what sort of job it would be. All I can sayrnis that if you join us, you mustn’t bernafraid of forgery, and you mustn’t bernafraid of murder.” Ernest Cuneo, thernlawyer and Roosevelt administration insiderrnwho served as liaison betweenrnBSC, the White House, and various U.S.rngovernment agencies, relates in a recent-rn1″ declassified memo how the BSC operated:rnIt ran espionage agents, tamperedrnwith the mails, tapped telephones,rnsmuggled propaganda into therncountr}’, disrupted public gatherings,rncovertly subsidized newspapers,rnradios, and organizations, perpetratedrnforgeries,. . . violated thernaliens registration act, shanghaiedrnsailors numerous times, and possibl-rnmurdered one or more personsrnin this countr)’.rnCuneo’s papers reveal several of thernmost active inten’entionist organizationsrnas “formed and acquired” by Stephenson’srnunderground apparatus, includingrnthe Fight for Freedom Committee,rnwhich advocated an immediate declarationrnof war against Ciermany and Japan,rnand the “Friends of Democracy,” an anti-rnisolationist spy and “research” organizationrnthat specialized in the art of thernsmear. The most prominent Britishrnfront was the Committee to DefendrnAmerica by Aiding the Allies, chaired byrnWilliam Allen White. These fronts wererninstruments of the Anglophile propagandarncampaign in favor of a peacetimerndraft, the Destroyer deal, and Lend-rnLease. They were especially key inrnblocking the isolationists in the RepublicanrnPartv, making certain that in thern1940 presidential elections the Americanrnpeople would have a “choice” betweenrntwo inten’cntionists.rnMahl presents irrefutable evidencernthat Cuneo (codename: “Crusader”)rnwrote many of Walter WinchcH’srncokmins and had close ties to DrewrnPearson. The BSC also had its tentaclesrnin Hollywood and among the literar’ set;rna key document names Dorothy Thompson,rnjournalist Edmond Taylor, moviernmogul Alexander Korda, co-founder andrnpresident of the Viking Press HaroldrnCuinzburg, plavwright and presidentialrnspccchwriter Robert Sherwood, andrnmvster’ writer Rex Stout as dedicatedrnagents.rnDocmncnts cited by Mahl reveal thernnames of top British agerrts in journalism,rnincluding Ceorge Backer, publisherrnof the New York Post; Helen OgdenrnReid, the de facto publisher of the NewrnYork Herald Tribune; Paul Patterson,rnpublisher of the Baltimore Sun; A.H.rnSulzberger, president of the New YorkrnTimes; Walter Lippmann; Ralph Ingersoll,rneditor of the leftist tabloid PM; andrnhigersoll’s boss, Chicago Sun publisherrnMarshall Field. The Overseas NewsrnAgency, which reached millions of readers,rnwas a wholly owned subsidiar)’ of thernBrits. Besides using its journalistic assetsrnto browbeat the American people intornwar, the BSC sought to undermine and,rnif possible, destroy those remainingrnsources of news that could be neitherrnbought nor bullied. Public enemy numberrnone, in their view, was ColonelrnRobert R. McConnick, whose ChicagornTribune was the flagship newspaper andrnvoice of the Old Right. The BSC’srnSandy Griffith set Albert Parr)’ of Chicago’srnFight for Freedom chapter on a “WernDon’t Read the Tribune” campaign thatrnculminated in a rally and bonfire ofrnfreshly printed newspapers.rnWhile the public stance of the Britishrnand their fifth column was “aid short ofrnwar,” the BSC agitated for a peaeefimerndraft. A key aspect of their campaign wasrnthe manufacturing of phony publicrnopinion polls purporHng to show overwhelmingrnpopidar support for conscription.rnMahl unmasks the pollsters, showingrnthat surveys conducted by Gallup,rnRoper, and Market Analysts “were allrndone under the influence of dedicatedrnintervenfionists and British intelligencernagents.” An even nastier intrusion intornthe American political process was thernBSC operation against RepresentativernHamilton Fish (R-NY), the feist)- isolationistrnfrom FDR’s home district. Mahlrndocuments the involvement in fire electionrncampaign of BSC agents who mastermindedrnnewspaper ads linking Fish tornHitler, Ribbentrop, and Fritz Kuhn ofrnthe German-American Bund. In arnmemo after the 1940 election, agentrnGriffith maps out a strategy of hectoring,rnharassment, and October surprises.rn”There were other harsh suggestionsrnmade by agent Griffith,” writes Mahl,rn”and most of them happened to Fishrnover the next four years as his political careerrnlurched from one disaster to anoth-rnOf all the operations conducted byrnBritish intelligence in this country,rnnone had a nrore long-range effectrnthan the turning of Senator Arthur Vandenberg.rnThe Michigan Republicanrnwas a staunch isolationist in the laternI930’s, when he co-sponsored the resolutionrnestablishing the famous Nye Committeernhearings on the political influencernof the munitions industry. Manyrnhistorians have remarked on the abruptnessrnof his reversal in the mid-40’s, whenrnhe suddenly signed on to the wholernpanoply of post-war globalist nostrums,rnincluding the U.N. and NATO. Howrndoes one explain the defection of thernman who was considered the leader ofrnthe Senate Republicans and a possiblernGOP presidential candidate in 1940?rnInternafionalists have naturally attributedrnit to Vandenberg’s growing “matnrit)-.”rnMahl puts the Senator’s conversionrnin a new light: “British intelligence operationsrnon Senator Arthur Vandenbergrnwere based on a ver’ simple human assumptionrn—those who are sleeping withrna senator are most likely to have his ear.”rnMahl documents Vandenberg’s romanticrnattachments to three womenrnwith strong ties to British intelligence. Inrn1940, all Washington knew he was havingrnan affair with Mitzi Sims, wife ofrnBritish attache Harold Sims, a moniedrnBritish aristocrat who ran the code roomrnat the embassy. The glamorous Mitzi, anrninternational jet-setter before the adventrnof jets, was just the sort of cosmopolitanrnvamp to enamor the vainglorious Vandenberg,rnwho once said: “I had no youth.rnI went to work when I was nine, and Irnnever got a chance to enjoy myself untilrnI came to the Senate.”rnThe Senator had such a good timernthat, at one point, his wife returned torntheir Grand Rapids home because thernrandy Vandenberg had practicallyrnmoved Mitzi into their Washington flat.rnHarold Sims proved far more tolerant ofrnhis mate’s infidelit)’. Wlrile Washingtonrntittered over the scandal, the Senatorrncorrtinued his close friendship with thernSimses until May 1940, when HaroldrnSims died of a stroke. Vandenberg tookrncharge of the funeral arrangements, andrnshortly afterward Mitzi departed forrnMontreal. Mitzi made a dramatic reappearance,rnhowever, just as the crucialrnvote on the Lend-Lease Act was comingrnbefore the Senate. Another/emme fata/ernappeared on the scene at this time. Beth’rnThorpe, the elegant spouse of a worldlyrnBritish diplomat, was sent to Washingtonrnfrom Buenos Aires to catch thernsenator’s eye. Mrs. Thorpe was no ordinaryrnhousewife but the famous BritishrnDECEMBER 1998/25rnrnrn