The Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies (CDAAA) was an American mass movement and political action group formed in May 1940.
The CDAAA shared its leadership with the dissolved Non-Partisan Committee for Peace through Revision of the Neutrality Law (NPC), which was also chaired by White and directed by Eichelberger.
For example, volunteers from the Minneapolis unit sent out thousands of mimeographed letters, pamphlets, "V for Victory" stickers, "Stop Hitler" matches and aid-to-Britain Christmas cards during the war to gather funding and draw support for intervention on behalf of the Allies.
[4] The CDAAA used a "qualitative approach" when structuring their organization to counter the wealthy, white male predominance of their leadership and target groups that were divided on the issue of U.S. intervention into World War Two.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt was hesitant to agree because of the Neutrality Acts, which banned the shipment or sale of arms from the U.S. to any combatant nation, and the existing anti-interventionist sentiment that drove the passage of these reforms.
Robert Sherwood penned the provocative newspaper advertisement "Stop Hitler Now", published on 10 June 1940, which urged the American people to ask their president and congressional representatives to support maximum aid to the Allies.
This was signed by Charles C. Burlingham of the New York Bar, former solicitor general Thomas D. Thatcher, former Federal Trade Commission member George Rublee, and Dean Acheson.
[15] In the build-up to the 1940 election, the CDAAA worked to ensure that no partisan debate arose in regard to the degree of American intervention into World War Two.
When Willkie was announced as the Republican candidate on 17th August, he didn't explicitly refer to the destroyers but did concede that the loss of the British fleet would "greatly weaken our defense" and an Atlantic dominated by Germany would be “a calamity.”[16] On September 3, 1940, in response to popular and legal opinion swinging into his favor, Roosevelt announced the exchange of 50 U.S.warship in return for the right to lease naval and air bases in eight different British territories.
It included support for "the maintenance of the lifeline between Great Britain and the United States," the "assumption by Congress of greater responsibility with the President," and the repeal of "restrictive legislation.
The group released a statement by George Rublee, one of the signatories of the New York Times letter of the previous August, that specifically opposed the dictatorship charges made in the minority report of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
This painted the committee as a tool of big business and, thus, drove the CDAAA to provide the Department of State with details of those who had contributed financially to the advertisement’s publication and reprinting.
This ensured that the “Stop Hitler Now” piece had been funded by “100% American sources.” [20] In September 1941, the CDAAA were criticized for having close British connections in a St. Louis Post-Dispatch article by Charles Ross.
He said his group aimed to force the CDAAA to provide details "specific, exact, and unequivocal" of what it meant when it called for "steps short of war.
Robert E. Wood suggested White’s statement offered a basis for national unity and that the remarks "essential[ly] agreement with our position.
[28] After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, the CDAAA dropped "by Aiding the Allies" from their name and became simply the Committee to Defend America (CDA).
That was caused by the strong aversion from committee members to embracing Joseph Stalin and communism, which were now part of the Allied forces against the Axis Powers.