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Flynn's prototype American fascist was not a thug in brownshirt or SSuniform; it was the American statesman who sought to erode the people'spower in Congress and to concentrate undue authority in the hands of thePresident. Flynn warned against militarism and imperialism; yet his cry forconstitutional government was to become purely a rallying cry for theRight-wing in American life. Liberals then defended the tradition ofPresidential power, which was conceived as the repository of all virtue inpolitical life.As Flynn surveyed the emerging post-war world, he concluded that hisworst fears had come to pass. His concern about autocratic Presidential powerbeing exercised against Congress, and his fear that imperial germs woulddevelop to escape domestic economic problems, colored his response to HarryS. Truman's Korean intervention. While liberals were beating theinterventionist drums, and arguing that a strong stand 'would defeatcommunism in Asia and advance democracy at the same time, Flynn waspointing out that war production was producing what the President "callsgreat prosperity." It was not, Flynn argued on June 18, 1950, a "naturalprosperity." Given a choice between risking war or facing "the danger of afrightful economic collapse in this country," Flynn assumed that Americanpolitical leaders would choose war, which was "politically safe." Economiccollapse would ruin those responsible; while war would cause the populace to"rally around" those who caused it.As to Truman's assertion that the Korean War was a "police action,"Flynn asserted boldly that "the first casualty of war is Truth," and that amyth had been perpetrated to gain a legal excuse to justify Truman's refusalto go before Congress and ask for a declaration of war. He had no right tosend in American troops, Flynn argued on July 16, because "in the Koreancase, we were not attacked."Viewing the conflict as a "civil war," Flynn warned Americans againstbeing influenced by "warriors infatuated with war." He asked, at a time whenall most Americans heard was propaganda advocating defeat of Communistaggression via military victory, "what can possibly be gained from victory?"And he urged that Americans find a way to "disentangle ourselves from thesegrim and tragic necessities." Unlike the liberals who supported the Trumanintervention, Flynn called the depiction of the war as a United Nations actionnothing but a "pathetic comic opera." Trying to give an American war a UNcover was a "supine sham." And Flynn worried that "hotheads" would try touse Korea "as a jumping off place into a wider and longer struggle somewhereelse."That place turned out to be Indo-china. And it was in early 1951 thatxiii