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Summary: Nazi/fascist incubation period
Review: After reading 'Wheels for the World', a biography of Ford, it seemed indicated to zoom in on the Antisemitic period, and this recent book came to light after a brief search: more than enough material at the right zoom level on Ford's, and also Linbergh's, misteps in the incubation period of Nazism, with detailed accounts of their shadowy confusions on the growing tide of fascism. It is hard to credit the hagiographical amnesia in these two cases, (...). But the facts speak for themselves, and one is left with two to join Watson (see IBM and the Holocaust) in a dismal pick of shattered hero histories.
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Summary: An Important Book
Review: Every so often you read a book that you want everybody you know to read as soon as possible. This is the one. America's most eminent historian, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., endorsed this book so it is obviously historically sound. But it is also a great read from beginning to end as you learn how these two famous Americans genuflected at Hitler's altar.
If the Japanese hadn't made the foolish mistake of bombing Pearl Harbor and drawing America into the war, it seems probable that the Nazis would have achieved their goal of swallowing Europe without any interference from Roosevelt. And, as this book reveals, it was largely because of the lobbying by these two horrendous men, who both dreamed of the day the Nazis controlled half the world.
I learned a lot from this book that surprised me. One thing I found particularly intriguing is that whenever Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh publicly attacked the Jews, they were roundly condemned by both Jews and Gentiles for their dangerous views. I never realized how many non-Jews were dismayed by anti-Semitism even before world war two. Only the fanatical anti-Semites and American fascists supported their poisonous hate campaigns.
But, this book shows that Ford and Lindbergh were at their most dangerous when they spoke in a sort of code that allowed them to go undetected by the radar of public opinion. Ford spoke of the "International financiers' while Lindbergh warned of the "forces that control our nation's press". Anybody with a brain knew who they were talking about but they could get away with it as long as they never said the magic word, "Jew" that would set off a fury. They both learned this lesson quickly and helped Adolf and his gang almost take over the world.
It turns out, by the way, that the Ford Motor Company is not quite the innocent bystander that they would have people believe when it came to the use of concentration camp labor and manufacturing of Nazi arms at its German plant. It is shocking how much the company did to bring about a Nazi victory. At one point they even refused to sell arms to England while the British faced a Nazi invasion, while at the same time they were turning out thousands of military vehicles for the Third Reich. It seems that the executives at their Detroit headquarters knew all about this and encouraged it to continue. I know what kind of car I'm never buying again! And, like icing on the cake, we learn that Dr. Seuss was more than just a kids author. He started out at a New York paper called PM drawing cartoons attacking Charles Lindbergh's fascist sympathies. Interesting!
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Summary: Will the real Mr. Ford & Mr. Linbergh please stand up?
Review: In his new book, The American Axis, Max Wallace has painted a portrait of two Americans that people seem to love, but had a very sinister past. Henry Ford, the American manufacturing genius, and Charles Lindbergh, the aviation hero, are the subjects of this book. Both Ford and Lindbergh are revered by much of the American populous, but Wallace has shown us the facts about the darker sides of their respective personalities. Henry Ford has always been thought to be a red-blooded American, a capitalist with a love for the United States. In the book, however, his anti-Semitic side is exposed and the ensuing discussion reveals that Ford was anything but all-American. He was, as the title of the book suggests, a person that helped the Third Reich's rise to power in Wartime Europe. By promoting anti-Semitism and manufacturing goods for the Nazi war machine, Ford has demonstrated that his true loyalty laid only to himself. Charles Lindbergh is generally only recognized as the "hero" that flew the first non-stop transatlantic flight. In reality, however, this book depicts him as a naive person that was easily swayed and duped into believing that the Nazi cause was an appropriate movement to follow. His beliefs appear to have been easily manipulated by others around him, thus being duped into passing incorrect information to the Allied government about the strength of the Nazi military before war was declared. Overall, Wallace has done a very good job of revisiting these two American figures and demonstrating that their reputations are in need of a thorough review. I would recommend this book to anyone that has an interest in behind the scenes activites of World War II. Any Ford or Lindbergh fan should also read the book, but be conscious of the fact that widely held conceptions of these two men may be dashed by the facts presented and conclusions drawn.
