Arthur R. Butz – The Hoax Of The Twentieth Century

Arthur R. Butz, The Hoax of the Twentieth Century
As he was taking over his responsibilities in Case 11 in 1947, Kempner was in
the news in a related but nevertheless highly important connection from the point
of view of our subject. In 1943 and 1944, there had been held, in the land of the
“free press,” some “sedition trials” of Americans whose views of the U.S. government’s
war policies were considered unwelcome. The U.S. prosecutor was O.
John Rogge, an Ohioan who had, in his youth, been expected by family and
friends to enter the ministry. He became a lawyer instead and is said to have
turned in a brilliant performance at the Harvard Law School. Attorney General
Biddle chose him to prosecute the “sedition” case, replacing William P. Maloney,
whose methods had provoked protests from several influential members of Congress.
The proceedings, involving 30 defendants, were completely contrary to
U.S. constitutional principles and were fortuitously aborted when the trial judge
passed away in November 1944, and a mistrial was declared. While the government
was planning to resume the case, the Supreme Court had reversed another
sedition conviction, and grave doubt arose within the Justice Department about
the wisdom of continuing the spectacle. We hope the reader will abide this long
digression on the “sedition” episode within the present digression on Kempner,
for the point to be made is most important. 290
Rogge lost interest in the sedition case as such, but he did not lose interest in
the general subject of a “Fascist” internal menace in the U.S. In the spring of
1946, he went to Germany on an 11 week “information” gathering expedition and
accumulated some alleged facts that he summarized in a report, which he submitted
to the Justice Department later in the year. Because there was no immediate
reaction from the Justice Department to the material he had submitted, it appears
that he got impatient and could not restrain himself. He therefore resorted to going
around giving speeches in which he divulged some of the “information” he had
been able to gather by interrogating Germans. In a speech to B’nai B’rth in New
York in October 1946, he reported in very general language that Fascists are still
at large “in the world and in this country. […] Now the Fascists can take a more
subtle disguise; they can come forward and simply say ‘I am anti-Communist’.” A
few days later he was much more specific whom he was talking about. John L.
Lewis, President of the United Mine workers, and the late William R. Davis, an
oil operator and promoter, had, he declared in a speech at Swarthmore College,
conspired with Göring and Ribbentrop to defeat President Roosevelt in the elections
of 1936, 1940 and 1944. According to the “evidence” that he had obtained in
Germany, other prominent Americans who, in the view of the Nazis, “could be
organized against United States participation in the war” included, he said, Senator
Burton K. Wheeler, former Vice President John N. Garner, former President
Herbert Hoover and Democratic big-wig James A. Farley. Rogge had also given
some of his material to Drew Pearson, and it appeared in Pearson’s column at
about the same time. For such flagrant violation of the rules and standards of the
Justice Department and of the legal profession and also, presumably, for stepping
on some important political toes, Rogge was immediately dismissed from the Jus-
290
202
(Oct. 7, 1946), 2; (Mar. 18, 1947), 4; Select Committee, 1536, 1539.
Current Biography (1948), 533-534; New York Times (Feb. 7, 1943), 34.