Dear Editor:
In a lengthy first paragraph, the statement of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (November 10) makes the claim that anti-immigrant forces opposed United States entry into World War II and implies that anti-Semitic sentiments played some important role in this aversion to foreign wars. An exhibit at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum suggests otherwise, unless one wishes to believe the overwhelming majority of Americans at that time were anti Semites. The exhibit features results of Gallup polls from the beginning of September 1939 through November 1941 (from the beginning of the war in Europe until just a few weeks before United States entry into the war).
The results of the polls show that Americans were strongly averse to involvement in the widening war, even if it be for the reason of saving France or Britain from defeat by Germany. On May 10, for instance, Americans who were polled supported joining the fight to save France by a mere 7 percent, with 93 percent opposed. Eight months before that Americans responded more than 2:1 against getting involved to save our “mother country” (Britain). You can see the polls for yourself at https://exhibitions.ushmm.org/americans-and-the-holocaust/us-public-opinion-world-war.
The reason for this attitude against the war had rather little to do with immigrants or Jewish people. In those days Americans were more informed about the history and founding of their country, and I would suggest, more respectful of it. It was no mystery to them that the purpose of the United States was to “insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” It seems that the clause proclaiming our purpose for existing was to run all over and solve the problems of other people was not approved for inclusion in our Constitution.
All of this first paragraph from the UCCA was a prelude to a spirited defense of the honor of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and to portray him as man wronged in the media because of his place of birth, by “anti-immigrant voices.” In doing a quick search I found favorable and celebratory articles in The New York Times, National Public Radio, Wikipedia, Business Insider, The Washington Post, USA Today and the New York Post. With press approval of that extent, Lt. Col. Vindman does not seem to be on the Endangered Species list.
Jeffrey Ojeda Bellinger
Riverton, Wyo.