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In a previous posting, TBR News published a lengthy
and highly interesting commentary on the Kent case by William
Gowen. Here is an earlier article by Kent himself giving another
side to the controversy.
A
Retrospective
by Tyler G. Kent
There
are those who would have us believe that to dust off the mildewed
pages of history is an exercise in futility. Those especially
believe this who consider the events of forty years ago
"ancient history." Many such persons are motivated by a
wish to conceal from the rest of us the relatively recent events
which have created the world as it is today. There can be no
question that the events which led to World War II, and that war
itself, have shaped the lives of all of us alive now. In the
United States, the political figure who looms largest on the scene
as creator, through this war, of the world we live in today is of
course Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
During
his unprecedented 12 years as President, he was the arbiter of the
fates of the hapless millions of his fellow citizens. Roosevelt
became President at the beginning of a severe depression which
found millions of Americans without work or the means of
subsistence. Banks failed and factories shut their gates.
Roosevelt inaugurated what he touted as a "New Deal." It
consisted mainly of trying to solve the economic woes of the
nation with make-work projects financed out of the public
treasury. From previous administrations he had inherited a sound
monetary system and virtually no national debt. He could therefore
launch with impunity a policy of "spend and elect" as a
permanent feature of his administration.
Unfortunately,
this deficit-financed, government-sponsored program did not solve
the problem of the Great Depression. As late as 1939, there was
still 17% unemployment. I am wholly convinced that Roosevelt
understood perfectly well that his stopgap measures were not going
to achieve any lasting solutions to the economic problems of the
nation and so, from the earliest days, covertly, and sometimes
overtly, began laying the groundwork for a much more cynical
approach. He knew that for the United States, protected as it was
by two vast oceans, a nice, bloody and expensive war with
foreigners doing most of the fighting and dying would be just the
thing for the economy. This would seem to be the reason for the
fact that all during the 1930s Roosevelt secretly aided and
abetted the forces in Europe which were preparing for a war
against National Socialist Germany. Such a war suited his domestic
scenario perfectly. He had been elected by a coalition of Big
Labor, the "Solid South" and the enormously powerful
Jewish minority. All three elements saw in a war the answer to
their prayers. Labor would have jobs as the factories hummed with
armament production. The poorly educated, and thus somewhat
gullible, common folk of the South were easily persuaded by their
senators and congressmen that a war-oriented economy would mean
high prices for cotton and hogs and other primary products. As for
the Jews, they had already declared war on Hitler at the infamous
meeting of World Jewry in Amsterdam in 1933. They with their
control of the press, radio and the movie industry in the United
States (there was as yet no television to add to their arsenal of
propaganda) were avidly awaiting the opportunity to drag the
United States into a war of unholy vengeance. Roosevelt was their
willing lackey.
In
1936 Congress, reflecting the wishes and sentiments of the
electorate, had enacted stringent neutrality laws which prevented
the President from advancing his plans to embroil the United
States lawfully in a European war. But Roosevelt believed himself
to be above mere laws. The Gods had decreed his path and he had a
divine mission to right the world's "wrongs" whatever
might be the cost. Like most self-appointed "crusaders,"
he made a fool of himself and at the same time he jeopardized the
whole future of his country and the world.
Plots
have a way of coming most unexpectedly to light. And so it almost
was with Roosevelt's illegal plot to embroil this country in a
foreign war. In 1940, an obscure cypher clerk at the American
Embassy in London came across documents which, in his judgment and
that of many reputable historians subsequently, proved
conclusively that Roosevelt both directly and through his agents
was engaged in activities designed to foment a war and eventually
to compel American participation in it. I was that cypher clerk.
I
was born in 1911, the son of a member of the United States Foreign
Service who was stationed in China at that time. After returning
to the United States, I pursued my advanced education at Princeton
and then in various European universities. In 1933, I joined the
staff of the new American Embassy in Moscow which had just been
established as a result of the establishment of diplomatic
relations with Bolshevik Russia by President Roosevelt. I already
had some knowledge of the Russian language and as I have always
been blessed with a natural aptitude for languages my tour of duty
in Russia enabled me to become quite fluent very rapidly. I took
the opportunity to meet and mingle with the ordinary Russian
citizens in Moscow and learned first hand the beastly nature of
Bolshevism, realizing what it would mean if this oriental
barbarism were to spread further. My awareness grew also of the
worldwide ideology of the soi-disant "liberals,"
who gushed over what they called the "new civilization"
of the Soviet Union. I began to see, dimly, the power of Jewish
propaganda in the United States which harped constantly on the
alleged brutalities of the new National Socialist regime in
Germany while simultaneously completely ignoring the far worse
brutalities in the USSR. Yet the latter had antedated the Nazi
regime by more than a decade. The reasons for this distorted and
lop-sided picture soon became clear. In Germany, the burden of
state action was falling upon Jews whereas in the Soviet Union,
the secret police (NKVD) was almost entirely in Jewish hands until
the very ate 1930s. The administration of the gulags ("labor
camps" which were virtually extermination camps) was wholly
Jewish and thus the Jews could wreak their vengeance on their
age-old adversaries among the Russian people.
The
Jews in America and their "liberal" allies soon took up
the hue and cry for the destruction of Germany -- which, of
course, implied the strengthening of the Soviet Union as a future
ally. Roosevelt naively believe that he could control Stalin as
long as he gave him everything he wanted. He was encouraged in
this opinion by such "learned" Kremlinologists as George
Kennan, Charles Bohlen and Joseph E. Davies. These pundits
actually learned nothing of Soviet aims and policies while in
Russia. Their pronouncements were simply the expression of liberal
ideology as developed in American universities. For example: the
much touted Kennan doctrine of "containment" proclaimed
by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in 1948 so far from
"containing" the Soviet Union or Communism, resulted in
the spread of the latter over 40% of the planet and the
establishment of a Soviet bastion in Cuba -- a mere go miles from
our shores. Not until 1948 did it appear that the United States
government had any real comprehension of what Soviet Communist
aggression would mean for the world and for civilization. With all
due modesty, I believe I have the right to claim that I did
understand the realities at least ten years earlier than the
recognized Kremlin "experts."
I
arrived in London in September of 1939 to assume duties at the
United States embassy there. My duties included access to
sensitive documents dealing with matters of policy. Almost
immediately, I became aware that the clandestine activities of the
Roosevelt administration were at variance with the public
statements of its spokesmen. This included Roosevelt himself and
the lesser figures around him. The Neutrality Acts passed by
Congress were being cynically flouted. It seemed to me at the time
that it was my inescapable duty to try to inform the right persons
in the United States of what was going on. It should always be
borne in mind that at this time there was no unanimity either in
Congress or among the general public with regard to either passive
or active participation of the United States in a European
conflict. Opinion polls had, in fact, shown a huge majority-83%
-opposed to such involvements. On the other hand, Jewish opinion
was violently hostile to Germany and great use was made of their
control of the media to whip up pro-war sentiments. It seemed hard
to understand why the desires of an alleged 3% of the population
should prevail over those of 83%.
