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However, Charles Lindbergh, principal agitator against United States entering the war in Europe and Asia, engaged himself mightily in countering these sentiments. In February 1941 Lindbergh was testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and asserting that if he were asked which side in Europe he would like to see win, he would reply "the English". But, Lindbergh warned the assembled Senators for England to win, if possible at all, years of war and an invasion of the continent of Europe would be necessary. This would create devastation to an extent never witnessed before, and that was why he preferred a negotiated peace to a complete victory by either side. Lindbergh examined the position of our island bridgehead in the Pacific, the Philippines and the extreme difficulty in maintaining access to two islands with supply lines which stretched two-thirds around the globe. Lindbergh reminded the Senators the United States was not prepared for war. Lindbergh took as an established fact the American Army and Air Force were poorly equipped by modern standards, and even the Navy urgently needed new equipment. He concluded the placing of American security in an extremely doubtful English victory would be a policy for idiots.[i

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Later in April Lindbergh addressed the America First Committee in New York and spoke about unpleasant subjects. The beloved ideals of the American interventionists were so much blather as these beautiful sentiments were not backed up by the hard logic of military practicability. He anticipated being attacked by the interventionists for saying the United States should not enter a war unless it had a reasonable chance of winning. American military preparedness was similar to that of France when interventionists urged her to attack the Siegfried line. Like Winston Churchill Lindbergh reiterated his concern that if the British Empire were to collapse, the whole world would suffer from this tragedy. Not surprisingly, Adolf Hitler held the same view, but Franklin Roosevelt did not. Later when Churchill reminded his opposition that he had not become Prime Minister to "preside over the liquidation of the British Empire", the staunch supporter of the New Deal, Senator Claude Pepper of Florida, informed a wartime labor convocation the words brought a chill in his heart. He asked if Churchill would have the temerity to speak that sentence into the eye (sic) of a dying soldier or sailor. So convinced was this Senator that the Allies were fighting for democracy and humanity, he insisted we would betray another generation if we let material considerations transcend humility and humbleness of spirit.[ii] This pious American humbug at the highest level would have embarrassed a lesser man, but Pepper had few equals

Graciously, Lindbergh did not blame England for asking for American assistance, but chose to remind his listeners that England declared war under circumstances which led to the defeat of every nation that sided with her. To each and every of these allied nations England had promised to send armed assistance that she could not send. The desperation of war caused England to misinform these nations just as she was misinforming the American government then. "In time of war, truth is always replaced by propaganda", he observed. The United States should not be too quick to criticize the actions of belligerent nations. The English considered their interests paramount when they encouraged the smaller nations of Europe to fight against hopeless odds. When England asks for America to enter the war, she would be considering her future and the future of her empire. In replying the United States was justified to consider her future along with the future of the Western Hemisphere. Once more Lindbergh reminded his audience of the state of American unpreparedness and the impossibility of mounting an invasion of continental Europe. Then he claimed the interventionist cause was opposed by 80 percent of American citizenry.[iii]

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On May 23, 1941 Lindbergh in Madison Square Garden once again addressed the America First Committee and affirmed his belief in an independent destiny for America. Not an isolationist policy of building a wall around America, but one of limiting American interests to the Western Hemisphere which we would defend by force if necessary. Attacking Roosevelt, he appealed to the ideals of his countrymen by saying the only thing we lacked was a leadership which placed America first. Lindbergh argued we as a nation did not wish to fight for England's balance of power, her Empire, the Polish Corridor, or the Treaty of Versailles. He and his acolytes did not believe democracy could be spread in such a manner, and democracy was not an attribute which could be imposed by war. Because England and France were not in a position to win the war, and though he did not want to see them lose, Lindbergh opposed the war before it would begin for America. After reminding his audience that America suffered relatively few losses in World War I, he asked them to consider what prolonged war would bring after the shouting was over.[iv]

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All three of these speeches were delivered prior to the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. Many have remembered the Soviet Union with gratitude as the ally which suffered the brunt of the German attacks, but they did so only after the Germans attacked in June 1941. Prior to that time the Soviets were the most eager ally the Germans could ask for. Supply of oil, manganese and other war materiel which was agreed on as a basis for the Stalin-Hitler pact of August 1939 continued to the Nazi war machine while they confined their attacks to the western front. There should be very little doubt that the Germans with no armed forces needed on the eastern front could have handled any invasion attempt mounted by the combined forces of England and the United States…

