British propaganda diversions, and related American Anglophile support
for the growing enhancement of Stalin
Almost everything seemed to be favoring pro-Stalinist moves and gestures
in the last five or six weeks of formal American neutrality in the late
fall of 1941. The only obstacle, and a very large one, continued to be the
persistence of large popular majorities against American involvement in
a shooting war outside the continental U.S., and the stubborn front against
involvement in the war on any terms waged by the America First Committee.
Here, however, the major opposition was being furnished not bar Soviet partisans
of American nationality but the large British secret intelligence apparatus,
about which few Americans knew, and even fewer talked. Newsweek in July
had published a quiet tid- bit, remarking that there were "more British
in Washington than captured and burned it in 1814," but the real center
of British espionage was New York, lodged in the Rockefeller Center, from
which they created false pro-war organizations, sabotaged American antiwar
political leaders, and even murdered enemy espionage agents also in the
U.S. Over 40 years after the war broke out, Americans were aware of just
a part of the story of British espionage work in the U.S.A., 1939-1945.
Its principal cover prior to Pearl Harbor and American belligerence was
a totally cooperating Roosevelt administration and its own massive amateur
spy organization, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which through
its head William J. Donovan, worked smoothly in harmony with the British
Security Coordination (BSC) headed by the Canadian millionaire, William
Stephenson. (It was Stephenson who quoted Roosevelt with some relish over
30 years after the end of the war as saying in mid-1940, "I'm your
biggest undercover agent.")(135) But in 1940-1941 no U.S. printed
source even breathed the slightest hint that the troubles of such prominent
America First speakers as Senator Burton K. Wheeler (D.-Mont.) and the globally-famous
aviator Charles A. Lindbergh (136) were partially the work of undercover
sabotage by British intelligence in the U.S.A. Time gloated when Sen. Wheeler
was denied the right to speak in Atlanta in July l941 (137) when
he was to argue for a neutral course for the U.S.A., which made embarrassing
accompanying copy to the hypocritical groans over the suspension of free
speech in Germany, Soviet Russia and Vichy France. Time did print Sec. of
War Stimson's apology to Wheeler in August after Stimson had referred to
Wheeler's public views as ''near-treason,''(138) but it was back
the following month with a subliminal vote of approval when Lindbergh was
similarly denied the right to speak on the same subject as Wheeler in Oklahoma
City.(139) Its subsequent reaction to the Lindbergh speech in Des
Moines in early October 1941, when Lindbergh was reported as "charging
that the British, the Administration, and Jews [the Time story contained
no article "the" before "Jews"] were pushing the U.S.
towards war,"(140) had much to do with singling out Lindbergh
for contumely on a scale rarely experienced by any other American, and which
was still accruing to his memory nearly 60 years after his famous solo airplane
crossing of the Atlantic in l927. (141)
In the meantime the millionaire and Communist press pursued their joint
though uncoordinated adulation and idealization of Stalin and Red Russia.
One especially influential campaign was carried out by Ralph Ingersoll,
editor and publisher of Chicago tycoon Marshall Field's New York City tabloid,
PM, an urgent voice of belligerence. He authored a sensational series in
November 1941 for three weeks, on his return from the Soviet after a visit
of less than a month. His articles were widely syndicated in other U.S.
cities and in Canada, and reached hundreds of thousands of readers. Time
imperturbably described it all as "the first uncensored first hand
report on fighting Russia by a capable U.S. journalist,"(142) thereby
adding another to their string of breath-taking whoppers, in view of already
published testimony by Harriman that Soviet censorship exceeded in tightness
that of any nation on earth by a very wide margin.
To some, Ingersoll's writing sounded like Daily Worker fare though somewhat
toned down. In actuality, Ingersoll described no battle scenes, which no
other Anglo-American reporter in Russia ever did either, and was obviously
much curtailed in his movements, despite his Stalinophile fixations. The
Communist press received his work warily, gratified by his contribution
to their cause, but not quite yet sure that what they were seeing was not
a hoax or trap being sprung on them by the "capitalist gutter- reptile
press." A.B. Magil's cautious reaction in the New Masses was typical,
not thoroughly sold by Ingersoll, but willing to concede that the latter
had "brought back more of the truth about the Soviet Union than any
American capitalist journalist in years" Magil was especially pleased
with his portrait of Stalin, and that he had made his interview with the
Red premier "exciting and dramatic, radiant with the greatness of the
man." No Communist in America wrote anything later more influential
among Americans about Stalin than did Ingersoll in this last month before
U.S. entry into World War II. But in that same period two other affluent
Americans, Harriman and Davies, tried, only to be outdone by the British
mogul, Lord Beaverbrook.
Harriman's glorious tribute to Stalin during his October 12 radio address
broadcast from London was matched by that of Beaverbrook that same night,
but was well surpassed by Beaverbrook's speech at Manchester the following
month, in which he testified, "I put my faith in Stalin's leadership,"
though Time thought his audience a few paces in advance of him in ardent
emotion toward the Soviet. "When the Beaver mentioned Russia,"
its story noted, "the applause was violent." Harriman was quoted
by Newsweek as saying of Stalin, "He is a human fellow to deal with.
He has a keen sense of humor, which he allowed full play even in conference."(143)
Davies specialized in tributes to Stalin's acumen retroactively, mainly
substantiating Party explanations for the purge trials of 1936-1938, when
most of the Old Bolsheviks and half of the Red Army's officer corps were
killed or hustled to concentration camps. His testimony supporting the official
Stalinist line was quoted and requoted by American Reds and their sympathizers,
and appeared at times in the Communist press in columns parallel to the
identical line being launched by Earl Browder, the CPUSA chief in the fall
of 1941.(144) Liberal enemies of the American CP, who had been foremost
in vociferous denunciation of the trials when they took place, now were
much discomfited by what the new political expedience called for, and were
further anguished that now that they were on Mr. Roosevelt's war wagon,
they had to keep quiet during this latest tribute to Stalin's probity. That
the ex-Ambassador to Moscow should appear in Stalin's corner in such good
voice simply made the entire affair that much more unbearable. But the season
of profound Stalinophilia had just begun.
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