As a
corollary to his war policy, it was quite obviously necessary for
Roosevelt to develop a system of alliances and coalitions against
the Third Reich since no single Power could successfully challenge
the German military. Aside from Roosevelt's collaboration with
British agents in Washington, the President had two henchmen in
Europe whose function it was to make sure that war would be
declared against Germany. These were William C. Bullitt in Paris
and Anthony Drexel Biddle in Warsaw. Bullitt had been ambassador
in Moscow and had originally gone there full of enthusiasm for the
"new civilization." That was in 1934. By 1936 he left,
much disillusioned by what he had seen and by the way he had been
treated. Bullitt was the quintessential
Anglo-American-Fabian-Liberal. He was the wealthy playboy scion of
a Philadelphia banking family who early in life took up
"liberal" causes. As early as 1919, he was strongly
urging Woodrow Wilson to extend recognition to the new Soviet
regime lest "some more radical regime might take over."
Whomever he had in mind as "more radical" than Lenin and
Trotsky and company, he did not identify. Bullitt was not a
Communist but he married Louise Bryant, a Communist newspaperwoman
and the widow of the Communist John Reed. As is widely known, John
Reed's remains are buried in the Kremlin wall in grateful
appreciation of his services to the infant Communist regime in
Russia. It is not my intent to impute to a husband all the views
of his wife but in the case of William Bullitt and Louise Bryant,
it would seem that birds of a feather do indeed flock together.
Bullitt,
from his vantage point in Paris, became one of the most virulent
anti-German war-mongers in the Anglo-American camp. Possibly his
partly Jewish ancestry (Hurwitz) blinded him from recognizing
where the true interests of America lay. He was intelligent
enough, if somewhat lacking in judgment. He should have known that
the only winner in a war which eliminated Germany as a military
power would be Soviet Russia. No doubt it was difficult for a
lifetime Fabian to admit that he had been wholly wrong about the
"new civilization."
The
"Potocki Papers," the gist of which I learned in London,
clearly and accurately reflected the views of both Bullitt and
Biddle: British interests first, American interests last.
Only
the passage of time and the unfolding of history can definitively
settle matters of historical dispute. Sufficient time has elapsed
-- some 45 years -- since the formulation of Roosevelt's
disastrous pre-war and wartime policies so that any impartial
observer of the contemporary world scene could now evaluate for
himself the concrete results of those policies in terms of the
specific interests of the United States. America has gained no
advantage whatsoever from "winning" World War II. Thus
the war must be considered a net loss -- a failure. The very
virulence of the "crusade against evil" propaganda which
still today fills the air waves and the press is witness to the
fact that there really is nothing else to say when assessing the
effects of the war. The security of this continent was not
enhanced. American trade advantages were ephemeral and transient.
Only the Jews profited insofar as they gained their revenge on
Nazi Germany as well as spreading Soviet Communism over 40% of the
world, not to mention moving great numbers of European Jews into
Palestine.
How
odd it is that the statesmen of the Western world did not appear
to grasp the truth that a defeated and crushed Germany would mean
the emergence of Soviet Russia as a major military power inimical
to our interests. But so it has come to pass. The modern United
States is unable to implement the Monroe Doctrine which had, for
more than a century, protected the Americas from European
aggression and alien ideologies. We must swallow the bitter pill
of Dr. Castro, the Soviets' proconsul. in the Western hemisphere,
and stand impotently by as Communist regimes wax and flourish in
Nicaragua and elsewhere in Central America. My "crime"
was in foreseeing some of this when I was a cypher clerk in the
American embassy in London, and in trying to do something to
forestall it.
Much
of the vicious slander that has been directed against me over the
years has centered around the allegation of
"disloyalty." The Department of State's press release of
2 September 1944 hammers away at this. Yet to whom and to what
was my loyalty due? It was claimed that I owed loyalty to
Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy and to President Roosevelt. Under
most circumstances I would agree. But a government employee takes
an oath to "support the laws and Constitution of the United
States against all enemies, both foreign and domestic." (My
italics.) Events have now proven that as regards the damage done
to the interests of this country no foreign enemy could have done
more than Roosevelt. He was the greatest "domestic
enemy" and no subordinate owed him any loyalty whatsoever in
the furtherance of his illegal activities. No court of law
has convicted Franklin Delano Roosevelt but the court of history
will do so in time. This is the essence of the "Tyler Kent
incident" and the justification for my actions in London in
1939 and 1940.
No
one -- least of all myself -- is ever going to claim that the 20th
of May, 1940, will go down in history on a par in importance with
Roosevelt's "date that will live in infamy." But the
former date may well be of interest to those who entertain some
respect for constitutional and international law. It was on the
morning of that date -- 10 a.m. if my memory serves me accurately
-- that the government of the United States took a rather drastic
step when it permitted -- and in fact cooperated in allowing --
the British police to arrest and incarcerate a member of the staff
of the American embassy in London, a person who was the bearer of
a diplomatic passport and officially protected by the provisions
of "diplomatic immunity." In so doing, the government of
the United States set an unusual precedent the nature of which we
shall examine below. It would be an error to claim that the arrest
and imprisonment of embassy officials had never previously
occurred in history, but the incidence of such cases is very rare
indeed.
This
particular day in May was rare for another reason. In a city noted
for many things but certainly not for the delights of its climate,
this happened to be a quite beautiful day. I was not fated to
enjoy it. At 10 a.m. I was startled to hear the smashing of wood
and the snapping of locks as a burly goon squad from Scotland
Yard, accompanied by an officer of British Military Intelligence
and an official of the American embassy, burst into my apartment.
My visitors could most certainly have arrived in a more
conventional manner and I would certainly have admitted them had
they simply knocked and requested admission in the normal polite
manner. But they evidently preferred the dramatic smashing of
doors. Looking back on it all now, I have become convinced that
such tactics were and are used by the police precisely in order to
surprise and intimidate. If the wretched object of all this is not
only cowed and overawed but is also, perhaps, in. his pyjamas, so
much the better for the police.
Why
then, one must ask, would the United States government have been a
party to this very rare kind of violation of all the normal rules
and conventions governing diplomatic personnel? Surely the
circumstances which gave rise to such an act must themselves have
been quite extraordinarily wicked or dangerous. And why, after 42
years, have the circumstances not been brought out into the clear
daylight? Above all: why have I waited so long to present the
facts to the American public?
The
answer is that there is a right time and a wrong time for
everything. November 1945, the time when I finally returned to the
United States after a period of incarceration in England which
lasted the entire duration of the war, was certainly not the right
time. This country was in a state of euphoria occasioned by its
"victory" over the dastardly enemy. Any attempt to point
out that the "victory" just achieved might turn out to
be Pyrrhic and more costly to the general welfare than any other
event in American history would not only have fallen on deaf ears,
but might well have led to the actual physical lynching of anyone
expressing such a view. It certainly did entail the moral and
psychological lynching of a number of people by the vicious,
alien-controlled press and electronic media. No, 1945 was not the
time. Certain friends of mine and my family made it possible for
me to travel about the country and take a sounding of the mood of
the people. I found them, in the main, totally unreceptive to any
criticism of Franklin the Great, of America's participation in the
war or of the methods used to involve us in that conflict. So it
was then; today, things have changed somewhat. There are facts
which can no longer be successfully covered up even by the most
virulent propaganda of the alien-controlled media. Even the least
politically-minded citizens are beginning to ask why, today, after
our greatest war and greatest final victory, we are faced with the
greatest threat to our national security we have ever known.