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Summary: Powerful indictment of two American icons
Review: In traditional sanitized versions of American History, Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh are portrayed as heroes. Indeed Ford was a pioneer of the automobile industry and Lindbergh piloted the first solo Trans-Atlantic air flight. However author Max Wallace reveals a darker side to these two American icons in "The American Axis." Wallace clearly does not like either man and given the mountains of evidence he has compiled against them in this book, neither will the reader.
"The American Axis" serves as a an excellent accompaniment to Phillip Roth's sensational novel, "The Plot Against America" whis supposes Lindbergh runs against FDR for president in 1940 and wins.
Ford was obviously a virulent anti-Semitic who'd not hesitate to do business with the Nazi regime. Lindbergh was also an anti-Semite and a great admirer of the Third Reich.
Moreover Ford and Lindbergh were not lone voices but representative of a frighteningly large segment of the U.S. population. While the depression devastated the American economy it also gave birth to extreme political movements. Although fascism never caught on in the U.S. it did have a following and anti-Semitism was rampant. Ford and Lindbergh were influential voices to the far right and in their own way abetted the Nazi German cause (both received medals from the Third Reich).
Wallace deserves kudos not only for so convincingly presenting his case but making such a bloody good read out of it. My hesitation in reading "American Axis" was that I thought itwould be a turgid polemic. I needn't have worried. Wallace is a skilled writer and a good storyteller. "An American Axis" is a compelling story of America and the world at the crossroads and the ignominious roles played by two popular men.
Highly recommended.
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Summary: Riveting!
Review: It never fails to amaze me how many people there are out there who worship Charles Lindbergh, my mother included. Besides his one incredible flight across the Atlantic in 1927, he really didn't do a hell of a lot. Max Wallace demonstrates in this riveting book how he managed to turn this 33 hour flight into a pedestal that would give him the unwarranted credibility to launch a crusade that would help the Nazis achieve their goal of keeping America out of World War 2. The Lindbergh worshippers are not going to like this book and I'm sure Wallace will be attacked viciously for daring to question what he calls the Lindbergh Legend. However, the book is really quite objective. He paints Lindbergh as naive rather than sinister and he certainly comes off much better than his friend Henry Ford, who is revealed as a despicable Jew hater who helped Hitler come to power. He has turned up a lot of important new evidence in FBI and military intelligence archives about both men's pre-war activities, showing that both Ford and Lindbergh were clandestinely used by Nazi supporters in their crusades, often without their knowledge. He even found a German Embassy dispatch captured by the Allies after the war that proves beyond a shadow of the doubt that the Nazis actually plotted to install Lindbergh as the leader of the America First Committee and the isolationist movement. This is a book well worth reading.
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Summary: Non-Sequiturs of Extensive Research
Review: Max Wallace must be given credit for being such an ambitious researcher. Unfortunately, his exhaustive research is ruined by his animus contortions of logic and his willingness to make assumptions which far exceed the evidence he so eagerly sought and failed to find. The book's cover says it all--With a picture of Auschwitz next to Charles A. Lindberg and Henry Ford, _The American Axis_ is an attempt at making a 'but for' case that without Lindberg and Ford, the Nazi Holocaust never would have occurred.
The heart of Wallace's case against Ford is his writings in the "Dearborn Independent" (1920), later compiled as _The International Jew_. Wallace must assume that most of his readers will not have ever read _The International Jew_ as he incessantly uses every expression imaginable to convince them that is was inspired by hatred. But those who read it for themselves will see in Ford's own words that, "There is something wrong either with the investigation or with the investigator when prejudice and hatred are the result." Nevertheless, misunderstandings did ensue and rumors did abound. Wallace dedicated many pages to every rumor of Ford financing the 3rd Reich as if to make the reader believe proof was immanent. Yet buried within pages and pages of innuendo were small admissions that each and every rumor was not substantiated. What is most significant to Wallace is his claim (p.295) that anti-Semitism was highest where Ford's Dearborn Independent was most popular, although I have no idea how Wallace made such a measurement.
