Roosevelt, Churchill, and the World War Two Opposition

By Lewis Brandon

ROOSEVELT, CHURCHILL and THE WORLD WAR TWO OPPOSITION, George T. Eggleston, 256pp, hardback, ISBN: 0-8159-5311-9.

reviewed by Lewis Brandon (David McCalden)

 

When the war clouds gathered over Europe in the late 1930’s, George T. Eggleston, along with Col. Charles Lindbergh, John Marquand and others, was determined that we should not become involved in the second “War-to-end-all-Wars.” He became editor-in-chief of a new magazine, Scribner’s Commentator, dedicated to keeping America out. The fact that more than 80% of the American people were opposed to our entering the war helped make the publication an instant success. This success, and the growing influence of the America First movement generally, was not lost on Franklin D. Roosevelt and the others who were determined to involve the United States.

Roosevelt, Churchill, and The World War Two Opposition is the story of Eggleston’s efforts to keep us out of the war and what happened to him as a result. “An amazing expose of harassment by the U.S. Government,” writes DeWitt Wallace, founding editor of Reader’s Digest. “The story needs to be told as an example of what has happened in the U.S.A. and what could happen again.”