Someone is responsible; after all, it was Roosevelt himself who
said, "Things don't just happen; they are planned that
way." Well then, who planned what and why? Who planned to
turn over 40% of the world to Bolshevism? Who planned to set up
the Bolshevik's advanced bases only ninety miles from our coasts?
And if the answer is that no one "planned" these things
then the only alternative explanation is that someone committed
the most colossal political errors in our history. Is it wrong to
try now to assess the blame? Some would call it mere muckraking
and inappropriate in such critical times as we now face. But there
are enormous vested interests in preserving the Roosevelt myth.
For starters, there is the entire Democratic party. There was a
time when they invoked the ghost of Thomas Jefferson as their
patron saint. Since the 1930s, Roosevelt has largely taken
Jefferson's place. To cast doubts on Roosevelt's sagacity and good
judgment is, for some, like doubting the existence of God. Then
there are the veterans with their huge organizations. Is it to be
supposed that they would take kindly to being told that they were
"suckered in" or "taken for a ride," or that
the war they fought was ultimately disastrous for their country?
As for organized American Jewry, its interests lay entirely in
seeing Germany destroyed regardless of the long-term interests of
the America in which the Jews hang their shingles.
Let
it be posed that there are only two reasons for a State to
mobilize its people into armed forces to fight another State: 1)
the acquisition of booty in,the form of territory or other forms
of wealth and 2) to defend the nation from external threats. The
"booty" theory is irrelevant in modern times, especially
as Roosevelt repeatedly renounced during the war any American
claims upon the territory of the enemy. (That, he would relinquish
to his partner Joseph Stalin.) In innumerable public statements,
Roosevelt argued that this country was compelled to take part in
the war, either as a belligerent or as "the arsenal of
democracy" supplying war materials (illegal under domestic
and international law), in order to "guarantee the security
of this country in the future." His constant theme was that
if Britain were defeated, the immense Royal Navy would fall into
German hands. Germany would then be able to invade South America
and would do so. A fake map was circulated which purported to show
the areas of South America to be taken over by the Nazis. The map
was later revealed as a clever forgery by British intelligence
which Roosevelt had knowingly cooperated in disseminating in order
to frighten the American public. We know this from British
sources; the whole matter is very clearly set forth in the
biography of William Stephenson, the principal British agent in
the United States engaged in bringing about American participation
in the shooting war. Slowly, we are beginning to learn more and
more about the intimate cooperation between Britain and the United
States in the pre-war epoch. The purpose was allegedly to improve
the security of the United States. Thus even though Roosevelt's
activities have been shown subsequently to have been illegal, the
justification was and is offered that he acted in the overriding
national interest.
We
return to that Spring day in London, the 20th of May 1940, and the
interruption of the Scotland Yard goon squad into my apartment.
They were accompanied by one Franklin Gowen, a Second Secretary at
the American embassy of whom more anon. Questions were put to me
as to whom I knew and what I did. I gave non-committal answers.
While this interrogation was going on, other of the officers were
looking into a clothes closet in which they quickly discovered a
leather suitcase full of American embassy documents. It has been
alleged that there were 1500. I do not know. I never counted them.
I was only interested in the contents. I was then whisked away to
the embassy in a police car and brought before Ambassador Joseph
Kennedy with whom I had a short but acrimonious interview. I could
well understand his anger but I believed myself to have been
presented with a moral dilemma. On the one hand I wished before it
was too late to lay the evidence before the America First
Committee and certain non-interventionist Senators. On the other
hand, it would be quite useless to me -- an unknown person with no
political "clout" -- to have returned to the United
States expecting hard-boiled politicians to give any credence to
my story unless I had positive documentation of my charges. I knew
that taking documents from the embassy was, under all normal
circumstances, a most reprehensible action. On the other hand I
did not begin to do so until I had become convinced beyond any
further possibility of doubt that Roosevelt and his diplomatic
agents were going to embroil us in a war against the wishes of a
vast majority of the American people whose opinions on that score
had been made very plain in numerous opinion polls in the months
just prior to the war and during the "phony war" period.
Even the liberal-interventionists admit the accuracy of these
polls; what they most vociferously deny is that President
Roosevelt deliberately tried to circumvent public opinion. I knew
different. From my vantage point in the embassy, I was able to see
the dispatches from there to the State Department and to and from
other embassies around Europe. From every place the picture was
the same: war and intervention. "I hate war," said
Roosevelt, but he was planning it. On 3 September 1939, just after
the outbreak of war in Europe, Roosevelt said in a radio address:
"We seek to keep war from our own fireside by keeping war
from coming to the Americas.... This nation will remain a neutral
nation." At the same time, William C. Bullitt, United States
ambassador to France and one of the principal implementers and
architects of Roosevelt's interventionist policy, was bringing the
strongest pressure to bear on the French prime minister, Edouard
Daladier and on his foreign minister, Georges Bonnet, to reject
out-of-hand a last minute proposal by Benito Mussolini to organize
another summit meeting of European heads of state to head off the
impending war. Bullitt -- fully in concurrence with Roosevelt --
wanted the war to begin, the sooner the better. Any concession to
peace-making efforts would only raise the unwelcome possibility
that the war could be staved off. Accordingly, Bullitt resisted
any such efforts with all his powers of persuasion. In this he was
aided greatly by Jules Lukasiewicz, the Polish ambassador, whose
country had just been invaded and who was demanding French-and
therefore also British- intervention. Bullitt and Lukasiewicz
between them were able to dissuade the Daladier government from
accepting Mussolini's initiative and thus ensured the outbreak of
a major European war right on schedule.
At
this point it is useful to mention that the Potocki papers which
the Germans discovered in the Polish foreign office and which shed
considerable light on other interventionist activities of Bullitt,
are all quite genuine; their substance was reflected in
dispatches which passed through the London embassy and were read
by me in plain English. But when they were discovered and
published by the Germans they were all declared by Roosevelt and
the State Department to be impudent forgeries. Today, most
reputable historians, though minimizing their importance,
recognize that they are quite genuine. Their significance,
however, is much better appreciated when they are studied in
conjunction with other documents bearing on the American foreign
policy of that period. Of especial interest are the conversations
which Biddle, America's ambassador to Poland, had with the Polish
foreign minister, Colonel Beek, and General Rydz-Smigly, head of
the Polish army, during the Summer of 1939. The conversations were
duly reported to the State Department.
It
must be remembered that until the Germans demonstrated the
efficacy of the blitzkrieg, all of the Allies and the United
States as well believed that the coming war would be one of
attrition and trench warfare. The Poles were expected to hold out
for weeks or even months. And so we find Biddle assuring the
Polish authorities that American military assistance would be
forthcoming just as soon as Roosevelt could put the concept over
on Congress. This was rather cold comfort for the Poles but they
had, perforce, to put as good a face on it as possible and accept
whatever crumbs fell their way.
