No, I am pointing out the shortcomings in this statement:
>> He "systematically worked to block any researchers in the U.S. working on ideas that ran counter to his own"?
> Yes, that's precisely what you do when you think the other approach is rubbish, you fight to put it out like a fire that threatens to burn down your beloved field. You only ever stop criticising others' work and promoting your own ideas when you are 100% convinced -no doubts at all- that it's your work that's flawed.
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> The correctness of the ideas which failed to gain traction is irrelevant.
Do you perceive yourself to have knowledge of what difference an alternative outcome would have made in the world?
> The burden is on the authors of those works to explain and decent the merit of their ideas. If they failed to convince their peer reviewers then that is on them.
It is also "on" anyone else who would have been affected by good ideas not being "put out like a fire". Things that do not happen are not stored in your mind, therefore it is quite natural for them to not exert much influence on your thinking.
> Unless you are accusing the peer-reviewers of acting in bad-faith.
I have no knowledge of their actions and therefore no opinion, I am simply pointing out shortcomings in thinking.