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Noninterventionist Thought in American History

By Mark Grueter

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This is Part Three of a three-part series.  Click here to read Part One or Part Two. 

Left and Right Opposition to War: A Distinction without a Difference?

Let me begin to bring this segment to an end with a discussion of the America First Committee and related opposition to American involvement in the Second World War.

The noninterventionist movement grew during the 1930s, partly as a result of the seeming senselessness that occurred during the First World War. Thinkers and politicians from all across the political spectrum joined forces in an organization called the America First Committee. The AFC received support and endorsements from Charles A. Beard, Progressive Senators like Gerald P. Nye and Burton K Wheeler, liberals Philip and Robert La Follette, as well as socialists such as Norman Thomas and Stuart Chase (Cole 70). By December 7, 1941 the AFC had 450 chapters nationwide and around 850,000 actual members. Former editor of the Nation and “pacifist” Oswald Garrison Villard was on the national committee for some time in 1940.

However, it is important to note that many liberals and leftists, including the ones mentioned above, were reluctant to become members of America First “because of its conservative flavor” (75). It is true that many conservatives identified with the AFC, including Lindbergh, and it is also true that fascist sympathizers and anti-Semites living in America were noninterventionists, for obvious reasons. Fortunately however, the AFC did a thorough and commendable job weeding out pro-German and/or Jew-hating elements within its organization (133). Others were hesitant to join the AFC because it supported a strong military defense.

Certainly, degrees of tension existed between both left and right noninterventionist forces within the AFC, but the group remained highly functional and influential nevertheless. Cole comments on the possibility of a political realignment as considered by AFC members:

Jay C. Hormel, then a member of the executive committee of America First, as early as January 1941, urged that the Committee organize in every Congressional district to re-elect noninterventionist Congressmen regardless of political affiliations. At the same time Philip La Follette was beginning to refer to the “War Party” and speculate on the possibility of a breakdown of old party alignments (179).

All this ended tragically, of course, with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Nothing ever came of attempts to realign the political spectrum and AFC leaders were soon disparaged and persecuted by the media and political establishment.

Consider the following construction:

It is not difficult to understand why the Kurdish people desire the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. The persecution they suffered in Iraq would be sufficient to make bitter enemies of any group. No person with a sense of the dignity of mankind can condone the persecution of the Kurdish peoples suffered in Iraq. But no person of honesty and vision can look on their pro-war policy here today without seeing the dangers involved in such a policy, both for us and for them.

One can readily imagine left - and even wised-up populist - opponents of the war with Iraq articulating something along these lines. But the truth is that nobody actually delivered this fairly common argument, in these exact words. This is an experiment, if one will generously grant me the leeway. The above quote is taken from Charles Lindbergh’s infamous and alleged anti-Semitic speech, which he delivered on September 11, 1941 to an America First convention (144). All I have done is replace a few relevant, corresponding phrases and words. To be precise, I substituted “Jewish people” with “Kurdish people,” “Nazi Germany” with “Saddam Hussein,” “Germany” with “Iraq,” “race” with “group” and “Jewish race” with “Kurdish peoples.” Certainly, the last two substitutions are not easy to justify; nevertheless I still believe this is a fair tactic. Lindbergh’s specific use of the word “race” is not what got him in hot water. In 1941, the word was considered innocuous even by those that were convinced Lindbergh had given an anti-Semitic speech; “race” was merely a term of description - even if inaccurately used in this case - that could not and would not be used today, because our sensibilities have changed.

The simple fact that left and right oppositionist groups take virtually the same positions in defying the liberal consensus, as evidenced by the AFC and general views on war, is interesting on its own. What particularly fascinates me is the enormous amount of overlap between left arguments against war and imperialism and right arguments against the same. Likewise, liberal arguments in favor of war and conservative or neoconservative arguments in favor of war are remarkably close, but perhaps that makes perfect sense. This reality has had a hazardous, though under-documented, effect on the orthodox ideological and political spectrum. And the populists never leave; they are the conscience of the suffocating liberal ethos of which Hartz so masterfully described. Populism will always “oscillate” because, generally speaking, it is not guided by any fundamental principles.

