The Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies (CDAAA) was an American political action group formed in May 1940.

The group advocated American military materiel

Materiel

Materiel is a term used in English to refer to the equipment and supplies in military and commercial supply chain management....

 support for Britain

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 as the best way to keep the United States out of the conflict then raging in Europe. Politically, they would be classified as being pro-intervention; that is, they strongly believed the United States should actively assert itself in the War in Europe. The CDAAA supported the Lend-Lease Act

Lend-Lease

Lend-Lease was the program under which the United States of America supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, China, Free France, and other Allied nations with materiel between 1941 and 1945. It was signed into law on March 11, 1941, a year and a half after the outbreak of war in Europe in...

; they opposed the various Neutrality Acts of the late 1930's and sought their revision or repeal.

The CDAAA disagreed strongly with another powerful group, the America First Committee

America First Committee

The America First Committee was the foremost non-interventionist pressure group against the American entry into World War II. Peaking at 800,000 members, it was likely the largest anti-war organization in American history. Started in 1940, it became defunct after the attack on Pearl Harbor in...

, who advocated complete neutrality

Neutral country

A neutral power in a particular war is a sovereign state which declares itself to be neutral towards the belligerents. A non-belligerent state does not need to be neutral. The rights and duties of a neutral power are defined in Sections 5 and 13 of the Hague Convention of 1907...

 and non-intervention. The America First Committee believed that the U.S. should not get involved in foreign conflicts.

After Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 invaded the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 in June, 1941, the CDAAA dropped the "by Aiding the Allies" from their name and became simply the Committee to Defend America (CDA). This was due to a strong aversion from many in the group to embrace Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

 and communism

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

. They now viewed the Soviets as fellow fighters against Hitler and fascism

Fascism

Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...

: the Soviets were allies of immediate necessity, not true allies. The CDA always maintained an officially anti-Communist stance.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor

Attack on Pearl Harbor

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...

 in December, 1941, effectively brought an end to both the CDA and the America First Committee. In January, 1942, the CDA merged with the Council for Democracy to form Citizens for Victory: To Win the War, To Win the Peace. This combined organization officially dissolved in October, 1942. The America First Committee officially dissolved four days after Pearl Harbor.

Prominent members of the CDAAA included Clark M. Eichelberger (National Director), Adlai Stevenson II, U.S. Rep. Claude Pepper

Claude Pepper

Claude Denson Pepper was an American politician of the Democratic Party, and a spokesman for left-liberalism and the elderly. In foreign policy he shifted from pro-Soviet in the 1940s to anti-Communist in the 1950s...

 (D-Fla), newspaper editor William Allen White

William Allen White

William Allen White was a renowned American newspaper editor, politician, author, and leader of the Progressive movement...

, and Hollywood screenwriter and activist Philip Dunne

Philip Dunne (writer)

Philip Dunne was a Hollywood screenwriter, film director and producer, who worked prolifically from 1932 until 1965. He spent the majority of his career at 20th Century Fox crafting well regarded romantic and historical dramas, usually adapted from another medium...

, .

External links

• Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies Papers at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University
• (http://infoshare1.princeton.edu/libraries/firestone/rbsc/finding_aids/cda.html CDAAA Archives at Princeton University)