The most damning evidence Wallace presents as a condemnation of Ford is the fact that Robert Schmidt, a former employee of Ford, managed the German Ford plant during America's involvement in WWII and obtained 50 workers through Albert Speer. These workers were actually on the payroll, but one person--Elsa Inanowa--later claimed she was never paid. In 1998, she filed a class action lawsuit against the Ford Motor Company for compensation, but the case was dismissed. (These are the facts given in the book, minus the spin and all the subsequent talk about the Nazi's use slave labor in general.) Robert Schmidt was also involved with the IG Farben Company which had a rubber factory in Auschwitz and also produced Zyklon B--used in the gas chambers. Robert Schmidt himself, was not even under the direct control of Ford and was never convicted of any war crimes. Nevertheless, Henry Ford, Wallace would have us believe, somehow bears responsibility for the Nazi death camps.
The research does indicate that Lindberg supported a form of eugenics when applied to cases of mental retardation and criminals. Yet again, Wallace makes unsubstantiated inferences that he would have approved eugenics for the purpose of committing genocide against the Jews. This is what I would call "intellectually dishonest," although Wallace applies this phrase to all of Lindberg's other biographers. (p. 277) And how does Wallace justify such outrageous assumptions and accusations about Lindberg? He does so by the argument that we and his biographers should have "judged him by his followers." (p.280) Such reasoning would indict the Beetles for the acts of Charles Manson years after they recorded Helter Skelter. And of course the circular argument is presented (p. 294) that any of Lindberg's defenders must themselves be anti-Semitic. Ever the clever propagandist, Wallace confesses that nowhere did he find any evidence that Lindberg was a Nazi (p.281), yet he knows that a picture is worth a thousand words as he suggests that a picture in the book shows Lindberg giving a Nazi salute. Most people alive today are unaware that in those years this is the way we saluted our own American flag. (see http://rexcurry.net/pledgesalute.html and http://www.lewrockwell.com/wallace/wallace139.html) The reason we later changed our flag salute should be obvious.
The politics of America's involvement in WWII is so oversimplified by Wallace that without any independent research or knowledge, the reader would believe that anyone in the "America First" movement was pro-Nazi. Anyone who opposed or criticized the Treaty of Versailles, Franklin D. Roosevelt, The New Deal, Communism, or even labor unions, Wallace skillfully paints as anti-Semitic. There was no room, in Wallace's analysis, for consideration of the so-called "Yellow Peril" of Russia and China since these were considerations of anti-Semitic Nazis and Fascists. And despite the fact that above all else Ford was a business man, Wallace gives no consideration to any distinctions between military Isolationists/Interventionists and economic Isolationists/Interventionists. Yet one of the greatest Austrian economists, Ludwig von Mises (himself a Jew), in his Interventionism, An Economic Analysis (1940), had this to say: "The 'progressives' who today masquerade as 'liberals' may rant against 'fascism'; yet it is their policy that paves the way for Hitlerism." There were very many other viewpoints and complex issues ignored in American Axis. But Wallace does anticipate his critics to some degree by including brief admissions here and there such as on p. 260 where he admits that sometimes charges of being un-American, anti-Semitic, or pro-Nazi were used unfairly. However, his overwhelming message is made very clear--you were either on the side of the Allies or the side of the Axis.
American Axis is filled with lines such as, "It is almost impossible to know." (p. 338) Yet conclusions always follow without hesitation. Even within the space of a single page (p.319) Wallace follows his words "no conclusive evidence" with an admonition to believe one of his conclusions anyway, while soon thereafter stating that because there is "not a single piece of convincing evidence " we should not believe another. Apparently he is the final arbiter of the difference between convincing and conclusive evidence. Max Wallace definitely has a political agenda and will not hesitate to take his shots wherever he feels the urge and sees an opportunity. For example, out of the blue (p. 349), in between bringing Edsel Ford and GM's Opel subsidy into the picture for brief mentions of their shares of the blame, we get a page-and-a-half of discussion on Prescott Bush, based on the _The Secret War Against The Jews_ by John Loftus. And nothing brings Wallace's personal animosities to the fore any more clearly than his vengeful descriptions of the deaths of all the major villains portrayed in his book.