Shortly
after these interviews between Biddle and the high-ranking Poles,
President Roosevelt had the sublime hypocrisy to address a letter
to President Moscicki of Poland offering to mediate the dispute
with Germany. So the picture is thus: on the one hand the American
ambassador is urging the Poles to fight and promising military
assistance if they do; on the other hand Roosevelt is offering
himself as a mediator, olive branch in hand. Take your choice. It
should be remembered that much of the warmongering engaged in by
Roosevelt's diplomatic agents in the late 1930s, particularly in
France and Poland, was in the form of verbal exhortations and
promises of aid and support of all kinds, including direct
military intervention. Every head of state in Europe, and
especially in England, recognized perfectly well that if the
United States were to become sufficiently involved in an economic
and political sense, military intervention would inevitably follow
soon thereafter. Much of the American activity was never committed
to paper in the exact manner in which it transpired. Thus, to the
chagrin of historians, it will never appear in the National
Archives as available "hard facts." Bullitt in France
and Biddle in Poland did not commit to paper blunt promises of
almost immediate military aid in the event of war but such was the
gist of their private conversations. The record of them is to be
found in the Potocki papers. But that is not the only source.
There are records and memoirs of persons active at that time and
memoranda which, though subsequently destroyed, passed among
various embassies and remained in the memories of those who had
seen them. Nor were all the details always officially and duly
dated and numbered and sent to the State Department whence they
could only with the greatest difficulty have been abstracted and
destroyed. There is also the fact that much diplomacy is carried
on at diplomatic receptions. One ambassador buttonholes another
and behind a potted palm with a glass of champagne in one hand and
a cigarette in the other, the two settle the fate of the world
without the knowledge of the politicians or the public which
elects them. Such contacts and negotiations might be reported by,
say, Ambassador Bullitt directly to the White House by means of a
scrambled telephone or in private letters which never pass through
the records of the State Department. Such will clearly never
appear in the National Archives. In these circumstances it may be
asked how I could ever have had much knowledge of the schemings
and plottings. Well, it happened that the London embassy served as
a sort of unofficial clearing house for most of the diplomatic
activities of the United States, at least in the European theater.
Thus there was much flotsam and jetsam floating around in the form
of memoranda and inter-departmental communications. Conversations
were often overheard and they afforded insights into attitudes and
activities which were a legitimate part of diplomacy but which
ordinarily could only be gleaned from personal memoirs and seldom
found their way into official records. Many memoranda were
circulated to a few foreign service officers with instructions to
read and then destroy.
Would
it be reasonable to expect that a written record exists of the
commitment to provide military aid which Roosevelt gave to Neville
Chamberlain prior to the latter's announcement to Parliament in
March 1939, that Britain and France would provide military
assistance to Poland if she were attacked? Such a commitment was
in fact given by Roosevelt to the British ambassador in Washington
and a telephonic confirmation was sent to Ambassador Kennedy in
London. Next, a memorandum to this effect was circulated among
some of the higher ranking foreign service officers and there the
matter ended. Subsequent correspondence is quite clear on this
point: there would have been no Franco-British guarantee to Poland
and no World War II without the previous American commitment.
Chamberlain and Daladier were fully aware of the limitations
placed on the President by the Constitution with respect to the
use of the armed forces, but such were the powers of persuasion of
the ambassadors Biddle and Bullitt that the Polish and French
governments were convinced Roosevelt could do whatever he wished.
The British end of it was taken care of in Washington in direct
communications between Roosevelt and the British ambassador.
The
exclusive reliance on archival material is the essential weakness
in the position taken by two historians who have written on the
"Kent case." Warren Kimball and Bruce Bartlett in the
fall 1981 issue of Diplomatic History wrote an account
which purports to deal with the pre-war commitments of Roosevelt
to Churchill. Pre-war, in this case, relates to the entry
of the United States into World War II, not the beginning of
hostilities in September 1939. These two academicians have poked
around in the National Archives and looked at the
Roosevelt-Churchill exchange of cables which have so far been
published, and have come to the conclusion that there is nothing
much there worth making a fuss over. But who has been making a
fuss? Not I. This is the first time I have made any public
statement on the subject. I do so now because the dire
consequences of Roosevelt's "errors of judgment" (if
indeed they were "errors" and not deliberate policies)
are now so obvious that even egg-head academics like Kimball and
Bartlett can no longer ignore their realities.
For
far too long academics have been hypnotized by the
Churchill-Roosevelt correspondence and have ignored everything
else in the diplomatic correspondence between the United States
and foreign countries during this time-period. They have ignored,
too, statements by quite prominent persons who were privy to the
facts. The Forrestal Diaries was published several years
ago and the editors, Walter Millis and E.S. Duffield, were at
liberty to edit out or to keep in anything they wished. No one
would have been any the wiser had they omitted to include the
direct quotation of a remark made by Neville Chamberlain to Joseph
Kennedy to the effect that "America and the world Jews"
had forced Britain into the war. This of course is a very accurate
statement but it is not to be found in the numbered telegrams and
dispatches from the London embassy to Washington. The record is
most probably in the private papers of Joseph Kennedy and it is
unlikely that these will see the light of day until such time as
politicians and historians no longer fear to tell the truth
because of the menaces of the Jewish Anti-Defamation League. In
the meantime I am making use of the incident to illustrate my
contention that not all accurate history is to be located in
government files and archives. To aver that it is so is to declare
that governments do not lie- at least that democratic governments
do not. The fact is, while they may possibly lie less often, and
certainly less crudely, than the Bolsheviks, they nevertheless lie
when it suits them to do so. One has only to consider the case of
the Potocki papers mentioned earlier. The White House and the
State Department declared them to be forgeries. Today, all
reputable historians recognize them to be genuine.
What
do Kimball and Bartlett know about the British plans to invade
Norway or about the manner in which the United States government
encouraged these plans on the grounds that some thing had to be
done to raise the morale of allied troops in garrisons whose
unrelieved idleness might eventually lead to insubordination and
even mutiny? The "phony war" had been on for over half a
year. The British plan was to draw out the German fleet for
battle. Churchill and others believed that the best way to do this
would be to challenge the Germans in an open competition to invade
Norway. Churchill was typical of that breed of wartime leaders who
always fight the previous war. He had a fanatical and absolute
conviction that the British fleet could solve an of Britain's
problems if only the Germans could be induced to come out and give
battle. He was to be proven wrong in this as in so much else.
The
plan connived between Britain and the United States was for the
British to make overt and easily detectable plans for the invasion
of Norway. The United States diplomatic service would assist in
spreading the news all over Europe in such a way that the Germans
could not possibly fail to learn about it. The Germans did take
the bait and organized their own expedition to take Norway before
the British could get there. There was a naval engagement in the
Skagerrak, the body of water which separates Denmark from Norway,
and a number of warships of Germany's rather small navy were sunk.
But not enough to prevent the troopships from landing their
contingents and taking over the country while meeting very little
resistance.
