Talk:America First Committee

message: Lindbergh Des Moines speech is very important and should go back in Rjensen 21:08, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lindbergh speech 

message: This article should be updated due to the refounding of the America First Committee.  The current site is America First Comittee
:They don't appear to be much of a movement. Off hand it looks like a handful of people who are a single person usurping a previous name. The website gives very little actual info about the group, and I can't find any third party mention of them. Without more info they do not appear to be significant or noteworthy. -Will Beback 00:52, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Refounding 

message: good article, but who is the quoted source CMH ??? --87.185.120.168 13:49, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Source? 

message: The way it is now, it looks like some people still admire America First because Pat Buchanan says it.  Before, it had Buchanan explaining why supporters like it.  What he is saying is not particularly controversial.  I don't think anyone, supporters or detractors, have challenged the well-known fact that the isolationists were a serious roadblock to American entry into the war.  And no one can deny that the bloodiest fighting happened on the Eastern Front, and that the Soviet Union suffered the worst casualties.  I'm reverting it.Shield2 07:21, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Why has the quote been removed?

message: I recently acquired a CD of Woody Guthrie songs with one entitled "Lindbergh" which is very anti-Lindbergh and anti-America First.  The CD is from Smithsonian Folkways and the recording seems to be from 1964, but I imagine the song must have been written soon after Pearl Harbor since it exhorts working men to fight Hitler.  I was wondering if anyone could add some information as to whether this song was popular in that era and the impact it might have had on the politics.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Silkowski (talk • contribs) 21:41, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Woody Guthrie Song "Lindbergh" 

message: I came to this page from the anti-war section of Wikipedia, looking for anti-war groups I might want to join.  From the Wikipedia page alone, I was planning to join the group, until I visited their website through the external link at the bottom.  Under the link "Core Principles," I found this list of ten beliefs:
"1. That all men are not created equal in mind or body and that this natural inequality among men and races is of Divine origin.
2. That the Natural Law governing all Human life is based on the maintenance of Racial Integrity and genetic heredity.
3. That the basis for all social development in Human affairs is preservation of the Family; Property and respect for all duly constituted Authority.
4. That it is the duty of the State to safeguard the lives and property of its citizens; to provide avenues for Honorable men to provide for themselves the necessities for a decent Human life.
5. That the basis for all prosperity in a Society lies in the talents and productivity of its People.
6. That a Free and sovereign People are the masters not the servants of Money in their own land.
7. That the purpose of Education is to preserve for future generations the highest elements of White, Western Culture.
8. That in foreign affairs, the rights of a Free People are not subservient to any foreign states, alliances, or international bodies.
9. That it is the Duty of the State to provide for its own self-defense; and it is the Right of a Free People to keep and bear arms to defend themselves against any Intruder or Oppressor.
10. That the ideals of government for which we shall strive are Liberty without Anarchy; Law and Order without Tyranny."
The supposition that "this natural inequality among...races is of Divine origin," or that "the Natural Law...is based on the maintenance of Racial Integrity and genetic heredity" is genuinely disturbing to me.  Yet these radical beliefs are not a part of the article--why?  Further on, Core Principle 7 states, "That the purpose of Education is to preserve for future generations the highest elements of White, Western Culture." (Emphasis mine.)  This is blatant racism, and intolerable to my conscience.  I would hate for others to join the organization without a true understanding of the group's goals, and I don't believe the Wikipedia page presents those beliefs.  
I, and many others who are anti-war, I feel safe saying, feel very uncomfortable with these bigoted policies.  Something about the "conservatism" or "traditionalism" of the AFC should be included on the page, but I don't feel I'm the one to write it, as I surely couldn't maintain NPOV in the discussion of such a topic.
Words for the wind (talk) 22:11, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  No Mention of Outmoded and, Frankly, Racist Policies 

message: I removed the link to McCain. --Tom (talk) 15:37, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: See also

message: Again, I have removed the redirect to McCain as unrelated or not really spelled out in that section per WP:SEEALSO. Is there a good reason not to do this? I have no problem having others comment. Thank you,  Tom (talk) 01:28, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: See also section redux, see above

message: Is the Buchanan material properly written, weighted, NPOV, ect for this article? TIA Tom (talk) 03:07, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Issues section

message: Readathat the America First Committe got hold of a seceret FDR admistration plan to commit US troops in1943. if US wasnt in war by then. Called 'PROJECT VICTORY" No mention of this in article nor ANY mention I can find in ANY Wikipedia artice !Why?USALONE (talk) 01:37, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe that is a reference to the copy of the actual war Department war plan, which Sen. Burton Wheeler of Montana received surreptitiously in late 1941. Wheeler turned it over to the Chicago Tribune, which published it on the front page a few days before Pearl Harbor. there is a nasty name for a politician who reveals secret war plans to the enemy. Rjensen (talk) 01:42, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re "Project Victory" and America First Committee 

message: If the AFC opposed joining the world war, why did it attack Britain specifically? The AFC slogan was "England will fight to the last American".  Is this not an indication that the group was anti-British - or pro-German?
::The A F. C. argued that intervention was a British plot designed to serve British imperial interests, and  would seriously damage American interests.  they did not support Germany in any way.  They argued the war would kill  hundreds of thousands of American boys,  cost many billions of dollars,  and threatened democracy inside America as a police state took over. (they had World War I in mind, and did not predict that the US government would incarcerate  Japanese-Americans) Rjensen (talk) 02:47, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anti British? 

