British Influence Agents In The US During WW2
Many people think they know exactly what happened to get the US into the second world war, or they think that they know roughly what happened.
Japan got involved and caused the pearl harbor incident, bringing the US into war. But… It’s not quite as simple as that. Long before the Japanese attacked pearl harbor, the opinions of the Americans on the US joining the war was rising. Why might this be might you ask?
This is not well known as it is not usually taught in history classes, as much of the information is hard to get and confusing, but I will talk about British Influence Agents affecting US opinions.
Many people first think of what is in the above picture, when an Influence Agent is mentioned. A cunning, stylish, spy with a gun. That is not what Influence Agents were. Influence Agents’ guns were their brains and charisma.
These agents were sent by MI5 and MI6 to the U.S. during the middle of WW2. Britain was slowly losing to Nazi Germany and was in dire need of help. The UK had lost hundreds of destroyers and planes during this time. Britain GREATLY needed supplies and weapons.
Where was the easiest and fastest way to get these weapons? The good old U.S. Not only this, but if the US joined the war, it would greatly benefit Britain and help it in defeating Nazi Germany. There was only one problem in the way…
That’s right! The Americans! Majority of americans did not want any part in foreign wars, and were patriotic and many believed against helping Britain. Many famous Americans spoke out against getting mixed into european wars. At the beginning of influence campaign, only about 7% of americans wanted to go to war.
So Britain sent out Influence Agents. These agents got close and befriended government officials. They used press and radio to spread propaganda about joining the war. These agents had their ups and downs, but all-together very successful. The main agent in charge was one names Bill Stephenson. Bill put together one of the strongest and most integrated influence campaigns in history.
At his peak, Stephenson’s cover companies were pumping out hundreds of rumors and gossip stories and fake news all around the U.S. by using paid writers in multiple news papers. Stephenson also created the CIA by giving one of his friends the founder position in order to use the CIA as a propaganda and spy machine. Majority of the early CIA’s information was simply british intelligence but repackaged.
During their time influencing the US, they got President Roosevelt to somewhat illegally send old destroyers to Britain to help out. He was almost impeached for this. Stephenson had numerous people very close to Roosevelt and had secret meetings with him.
Of course the Agents also had enemies. One of these rivals was the great pilot Charles Lindbergh. Lindbergh was not pro-nazi, just strongly believed that the US should not join foreign wars. He lead his own influence campaign, starting the Isolationist Movement. Said movement was gaining a lot of traction. It began to die down after Lindbergh began blaming the want for U.S. to join the war on Jews. Stephenson saw this as an opportunity and soon had all the newspapers writing about Lindbergh being a Nazi. This cut off the Isolationist movement.
Later into the Influence Campaign the British Agents managed to change Lindbergh’s opinion, and finally managed to convince majority of americans to go to war.
1 week before Pearl Harbour more than 78% of Americans wanted to go to war. Compared to the original 7%, the British Agents did a damn good job!
Sources: Hemming, Henry. Agents of Influence: a British Campaign, a Canadian Spy, and the Secret Plot to Bring America into World War II. PublicAffairs, 2019.
-Andrei Petrut, 2019