The
United States' role in this British ploy was certainly not
consistent with neutrality either under domestic or international
legal definition. But Roosevelt had already told the American
public that they were not required to be "neutral in
thought." So perhaps the diplomatic service was authorized to
be one jump ahead of the public and to be un-neutral in deed as
well. I do not know of any actual written instructions on record.
By this, I mean direct instructions from the State Department. I
personally saw, however, some of the numerous memoranda sent out
from the London embassy to various heads of missions around
Europe. These gave very specific instructions to make known as
widely as possible, without arousing suspicion, the British plan
to invade Norway. Some of the envoys "not in the know"
actually queried these instructions as they could not understand
why they were required to make public supposedly secret British
military plans. I do not know how their doubts were resolved but
the scheme did work. Perhaps in addition the scrambled telephone
from the White House was used to tell the ambassadors what to do.
The professors will probably ignore this little item as being
"undocumented" since they have a naive confidence in
what the State Department says as "fact," and their
blind reliance on the National Archives is tantamount to saying
"We only publish what the State Department says we can."
But then one wonders why they have gone beyond the department's
press release of 2 September 1944 which purports to be the last
word on the "Kent Case," although it is actually a
hodge-podge of innuendo, smears and lies. It is the sort of thing
that is made to order for the Anti-Defamation League. It could
have been composed by one of their agents "planted" in
the State Department. For example: it alleged that I had come to
the attention of the British because of my acquaintance with Anna
Wolkoff, a refugee from Bolshevik Russia. According to the police,
this woman had a channel of communication with Germany of which
she was making use. The implication was clear: I was supposed to
be transmitting information to Germany through Wolkoff. At the
time that the State Department issued the press release referred
to above, it already had at its disposal a copy of the transcript
of my trial which had been held in 1940. In that transcript the
Director of Public Prosecutions stated: "Kent did not have
any knowledge of the transmission (of a certain document) nor does
the prosecution contend that he acted in concert with his co-defendent,
Anna Wolkoff, in this matter." But even when possessed of
this information, the State Department still disseminated the
innuendo that I had contacts with Germany and some vaguely defined
"confederates" who were attempting to communicate with
Germany, with which Britain was then at war. But the British
prosecuted me only for having in my possession "documents
which might be useful to an enemy"-not for transmitting them
knowingly to any foreign power. This, of course, did not prevent
the American "free" press from printing banner headlines
about me such as "He Helped The Nazis." In this
connection, I have in my possession the sworn testimony of a
certain Nathan Perlmutter, dated 6 November 1963, taken as a
deposition in a libel suit filed by me against the Miami Herald
and the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times. Perlmutter had
taken to the two newspapers some material which the
Anti-Defamation League had about me, and was instrumental in
having the Miami Herald print a defamatory article which
occasioned the libel suit. Incidentally, Perlmutter did such a
good job that he is now National Director of the Anti-Defamation
League at its headquarters in New York. At the time I had dealings
with him, he was head of the Florida chapter of that organization.
Professors
Kimball and Bartlett in their article on the "Kent Case"
have argued that, as regards the question of Roosevelt's role as a
warmongering conspirator, there was "nothing in it." I
would reply that Roosevelt was probably the most shameless liar
ever to occupy the White House and that his lies have done what is
probably irreparable harm to this nation. Curiously enough, those
who were on the spot at that time in London-namely, British
Military Intelligence, Scotland Yard, and others-held an opinion
different from Kimball and Bartletts'. Otherwise, there would
never have been a "Kent Case" at all.
On 8
June 1940, a couple of weeks after my arrest, Ambassador Kennedy
informed the State Department by cable that:
The
appropriate authorities inform me that investigation of the case
in which Kent is involved is being carried out with great care and
has involved an enormous amount of labor. A final decision as to
whether Kent is to be prosecuted may be expected within the next
ten days at the latest.
On
11 June these same British authorities informed Kennedy that:
Those
who have investigated the matter say that these papers disclose
the existence of a traitorous and dangerous conspiracy to assist
the enemy. The persons concerned as defendants are Miss Wolkoff,
Capt. Archibald Ramsay, M.P., his wife Mrs. Ramsay, Mrs. Christbel
Nicholson (wife of an admiral) and Mr. Tyler G. Kent. All except
the last named are British subjects. It is of the greatest
importance, if indeed not essential, to the presentation of this
case that a representative of the United States Embassy should
attend the trial to give certain formal evidence.
The
following significant words are something to which the two
professors might usefully give attention before concluding that
the "Kent Case" is a non-story.
It
is appreciated that neither the State Department nor the Foreign
Office would be prepared to contemplate at the present time the
public discussion of the documents in question. It is thought,
however, that some documents could be selected from the whole
which, while sufficiently proving the case against the defendants,
could properly be produced in court.
But
if Kimball and Bartlett are correct, why all the secrecy? Why was
the consent of Prime Minister Winston Churchill required before
the proceedings could be initiated? As Kennedy informed the State
Department on 6 July 1940: "The British prosecutors further
inform [Kennedy] that the proposed defendents take the view that
they are safe from trial and punishment because neither of the
governments concerned dare have these matters discussed in
public."
What
was it that they dared not discuss in public? That is really the
crux of the case. The real reason why I was tried and sentenced to
a prison term in England and not tried in the United States is
clear from the following statement of the British authorities,
made to Joseph Kennedy: "The documents in question would
certainly be produced only behind locked doors in a cleared court.
Not only would the press be ordered not to publish their contents.
No press man would be present."
There
you have it in a nutshell. The British, like the Bolsheviks, still
have secret trials -- a relic from medieval times when an absolute
monarch was able to dispose of his enemies on the quiet without
any public outcry being possible, since the facts would not be
known until it was too late to do anything about it. In 1776, the
thirteen colonies revolted against Britain precisely to do away
with such Star Chamber proceedings as well as much else repulsive
in the form of British government. Nonetheless, the United States
government in the year 1940 was very glad to make use of Britain's
Star Chamber practices against one of its own citizens -- for
reasons of "cover-up" and secrecy.
In
September 1944, in response to a certain interest in my case which
had been aroused in Congress and led to questions being addressed
to the Secretary of State concerning my imprisonment, the State
Department issued a lengthy press release which purported to be
the final word on the subject. I shall quote that part which deals
with the reasons for turning me over to the British for a secret
trial, since that action is prohibited by the 6th Amendment to the
Constitution. The 6th Amendment requires that a criminal trial be
"speedy and public." My trial was neither. This is what
the State Department had to say: "The interest of Great
Britain was pre-eminent ... and all the evidence, witnesses, et
cetera, were available to the British Courts." The true
reasons were set forth in messages to and from the embassy and the
State Department during the weeks following my arrest. I have
already indicated what they were. So dense, in fact, were the
clouds of secrecy around my case (in the "pre-eminent
interest of Great Britain") that when the New York Times
applied to see the transcript of the stenographic notes of the
trial they were informed by the London embassy in these terms:
The
British Government is unable to give its consent in writing for an
inspection by the New York Times of a copy of the transcript in
our possession or in the possession of any other. It would require
an Act of Parliament and not even the Home Secretary could waive
the restriction.
