“Agents of Influence: A British Campaign, a Canadian Spy, and the Secret Plot to Bring America into World War II”, by Henry Hemming ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Henry Hemming’s Agents of Influence was a real revelation to me, recounting as it does a British effort to bring the United States into World War II that went far beyond anything that I was aware of before reading this book. In addition to documenting the activities of British diplomats and the British intelligence service, MI6; not to mention the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill – to sway the U.S. government and U.S. public opinion in favor of entering the conflict in support of Great Britain, Hemming details the efforts of both the Nazi regime and the American isolationist movement, spearheaded by the “America First” organization and their spokesman, Charles Lindbergh, to keep the United States out of the war.

Some might characterize the activities of the U.S.-based office of MI6, led by Canadian William Stephenson, as underhanded, and even duplicitous, but they were fighting a desperate battle to combat misinformation (while spreading a bit themselves, in a good cause) and turn the tide of American public opinion in favor of coming into the war in aid of the British.

I was aware, before reading this book, of Lindbergh’s support of “America First”, but not of its extent. He is revealed here as a shallow, and even cowardly man; a defeatist who was overawed by the propagandizing that he was subjected to by the Nazi regime, and especially the Luftwaffe, during five trips to Nazi Germany in the late 1930s, duped into believing that Germany was invincible, and that the U.S. would be supporting a losing cause by coming to the aid of Great Britain. He was also a virulent anti-Semite who bought into, and spread, the isolationist lies about the supposed international Jewish conspiracy that was funding the war.

It is difficult, looking back at this period from the perspective gained by the outcome of the war, and by learning the true extent of the Nazi atrocities, to understand the point of view of the American isolationists. It seems quite naïve, now, and self-pitying, based as it was in the desire to spare America the loss of life that our forces experienced in the First World War, especially since Great Britain suffered so much more heavily than the U.S. had in the earlier conflict.

In reading this book I gained a broader understanding of the tightrope that FDR had to walk to give what aid he could to Great Britain, without losing the support of the American public, while simultaneously increasing the public’s willingness to throw the weight of American industrial might, and manpower, into the war effort.

As the son of an American combat veteran of World War II, I found this book to be a fascinating and revelatory account that greatly increased my understanding of the events that saw the United States finally step up in support of Great Britain’s lonely struggle against fascism.