Not only does Wallace condemn the "American Axis" for "detrimental sociopolitical consequences" (p. 386), but in the more recent context of "racial genocide in Kosovo and Rwanda, and a renewed wave of anti-Semitism in Europe" he condemns all biographers and historians who, in his opinion, do not adequately address the "moral responsibility Ford and Lindberg bear for the consequences of their actions." I wonder, with all of his moral superiority, if Max Wallace would accept my suggestion for another book he could write from the same moral perspective: "Caterpillar's Complicity in the Israeli Genocide of a People Without a State." He did say that even worse than Ford's placing greed above ethics was his anti-Semitism. Would he say that Caterpillar is worse for its corporate greed or for its anti-Semitic destruction of the Palestinians?
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Summary: "Heroes" exposed
Review: The author was the first unauthorized biographer allowed into the Lindbergh archives at Yale and he discovered how much damning information Scott Berg left out of his own authorized biography a few years ago. He finds all kinds of letters and unpublished writings revealing that Lindbergh's antisemitism and Nazi sympathies were much more serious than portrayed by Berg. But he says that Lindbergh was not actually a Nazi. Rather he was used by them to keep the US out of World War 2 so that Hitler could achieve his goal of taking over Europe. He describes Lindbergh as an "enigma" who had Jewish friends but thought there were good jews and bad jews. The bad jews supposedly controlled the press, the government and Hollywood and were secretly plotting to get the United States into World War 2. Well, it turns out that it was the Nazis who were secretly plotting, plotting to install Lindbergh as the head of the US isolationist movement (probably without Lindbergh's knowledge, but you never know.) Ford comes off as a rather stupid bigot who also believed there were "good Jews" and "bad" International Jews. Hitler said that his own hatred of the Jews was inspired by Ford, who he called "my inspiration." The strongest part of this book is the investigation into the Ford Motor Company's collaboration with Hitler, even after America entered the war. He discovered that Edsel Ford, Henry's only son, was about to be indicted by the American government for "Trading with the Enemy" at the time of his death in the middle of the war. The company used slave labor to rack up huge profits by selling Hitler miltary vehicles and armaments that were used to kill Allied and American soldiers. It's a shameful chapter in American history. I guess my only complaint is that there's not enough about what made Henry Ford tick. It's a bit of a cop out to call him an "enigma." There's alot more about Lindbergh's personality than his friend Ford, which is unfortunate, although they both had very similar views about the Jews. Unlike Lindbergh, however, Ford was not a white supremacist. While Lindy hated blacks and Asians and considered all non-whites inferior, Ford treated blacks very well. He seemed to hate only the Jews.
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Summary: Dubya's Grandpa was a Nazi
Review: This book is about the Nazi affiliations of Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh and that material is indeed fascinating. But the part of the book that really blew me away was the revelation that George W. Bush's grandfather Prescott Bush was a Nazi whose assets were seized by the US government after Pearl Harbor for Trading With the Enemy and helping Nazi front companies launder money. A former US government Nazi War Crimes prosecutor is quoted in this book as saying, "The fortune that put two members of the Bush family in the White House can be traced directly to the Third Reich." I remember during the first George Bush presidential campaign when a whole bunch of Nazis were exposed by USA Today as working on Bush's campaign and forced to resign. More recently, Vanity Fair exposed the close ties between the Bush family and the Bin Laden family. It's time for the American media to start probing a little deeper into the Bush dynasty so that voters can evaluate the skeletons in Dubya's closet before November, 2004.
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Summary: Questionable accuracy
Review: While reading this book I noticed several inaccuracies pertaining to Charles Lindbergh. For example, Wallace attempts to help build the kidnapping case against Richard Hauptman by stating that the kidnap ladder was found in his garage. In reality, the ladder was left outside the Lindbergh home. This is a minor detail and does not pertain to the central theme of the book, but if the author can't get such a simple fact straight I have a very difficult time with the accusations that Lindbergh and Ford were both Nazis. The book is almost entirely speculation based on little to no real evidence. The author clearly set out with an agenda to discredit these two men and was willing to grotesquely contort any facts necessary to accomplish this goal.
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