"The Plot Against America"
The thesis of the book, "The Plot Against America" by Philip Roth, is frightening! What if instead of Franklin D. Roosevelt winning the Presidency in 1940, the Republican candidate was Charles A. Lindbergh, a well-known supporter of Adolf Hitler, who won by a landslide? His policy would have been isolationism, the opposite to FDR, and people would have voted for him in order to save their sons and family members from having to go to Europe and fight Nazi Germany. At that time 2/5 of the white male population in America was a member of a right wing organization, either the KKK, or the John Birch society or a corresponding Catholic organization (the virulently anti-Semitic Father Coughlin was the most popular radio speaker in America).
Lindbergh was a very popular and attractive figure in the US, having been the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic in 1927 (in fact two Brits, Alcock and Brown, did the first aerial crossing in 1919), having barnstormed his way around the US, and having had his baby son kidnapped and killed in 1932. This event gave the Lindberghs a groundswell of public sympathy, and after the trial of Bruno Hauptmann, a German immigrant, for the murder, they opted to move to England to get away from the inevitable publicity. From there, Lindbergh visited Germany several times and met with Hitler, and subsequently upon his return to the US spoke out approvingly of Hitler and his policies. And there were many others, such as Henry Ford, who bankrolled notoriously anti-Semitic publications, such as Burton K. Wheeler, Montana Senator and arch-isolationist, such as Fritz Kuhn, who founded the German-America Bund, and hoped one day to be Fuhrer of America.
This much is fact. The most impressive aspect of this book is that Philip Roth, an experienced and professional writer, takes these and other facts and makes a plot of them that is both plausible and persuasive.
The book is written in a conventional, descriptive manner from the perspective of a boy, incidentally named Philip Roth. Of course, at first he does not understand what is happening, and so we, the audience, are taken aback by his innocence. Yet nevertheless, as a Jew he feels the sense of dread that is gradually increasing as Lindbergh wins the Presidency and as the situation of the Jews starts to deteriorate in stages. He recounts incidents of petty anti-Semitism that his family experiences, typical of those that all Jews suffered in those times (and again today), in restaurants and in public.
One very noticeable thing about this book is that notwithstanding the growing anti-Semitism, the author and the narrator share the same positive view of America, that all will be alright in the end. In fact, the very title gives this attitude away, namely the "plot" is "against" America, not as a pro-fascist might have seen it as a "plot for America." And we the readers share this optimism, since we know that things didn't happen that way, that the US did enter the war after Pearl Harbor and did fight against the Nazis and did rescue Europe and the world from German domination. But, it could have been very different.
In order to square his plot with reality Roth has the Lindbergh Presidency end abruptly before Pearl Harbor, with a surprising turn, the assumption that the Lindbergh baby was not actually killed by Bruno Hauptmann, but was actually whisked away to Nazi Germany, where the Nazis used their control of him to blackmail his parents to do their bidding, and that was why they periodically visited Germany and that was why Lindbergh, against his original intentions, ran for President, and why his policies were essentially directed from Germany. But, finally the Lindberghs could no longer stand this deterioration of the national situation as a result of their personal fate and so they withdrew from public life, just in time for FDR to run again and this time win!
Two other aspects of the plot warrant consideration. One is the presence of a "court Jew" the respected and popular Rabbi Bengelsdorf, who marries Philip's aunt, and who acts as Lindbergh's representative to the Jews, in persuading them that he and his followers really mean the Jews no harm. So they should submit to the policies that are being promulgated, including the "transfer" of the Jews by train to the center of the country, a program called innocently "Homestead 42," this to deliberately break up the coherent Jewish community and to render the Jews defenseless. In time, if pursued to its logical conclusion, this could have lead to concentration camps, much like those into which the Japanese were forced on the West Coast, and possibly then to mass murder as in Europe.
The other aspect was the fate of those Jews who went via Canada to fight in Europe against the Nazis prior to the US entering the war. One of them was Philip's cousin, and the fact that he returned without a leg, is a symbol of the defenselessness of the American Jews in response to the gathering anti-Semitic menace. Thank God it didn't happen there!
Lindbergh was a very popular and attractive figure in the US, having been the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic in 1927 (in fact two Brits, Alcock and Brown, did the first aerial crossing in 1919), having barnstormed his way around the US, and having had his baby son kidnapped and killed in 1932. This event gave the Lindberghs a groundswell of public sympathy, and after the trial of Bruno Hauptmann, a German immigrant, for the murder, they opted to move to England to get away from the inevitable publicity. From there, Lindbergh visited Germany several times and met with Hitler, and subsequently upon his return to the US spoke out approvingly of Hitler and his policies. And there were many others, such as Henry Ford, who bankrolled notoriously anti-Semitic publications, such as Burton K. Wheeler, Montana Senator and arch-isolationist, such as Fritz Kuhn, who founded the German-America Bund, and hoped one day to be Fuhrer of America.
This much is fact. The most impressive aspect of this book is that Philip Roth, an experienced and professional writer, takes these and other facts and makes a plot of them that is both plausible and persuasive.
The book is written in a conventional, descriptive manner from the perspective of a boy, incidentally named Philip Roth. Of course, at first he does not understand what is happening, and so we, the audience, are taken aback by his innocence. Yet nevertheless, as a Jew he feels the sense of dread that is gradually increasing as Lindbergh wins the Presidency and as the situation of the Jews starts to deteriorate in stages. He recounts incidents of petty anti-Semitism that his family experiences, typical of those that all Jews suffered in those times (and again today), in restaurants and in public.
One very noticeable thing about this book is that notwithstanding the growing anti-Semitism, the author and the narrator share the same positive view of America, that all will be alright in the end. In fact, the very title gives this attitude away, namely the "plot" is "against" America, not as a pro-fascist might have seen it as a "plot for America." And we the readers share this optimism, since we know that things didn't happen that way, that the US did enter the war after Pearl Harbor and did fight against the Nazis and did rescue Europe and the world from German domination. But, it could have been very different.
In order to square his plot with reality Roth has the Lindbergh Presidency end abruptly before Pearl Harbor, with a surprising turn, the assumption that the Lindbergh baby was not actually killed by Bruno Hauptmann, but was actually whisked away to Nazi Germany, where the Nazis used their control of him to blackmail his parents to do their bidding, and that was why they periodically visited Germany and that was why Lindbergh, against his original intentions, ran for President, and why his policies were essentially directed from Germany. But, finally the Lindberghs could no longer stand this deterioration of the national situation as a result of their personal fate and so they withdrew from public life, just in time for FDR to run again and this time win!
Two other aspects of the plot warrant consideration. One is the presence of a "court Jew" the respected and popular Rabbi Bengelsdorf, who marries Philip's aunt, and who acts as Lindbergh's representative to the Jews, in persuading them that he and his followers really mean the Jews no harm. So they should submit to the policies that are being promulgated, including the "transfer" of the Jews by train to the center of the country, a program called innocently "Homestead 42," this to deliberately break up the coherent Jewish community and to render the Jews defenseless. In time, if pursued to its logical conclusion, this could have lead to concentration camps, much like those into which the Japanese were forced on the West Coast, and possibly then to mass murder as in Europe.
The other aspect was the fate of those Jews who went via Canada to fight in Europe against the Nazis prior to the US entering the war. One of them was Philip's cousin, and the fact that he returned without a leg, is a symbol of the defenselessness of the American Jews in response to the gathering anti-Semitic menace. Thank God it didn't happen there!
posted by Jack Cohen at 3:59 PM
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