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In September 1941 Lindbergh increased his venom and started to blame "The British, the Jews, and the Roosevelt administration" for agitating for war.[v] These three groups included the two mentioned by Neville Chamberlain plus the government of Britain which then was fighting Germany. The politically correct hyenas of that era howled over that speech. Fellow members of the America First movement led the way. John T. Flynn, head of the New York chapter, publicly rebuked Lindbergh. In a private letter to Lindbergh Flynn admitted to his distress. The anti-Semites of his chapter had been delighted. Later after a private conversation Lindbergh wrote in his private journal that Flynn thought as strongly as he that Jews were in the forefront of pushing the country to war. Flynn was agreeable to discussing the matter in small private conversations. But, Lindbergh surmised that Flynn would rather see the United States in war before bringing the matter to a public debate. Norman Thomas, the lion of American socialism, regarded most of what Lindbergh said to be largely true and much of the criticism of Lindbergh to be "insincere and hypocritical". Lindbergh had noted in his diary of a successful threat by Jewish advertising firms to withhold placements from a radio network unless a proposed program was withdrawn. The threat worked and the program was not run.[vi] Writing more than 20 years later, critic Edmund Wilson remarked on the motive of American Jews wanting to save their own people. They had stronger reasons than had their ancestors for fighting the Greeks and the Romans, and they were glad for the United States to fight Germany. However, the extermination of 6 million Jews was already far advanced before the United States took action. Wilson candidly admitted that Roosevelt lied and connived with the British.[vii]

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Writing about Lindbergh's speech in 1989, a Yale graduate and former editor of American Heritage publications regarded the subject of Jews and war as unmentionable. The country did not choose to debate pressure by Jews. Lindbergh had violated a sacred taboo.[viii] That sly old Quaker, Herbert Hoover, had advised that after a long time in politics one should learn not to say things just because they were true. The supreme act of a sovereign state that of going to war was to be subordinated to a principle that Jews must not be offended. This cowardly retreat has continued to this day and has marked the deference the

United States

gives to moneyed interests. Some fifty years later GOP tub-thumper, Pat Buchanan, was accusing the same three groups of leading the United States into an unnecessary war against Iraq. Both Lindbergh and Buchanan epitomized the American isolationist strain which survives in great numbers in much of America. These non-interventionists have had very little interest in the outside world and have believed American refusal to participate with foreigners evidenced moral superiority, especially when it came to bearing arms. Many cynical foreigners have attributed this unwillingness not to moral excellence, but to cowardice.

[The British also have had a difficult time in remembering the deal between Hitler and Chamberlain was widely popular at home. Very few Britons were prepared to fight for Czechoslovakia. Some years later in his diary James Forrestal, who served as Secretary of War under Roosevelt, revealed American Ambassador Joseph Kennedy's account of his conversation with Chamberlain. The British Prime Minister blamed the American government of Franklin Delano Roosevelt along with world Jewry for forcing England into war.[ix] In 1938 the England of Chamberlain had nothing to fight with and could not risk war with Hitler. Old Joe Kennedy thought if England had refrained from entering the war over Poland, Hitler in time would have taken Germany into war with Russia with no resulting conflict with England. Currently in England revisionist historians have been saying if Britain had avoided fighting Germany in World War II, she would be much richer today, and the country would be better for it.]

[i]. Col Charles A. Lindbergh, Vital Speeches of the Day, pp266-7,Vol VII, "We are not prepared for war" testimony by Lindbergh before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Feb 6, 1941

[ii]. NYT, Nov 12, 1942, p18

[iii]. Lindbergh, Vital Speeches of the Day, pp424-6, Vol VII, "We Cannot Win This War for England" delivered April 23, 1941 at the American First Committee in New York

[iv]. Lindbergh, Vital Speeches of the Day, June 1, 1941, Vol VII, pp482-3, speech on "Election Promises Should be Kept" delivered at Madison Square Garden on May 23, 1941

[v]. Commonweal, p532, Sep 26, 1941

[vi]. Wayne S. Cole, Charles A. Lindbergh and the Battle Against American Intervention in World War II, pp171-85 (Harcourt, Brace, 1974)

[vii]. Edmund Wilson, Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War, pxxvi (Oxford Press, 1962)

[viii]. Richard K. Ketchum, The Borrowed Years: 1938-1941, pp640-3 (Random House, 1989)

[ix]. Walter Millis editor, The Forrestal Diaries, pp121-2 (Viking Press, 1951)