A moderate Republican for most of his long political career, Findley was a supporter of civil rights and an early opponent of the U.S. war in Vietnam.

[3] He was a cofounder of the Council for the National Interest, a Washington, D.C. advocacy group, and was a vocal critic of American policy towards Israel.

He received his bachelor's degree from Illinois College, which is currently home to The Paul Findley Congressional Office Museum.

Findley served in the United States Navy during World War II and was commissioned a lieutenant (junior grade).

Soon after, Quaker peace groups and other anti-war activists began reading those names aloud on the steps of the U.S. Capitol and at protests and vigils across the country.

[12] It is a 501 (c)4 non-profit, non-partisan organization in the United States that works for "Middle East policies that serve the American national interest.

"[13] Its first executive director was ten-term congressman John B. Anderson (R-Il) who ran as an Independent candidate in the 1980 U.S. presidential election.

"[7] Findley listed the Israeli lobby as one of the factors contributing to his defeat in 1982, alongside the national recession of 1982 and the change of his district's boundaries after the 1980 census.

Senators Adlai Stevenson III and Charles H. Percy, and Representatives Pete McCloskey, Cynthia McKinney, Earl F. Hilliard, and myself were defeated at the polls by candidates heavily financed by pro-Israel forces.

[25] In a conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Findley said that "the cancer of anti-Muslim and anti-Islamic sentiments was spreading in American society and requires corrective measures to stamp out this malaise.

[29] The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has criticized the Council for the National Interest (CNI), of which Findley was a founder, as an "anti-Israel organization" that "disseminates demonizing propaganda about Israel to academics, politicians, and other audiences.

"[30][31] Findley continued in the same article that: "America suffered 9/11 and its aftermath and may soon be at war with Iraq, mainly because U.S. policy in the Middle East is made in Israel, not in Washington.