The perils of a public intellectual - George W. Hartmann - Experts in the Service of Social Reform: SPSSI, Psychology, and Society, 1936-1996

Journal of Social Issues, Spring, 1998 by Benjamin Harris

To the pacifist movement, the Peace Now Movement's program seemed equally threatening. For those committed to a personal, moral protest against the nations waging the war, Hartmann's strategy violated a basic ethical tenet. By advocating a negotiated peace, he ceded authority and responsibility to exactly those governments that had begun the war for their selfish interests. As a result, noncooperating pacifists like David Dellinger looked at George Hartmann as a betrayer of their cause.

Hartmann's third flaw was his political naivete. Despite a lifelong involvement in political campaigning, he was a bad judge of character, unskilled in the psychology of small organizations, and unaware how much his own prejudices distorted his judgment. His anti-Communism was so extreme, for example, that it led Hartmann to proclaim that Nazi Germany "contains more hope for the future of at least European mankind than the degenerate Soviet system" (Hartmann, 1941-42, p. 25). Likewise, his anger at Franklin Roosevelt was so strong that he failed to realize that others' dislike of the New Deal was part of a coherent, reactionary political program. As a result he corresponded with, and took advice from, followers of Father Coughlin, Bundists, and former activists in the America First Movement ("Hartmann Is Grilled," 1947; Jeansonne, 1996).

Among the officers of Peace Now, Hartmann had one sensible ally: a young Quaker named Dorothy Hutchinson, whose pamphlet A Call to Peace Now provided the group with its organizing momentum and name. Unfortunately, her credentials were overshadowed by those of the other two officers, who gave the PNM its most visible ties to ultra-right and neo-Nazi movements. The group's secretary was Bessie Simon, a Theosophist who had held a staff position with the America First Committee and wanted Charles Lindbergh to run for President (FBI, Los Angeles Field Office, 1944; Hartmann, 1944j). Largely unsupervised by Hartmann, she ran the PNM's office in New York, and her off-the-cuff, reactionary statements became part of the organization's public face. As a correspondent of Hartmann's noted: "Miss Simon is very what the French call 'exalte' and most unwise. . . . She [says] 'I have intuitions, and I follow my intuitions because I know then I am following Jesus'" (Graves, 1944, p. 1).

The fourth officer of Peace Now was John Collett, a refugee whose background suggested a connection to the German espionage services. He arrived in the United States on a passport issued by the government of Nazi-occupied Norway; immediately he declared himself a conscientious objector and pacifist. Later, Collett revealed a history of psychiatric problems that he and Hartmann hoped he could sublimate into anti-war activism (Simon, 1943).

Troubled From the Beginning

For Hartmann and Peace Now, difficulties began as soon as they tried to function as an organization. In late summer 1943, they sought the funds necessary for a national publicity campaign. Significantly, their first request for money was rejected by the largest pacifist organization in the country, the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Next, they appealed to a national coalition of pacifist groups, the Peace Strategy Board, and were again turned down. In both cases, the reason for rejection was the association between Peace Now's officers and the forces of anti-Roosevelt fanaticism, isolationism, and anti-Semitism (Zeitzer, 1978).