Adrian Lee is a solicitor-advocate in London, specialising in criminal defence, and was twice a Conservative parliamentary candidate.
The recently resolved delay of Joe Biden’s $61 Billion aid package to Ukraine by Congress has drawn attention to the phoenix-like rebirth of an ancient Republican Party (G.O.P.) tradition: isolationism.
Isolationism is defined as a country unilaterally deciding not to engage in the affairs of others. This involves a reluctance to enter into international agreements, military alliances, treaties, or trade deals.
It may come as a surprise to those whose knowledge of American politics post-dates the 1952 Presidential election, but the political party most susceptible to isolationism has usually been the most conservative. Perceived as the foreign policy tough guys of American politics, up until WW2 the Republicans largely eschewed overseas intervention, sometimes to the point of pacifism.
On 8th December 1941, Jeannette Pickering Rankin, a feisty spinster Republican Congresswoman for Montana, became the sole Member of Congress to vote against the U.S. Declaration of War on Japan. Only 24 hours earlier, Japan had sunk most of the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbour and then declared war on the U.S.A.
Even when fellow G.O.P. members attempted to persuade her to at least abstain, Rankin stated “As a woman I can’t go to war, and I refuse to send anyone else.” Many years later, Rankin was asked if she regretted her actions in 1941. She replied: “Never. If you are against war, you’re against war regardless of what happens.”
During the War of Independence, it was to the advantage of the Continental Congress to cement an alliance with France, Britain’s greatest rival. Benjamin Franklin successfully negotiated the Franco-American Alliance of 1778, which was later formalised in the Treaty of Alliance. Under its terms, France agreed to supply military equipment and they even sent a naval fleet on two occasions to fight the British at sea.
After 1783, America adopted a very different attitude to the 1778 Treaty. When France and Britain went to war in 1793, America declared neutrality and refused the French the right to equip and re-arm in American ports. Thomas Jefferson once remarked that the motto of the United States should be “Commerce with all nations, alliance with none.”
President James Monroe in 1823, underlined the prevailing American opposition to overseas involvement, arguing that the Old World and the New World should remain distinctly separate spheres of influence:
“In the wars of the European powers, in matters relating to themselves, we have never taken part, nor does it comport with our policy, so to do it. It is only when our rights are invaded, or seriously menaced that we resent injuries, or make preparations for our defence.”
The first retreat from the Monroe Doctrine came in 1898 with the outbreak of the Spanish-American War. A year later, the U.S.A. embarked on a campaign to colonise the Philippines. However, this did not change the fundamental attitude towards Europe during the Great War.
Whilst American sympathies lay with Britain and France, it seemed that no amount of German provocation could ignite a military response. The sinking of the RMS Lusitania by a German U-boat in 1915, with 128 U.S. deaths, incurred American wrath, but not participation in the war. When 10 American merchant ships were sunk by Germany in early 1917 the reaction was the same.
Only the discovery of the Zimmerman Telegram finally brought America into the war. This was a secret diplomatic communication between the German Foreign Secretary and his Ambassador to Mexico. It instructed the negotiation of an alliance with the Mexicans to enter the war on Germany’s side, on an understanding that the U.S. territories of Texas, Arizona and New Mexico would be ceded to them.
America was horrified and declared war on the Central Powers. Woodrow Wilson later dominated the Versailles peace conference and pushed for the establishment of the League of Nations. However, when he returned home, the Senate rejected full American membership of the League.
By the mid-1930s, the isolationists were determined that America would not be dragged into a future European war. The U.S. Senate set-up a Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry, known henceforth as the Nye Committee, after the name of Robert Nye, its chairman and a Republican Senator.
The hearings stretched from September 1934 to February 1936 and concentrated on the munitions industry, war profits and the background leading up to U.S. entry into WW1. The Committee denounced the profits made by “the merchants of death” and argued that America had only entered the war in 1917 to aid banks and investors, the sub-text being that ‘Jewish financiers’ were to blame for U.S. intervention.
Nye, the erstwhile “conservative” chairman, supported the subsequent report which called for the nationalisation of the American arms industry. His findings led to Congress passing three Neutrality Acts in 1935, 1936, and 1937.
The first Act prevented the trading of arms with parties in a war, the second forbade loans and credits to belligerents, and the third prohibited U.S. ships from transporting passengers or articles to belligerents. The U.S. had bolted the door on Britain and France and had pushed them towards appeasement.
At the outbreak of war in September 1939, Hiram Johnson, a Republican Senator for California, declared that he would “fight from hell to breakfast” to oppose loosening the restrictions. Britain’s only hope of U.S. support rested with Democrat President Roosevelt, who argued that the Acts passively aided any aggressor nation. After a tough battle, Roosevelt eventually signed into law a new Neutrality Act of 1939, which allowed arms trading with Britain on a “cash and carry” basis.
On 4th September 1940, during the Battle of Britain, a new cross-party pressure group was established at Yale University: the America First Committee (A.F.C.). The A.F.C. argued that Nazi occupation of Britain would not endanger American national security and giving military aid to Britain risked dragging the U.S.A. into war.
One of the earliest members of the A.F.C. Gerald Ford, the future President, and then a law student at Yale. Another student sent a donation of $100, enclosing a note stating, “What you are doing is vital.” This note and cheque were both signed by a certain John F. Kennedy.
The A.F.C. was generously funded by corporate industry, including Ford Cars, Sears-Roebuck, Inland Steel and the Vick Chemical Company. A national headquarters was opened in Chicago, and membership reached 850,000 in 450 chapters. Celebrities rallied to the A.F.C.’s platforms, including Lillian Gish, a Hollywood actress, Laura Ingalls, the author of Little House on the Prairie author Laura Ingalls (who gave a Nazi salute at an A.F.C. rally) and Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect.
However, A.F.C.’s most prominent spokesman was the Charles Lindbergh, the legendary aviator. Lindbergh addressed A.F.C.’s rallies nationwide. In Des Moines, Iowa on 11th September 1941, Lindburgh made unfavourable mention of the Jewish community:
“Instead of agitating for war the Jewish groups in this country should be opposing it in every way possible, for they will be among the first to feel its consequences. Tolerance is a virtue that depends on peace and strength. History shows that it cannot survive war and devastation.”
Lindbergh concluded thus:
“Their greatest danger to this country lies in their (the Jews) large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government.”
Unsurprisingly, the A.F.C. disbanded shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbour. They signed off with an unapologetic press release stating:
“Our principles were right. Had they been followed; war could have been avoided. No good purpose can now be served by considering what might have been, had our objectives been attained. We are at war.”
After the War, isolationism declined inside the G.O.P., as most joined the crusade against Communism. The corpse of America First briefly re-emerged during Pat Buchanan’s 1988 Presidential campaign, but it took Donald Trump to facilitate a full resurrection.
Of course, the adoption of an America First strategy today would have a different effect on global stability than it would have had 80 years ago, when the U.S.A. was yet to walk upon the world stage. Today isolationism would signal the collapse of the United States as a super-power. Nature abhors a vacuum.
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