An Enemy of the State: The Life of Erwin Knoll

by Bill Lueders

Erwin Knoll never built a bomb or joined a separatist group, but he relished his status as an enemy of the state. From fleeing the Nazis as a child in his native Austria, to being a Washington journalist on Nixon's Official Enemies List, to his 21-year tenure as editor of The Progressive magazine, to his role as a commentator on the MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour, Knoll stood in opposition to the powerful people and institutions of his time. In 1979, the U.S. Government moved to prevent him from publishing an article about the inner workings of the hydrogen bomb - an historic confrontation between the rights of the media and the power of the state, told here in unprecedented depth.The twin engines of Knoll's radicalism were his absolute opposition to violence and his absolute commitment to freedom of speech - ideas that put him at odds not just with the Government but also, at times, with the Left. When he died suddenly in 1994, Knoll was one of the nation's best-known proponents of left-wing ideas, an eloquent voice for peace and social justice.

297 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1996

Reviews

[Larry Bassett · Rating 4 out of 5]

An Enemy of the State: The Life of Erwin Knoll by Bill Lueders is rewarding reading for a progressive or someone interested in the recent history of the progressive movement. Erwin Knoll was an absolutist. (See several chapters about H-bomb ‘secrets’ and the 1st Amendment.) He lived a very political life seeing things through his very specific point of view. His bedrock beliefs were freedom of speech and nonviolence. Perhaps best known for his years as the editor of The Progressive magazine published in Madison, Wisconsin, his life long career was as a journalist. When he died at age 63 in 1994, “he was working on a book about capital punishment, a practice he considered an abomination” according to his NY Times obituary. An “abomination.” Erwin Knoll did not pussyfoot around!

Bill Lueders is probably like a lot of newspaper journalists in your small to medium town. He happened to live and work in Madison, WI, known (until recently) as a relatively liberal community, the home of the University of Wisconsin. I spent quite a few years in Ann Arbor, MI, another university town, and usually thought of Madison as its doppelganger. Lueders is a prolific local writer, mostly for the progressive local weekly. Erwin Knoll was a big fish in the little city of Madison. But he grabbed the national spotlight with the H-bomb article in 1979 and became a spokesperson for the Left on the radio, television and newspapers across the country.

The title of Lueders recent book, Watchdog: 25 Years of Muckraking and Rabblerousing, probably is the most concise self analysis you are likely to find. Published in Sept 2010, this book has yet to catch attention at GRs: zero ratings and reviews. Probably you have to live in or have some connection with Madison to ever hear about this book. Or maybe you just are a fan of The Progressive and read Lueder’s book on longtime Progressive editor Edwin Knoll, another book with zero ratings or reviews.

You will not be surprised to find that Lueders is a fairly easy read. Most local newspapers are written at about a middle school reading level. That does not make for a very challenging book. But what am I trying to accomplish with this review anyway? Nobody on GRs except me admits to having read this book. You will have to find this online at a used book seller, and it will be less than $1 for ‘very good’ condition trade paperback. And you can still subscribe to The Progressive. Erwin Knoll wants you to buy the digital edition to save resources. But if you are an organizer, you might still want to get the paper edition and leave it someplace when you are finished with it for someone else to look at. I guess I will also put An Enemy of the State: The Life of Erwin Knoll on the GR BookSwap. Request it quickly while it is still there! (There is one other person who has this book on their to-read shelf.) But, at the very least, check out The Progressive magazine online: http://www.progressive.org/.