothing that he can do except keep fighting in
the Ukraine for the time being until something gives way,
either his army, his military, or his intelligence service, or
the people of Russia turn on him and throw him out. Yeah,

(22:31):
it's uh. The situation is untenable, and I agree with
you that there is a there is not a viable
retreat option at this point. Perhaps emboldened by Um by
the invasion of Crimea in this calculus that informed Putin

(22:53):
based on the events of provided in his mind a
rational expective for for an invasion, and let's be honest,
speaking of hot takes Um a chance to realize the
dream of creating a new Soviet hegemony. However, I'm looking

(23:15):
for the right way to say this, David. The the
thing that many characters in God's deception and the thing
that Vladimir Putin himself is wrestling with now is the
idea of perception in a bubble right, um, being being

(23:37):
a tyrant, being a strong man. Uh. It's it's no
secret that Putin is likely surrounded by syncophants and as
a result, has a very different experience of reality right
than most people outside of that bubble. Do you believe that? Um?

(24:00):
What would be your insight on this idea? It's tossed
around so often. Do you feel that um world leaders
um from Putin to you know, the recently recently deposed
Boris Johnson, prime minister over there in the UK. Um,
do you believe that people in power may live in

(24:22):
bubbles of reality? And if so, why how well? I
think Putin is a special case because he's been living
in a in your bubble of reality maybe most of
his life. I mean, he grew up, he learned his uh,
he learned all of his brutal tactics and ways as
a KGB officer. And when Russia fell apart a part,

(24:46):
he lost his job, he lost prestige, he lost all
kinds of things, and uh, he has a vaunted sense
of of Russian history. I mean, after all, Russian aggression
goes back to Catherine the Great and before that, so
it's not just the Soviet Union. Um. Russia has a

(25:08):
history of of of expansion. But I think that Putin
certainly in the last five years, has been up against
the West and what he's seen is weakness that the
West has rolled over to his aggression, whether it's in
Georgia or Crimea. Uh, and he's been He's gotten away

(25:32):
with it time and time again, because most people in
the West just think, well, could wars over? People don't
act like that anymore. But the fact of the matter
is aggression, evil intent, megalomania. All of these terrible things
can come back in different guises, and Putin certainly has
them all. And uh, I think you know, he lives

(25:56):
in a bubble, but he can get away with a
lot of stuff. And the West is let him get
away with it too long. So he took a gamble,
and this time the gamble is not paying off at
least easily. Let's let's hope that the Russian people will
put him in his place and and get rid of it.
Thank you so much for spending some time with us

(26:18):
and talking about your book, which I look forward to
reading and its entirety, and for all of this amazing
perspective on everything from art to current politics and everything
in between. It's been a real, real delight talking with you,
Benn and Noel. Thank you so much. It's been fun
for me as well. Oh wonderful. Thank you for classing
up the show. David these this is uh. This conversation,

(26:42):
Asnal said, has led us through so many fascinating parts
of history, parts of art, parts of geopolitics, and I
believe it's a conversation that is worth pursuing. Fellow ridiculous historians.
You would like to learn more about the work of

(27:04):
David Adams Cleveland, please check out the website David Adams
Cleveland dot com. It's uh, it's where I started stalking
you in the beginning, sir, and um, it's where I
have learned already uh so much about about history. Again.
I'm excited for Times Betrayal. I want to read it.

(27:25):
I saw some of the reviews I said, I was
again a fanboy too much, But uh, sir, thank you
sincerely for your time. We're looking forward to hearing more
about the next works. In the meanwhile, where's one of
the best places for people to learn more about your works, current,

(27:49):
past and perhaps future well, As you mentioned, probably the
best starting place is my h is my author side,
David Adams Cleveland dot com, and from there you go
right to the books. There's articles certainly on my author
side as well. I've probably done I think eight or

(28:10):
nine articles around God's Deception, which gives you some background
into the history of the algra his case, but also
how I researched it, so you can find all that
kind of good stuff there. And then I've written a
bunch of articles about writing fictions, so for aspiring writers

(28:30):
and historians there's some good thoughts there. So all are
welcome and Uh, I'm delighted to be on your show
and help out any way. I can thank you again,
And in the meantime, listeners, if you have anything you
want to ask us about or topics you want to
see us cover, you can hit Ben or up. As

(28:52):
individual human people on the Internet, I am on Instagram
exclusively at how now Noel Brown, Ben Boland. Where can
the find folks out in the internet world find you? Oh? No,
thank you so much for asking Uh. In a burst
of creativity, you can buy me on Instagram where I'm
at ben Bowling b o w l I n uh.
If you are more Twitter inclined, you can find me

(29:13):
at ben Bowling hs W. The big win for people
on Twitter is that there you can also find our
very own super producer, Mr Max Williams. Yes, you can
find me at Ahl Underscore Max Williams. That is my
address on Twitter. Thanks as always to Max Williams. Thanks
to our composer. We have a composer, Mr Alex Williams thinking.

(29:35):
Thanks again to Mr David A. Cleveland. Uh noll. This
this is one of those uh. This is one of
those conversations that makes our collective day. I think it's true.
It's one that's hard, hard to wrap up, but you
gotta do it. People got stuff to do. It's Friday. Um,
We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,

(30:03):
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