Des Moines, 11 September 1941: 3 names to speak
, a 39-year-old aviator made famous in 1927 by his solo crossing of the Atlantic, is in 1941 the most prominent spokesman of the America First Committee, the leading movement opposing American entry into the European war. For months he has been holding isolationist rallies.
Convinced the country is being pushed toward a conflict against its own interests, he has drafted a speech titled Who Are the War Agitators?, in which he means to name those he holds responsible. The text targets 3 groups: the British, whom he accuses of propaganda, the Roosevelt administration, and "the Jewish," to whom he ascribes excessive influence over the press and politics — charges that draw on antisemitic tropes.
His wife, , alarmed on reading the draft, begs him not to deliver it as written and warns him it will be branded antisemitic.
On 11 September 1941, before 8000 people gathered at the Des Moines Coliseum and a national radio audience, Lindbergh steps to the rostrum, the text in hand. He can soften or cut the most explosive passage, decline to speak, or deliver it naming the 3 groups.
Des Moines, September 1941, you are Charles Lindbergh, America First spokesman: what to do with the most explosive passage of your speech?
Lindbergh delivered the passage as written: 6 minutes in, he named "the British, the Jewish, and the Roosevelt administration" as the principal groups pushing for war. The outcry was immediate and nationwide. The press, religious leaders — Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish — and politicians denounced the speech as antisemitic and un-American; one Iowa newspaper noted, as early as 16 September, a protest of rare unanimity. Several America First leaders distanced themselves or resigned, and the movement never recovered from the controversy. Lindbergh's public influence declined lastingly, his name remaining associated with antisemitism and with sympathy for Nazi Germany. The attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States' entry into the war, in December 1941, led to the dissolution of America First.
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