Such
an elaborate web of secrecy cast over an incident by the
government principally involved and whose "interests are
preeminent," (Great Britain) has a tendency in the long run
to defeat its purposes because it piques the curiosity of
historians to get at the facts. The case must be recognized as
truly extreme when even the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, had
to give his consent before the trial could proceed, and the
records could not be made public without an Act of Parliament.
And
now I should like to discuss the case of Franklin Gowen, Second
Secretary of the American Embassy in London. I call him a Knight
of the Table Round, for he demonstrated such devotion to the
British-above and beyond the call of duty-that if the British did
not reward him with (at least) a knighthood then they were remiss
in their duty to one of their best agents in the United States
foreign service. I have already mentioned that he accompanied the
police whey they broke into my flat and arrested me. He was later
to appear in court and give testimony against me which he did with
enthusiasm and evident glee. On the day of my arrest, Gowan
undertook to impersonate me and accept any telephone calls which
were made to me at the Embassy. He would then pass on the names
and addresses of the callers to the British police, more
specifically to Sir Norman Kendall, head of Scotland Yard. Sir
Norman said to Ambassador Kennedy:
In
cases of this kind we cannot take anything for granted. To
ascertain who were Kent's friends and their friends, where they
met and what they did, is of the utmost importance. We can't thank
Ambassador Kennedy enough for his invaluable help in this case.
On
the same day, Galahad-Gowan undertook what must rate as one of the
most bizarre activities in the history of the United States
Foreign Service. During the afternoon he intercepted a phone call
from a certain person who asked that I come to Number
"X," Chesham. Street. Gowan immediately recruited a
Scotland Yard police detective and they both went to the address
given. There, in the darkness of the blackout, he was handed a
note by an unknown person which asked that Kent go to a certain
restaurant to meet some people. Gowan gave the note to the police
and then, later that night, returned to the Chesham Street address
"to keep watch on the house itself" and to report the
numbers of the license plates of any cars that might stop there.
Before
the interception of the note, Gowan had taken off his overcoat and
lent it to the policeman so that it would cover his uniform and
thus not alarm the person being talked to. Here we have the
extraordinary spectacle of an American Foreign Service officer
working with the British police and even providing one of them
with a disguise in order to entrap British subjects. Gowan had
long since done all that could be required of him in the matter of
my arrest. Now he was extending his sleuthing to the possible
arrest of Britons whom he did not know and with whom he had no
connection whatsoever. Although the foregoing is mainly of
anecdotal interest, it does serve to illustrate how closely
Americans and British officials worked together before America
entered the war, and to what extent they were willing to ignore
legality in such cooperation. I am quite sure the Foreign Service
regulations do not include a requirement that an officer of that
service do the dirty work of the police of a foreign country with
regard to the citizens of that country.
It
must have been Sir Galahad-Gowan's "finest hour." This
paunchy, balding non-entity of a Second Secretary savored it to
the last drop and no doubt regales his grandchildren with the
account of how he, single-handedly, broke up a dangerous spyring
in London during the war. This alleged spy-ring to which I was
supposed to have belonged was headed by Captain Archibald Ramsay,
a Member of Parliament. Ramsay was subsequently described by the
very prosecutor himself, SolicitorGeneral Sir William Jowitt, as
an honorable man who would not knowingly do anything to harm his
country. That did not prevent Ramsay being interned for a long
period during the war although never convicted of any offense.
These facts are public knowledge, yet they did not stop the New
York Times from printing and circulating in the United States and
in England libelous statements to the effect that I gave Ramsay
certain vital defense information which Ramsay then took to the
German embassy in Dublin for transmission to Germany. Ramsay sued
the New York Times for libel as he was easily able to prove
that he had never left Britain during the period alleged, much
less visited any German embassy in Dublin or anywhere else. He won
the suit. Both the New York Times and the author of the article, a
certain Raymond Daniels, were shown up as liars.
By
the time the Ramsay suit came to trial, I had already been
languishing in a cell in the almost medieval Wandsworth prison in
London, I had gone on a hunger strike and was at that time in the
prison infirmary. One morning, I was informed that some lawyers
wished to see me. Supposing them to be my own, I agreed to see
them. It turned out that they represented the London offices of
the New York Times and they wanted my help in defending the
newspaper against Ramsay's suit. They showed me the defamatory
article and I saw immediately that it was a tissue of lies. I
promptly told them to get out-which they did. Later, I learned
that the article had been inspired by a Colonel William Donovan.
Donovan was later appointed head of the Office of Strategic
Services (OSS) at the behest of Frank Knox, Secretary of the Navy.
Knox was one of those turncoats from the Republican Party who had
leaped on the Roosevelt bandwagon. I was, of course, deprived of
civil rights as a convicted person and could not sue on my own
behalf, but the New York Times studiously avoided
commenting on the "Kent Case" thereafter.
One
thing that the embassy correspondence made abundantly clear was
the truly desperate situation of the British after the Norwegian
fiasco and on the eve of their tremendous defeat at Dunkirk whence
the entire British army fled for their lives, leaving their
weapons in the hands of the enemy. The British knew where they
stood and told Roosevelt all about it. They knew that without
direct military participation by America, they were finished in
the war. All the pompous talk about "give us the tools and
we'll finish the job" was pure Churchillian bluff and the
British knew it. But it provided Roosevelt with the propaganda
weapon which enabled him to induce Congress to pass the
"Lend-Lease" bill making the United States, in
contravention of international law and our neutrality statutes,
the "Arsenal of Democracy." After the Norwegian fiasco,
Winston Churchill became prime minister. This he did primarily
because he could boast of his American connections and was able to
convince those hidden powers behind the scenes that he was the
best bet to get America into the war. Embassy correspondence left
no room for doubt that after Dunkirk the policy of the British was
to hang on by the skin of their teeth until Roosevelt could get
America into the war. He did his best in the Atlantic but Hitler
declined to take the bait. The British had, perforce, to wait
until Roosevelt could get us in by the back door at Pearl Harbor.
On several occasions we find Churchill threatening Roosevelt with
the prospect of British surrender or, at least, some compromise
with the Germans unless America came to the rescue and soon. These
messages are in sharp contrast to the public image of Churchill in
his jump suit, cigar cocked in one corner of his mouth, prating
that "We shall never surrender. We shall fight them on the
beaches. We shall fight them in the streets," etc. All that
was for the public morale and we must all admit that Churchill was
a fine actor. Perhaps he took lessons from Vic Oliver, his Jewish
son-in-law who was a vaudeville comic.
The
British had not forgotten the role played by the sinking of the Lusitania
in getting the United States into the earlier war. We now know
the real story from British sources. A well-researched book
entitled The Lusitania published in England a few years ago
proved that the ship with its American passengers was deliberately
sent to its doom by the British authorities. They knew
positively that a German submarine was lying in wait for the liner
off the south coast of Ireland, and purposely failed to inform the
Lusitania's captain. The hulk of the Lusitania lies
in comparatively shallow water and divers have examined it. Its
holds have been shown to have been filled with contraband of war
and its decks equipped with defensive weapons. This made it a
warship and a legitimate target for the German submarine. Knowing
the psychological effect that the sinking of the Lusitania
had on public opinion in the United States and how the loss of
American lives helped so greatly in gaining support for
intervention, the British lost no time in contriving a similar
incident very early in World War II. This was the sinking of the
liner Athenia on 4 September 1939 when the war was only
twenty-four hours old. Some thirty American lives were lost.
