Beschreibung:

REAGAN, Ronald W. (1911-2004), President . Typed letter signed ("Ronnie"), to Walter Winchell, 6 November 1945. 3 pages, 4to, with an autograph endorsement addressed to Reagan in pencil in the upper right corner of first page, possibly from Winchell . A STILL LEFTIST RONALD REAGAN BATTLES GERALD L. K. SMITH AND THE "REBIRTH OF NAZISM" IN LOS ANGELES Ronald Reagan wants to set the record straight about a dust-up between an American fascist and his opponents in Los Angeles, among whom Reagan proudly numbered himself. "I am afraid you are in the wrong town," he Winchell. "The re-birth of Nazism is apparently to take place in Los Angeles. Our old friend, Gerald L. K. Smith, has been holding out here for several weeks...I am pretty hopped up about the romance between Mr. Smith and the Los Angeles City administration. His particular buddy is Meade McClanahan, of the City Council, who has appeared with him at several meetings and whose only attempt at fame occurred last week when he tried to tear a portrait of F. D. R. from the wall of the City Council chamber." Reagan then launches into a long, detailed account of the efforts of various groups (including Reagan's American Veterans Committee) to protest Smith's meeting--and his outrage at what he saw as preferential treatment accorded Smith by the Los Angeles police and courts. When protestors tried to block Smith from speaking at a local high school, "the Los Angeles School Board answered that they could only refuse him the privilege if it could be proven that he was subversive. This didn't sound like too much of a job so several prominent individuals such as Eddie Cantor, Harpo Marx, and representatives of 500 civic and religious organizations appeared before the School Board to prove Gerald was a subversive." The board denied the petitions to bar Smith, so protestors came to the school to jeer and ridicule him instead. Reagan gleefully recounts how the audience was packed with hostile listeners. "All anyone could hear were the 'boos' of a very disrespectful audience." Several students at the high school in question also picketed the Board of Education's offices and "the police bravely assaulted the high school kids and managed to arrest about 20." There were whiffs of anti-Semitism in the harsh response as "one statement in the press the following day hinted that these students were egged on by a sound truck representing a Jewish organization. This must have been a hot potato because the subsequent stories switched to a Communist influence." Reagan would undergo his own political migration from Democratic left to republican right in the late 1940s, but he would have found someone like Smith offensive in any phase of his career. Briefly a member of the American-Nazi "Silver Shirt" organization, Smith (1898-1976) aligned himself with Huey Long's demagogic "Share Our Wealth" program until Long's assassination in 1935. Smith's anti-Semitic and anti-Communist ideas remained popular among a fringe group even after World War II, and Los Angeles was the home of his largest pool of supporters. In 1953, he made L. A. the headquarters of his new Christian Nationalist party, whose newsletter, The Cross and the Flag proved a potent fund-raising vehicle among right-wing donors in Southern California and across the nation.