The Dearborn Independent
In 1918, Ford's closest aide and private secretary, Ernest G. Liebold, purchased the Independent from Marcus Woodruff, who had been running it at a loss.
The paper initially attracted notoriety in June 1919 with coverage of the libel lawsuit between Henry Ford and the Chicago Tribune, when stories written by Pipp and Cameron were picked up nationally.
[5] So began the articles with themes of a worldwide conspiracy by Jewish super-capitalists, that the Jews invented the stock market and gold standard just to corrupt the world and other peoples.
He later claimed that a major influence on the paper's antisemitism came from Boris Brasol, a White Russian émigré lawyer, writer, and conspiracy theorist.
He expressed his opinions verbally to his executive secretary, Ernest Liebold, and to William J. Cameron, who replaced Pipp as editor.
[11] While Henry Ford owned The Dearborn Independent, none of its content was directly written by him, including the "International Jew" series.
The articles pinned cultural developments such as jazz, immoral books, flashy jewelry, and alcohol consumption on the Jews and Jewish influence.
During this period, Ford emerged as "a respected spokesman for right-wing extremism and religious prejudice", reaching around 700,000 readers through his newspaper.
Hitler even quoted the Dearborn Independent in Mein Kampf and Henry Ford was the only American that Hitler specifically named: "Every year they [the Jews] manage to become increasingly the controlling masters of the labor power of a people of 120,000,000 souls; one great man, Ford, to their exasperation still holds out independently there even now.
[18] James D. Mooney, vice-president of overseas operations for General Motors, received a similar medal, the Merit Cross of the German Eagle, First Class.
Louis Marshall noticed that The Cause of World Unrest was advertised on the back of one issue of the Independent, so he wrote a personal letter to the publisher, Major George Haven Putnam, condemning him for his intolerance.
[21] The Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America published a resolution condemning Ford's propaganda and beliefs.
[24] San Francisco lawyer and Jewish farm cooperative organizer Aaron Sapiro filed a libel lawsuit in response.
[27] Investigative journalist Max Wallace noted that "whatever credibility this absurd claim [Cameron's denial] may have had was soon undermined when James M. Miller, a former Dearborn Independent employee, swore under oath that Ford had told him he intended to expose Sapiro.
"[27] Michael Barkun observed: That Cameron would have continued to publish such controversial material without Ford's explicit instructions seemed unthinkable to those who knew both men.
An ADL-led coalition of Jewish groups led the charge, and raised objections to Ford's writings in the Detroit press.
Ford also wrote a public letter to ADL president Sigmund Livingston recanting his antisemitic views.
[29] In January 1937, a Ford statement to The Detroit Jewish Chronicle disavowed "any connection whatsoever with the publication in Germany of a book known as The International Jew.