Gore Vidal believes the words “liberal” and “conservative” switched meanings under FDR. “Anti-liberals” took control by asserting that it was liberal to invade foreign countries (Vidal, America 11). If even partially true, this helps explain why opposition to the First World War came mainly from the assumed left, while opposition to the Second World War came mainly from the assumed right. Both groups, regrettably, were persecuted with ruthless fervor. Vidal writes:

The so-called liberals - as they are always so-called - included Franklin Roosevelt. They were eager to go to war, once war came, on England’s side. The so-called conservatives, like Senator Thomas P. Gore, were against war in general and any war to help the British Empire in particular. Today, when the meanings of so many words have been reversed, the conservatives speak fiercely against the, so-called by them, isolationists on the left, while the left (also known as paleolithic conservatives) speaks of minding our own business and restoring a wrecked polity, thanks to forty years of profitless - for the people at large - imperialism. (qtd. in Kauffman 199)

Is there such a thing as left conservatism and/or right liberalism? Was left and socialist opposition to the First World War fueled by a desire to reestablish the spirit and ideals of the Old Republic and/or the notion that America should remain separate from bloody European wars? How does Marxism factor into this? Is left nostalgia for 1776 somehow supposed to invigorate a working-class consciousness? Many left theories revolved around the idea that Anglo-American capitalists were openly colluding to drag Americans off to the battlefields. Today, right-wingers like Buchanan and Fleming insinuate that monied interests and the Israeli lobby do the very same thing.

In 1968, noted American, libertarian critic Murray Rothbard wrote:

Twenty years ago I was an extreme right-wing Republican, a young and lone “Neanderthal' (as the liberals used to call us). Today, I am most likely to be called an extreme leftist, since I favor immediate withdrawal from Vietnam, denounce U.S. imperialism, advocate Black Power and have just joined the new Peace and Freedom party. And yet my basic political views have not changed by a single iota in these two decades (qtd. in Kauffman 214).

During the 1990’s writer and policy analyst - specializing in international relations - Samuel Francis expressed hope that:

…for the first time since the Depression perhaps, there loomed the prospect of a unified people transcending the artificial and obsolete framework of right and left and militantly intent on dislodging the reigning elites to take power back to their own bosoms for their own purposes. Today this is known as “isolationism”; it used to be called “democracy,” which is the real reason the left-right establishment is so frightened by it (qtd. in Kauffman 218).

Even if one detects a touch of overwrought exaggeration in these two passages, it would be unwise to dismiss the sentiment. One of the lessons here is that categories and terms only restrict thought, and they typically explain very little. Meanings of words clearly change over time. When most Americans take a position on war, they do not think about it terms of whether or not it is liberal or conservative to do so.

Indeed, presumed ideological antagonists Gore Vidal and Patrick Buchanan both cite Thucydides’ The Peloppenesian War as their most influential read - the story of how “pride and stupidity” wrecked the Athenian Empire according to Vidal. In 2002, Vidal claimed that Buchanan “borrowed a great deal from me” when he wrote his history of US foreign policy/manifesto A Republic, Not an Empire in 1999 (Henwood). There are certain individuals devoted to re-drawing our political map so that it reflects the more prominent differences - in their view - that divide American ideology: opinions on war and peace.

Moreover, there is little evidence to bear out that conditional pacifism is any different than principled (not populist) and consistent isolationism - in theory. It has never been tested in practice because neither view has ever governed. I use the two terms that I have spent a considerable amount of time arguing against, again, solely as frames of reference. Both “conditional pacifism” and principled “isolationism” essentially mean that we should fight only when directly attacked. Murray Rothbard agrees with Gore Vidal when he writes that, “Until the smear campaign of the late 1930’s, opponents of war were considered the true internationalists…“Isolationism” has a right-wing sound; “neutralism” and “peaceful coexistence” sound leftish. But their essence is the same: opposition to war and political intervention between countries” (Rothbard 269).