However, the anti-war sentiment was so strong this time that the
ploy failed in its object. The public more or less shrugged off
the incident, saying in effect: "Stay out of the war zones if
you don't want to get hurt."
Now
some very mysterious correspondence came to my notice at that
time. It was from the office of the Naval Attache, a Captain Kirk.
By close questioning, Captain Kirk had been able to ferret out of
the British an admission that the Athenia might have been
sunk on their own orders. Not that it was sunk by a torpedo from a
British submarine. Rather, it was done by one of the two Polish
submarines which escaped from the Germans and had come to England
where they were under the command of the British Admiralty. It is
true that a German U-Boat commander was forced by torture and
intimidation to confess at the Nuremberg trials that he sank the Athenia.
But such a confession is as credible as all the other confessions
extorted by similar means.
By
now it should be obvious to the reader that the screen of secrecy
which surrounded my case was for a long time virtually
impenetrable. Were the "Kent documents" of a vital
military nature? Did they involve information about troops or
armaments? The answer is provided by the words of the judge, Mr.
justice Tucker. judge Tucker, in passing sentence, said: "I
am taking into consideration that the documents in question did
not involve any military matters." But if not military
matters, then what? Obviously, there remained only political
matters. And these were then so sensitive that the British told
Kennedy that there could be no public discussion of the documents
in question. What then was their nature, which could justify my
trial and imprisonment? The United States was not at war at that
time. The people of this country were overwhelmingly in favor of
neutrality. This, in fact, was the great frustration which
Roosevelt had to suffer. He had been a rabid Anglophile all his
life. As early as 1915, when he was Assistant Secretary of the
Navy, he expressed great anxiety in his personal correspondence
lest he should commit some unneutral act. His more limited
authority at that time compelled him to put a tight rein on his
natural sympathies which were entirely pro-British. This is the
key to understanding the diplomatic activity of the United States
in the immediate pre-war period-this, and a certain mental disease
which had become endemic in the English-speaking world. I shall
call this disease "Fabianism." Its symptoms are a total
inability to assess correctly the true nature of Marxism and the
aims, purposes and methods of Marxist countries, which at that
time meant the Soviet Union.
The
Fabian Society was founded in England in 1884 principally by
Sidney and Beatrice Webb and George Bernard Shaw. It was a group
of intellectuals whose declared purpose was to correct the evils
of British industrial society such as child labor, slave wages for
women and very bad living conditions for workers in general: all
very worthy aims. But these high-minded reformers all lost their
senses when the Russian Revolution occurred in 1917. They made
utter fools of themselves by holding up before the world this
bloody, Jewish-inspired and -led regime as an example for all
humanity. It was the characteristic failure of the intellectuals
everywhere and in most fields, but especially in the
socio-political. Intellectuals rely on the printed word and
disparage common-sense conclusions based on direct observation of
the facts.
The
Webbs authored a ponderous tome entitled Soviet Russia: A New
Civilization. For all the time it took putting it together, it
was worse than useless as a guide to understanding Bolshevik
Russia. The Webbs amassed millions of words from official Soviet
reports, from the laws and the 1936 Constitution ("the most
democratic in the world") and presented this to the public as
the definitive account of modern Russia. Anyone who, like myself,
had resided even for short time in the "Workers'
Paradise" knew perfectly well that laws and constitutions
meant absolutely nothing there as far as protecting human rights
was concerned. That nation was-and is-ruled by a power elite which
is outside and above the law much as its predecessor the Tsarist
regime was. They do whatever they wish without the least regard
for what the law might say. Yet even now, when the truth about
Russia is widely known throughout the world, thanks to Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn and others, there are many academics in this country
who still teach the Marxist line to the young and vulnerable.
Harvard University is a hotbed of such teaching. Did Roosevelt
become enamoured of Fabianism at Harvard? After all, he said to
Congressman Martin Dies:
There
is nothing wrong with Communists in this country. Several of the
best friends I have are Communists. I do not regard the Communists
as any present or future threat to our country. In fact I look
upon Russia as our strongest ally in the years to come.
He
said the same thing to Cardinal Spellman, as recorded in the
prelate's biography. This unadulterated Fabianism is the key to
Roosevelt's mentality and explains his mishandling of our foreign
relations. It also explains his legacy with which we are now
burdened.
Americans
are a pragmatic people, or so they like to regard themselves. That
is to say, they prefer to look at the world with a practical eye
rather than through the colored glasses of ideology. Most readers
will know something about the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
It is a sort of extra-governmental, semi-secret organization
having on its membership list many leaders in the fields of
education, finance, communications, politics, etc. Its purpose is
to formulate policy and then pass that on to the government for
implementation. To this end, it is able to place many of its
members in high offices in various departments of government. What
better source for an authoritive statement on America's attitude
to the European war of 1939, then, than the CFR? This is what the
CFR had to say:
The
German strategical objective in this war is the destruction of the
power of the British Navy. To maintain communications with
Dominions, to insure the food supply, and to save herself from
becoming literally a third-rate power, Britain must maintain the
supremacy of that fleet. No compromise between these alternatives
is possible. For the British Commonwealth of Nations this war is a
matter of life or death ... It is an important fact, however, that
in protecting its own interests it [the British Navy] has simultaneously served to protect
American interests too....
The
existence of Nazi Germany, with its power, its ambition and its
momentum is the fundamental factor in the foreign relations of the
United States. Against it the defenses of this country must be
expanded; against it diplomacy must be turned; against it friends
must be won and kept. And against the possibility of its success
on the continent of Europe the unity of the United States must be
re-established.
These
words were written in 1938 and 1939. It could not be put more
plainly. These peace-time statements were not made by some two-bit
journalist. They came from the government behind the government;
from the people who plan and (albeit in slightly veiled language)
call for war and make it happen. Come what may, says the CFR, a
German victory cannot be tolerated. First of all diplomacy must be
used against Germany, which is what I saw happening. Surely, the
drastic action of the authorities in the "Kent Case" is
a little more comprehensible in the light of these CFR statements.
But even now, after 43 years, the veil of secrecy has not been
entirely stripped away. What element of national security needed
such drastic protection? No doubt nothing but the personal
reputations of some of the protagonists.
I
have spoken heretofore of the legacy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
In fact, he left several. There is the legacy of Keynesian
inflationary economic philosophy-a long subject which merits a
separate study. I am concerned here with the legacy of foreign
policy and its conduct, and in that field I can claim some small
but special knowledge.
