Volume 4 No 2 - Journal for the Study of Antisemitism

2012] THE TSAR’S OTHER LIEUTENANT 699of Democracy. Writing in 1943 as John Roy Carlson, he published the bookUnder Cover, in which he revealed his ruse and encounters with Brasol andothers. Derounian found Brasol an “elusive” figure, hard to track down,who preferred to “work in semi-darkness.” 92 By reputation, Derounianknew him to be an intimate of the “Park Avenue Patriots”; “in politicalcunning and craft,” Derounian avowed, “Brasol towered above the averageAmerica Firster.” Brasol avoided attention, and censure, by declining virtuallyall requests for interviews. Derounian finally chased down his quarry atthe Manhattan headquarters of the Russian-American National Committee.Derounian was immediately struck by Brasol’s resemblance to Goebbels.Assuming he was speaking to a sympathetic ear, Brasol boasted: “Iknow them all in the Movement except Lindbergh. I’ve never met him. I’dlike to have a long conversation with him some day.” 93 He admitted toknowing Elizabeth Dilling “very well,” as he did Colonel Sanctuary andmany others. He regarded Father Coughlin as “a great man,” but againdenied having written for Social Justice. In parting, Brasol directed“Paganelli” to two other simpaticos, Baron Charles von Wrangell, “head ofthe Investigation Unit of the America First Committee,” and a minor MidwesternJew-baiter named Carl Mote. 94 But perhaps Brasol was not taken inas thoroughly as Derounian thought. “During the hour I spent with theman,” Derounian recalled, “he did not utter one anti-Semitic remark.” 95Charles Lindbergh was the “elephant in the room” when it came toBrasol’s American associates; even his interrogators seemed unwilling tobroach the subject. As noted above, Brasol denied any direct connection orsimply refused to say anything where Lindy was concerned. That may havereflected the truth of the situation, or it may have been Brasol exercisinggreat discretion. What is certain is that they shared some of the same friendsand associates. While Lindbergh openly condemned Nazi persecution ofGerman Jews, he also had great admiration for the country and publiclycriticized what he saw as the negative influence of Jews on Americanpolitics and economic life. 96 The closest one can get to putting Brasol andLindbergh in the same room appears in an ADL report in which theinformant claims that “[Brasol] was on the platform at the Lindberghrally in Madison Square Garden, October 30 [1940]. He is one of the92. John Roy Carlson, Under Cover: My Four Years in the Nazi Underworld ofAmerica (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1943), 206.93. Ibid.94. Memorandum re: Further Information Needed on Boris Brasol, November11, 1942, 6, FBI, File 100-22487, Section 2.95. Carlson, 207.96. Charles Lindbergh, “Who Are the War Agitators?,” speech delivered September11, 1941.