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10 The Big Truth The New Anticommunist Politics As the scandal over Communism in Germany unfolded, Ralph Montgomery Easley had remained blithely convinced of his innocence. Despite repeatedly making anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi comments, he did not believe himself to be an anti-Semite, on the grounds he was willing to associate with wealthy, privileged, or conservative Jews. During the 1920 controversy over Henry Ford’s circulation of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Easley had written the industrialist to express sympathy, but pointed out that the NCF worked with “a number of very high-class important Jews” who could not possibly be party to such a program.1 Although the auto manufacturer had published material “to cause a serious man of patriotic views to want the allegations thoroughly investigated,” Easley warned that they should be careful, lest their claims produce “an indiscriminate anti-Semitic wave . . . which might lead to pogroms in this country.”2 For Easley, class trumped ethnicity. And despite taking scandalously provocative actions in the early Depression years, he still saw himself as a peacemaker and a moderate rather than someone who stoked the flames of controversy, as if the conflict between Nazis and Jews was simply a misunderstanding in need of mediation. As allegations circulated that he and other countersubversives had been collaborating with fascists, Easley replied that his goal had simply been to bring together moderates from the German and Jewish communities . In mid-1934 he tried to organize a meeting between Morris Waldman of the American Jewish Committee (which had opposed the Jewish boycott of German goods), George Sylvester Viereck, and representatives of the Steuben Society, a major German American organization. In Easley’s view, these were “the conservative elements in both groups,” unlike the “radicals” in the American Jewish Congress and the Friends of New Germany, which he saw as 226 . the new anticommunism broadly equivalent.3 With tensions running high over the boycotts, the effort to get them together failed, but in June 1935 Easley convened a second meeting , at the Barclay Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, and this time members of the American Jewish Committee, the Steuben Society, and a number of other influential New Yorkers attended.4 Appearing as a voice of conciliation offered the head of the National Civic Federation a way of diverting attention from the fact that he had been caught cooperating with Nazism. At first this was probably just a matter of self-protection , but as the outrage over Communism in Germany died down, the strategic possibilities of such a position began to present themselves. Given the rivalries between the major Jewish organizations, Easley speculated privately that if the NCF set about countering the claim that communism was Jewish, it might count on support from conservative Jewish groups in the countersubversive campaigns that were its real priority.5 Easley wrote Waldman to suggest that they “kill two birds with one stone” by creating a new countersubversive committee whose membership would be made up of at least one-third Jews and one-third German Americans. “Thus, in addition to helping to drive the Third International from our shores,” Easley explained, “we should be helping also to dispel the antiSemitic feeling which, unfortunately, is growing all too rapidly in the United States and which, if not soon curbed, may lead to serious consequences.”6 Not all of those contacted by Easley were sympathetic, but the idea was not as outlandish as it might appear.7 In the mid-1930s, Jewish Americans were deeply divided over how to respond to Nazism; many feared that an uncompromising approach might alienate powerful Christian allies. At the June 5 meeting, Waldman had attacked the Jewish boycott, criticized the Dickstein Committee for acting “indiscreetly, recklessly,” and insisted that Jews stop “calling themselves a race. . . . After all, a man of the Jewish religion is a white man.” Easley said that Waldman had indicated he “would greatly appreciate any effort on our part to help make clear to the American people the fundamental differences between the American Jewish Committee and the American Jewish Congress.” For reasons of solidarity, Easley explained, the committee couldn’t “very well make a campaign against another Jewish organization because that would invite criticism from uninformed Jews who think it is a crime for one Jew to attack another; but we can explain the situation and let anybody get mad who wants to.”8 The main thing, Easley believed, was “to provide a group comprising Americans who will view this...

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