message: Is this right? —" Lindbergh “was one man in the last broad peace movement in American history, almost a million strong.” What about the 1960s Opposition to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War?86.42.219.23 (talk) 18:35, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Kauffman quotation

message: As a professor I'm grimly aware that students turn to Wikipedia first, for elucidation. No student, hearing a journalist or historian contemptuously discuss how American isolationism and British appeasement led to World War Two, could turn here and discover the source of that contempt. It may not be gentlemanly of me to say it, and forgive me if I repeat what I've said about other articles apparently written by Pacifists about their predecessors, but the jury is not out on Neville Chamberlain and Munich, or on Charles Lindbergh and American First. You'd never know it from this article. If history is written by the winners, is Wikipedia written by the losers? Historians adopting a man as their own tend to write apologies for him. I've made the error myself. At one point the article makes it seem as if only left-wingers hold less than a forgiving view of Lindbergh and America First's continuation of Chamberlain's foreign policy delusions, which nearly destroyed the civilized West. Where is the discussion of Lindbergh's deep affinity with German racist philosophy-- his writings, his decorations by the Nazi's? The Wikipedia article on Lindbergh does a much better job of describing all this. One should add Anne Morrow Lindbergh, and her powerful writings in favor of abandoning England to its fate. Roosevelt could not defeat America First, only Pearl Harbor did. (And if America First had not kept America convinced it could put its head in the sand and safely ignore the Axis powers, could there have been a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor?)   College students coming here should read synopses of all the evidence, as well as this article's scholarly equivocations. Charles Lindbergh and America First fought against America helping England during the Blitz, and kept America out of the war until England was nearly beyond help. That is not my judgement. It is the general one, among historians left and right. Students have to hear it. Profhum (talk) 07:48, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: ProfHum wants Wikipedia to condemn America First, apparently because of his very high regard for England. We are not allowed to do that by Wikipedia rules. The surprise attack on Pearl Harbor is a red herring--The White House, the Navy and the Army were the ones surprised and they were not part of Am First, which indeed did not oppose aggressive measures against Japan. (It focused on Europe.) Rjensen (talk) 14:13, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too slanted to be helpful to students 

message: Why does this say Sterling Morton of Morton Salt was a significant contributor? It is true that Sterling Morton (who died 43 years before America First Committee existed) had a son, Joy Morton, who founded Morton Salt; but, like his father, Joy Morton was dead well before AFC existed.
We should either source or delete the claim.DKPhilosophy (talk) 13:15, 29 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sterling Morton? Morton Salt? Impossible! 

message: There seems to be a lot of original research in this article that is not cited. Several statements need citations:
# Architect Frank Lloyd Wright attempted to join, but he was rejected when the local board decided that he had a "reputation for immorality".
# They profoundly distrusted Roosevelt and argued that he was lying to the American people.
# Charles Lindbergh, a frequent guest of Hitler's in 1930s Germany and an admirer of the buildup of the Nazi air force, the Luftwaffe, had been, unsurprisingly, actively involved in questioning the motives of the Roosevelt administration well before the formation of the AFC [especially the use of "unsurprisingly"]
# Nothing did more to escalate the tensions than the speech Lindbergh delivered to a rally in Des Moines, Iowa on September 11,
# Lindbergh urged listeners to look beyond the speeches and propaganda they were being fed and instead look at who was writing the speeches and reports, who owned the papers and who influenced the speakers.
# Lindbergh's presence at the Hollywood Bowl rally was overshadowed, however, by the presence of fringe elements in the crowd.
These statements need sources. I think there should be an "original research" template and "citation needed" warnings on this article. Cleeder (talk) 01:48, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: thanks for the ideas. I made revisions and added sources.  Rjensen (talk) 03:34, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Original research 

message: The source for John F Kennedy being a contributor/supporter of the AFC stems from reference 14, a 2014 opinion articlehttps://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/still-america-first/ by Bill Kauffman, a libertarian commentatorhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Kauffman.  This article includes the statement that JFK approved of and donated to the AFC, along with a perjorative reference to JFK's father who is also named as a contriibutor: 
, there were Kennedy footprints all over America First. Old lech Joe Kennedy kicked in a few bucks, and John F. Kennedy sent the AFC a check for $100, with a note reading “what you all are doing is vital.” 
However this assertion seems in direct contradiction of Wikipedia's own article on John F Kennedy himself, which states at the end of the "Early Life" section https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy#Early_life_and_education:
In 1940 Kennedy completed his thesis, “Appeasement in Munich”,... the book also called for an Anglo-American alliance against the rising totalitarian powers. Kennedy became increasingly supportive of U.S. intervention in World War II, and his father’s isolationist beliefs resulted in the latter’s dismissal as ambassador to the United Kingdom. 
The thesis is linked on that wiki page from the JFK library, with a publication date of 25 May, 1940.  https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/JFKPP/026/JFKPP-026-004
Kauffman does not provide any source or reference for his claim that either Kennedy donated.  But since as stated in this article the AFC was only established on September 4, 1940, is it really likely that JFK would have approved of and donated to it when it directly contradicts his own views, including his thesis/book published barely three months before?
Dannuk (talk) 12:26, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: The ref is now to Thomas Maier's book, which says "the ambassador's hand was seen in the one-hundred dollar contribution given by his son, Jack". Do any other third-party RS say more? Llll5032 (talk) 22:41, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Main Wiki article for John F Kennedy implies contradiction over his donation/support 

message: I wish she had been more accepting of how the anti-semitic leadership did not get re-organized too much. Lindbergh was even able to envision it as a pro-Nazi party.2601:447:4000:220:5546:9F27:33BC:B5ED (talk) 21:52, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: What is a better source per WP:BESTSOURCES? Llll5032 (talk) 22:28, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

text: The best sources are books published by historians in the decades following WWII, of which there are a number, not newspaper and magazine articles written in 2016 and after where everything got filtered through (understandable) dislike of a certain presidential candidate/president.  Wasted Time R (talk) 23:03, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: I do not view Susan Dunn as a greatly reliable source