But the Chronicle, citing internal NEH documents, reported that 51 out of 1,448 applications that were submitted to the agency in November 2002 had been flagged, or 3.5 percent of the total. A year later, the percentage of flagged proposals had risen to 4 percent, or 55 out of 1,402 applications submitted in November 2003, the newspaper said. In response, the NEH began an apparent witch hunt.

Gerardo Renique, a history professor at the City College at the City University of New York, said he received a hostile phone call from a member of the NEH's Office of the Inspector General after he was quoted expressing bewilderment that the NEH had rejected his proposal, "Chinese Diasporic Communities and Nationalism in Peru and Cuba, 1920s-1930s," despite its high marks from peer reviewers. The Chronicle found that Renique's proposal had been deep-sixed because the NEH political appointees objected to his spending grant money in Cuba, despite the fact that neither the Treasury nor State Departments cared. But hard-line, Republican-voting Cubans-Americans in the key swing state of Florida care a lot.

Renique, in a phone interview from Mexico, where he was forging ahead on his project with alternative funding, said the NEH inspector general staffer who called him "sounded like a cop. He said, 'Are you Gerardo Renique?' I said, 'Yes, who's calling?' And then he started grilling me: 'Did you give information to the Chronicle? Did you contact them? Did you talk to them?' It was a very unpleasant conversation, because if he wanted information, he could have used another style. He was very confrontational," Renique said.

The history professor admitted to the inspector that he'd answered the Chronicle reporter's questions. But he insisted he had not alerted her to the rejection of his research proposal. The investigator hung up. Soon, the NEH's allegedly independent auditor of waste, fraud and abuse -- Sheldon Bernstein -- was on the trail of another person quoted in the Chronicle article, Julia Bondanella, a former assistant director of the NEH who said she left because the agency had become politicized. A professor of French and Italian at Indiana University in Bloomington, Bondanella received a threatening letter accusing her of disclosing confidential information about NEH employees and grant applications. She has been forced to hire a lawyer. Bernstein's office did not respond to a request for comment.

Contacted by Salon, Bondanella declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation, which is costing her dearly in legal fees. But she told the Chronicle in May that the NEH inspector general was "just trying to dig up dirt" on her. "Clearly, they're trying to keep me from saying anything," she said. Yet it could have been worse: The Justice Department quietly rejected feelers from the political appointees at NEH about opening a criminal investigation of Bondanella, according to sources. NEH spokesman Lokkesmoe said he knew nothing about any contact with Justice. I asked him to query the person who would know: Lynne Munson. But he never got back to me.

If there is any silver lining to the Cheney II era at NEH, it is a well-regarded American history education program called "We the People," designed to raise the abysmal level of knowledge among students, who studies indicate often can't identify who the United States fought in World War II, what the term "Reconstruction" refers to, or even name the three branches of government.

In a 2002 speech, Cole explained the program's goals. "Defending our democracy demands more than successful military campaigns. It also requires an understanding of the ideals, ideas and institutions that have shaped our country." The humanities, he added, "are part of our homeland defense."

On the surface, it's hard to quibble with "We the People," which has funded books for schools, filming of documentaries about historical figures, such as "Little Women" author Louisa May Alcott, and lectures by eminent historians. But there is a tilt to the presentation that many scholars find troubling.

"I strongly support their effort to promote the better teaching of history at the high school level. But the danger is that this 'We the People' thing could become a merely celebratory history," said Eric Foner, a history professor at Columbia University and longtime Cheney critic. "We don't need to teach history that smashes America. But if you put forward a version of American history that it began perfect and has been getting better ever since, you're not equipping students to think critically." Cheney, Foner added, "always saw history in terms of generating a kind of patriotism for the country."

Robinson, the former NEH program officer, agreed with Foner. An expert on South Asia and Islam, his view that many academics have glossed over negative aspects of Islam, such as a lack of rights for women, would not be out of place in the National Review. But he still sees peril in Cheney's approach to history. "If I were still there, what would be driving me up the wall was when 9/11 broke out, and Lynne Cheney came out with a statement saying something like, 'This just shows we need to know more about American history and the founding fathers.' Well, of course my feeling was, this demonstrated Americans' need to know a lot more about the rest of the world," Robinson said.

The NEH Web site features a photograph of Cheney in a bright red jacket before a preserved section of the Berlin Wall near Washington, promoting the "We the People" "Freedom Bookshelf" program that provides schools with books meant to encourage reflection on the nature of freedom. On Cheney's approved reading list is George Orwell's frightening portrayal of mind control in a totalitarian society, "1984." On her unapproved thought list, undoubtedly, is that anyone might see a parallel with Cheney's bludgeoning of alternative viewpoints. But, as Big Brother said: "Ignorance is Truth."

Recent Stories