Not all agree with this assessment. In a 1943 pamphlet titled Critique by Eternity, celebrated Quaker and writer Howard Brinton argued that isolationism and pacifism were exact opposites. He discussed experiencing inner peace when relating pacifism, usually within the context of a supportive religious community; a true pacifist is engaged with the world. According to Brinton, the fundamental cause of war is a sense of isolation, which leads to a proliferation of armies. But this could only be true if we assume the caricature of an “isolationist” as defined by adversaries. The “isolationist” movement was never about building a dome over America and cutting us off from the rest of the world.

Another affinity: for many left and right noninterventionists, America climaxed in 1776; back then, there was at least hope, because everything was seemingly new. In this sense, left and right noninterventionists are both retro-progressives; their utopia lies in the past. But this can be said for populists as well. Everyone in America, except for the steadfast advocates of interventionism along with Americanization of the rest of world, finds comfort in the belief that America’s heyday has come to pass.

Noninterventionists on both sides are critical of the centralization of power. The more the government grows, the worse off America becomes. It is marked by a cogent libertarian and anarchist strain. Noninterventionists are pessimistic about the future. The final, overlapping thread is that the American Empire is in a constant state of regression. All predictions from noninterventionists are invariably apocalyptic. Here, Buchanan forecasts the war in Iraq:

Anyone who believes America can finish Saddam and go home deceives himself. With Iraq's military crushed, the country will come apart. Kurds in the north and Shi'ites in the south will try to break away, and Iraq will be at the mercy of its mortal enemy, Iran. U.S. troops will have to remain to hold Iraq together, to find and destroy those weapons, to democratize the regime, and to deter Iran from biting off a chunk and dominating the Gulf…We are running out of army. And while Americans have shown they will back wars fought with no conscripts and few casualties, the day is not far off when they will be asked to draft their sons to fight for empire, and many of those sons will not be coming home. That day, Americans will tell us whether they really wish to pay the blood tax that is the price of policing the War Party's empire (The War).

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Conclusion

There is a reason why Hartz characterized Randolph Bourne as “non-Lockian” (295) - his opposition to war and imperialism was unflinching (and un-American?). Whereas, a character like Bryan fits in perfectly with the Americanist tradition because his opposition to war and imperialism was conditional and hypocritical. Question: is Buchanan representative of the Americanist tradition, or is he a non-liberal, similar to Bourne, though from the right, instead of the left?

Hofstadter is careful to leave out Bourne, Debs and even Lindbergh in his criticism of individuals of the relevant periods. His chief target is paranoia and irrationality based on ignorance. He finds the populist inclination to attribute everything that goes wrong to fantastic conspiracy theory as particularly stifling and regressive. “Certain audiences are especially susceptible to it (thinking in terms of grandiose conspiracies) - particularly, I believe, those who have attained only a low level of education…” (The Age 71). One of his points is that simple conspiracy theorists hinder the efforts of serious, intelligent people who actually attempt to explain precisely how power exploits the powerless. But do not non-populists like Emma Goldman and others also believe in conspiracy?

Much of this little paper dealt with the problems of communication and language. When Confucius was asked what he would do first if he were to lead the state - his unfulfilled dream - he replied, “rectify the language.” The implication is that the state of a society’s language is a leading indicator of the health of that society. Reflect for a moment on the present state of the English language in America, regardless of your ideological disposition. In writing about the history of American foreign policy, one must try to avoid perpetuating distortions and perversions of language. This is especially difficult to do when reviewing America’s convoluted ideological situation, past and present. I only hope that in writing this paper, I have not contributed to the depravity.