This was a research paper that I wrote for my British history class this past semester. There was much more that could have been written, but I was limited by a page amount of 10-12 pages and time.
The First World War was sold as a war “to end all
wars” and to “make the world safe for democracy”. President Woodrow Wilson, who
would run a reelection campaign with the slogan “He kept us out of war” would
none the less plunge an unwilling American people into the First World War on
the side of the Allied power of Russia, France, and most importantly Great
Britain. But the aftermath of the war left much to be desired for Americans.
Seeing the failure of Woodrow Wilson to get his idealistic “Fourteen Points” implemented
in a post-war world, a post-war settlement at Versailles that severely punished
Germany while enriching the French and British empires, the British propaganda
used to bring America into the war on their side, and a new international
organization that threatened the sovereignty of the United States, the American
people came to despise the war and the effects it brought upon the world. With
a sense of feeling that they had been duped into the European bloodbath to play
the game of power politics, a majority of Americans wished to see their country
return to a policy of nonintervention.
And
nonintervention is what the American people got. The U.S. Senate refused to
ratify the Treaty of Versailles and thus rejected American membership in the
League of Nations. A Naval Conference was held in the United States with the
purpose of downsizing the naval strength of the great powers. And America
wished to never entangle itself with the power politics of Europe. Fast forward
to the mid-1930s, and this noninterventionist sentiment still permeated the
minds of most Americans. But as the threat of another great war loomed on the
horizon during this time, Great Britain wished to bring the United States into
the emerging conflict on the side of the empire. While this was a difficult
task, the British influence on U.S. foreign policy and their efforts to bring
America into World War Two was implemented in a few ways. The first was a
propaganda effort aimed at influencing American public opinion towards
supporting American intervention on the side of the British. The second was the
official policies of both the United States and British governments such as the
Lend-Lease Act, the Destroyer Deal, and so on. The last way was a covert
campaign within the United States by the British government.
All
of these efforts did eventually help to bring the United States into World War
Two, but only after the attack at Pearl Harbor. But it is important to examine
this topic because of the grave implications it has for American foreign policy
since the end of World War 2. George Washington warned Americans against
allowing foreign influence on government policy, especially foreign policy.
The British Propaganda Campaign
Prior
to Pearl Harbor, public opinion towards what would become World War Two was
unfavorable. With the horrors of World War One still fresh in their minds, many
Americans wished to avoid another European war. The revisionist works of
historians such as Henry Elmer Barnes, Charles A. Beard, and Charles C. Tansil
were in high demand after World War 1 as Americans wished to inform themselves
of how they were misled by the British into war.[1]
Even Roosevelt would at times appease his noninterventionist critics by
appealing to the idea of America remaining aloof of another European war and
passing neutrality legislation such as The Neutrality Act of 1935. While this
position of nonintervention and neutrality seemed to dominate American public
opinion, the British government had plans to undermine this position and to
convince the United States to abandon neutrality.
The
British propaganda effort did not officially start until the mid to late 1930s,
but such a propaganda effort had to overcome some obstacles to their goals.
Americans loved all things British that were related to culture and society.
But what love of England existed was equally if not overmatched by Anglophobia.
[2]
The American struggle to shake off the British rule of redcoats and the king
during the American War for Independence plays a large part in American
Anglophobia at this time. Americans in many cases also abhorred British imperialism
and the rigid class structure of their society. But these feelings of
Anglophila and Anglophobia varied from community to community, with even
Southerners remembering the British honoring their shipbuilding contracts
during the American Civil War.[3]
Most Americans loathed British politicians but loved their actors.
Nonetheless,
Great Britain still had admirers in America. A Gallup Poll found that 55
percent of American voters considered Britain to be the European country that
they “liked best” in April of 1937.[4]
And even after World War 1, many Atlanticist organizations worked with the
elites in both Britain and the United States to strengthen business and
cultural links. Some examples include Pilgrims Trust and the English Speaking
Union, both of which sought to spread Anglo-Americanism. [5]
The American Council of Foreign Relations also sought such an Anglo-American
Alliance.[6]
But
the British still had to confront the American fear of propaganda that came as
a result of World War One. Prior to the 1930s, the British government’s press
bureau in New York pursued a policy of no propaganda. [7]
As the years passed by into the 1930s, the Foreign Office News Department in
London had increasingly emphasized that propaganda was an appropriate tool of
foreign policy. In 1932, the British Broadcasting Corporation began
broadcasting its “Empire Services”, which sought to portray Great Britain and
life in the British Empire in a positive light.[8]
The British began a process of re-armament in 1935, which included plans for
propaganda, but internal conflict arose in the British Ministry of Information
over the usage of domestic propaganda, which prevented any overseas propaganda
efforts until 1938, when the Foreign Office established a committee to
investigate overseas publicity. [9]
There was some hope for the British, found in American arousal due to Japanese
aggression in China and a growing anti-Nazi sentiment.
