AN AMERICAN FIRST: John T. Flynn and the America First Committee

Stenehjem's attempt to vindicate WW II isolationist John Flynn and the America First Committee is part of her theory that American entry into the European war was engineered by a Jewish-media-Communist-FDR conspiracy (even if ""The President was not a Communist him. self. . .""). Thus, ""Hitler was merely a symptom"" who was ""easy to hate."" Roosevelt was a ""militarist"" and the war was his personal ""gigantic spending spree."" First, the author argues that pro-war sentiment expressed in Gallup and Roper polls was the reaction of a ""muddled public."" Later it becomes equally convenient to suggest that the New Deal was elitist, antidemocratic and that it underestimated the intelligence of the electorate. The author contends that Roosevelt persecuted not only Flynn but also that great aviator Charles Lindbergh, and while allowing there was some infiltration of America First by anti-Semites and pro-fascists, she maintains that Berlin did not finance the Committee's activities. The author's tone may not be rabid but her argument couldn't be more so.