Liveblogging World War II: August 7, 1941
Senator Burton Wheeler says that it is time to investigate whether the foreign-born Jews of Hollywood are using the movies they make to shape American public opinion...
David Gordon:
David Gordon: America First: the Anti-War Movement, Charles Lindbergh and the Second World War, 1940 - 1941: Burton Wheeler... announced in August of 1941 that he would investigate “interventionists” in the motion picture industry. Most studio heads, he would soon be surprised to learn, were Jews.[79] Gerald Nye, who accused Hollywood of attempting to “drug the reason of the American people,“ and “rouse war fever,“ was particularly hostile to Warner Brothers.[80] Wheeler questioned why so many foreign born were allowed to shape American opinion, causing Roosevelt to observe that the Bible, too, had been written “by mostly foreign-born and Jewish people.” But the industry knew how to fight back. It retained Wendell Willkie, the Republican party’s 1940 presidential candidate, as counsel. He soon ridiculed the Committee into silence.[81]