When
President Roosevelt proclaimed the New York World’s Fair open in 1939, the
British set up the British Pavilion in the World’s Fair.[10]
It attracted as many as 14 million visitors. The most important piece of the
British Pavilion was the “Hall of Democracy”, which showcased the Magna Carta,
the much celebrated document of Anglo-American liberty along with the pedigree
of George Washington, which showed his direct decent from King John and some of
the barons who signed the Magna Carta.[11]
The potential for propagating the “democratic” ideal through the Magna Carta
(and I used “democratic” in the loosest sense) was so great that the British
mailed a translation and history of the document to every school in America.
Even the New York Times was persuaded to write a cover story on the Magna Carta
by British Library of Information. The Magna Carta was successful indeed.[12]
Sir
William McLean went on a propaganda campaign throughout the United States with
the objective of painting the British Empire in a positive light to Americans
with speeches and lectures. [13]
On the eve of war in 1939, King George VI and the Queen made a visit to America
in June. This visit helped swell pro-British sentiments to new heights and
helped to secure American sympathy before the outbreak of war.[14]
The
British were in many cases clear about the objectives of the propaganda
campaign, which was to win American sympathy and cause the United States to
abandon neutrality in the event of war in Europe. A British officer, Captain
Sidney Rogerson, believed that if the United States was to be brought into a
European war on the side of the British, the Americans would
need
a definite threat to America, a threat, moreover, which will have to be brought
home by propaganda to every citizen, before the republic will again take arms
in an external quarrel. The position will naturally be considerably eased if
Japan were involved and this might and probably would bring America in without
further ado. At any rate, it would be a natural and obvious object of our
propagandists to achieve this, just as during the Great War they succeeded in
embroiling the United States with Germany. [15]
Though
even by 1938, American fear of propaganda was still extremely high. Soon, under
the direction of Congressman Martin Dies of Texas, the House Committee for the
Investigation of UnAmerican Activities convened and began a war against
foreign propaganda.[16]
This was not the first time such a committee had been formed, but Dies did
include the British in his investigation. But due to the fact that London still
“officially” operated on a “no propaganda” policy, Dies found no evidence of
any foul play by the British. Senator Gerald Nye would attempt to expose the
efforts of the British by inserting a chapter of Sidney Rogerson’s book Propaganda in the Next War into the Congressional Record. This insertion
received publicity, but it did little to stop the British in their efforts. [17]
On
September 1, 1939, Germany invades Poland. Shortly thereafter, Britain and
France declared war on Germany. It was during this time that the British used a
propaganda tactic that they used in World War 1: the report of atrocities
committed by the enemy. But unlike World War 1, in which the atrocity stories
were exaggerated or fabricated, such atrocity stories were real.[18]
Such atrocity stories were met with skepticism by most Americans who might
object to the idea of intervention. The British responded to this objection by
claiming that the United States should enter the war because Germany and its
Axis allies posed a grave and direct threat to vital American interests. [19]
The
sympathy of American intellectuals for the British cause may have been a reason
why British propaganda succeeded. The political commentator Walter Lippmann is
one such intellectual. Walter Lippmann advocated strongly for intervention
against Germany, saying that German expansionism constituted a direct threat to
American security.[20]
Lippmann also had contact with British propaganda agencies, more specifically,
the British Press Service, whose works were often seen in Lippmann’s column.[21]
But Lippmann’s work with the British Press Service was more subtle. Lippmann often
equated the interests of the United States with Britain, seeing both countries
as part of an “Atlantic Community”.[22]
But American intellectuals were not the only ones to aid the British in their
efforts to bring the United States to war on the side of the British. Rather,
British efforts to get the Americans into the war had much support from the
U.S. government.
