Under the Eye of Power: How Fear of Secret Societies Shapes American Democracy by Colin Dickey

Author:Colin Dickey [Dickey, Colin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2023-07-11T00:00:00+00:00

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Attempts to blunt the Protocols’ impact have been legion, and almost always unsuccessful. A 1933 trial in Switzerland accusing disseminators of the Protocols of distributing “indecent” material floundered on appeal, despite the judiciary’s universal condemnation of the work itself. But the problem with the Protocols isn’t that the document is “indecent”; it’s that it’s libelous. Which is the tack Jewish lawyers took in the United States. Prominent Jewish lawyer Louis Marshall wrote to Ford and urged him to recognize this fact, that the Protocols “constitute a libel upon an entire people who had hoped that at least in America they might be spared the insult, the humiliation, and the obloquy which these articles are scattering throughout the land.” Ford wrote back unimpressed, telling Marshall: “Your rhetoric is that of a Bolshevik orator.” Apoplectic, Marshall published a subsequent article, “The ‘Protocols,’ Bolshevism, and the Jews,” in which he excoriated Ford, who, “in the fulness of his knowledge, unqualifiedly declares The Protocols to be genuine, and argues that practically every Jew is a Bolshevist.” Dismissing these charges out of hand, Marshall concluded that Ford derived his libelous content from “the concoctions of professional agitators,” and that he himself was “merely a dupe.” And so another Jewish activist, Aaron Sapiro, sued the Dearborn Independent in civil court, claiming it had made false accusations about him because he was Jewish.

The trial had been underway for only two weeks when, on March 27, 1927, the day before he was slated to testify, Ford was driving on State Route 12 (also known as Michigan Avenue) between Detroit and Dearborn. Just after crossing the bridge over the River Rouge, his car was hit from behind and forced off the road. His car plunged down an embankment and was saved from going into the river only when it hit a tree and came to rest. Ford was hospitalized with a concussion and minor injuries, but as word leaked out, the story became a national sensation.

“Mystery in Ford Death Plot,” screamed the headline of the Detroit Times. The Chicago Tribune echoed this (“Ford Hurt in Death Plot”) as did the New York Times, which proclaimed “Plot to Kill Ford Suspected.” Newspapers universally reported about two suspicious men who had been responsible for trying to kill Ford, and speculated that it had something to do with the libel trial. His testimony was postponed as sympathy mounted and suspicion swirled of a plot by secret conspirators.

Meanwhile, before Ford was well enough to return to the courtroom, a juror injudiciously expressed her opinions about the case to a local paper, prompting a mistrial. Wanting to avoid the bad press of another trial, Ford reached out to Louis Marshall, who helped him engineer a plan for a public apology for his anti-Semitic views. With that, the libel suit evaporated.

The allegations of conspiracy and a plot to assassinate Ford were also never discussed again. Which seemed odd. The accusation, plastered across the nation’s papers only months earlier, somehow just vanished into thin air.

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