Britain
and France declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939. The
ostensible reason was to honor a pledge made to Poland; the real
reasons were to preserve a precarious balance of power in Europe
and the dominance of the British Navy in the Atlantic. This navy,
according to the CFR, was also protecting America. The CFR stated
publicly in 1939 that "Nazi Germany could not under any
circumstances be allowed to win in Europe." As a part of this
CFR guarantee to not allow the Nazis to win, Roosevelt thought up
the Lend-Lease program which had been the subject of discussion
between Roosevelt and Churchill in their private correspondense
for many months. Roosevelt kept stressing that he needed time to
overcome the objections of Congress, and Churchill was insisting
that unless something were done soon, Britain would be forced to
her knees. How Roosevelt got away with the transfer of fifty
destroyers to the British fleet is one of the great mysteries of
the period. But he did. And this was his most overt and un-neutral
interventionist action in the prewar period. It, too, had been
discussed for months between himself and Churchill. Various
subterfuges were suggested by one or the other and had to be
rejected as impractical. All the time, the emphasis was on how to
circumvent Congress and the neutrality laws. Eventually, Congress
was successfully browbeaten or cajoled into agreeing to
Lend-Lease, which meant giving away billions of dollars worth of
American wealth. The destroyer deal, however, was done without the
participation of Congress at all and the government of laws went
out the window.
Before
this, the slow work of diplomacy had been pursued for months, even
years, lining up coalitions by promises of aid which was not
forthcoming in time to be of any use to those to whom it had been
promised, namely Poland, France and Britain.
Nobody
in a position of authority in this country expected the rapid and
early military defeats of France and England. Dunkirk changed the
whole picture. The United States government had been expecting a
nice, leisurely trench war of attrition with the British fleet
gradually blockading Germany to death. Hence Lend-Lease and the
destroyers deal. These were the tools with which the British were
going to "finish the job" according to Churchill. But
the loss of the British army at Dunkirk really threw the
Anglo-American ranks into a panic. The unbelievable had happened.
Germany had won the war in Europe -something the CFR said must
never be allowed to happen.
Within
a few days after the British debacle at Dunkirk I was arrested; I
stayed in jail until November 1945. The impression was given that
I and my friends were in some measure responsible for the collapse
at Dunkirk. In retrospect, it now seems as if the drastic action
taken against me, Captain Ramsay and several others might well
have been for propaganda purposes as much as anything else. The
British had suffered one of the worst military defeats in their
history and their troops were straggling back across the Channel
without as much as a rifle. Under such circumstances it is good
for home-front morale to attribute disasters to the activities of
a fifth column. Ramsay, myself and the others seemed to the
British to constitute some sort of "fifth column." The
stolid British can become hysterical at times and at this point
they did so with good reason. Later, as the hysteria died down,
Captain Ramsay was released from detention although I was
incarcerated to the bitter end-and beyond. The SolicitorGeneral
who prosecuted Ramsay said (as already quoted) that Ramsay was an
honorable man who would never willingly have done anything which
might harm his country. Since Captain Ramsay was my principal
contact in London in the 1940s, an impartial observer might
reasonably suppose that my motives were also honorable.
Some
people have asked the quite legitimate question: Why, if my motive
was to keep the United States out of the war, did I show the
documents to British subjects? The answer is simple and
straightforward. Ramsay and the members of his Right Club all knew
that the principal warmongers in Britain were the
Churchill-Eden-Duff Cooper-Vansittart gang, and it was our joint
intention in our amateurish way to undermine Churchill's position
in Parliament by making use of some of the American documents I
had in my possession. This, it was hoped, could be done through
the assistance of Captain Ramsay who was, after all, a Member of
Parliament. We all understood that the Western democracies could
not emerge from this war as genuine winners. The only real winner
would be Bolshevik Russia. The British Empire would be no more and
England would sink to the level of a third class power-as it has.
I also felt sure that the threat to the security of the United
States would be magnified a hundredfold. Curiously, our great
leader Roosevelt did not understand this. But a lowly employee of
the Foreign Service did; like Cassandra, he prophesied never to be
believed. Americans are supposed to prefer hard facts to theories.
Here is a hard fact. In 1939, the United States defense budget
stood at slightly over one billion dollars. The 1983 budget calls
for expenditures for defense amounting to 221.1 billion dollars.
If we halve the last figure to allow for inflation we still have
expenditures one hundred times greater today than before World War
Il. Since it is to be assumed that the United States does not now
plan to launch a major war of aggression against any power, this
221 billion dollar sum is to defend ourselves against attack by
the only plausible external enemy-Soviet Russia. By demanding the
total destruction of Germany and "unconditional
surrender," Roosevelt established Soviet Russia as a world
power without any counter-balance on the vast Eurasian heartland.
But he had said that he saw nothing wrong with Communists or
Communism and that Russia was our natural ally. Was it deliberate
or was it only a colossal error of judgment? Most people would
feel that a man who occupies the White House is not entitled to
make mistakes on such a grand scale nor to play fast and loose
with his nation's security. Lesser mortals can plead ignorance but
the President has information on the world situation pouring into
his office twenty-four hours a day. He cannot legitimately plead
that he didn't know, that nobody told him.
How
then did my friends and I know, in the tumultuous months of 1940?
History, not I, will answer that.
Today,
the ruling circles in this country recognize that none of the
touted war aims were achieved. Hence they are not discussed.
Instead there is a constant harping on the moral triumphs
allegedly achieved. Hence the incessant ravings about the supposed
Nazi atrocities, about the Belsens and Dachaus, the Buchenwalds
and Auschwitzes- above all, the "Holocaust." These are
all deliberate diversions-red herrings dragged across the trail to
obfuscate the facts of life. And those facts are that this country
is in constant mortal danger from the overwhelming power of Soviet
Russia. This is the Frankenstein monster created by Roosevelt and
loosed upon the world. We live with this Roosevelt legacy each and
every day. A Soviet base ninety miles from our shores is only one
of the negative strategic incursions we have to deal with. Any
possible moral basis for World War II was completely destroyed
when Americans allied themselves with Soviet Russia, of which it
may well be said that there has never been a viler regime in
modern history. If the existence of concentration camps within a
country is a sound basis for waging war against that country, then
we should have been at war with Soviet Russia since about 1922,
and with Britain since the turn of the century for it was the
British who first employed them during the Boer War, interning
thousands of civilians, many of them women and children who died
in large numbers due to the unsanitary conditions within the
camps.
The
hoax of the twentieth century, as the title of Dr. Butz's book on
the "Holocaust" goes, is the smoke-screen to conceal the
utter failure to achieve the professed war aims of Roosevelt,
Churchill and the CFR. Now the Zionist Establishment will continue
to have a free hand to commit genocide in the Near East and smear
any person in this country who dares to dispute the orthodoxy or
point out the real results of World War II. And the Establishment
is so besmirched with the responsibility of failure that it needs
the Jewish publicists and news media to destroy anyone who has the
temerity to ask awkward questions. The horrid prospect looms of
having to say: "Maybe we were wrong." A further prospect
then looms: "Maybe Hitler was right." But such
confessions buttered no parsnips in the harsh judgments of the
post-war world. They were not accepted as excuses at Nuremberg
under the new ex-post-facto "law" worked out by the
United States and their Soviet allies. The new basic law of
nations requires only one clause, very simply: "It pays to be
on the winning side."
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