U.S. Foreign Policy and Great Britain
As
has already been stated, a majority of Americans became disillusioned with
their intervention into World War 1 and vowed not to make the same mistake
again. While not taking on a complete noninterventionist policy, the U.S.
government demobilized much of its armed forces, participated in small
interventions in South America, and generally traded with Europe. When
stirrings of war began around the mid-1930s, the U.S. Congress, understanding
the noninterventionist sentiments of the people at large, moved quickly to
prevent America from entering another European war.
As
a result, the Neutrality Act of 1935 was passed by Congress and signed by
President Roosevelt.[23]
This Act curtailed how American businessmen and individuals interacted with
nations at war. Upon the outbreak of a war, the President would be compelled to
proclaim that such a war existed. Then, upon such proclamation, it would become
illegal for Americans to export arms, ammo, or any other implements of war to
any place within the belligerent states.[24]
The President was also empowered to prohibit Americans from traveling on the
ships of the belligerent countries except at their own risks if he deemed it
necessary for the security and peace of the United States.
The
British openly sought the aid of the United States even before war began. It
should also be pointed out that despite the Rooseveltian rhetoric of keeping
American boys out of foreign wars, Roosevelt would soon begin seeking a way for
America to enter World War Two.[25]
During the king and queen’s visit to the United States in June of 1939, they
met with the Roosevelts at Hyde Park. On account of King George’s biographer,
in a private conversation with the King, Roosevelt pledged to the King full
American support for Great Britain.[26]
Roosevelt also pledged that the U.S. Navy would patrol the Atlantic and destroy
German U-boats. [27]
Tyler
Kent, a code clerk at the U.S. Embassy in London, had discovered coded-messages
between Roosevelt and Winston Churchill when he was merely First Lord of the
Admiralty. What is striking about this, which alarmed Kent, was that the code
that was being used in these messages were only used by the Embassy when
communication was going back and forth between the President, diplomats in
Washington, and the Embassy itself. Basically, Roosevelt was in secret
negotiations with another officer of the British government, who happened to be
Churchill before he became Prime Minister-a violation of standard protocol.[28]
Kent soon got in contact with Captain Archibald Ramsay, a Member of Parliament
who was not sympathetic to Churchill. Scotland Yard got word of such
conversations, and shortly after Churchill became Prime Minister in 1940, he
ordered the arrest of Kent and Ramsay. Instead of pleading diplomatic immunity,
Roosevelt conspired with the British government and waived diplomatic immunity
for Kent. [29]
Tyler Kent was tried in a secret British court and found guilty of violating
the British Official Secrets Act of 1911 and imprisoned in Britain until after
World War Two. [30]
Captain Ramsay was also imprisoned, but was released in September of 1944.
Roosevelt soon embarked on numerous acts with
the intent of provoking and incident with Germany which would allow America to
enter the war on the side of the British. During September of 1940, the United
States and Great Britain made an exchange, which is now known as the “destroyer
deal”. In exchange for giving the British moth-balled U.S. destroyers, the
United States was granted the right to land in British possessions that would
be used as American bases. A few months later on December 17, Roosevelt held a
press conference to describe the next measure of American assistance to
Britain: the Lend-Lease Act.[31]
To articulate the policy of lending war materials to Britain, Roosevelt talked
about a man whose house was on fire, finding assistance in the form of his
neighbor who happened to have a garden hose. The neighbor with the garden hose
granted the neighbor whose house was on fire to use it. The neighbor does not
charge the first guy for the use of the hose, but he expected the hose to
remain in one piece. So Roosevelt’s premise for the policy of Lend-Lease was
this: we [the U.S. government] will lend you war materials; if you are lent war
materials and they remain intact, then you may return them after usage and you will
be fine; but if such war materials are damaged, then you must replace them.[32]
Unknown
at the time, Roosevelt assisted the British in hunting the German warship known
as the Bismark by sending a plan with
an American commander at the service of the British Admiralty.[33]
As noted earlier, Roosevelt had committed the U.S. Navy to the task of aiding
the British Navy in the war against German U-boats. On September 4, 1941, off
the coast of Iceland, the USS Greer
was attacked by a German U-boat.[34]
Roosevelt was quick to claim that the Greer
was attacked in international waters without provocation. But the truth is that
the Greer had provoked the attack by
chasing the German submarine, which fired upon the Greer with two torpedoes, after which the Greer responded by releasing depth charges. [35]
In another similar incident involving the USS Kearny, a German submarine fired upon this U.S. vessel only after
being fired upon by the Kearny. On
October 30, 1941, the USS Reuben James
was sunken by a German submarine.[36]
On
December 29, 1940, Roosevelt delivered an address which has now become known as
the “Arsenal of Democracy” speech.[37]
In this speech, Roosevelt defended the British Empire and its’ efforts to
resist the Germans and describes them as the “spearhead of resistance to world
conquest.”[38]
Roosevelt went further:
We have furnished
the British great material support and we will furnish far more in the future.
