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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fullest account on British manipulation of American opinion, March 27, 2000
With Thomas E. Mahl's book, we have our fullest account of hidden British operations. Like Nicholas John Cull's and Francis MacDonnell's books, Mahl's study is based on a doctoral dissertation, this one completed in 1994 at Kent State University. Mahl's archival research is extensive. British sources include the records of the Foreign Office, the H. Montgomery Hyde papers, and the manuscripts of the British publicist Eveline Mary Paterson (Lady Cotter). American collections encompass the papers of Franklin D. Roosevelt, William J. Donovan, the columnist Drew Pearson, Ernest Cuneo (ghostwriter for the sensationalist journalist Walter Winchell), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.Mahl clearly shows how extensive British operations were and in the process very ably illuminates the complicated network of intelligence groups and leaders. [Candian-born industrialist Sir William] Stephenson and his British Security Coordination (BSC) established operatives in the United States on a massive scale, engaging in "dirty tricks" in order to manipulate the nation into war and, in the process, to destroy isolationism as a respectable intellectual position. Without question, as Mahl shows, the British covertly worked in tandem with such interventionist bodies as the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies, Fight for Freedom, and the Irish-American Defense Association. Similarly, there was hardly an administration move, including the destroyers-for-bases deal and lend-lease, that the British did not secretly promote. They helped spearhead the federal investigation of New York congressman Hamilton Fish, who led the non-interventionist of the House, and possibly committed perjury in the process. They fabricated a "secret German map" that indicated German designs to conquer South America and that was cited by FDR in a speech given in late October 1941. They helped ghostwrite an attack on Standard Oil of New Jersey, which had entered into cartel arrangements with Germany's I. G. Farben. Certain names stand out. The interventionist columnist Dorothy Thompson frequently met with British intelligence officials. Another columnist, Walter Lippmann, advised the British to initiate surreptitious operations against anti-interventionists. Walter Winchell's scriptwriter, Ernest Cuneo, was fed data by the British operative Sandy Griffith, who also engineered stacked polling at conventions of the American Legion and the Congress of Industrial Organizations. Several New York Times correspondents, among them James Reston, were fed material by British intelligence. For the first time, the Rockefellers come to the fore. The family gave the BSC rent-free space in Rockefeller Center and helped subsidize Fight for Freedom. Holding the post of coordinator of inter-American affairs, Nelson Rockefeller aided British intelligence in Latin America. The book is marred by careless errors.... More significant, there is hardly an interventionist group that Mahl does not label a "British interventionist front," basing his claim on a boast of British operations officer Sidney (Bill) Morrell.... Certainly the British were involved in secret efforts, some of which were worse than shady.... At the same time, Mahl is wrong in his implicit assumption that the British played the crucial role in energizing American intervention, that most prominent FDR backers he discusses were little more than British puppets, and that Roosevelt's policies usually lacked the support of his countrymen. Some line of distinction must be drawn between interventionist moves plotted by the British and those fostered by Americans on their own. By his overstatements Mahl mars what could have been a superb study.
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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Churchill and FDR -- the Two-Headed Monster, July 1, 2002
The book's thesis is that British and U.S. "elites" maneuvered us into WWII to serve the interests of the State. The corrupt Churchill and FDR and their respective intelligence agencies blindfolded the American public into believing that U.S. entrance into the war was justifiable on moral and political grounds. As usual, the docile masses were swept away in all the rhetoric. Every attempt was made to smear the isolationists as Hitleresque and un-American. More often than not, with such media rhetoricians as Walter Lippman, the attempts were successful. Even today, the uneducated public is convinced that the Old Right anti-interventionist movement was Communist! Mahl covers some old ground--for those who are familiar with the FDR-Churchill deception--but he writes a compelling story.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Power structure at work, May 6, 2002
By A Customer
This book is the missing link showing how elites use their influence to bring us into wars, manipulate political conventions, conduct propaganda campaigns against the populace(now known as public diplomacy), and other dirty tricks.For those students of power structure and are familiar with the work of the late Carrol Quigley, many of the people mentioned in his work play roles in this book. Members of the Round Table network( a global network of discussion groups of people waging propaganda justifying the British Empire on moral grounds) include:
Walter Lippman - American Round Tabler, whose column in the Intl Herald Tribune was to guide American foreign policy in an anglophile direction.
Thomas Lamont - Director and Chrm of the Board at J.P. Morgan, allied with FDR and instrumental in getting lifelong Democrat Wendell Willkie the 1940 Republican Presidential nomination. British members of the Round Table group include Ambassadors to the US - Lord Lothian(Phillip Kerr) and Lord Halifax. Some other members in MI6 in the US were also affiliated with this group. The Rockefeller family also loaned much of the office space for the British intelligence operations during the war, so they definitely had some knowledge or approval of their operations. Nelson Rockefeller was also appointed Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs. Basically, there was a group of influential anglophile Americans, who wanted to get America into the war with Germany, so they provided assistance to British intelligence, who set up front organizations to agitate in a pro-British manner. They recruited anglophiles to stage demonstrations to fight Germany, write pro-British propaganda, and destroy the careers of isolationist Congressmen. They also penetrated polling organizations, and some of the polling results appear quite suspect. During the Republican Convention of 1940, the mysterious death of Ralph Williams, a pro-Taft isolationist, allowed Sam Pryor, a pro-Willkie man, to take over the convention. Through dubious allocation of tickets to the convention floor(Willkie supporters got way more than their fair share), an impression was made that he was the man of the people. Speaches of isolationists were also sabotaged by tampering with microphones or sending in bands during speaches. Having Willkie as the Republican nominee, allowed FDR to give destroyers to the British without a political opponent making political hay about it. For any Birchers out there, yes, there were some members of the Council on Foreign Relations involved. However, that is not the influential body. It is the rich and powerful, who control the mass media and bodies like the government and the CFR, who really make things happen. There are quite a number of typing errors in the book, but the editor should be faulted, not the author. Many people have suspicions about accounts of history, and Mahl does quite a good job supporting his account of what really happened. I strongly recommend reading this book for anyone interested in how our world really operates.
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