FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
October 12, 1999
BUCHANAN'S RESPONSE
TO ABE FOXMAN'S ATTACK
The following letter was sent to the Washington
Post on October 12
They have declined to publish it.
To the Editor
The Washington Post
If Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League wishes to indict me for anti-Semitism (October 11), he ought to at least get some facts right.
He claims that my book, A Republic, Not an Empire, "defends Charles Lindbergh against charges of anti-Semitism, not mentioning the infamous 1940 speech in which he [Lindbergh] accused the Jews of warmongering." False, on every count.
First, I do discuss Lindbergh's "infamous" speech (pgs. 335-6). Second, it was delivered in September 1941, not 1940. Third, I do not defend it, but use it to show the explosiveness of mixing ethnic politics and foreign policy: "Lindbergh's speech ignited a national firestorm that scorched the America First Committee, and attacks on the Lone Eagle for those three short paragraphs continued for the rest of his life and beyond."
Mr. Foxman says that before the Gulf War I noted "several commentators with obviously Jewish names and suggested that the war would be fought by soldiers 'with names like McAllister, Murphy, Gonzales and Leroy Brown.'" That, says Mr. Foxman, "was an appeal to anti-Semitic bigotry."
Bullhockey. My column of October 25, 1990, reciting the names of the four soldiers, had nothing to do with Jewish commentators. I was blasting the London Economist which had screeched that "Mr. Bush must go to war." My complete quote: "'The civilized world must win this fight,' the editors thunder. But, if it comes to war, it will not be the 'civilized world' humping up that bloody road to Baghdad; it will be American kids with names like McAllister, Murphy, Gonzales and Leroy Brown."
What in the blazes is anti-Semitic about rapping The Economist? If it is the lack of Jewish names among those soldiers, why is my list not also anti-Italian, anti-Greek, and anti-Polish?
Patrick J. Buchanan
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