There will be no "bottlenecks" in our determination to aid Great
Britain. No dictator, no combination of dictators, will weaken that determination
by threats of how they will construe that determination.[39]
Perhaps
a more egregious moment of the U.S. and British governments’ attempts to bring
America into the war came in the form of the Atlantic Charter. Reveal on August
14, 1941, Roosevelt and Churchill set forth principles for the national
policies of their respective countries that they agreed to follow. Those
principles are as follows: 1) neither country sought territorial
aggrandizement; 2) A desire to see no territorial changes that go against the
wishes of the people; 3)A restoration of self- government to those who have
lost it; 4) Equal access to trade a raw materials to victors and vanquished for
economic prosperity; 5) Full collaboration in the economic field to improve
labor standards, economic progress and social security; 6) the final
destruction of the Nazis and the establishment of peace; 7) freedom of travel;
8) all nations must abandon the use of force. [40]
The
Atlantic Charter is interesting in the fact that the document basically calls
for the destruction of Nazi Germany. But the problem arises in this way: how
can the United States claim to be a neutral power when it is consulting war
objectives with a belligerent government? Roosevelt was in a sense violating
the spirit of the Neutrality laws and policies set forth by the U.S. Congress. But
most of the actions by both the U.S. and British governments violated the
spirit of neutrality in America.
The Covert Campaign
Another aspect of
the British campaign to bring America into the war is the covert operations of
the British government. In about 1940, the British government established the
British Security Coordination in New York, which was to be the center of
British covert operations in the United States.[41]
This operation headquartered in the Rockefeller Center. Perhaps the most
well-known individual of this topic is William Stevenson, a Canadian citizen
with the code name “Intrepid”. Stevenson
would later write an account of the activities of himself and his agents during
this time in the book A Man Called
Intrepid. Ian Fleming, an agent of Intrepid, popularized the activities of
this secret agency in the James Bond novels and movies. [42]
It should be noted that this secret operation was known to Roosevelt and had
his support, but Congress knew nothing of this. The book Desperate Deception: British Covert Operations in the United States,
1939-1944 by Thomas E. Mahl gives an extensive account of the covert
activities of the British government during this time period before the war.
In
April of 1940, Stevenson and President Roosevelt met and discussed plans to
coordinate operations between the FBI and the British secret intelligence.[43]
British Security Coordination also created false documents to aid Churchill and
Roosevelt in bringing America into war against Germany. Stevenson was
responsible for forging two documents with the purpose of bringing America and
Germany into war against one another. The first document provided by Stevenson
was a map of an allegedly secret plan by Hitler to invade South America, which
was used by Roosevelt in a radio address delivered on October 27, 1941. [44]
Stevenson also provided a false document into the hands of Hitler on December
3, 1941, which purported to be a secret plan by Roosevelt to make a preemptive
strike against Germany. [45]
The BSC even had an American citizen murdered because he established a legal
business relationship with Germany in the oil business. [46]
Intrepid also oversaw a concerted effort to destroy the political career of
Congressmen Hamilton Fish, who opposed Roosevelt’s foreign policy.
Conclusion: America Inherits the British
Empire
Prior
to the aftermath of World War Two, Great Britain was viewed as the
“indispensable nation” that was charged with policing the world. [47]Allied
victory in World War Two cost Britain dearly. Over 400,000 casualties, a
mountain of debt that brought bankruptcy, and the liquidation of the British
Empire were some of the results of British victory. Soviet Russia was made the
dominant power in Europe while Britain faced socialism at home and almost
complete dependence on the United States.[48]
Now
the West was again placed at risk of being dominated by Soviet Russia, but
America had risen from the ashes of war as the undisputed champion of freedom
in the Western world. America had overtaken the British as the “indispensable
nation”. It was during this time that
America pursued a foreign policy of interventionism and empire via military and
political dominance to the present day. America has taken on the role of world
policeman and empire that the British Empire once held. The U.S. basically
inherited the British Empire. Was this a good thing for America or has this
sown the seed of destruction just like it did the British?
