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A Story of America First The Men and Women Who Opposed U.S. Intervention in World War II

Ruth Sarles, Bill Kauffman

ISBN: 0-275-97512-6

ISBN-13: 978-0-275-97512-8

DOI:

320 pages

Praeger Publishers

Publication: 1/30/2003

List Price: $86.95 (UK Sterling Price: £59.95)

Discount Price: $43.48 Sale Price for U.S. Customers Only. Save 50%. Ends 12/31/2009.

Availability: In Stock

Media Type: Hardcover

Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4

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Description: The America First Committee, founded in September 1940 to keep the United States out of what became the Second World War, was the largest antiwar organization in American history. Its 800,000 members spanned the political spectrum from conservative Republican to Socialist; its spokesmen were prairie populists, Eastern patricians, and, most controversially, the aviator Charles A. Lindbergh. Written in 1942, but unpublished until now, this study of the America First Committee by its chief researcher and Senate lobbyist, Ruth Sarles, sheds new light on this frequently misunderstood and misrepresented group. An introduction by Bill Kauffman assesses the place of Ruth Sarles and America First in American history.

Ruth Sarles was at the center of the storm. An Ohio-born peace activist with the pacifist National Council for Prevention of War, Sarles knew all of the principals and had a ringside seat for the great debates that pitted isolationists against interventionists. In 1942 she wrote a firsthand history of the America First Committee. But a war was on, and dissent was scarce: her manuscript remained unpublished—until now. Ruth Sarles tells of America First's unlikely birth at the Yale Law School, its extraordinary growth as Middle Americans rallied to the antiwar banner, and the fierce controversies in which it became enmeshed. In this edition, Kauffman uncovers some fascinating sidelights to the era, including a pro-Lindbergh editorial by a student journalist named Kurt Vonnegut.

Table of Contents:

Preface by William H. Regnery II
Editor's Introduction by Bill Kauffman
America First Creed
Statement of Principles and Objectives: Preamble
Introduction
Why America First?
Laying the Foundations
America First Under Fire
What the Polls Said
Colonel Lindbergh and America First
The Antiwar Bloc in the War Congress
On the Record
Closing the Books
Appendix A: Who Were the America Firsters?
Appendix B: An Interview with Robert Douglas Stuart Jr.
Appendix C: Speakers and National Committee Members of America First

About the Author: RUTH SARLES was chief researcher and Senate lobbyist for the America First Committee. A former editor with the pacifist National Council for Prevention of War, Sarles represents the often-unacknowledged liberal face of the anti-intervention movement of 1940-41. After marrying Bertram Benedict in 1943, Sarles worked as a Washington Daily News reporter and a State Department analyst. She died in 1996.

BILL KAUFFMAN is associate editor of The American Enterprise. He is the author of four books: With Good Intentions? Reflections on the Myth of Progress in America (Praeger, 1998), America First! Its History, Culture, and Politics (1995), Country Towns of New York (1995), and the novel Every Man a King (1989).

LCC Class: 940


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