Late in the fall of 1942, I interviewed Edward Atwell, an important official of the America First Committee who was "on the inside" at the New York offices. He answered the question which had been repeatedly put to me: "Is the America First movement dead?"

Atwell was having supper with his wife and daughter when I visited him. A powerfully built man, with pink and white complexion, Atwell impressed me as sincere even though he had spoken four times with Nazi agent Laura Ingalls, written numerous speeches, worked sixteen hours a day for the America First cause and shared the innermost secrets of the A.F.C. Atwell impressed me as a sincere, anti-fascist isolationist...

...I asked the blunt and outspoken Atwell whether leadership by America First would have been a good thing for the nation.

"I'm not sure. It may have turned out okay, then again, it may have become a Frankenstein of our own creation. That office I worked in was a madhouse. There were Bundists and Silver Shirters and Christian Mobilizers..."

"Don't forget the German secret service men," Mrs. Atwell put in, She had worked in the A.F.C. office with her husband, and I turned to her for information when Atwell seemed hesitant.

"To tell you the truth," she said, "I never thought that Laura Ingalls was the only German agent we had. You can call Germany anything you want, but you can't call her dumb. If she had one agent in such a biog organization, she might have had a hundred. There was a fellow named Riepel whose brother was arrested by the F.B.I. as a spy. We always thought Riepel was a Nazi agent."

"There were also the White Russians," Atwell put in.

"Yes, that Czarist woman, the Countess. She told me she supported the Committee and wanted to keep America out of war in order to give Hitler a chance to clean up Russia so she could get back her property," Mrs. Atwell said.

"The office was full of men and women with selfish motives," Atwell resumed. "The Committee grew too fast. It took in everybody. It had no time to check up. It could have got out of control easily. There were many sincere ones, but there were a lot of people who had an axe to grind. Like the Bund fellows."

"What interest could the Bund have?" I asked naively.

"Plenty!" Atwell burst out. "It was to Germany's advantage to have us stay out of war. It was perfectly possible that in due time German agents might have got control of the whole thing by working in the background and using other people to front for them! A strong, well-knit minority can always put it over on the unorganized majority. And I wouldn't be surprised," Atwell said softly, "if some of the money we got in was German money."

"How do you know that?" I asked.

"I know that a lot of money came in anonymously. You just opened the sealed envelope and the money dropped out. I wouldn't be surprised if some of that money was German money. Yep, the Committee might have become a very dangerous thing."

Atwell looked me over speculatively.

"I did a lot of talking for the Committee. A tour of eleven states was mapped out for me, and I was all set to go when I got the notion to look at the Bundists and Christian Front-ers about me. I asked myself 'Where am I going! Where is this Committee going with all these guys on board?'" Atwell resumed, "I'm loyal to my country and I didn't go on that speaking tour."...

[snip discussion of Lindbergh]

..."Then you don't think America First is through forever?"

"Hell, no!" Atwell said spiritedly. "Lindbergh will come back and America First will come back whenever the time is ripe. All you have to do is to call a meeting, bring the old faces together again, give them a hero they can look up to, and they'll start over.

"There are a lot of neurotics and frustrated people in the world. Old maids, missionary types, people who have to get a release for their hates, neglected people," Atwell continued, "they all want to become somebody by joining a movement. They'll all come back as soon as they get the signal."

My talk with Atwell late in 1942 was one of the most enlightening I had had, I quizzed Atwell on his personal anti-Semitism and found that the little he had was of the "harmless" type; social, rather than the sinister political anti-Semitism -- the spearhead against Democracy. Atwell feared mass anti-Semitism as a revolutionary device. He feared the "mob element" and he dreaded the consequences.

"I've seen the mob in action. Back in 1939 it was the Christian Front that went around beating up people. First it's the fist, then clubs, then knives, then firearms, then...I don't want to see innocent people killed. Mass anti-Semitism is bad business. It can end up in revolution as sure as you're sitting there."