[1]
David Gordon, “A Common Design: Propaganda and World War,” In The Costs of War: America’s Pyrrhic
Victories, ed. John V. Denson (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers,
1998), 308.
[2] N.J.
Cull, Selling war: The British propaganda
campaign against American "neutrality" in World War II (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1995), 5
[3]
Ibid, 6
[4]
Ibid, 7
[5]
Ibid, 7
[6]
Ibid, 8
[7]
Ibid, 10
[8]
Ibid, 11
[9]
Ibid, 13
[10]
Ibid, 26
[11]
Ibid, 27
[12]
Ibid, 27
[13]
Ibid, 27
[14]
Ibid, 28
[15]David
Gordon, “A Common Design: Propaganda and World War,” In The Costs of War: America’s Pyrrhic Victories, ed. John V. Denson
(New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1998), 308
[16]N.J.
Cull, Selling war: The British propaganda
campaign against American "neutrality" in World War II (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1995), 19
[17] David Gordon, “A Common Design: Propaganda and
World War,” In The Costs of War:
America’s Pyrrhic Victories, ed. John V. Denson (New Brunswick: Transaction
Publishers, 1998), 308
[18]
Ibid, 310
[19]
Ibid, 310
[20]
Ibid, 315
[21]
Ibid, 316
[22]
Ibid, 318
[23]U.S.
Statues at Large 49 (1935-1936): 1081-85 in Schmitz, D. F. (2007). The triumph
of internationalism: Franklin D. Roosevelt and a world in crisis, 1933-1941.
Washington, D.C: Potomac Books. Pg. 113
[24]
Ibid, 113
[25]
For more on this topic, see Charles Callan Tansill’s Back Door to War: The Roosevelt Foreign Policy 1933-1941,
“Roosevelt and the First Shot: A Study of Deceit and Deception” in Reassessing the Presidency: The Rise of the
Executive State and the Decline in Freedom, edited by John V. Denson. See
also Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits
of Infamy by Percy L. Greaves, Jr.
[26] John
V. Denson, “Roosevelt and the First Shot: A Study of Deceit and Deception”, In Reassessing the Presidency: The Rise of the
Executive State and the Decline in Freedom, ed. John V. Denson (Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises
Institute,2001), 485.
[27]
Ibid, 485
[28]
Ibid, 485
[29]
Ibid, 486
[30]
Ibid, 486
[31]
Rosenman, Public Papers and Addresses of
Franklin D. Roosevelt, vol. 9, 604-60; in Schmitz, D. F. (2007). The
triumph of internationalism: Franklin D. Roosevelt and a world in crisis,
1933-1941. Washington, D.C: Potomac Books. Pg. 114
[32]
Ibid, 114
[33] John V. Denson, “Roosevelt and the First Shot:
A Study of Deceit and Deception”, In
Reassessing the Presidency: The Rise of the Executive State and the Decline in
Freedom, ed. John V. Denson (Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute,2001), 497
[34]
Ibid, 497
[35]
Ibid, 497
[36]
Ibid, 498
[37] Franklin
D. Roosevelt, “The Great Arsenal of Democracy”, American Rhetoric, http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fdrarsenalofdemocracy.html
(accessed November 19, 2012)
[38]
ibid
[39]
ibid
[40]
“Atlantic Charter” (1941), retrieved from http://avalon.law.yale.edu/wwii/atlantic.asp
[41] William
Stevenson, A Man Called Intrepid: The Secret War, (New York and London:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976), xvii
[42]John
V. Denson, “Roosevelt and the First Shot: A Study of Deceit and Deception”, In Reassessing the Presidency: The Rise of the
Executive State and the Decline in Freedom, ed. John V. Denson (Auburn, AL:
Ludwig von Mises Institute,2001), 486
[43]William
Stevenson, A Man Called Intrepid: The Secret War, (New York and London:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976), xxiii
[44]John
V. Denson, “Roosevelt and the First Shot: A Study of Deceit and Deception”, In
Reassessing the Presidency: The Rise of the Executive State and the Decline in
Freedom, ed. John V. Denson (Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute,2001), 487
[45]
Ibid, 487
[46]
Ibid, 487
[47] Patrick
Buchanan, Churchill, Hitler and the
Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost its’ Empire and the West Lost the World, (New
York, NY: Three Rivers Press, 2008), 414
[48]
Ibid, 415
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