It was 65 years ago this summer that Washington — and the world — was abuzz over an extraordinary act of generosity: the Marshall Plan. Everyone saw the program as a literal lifesaver. The only opposition was the Kremlin, where Stalin and Molotov and the boys viciously attacked the program. As they did, they ordered that communists worldwide do likewise.

To a man, they obeyed. And one of those obedient men was Barack Obama’s boyhood mentor, Frank Marshall Davis.