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Source: Letter sent to the Editor of the Boston Globe
Historians in the News
May 13, 2008

Sheldon Stern: Objects to Peggy Noonan's lionization of Henry Ford

To the Editor,

Former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan thinks Barack Obama should become"misty-eyed" about Henry Ford (Globe, 5/13). Does she know that Henry Ford's anti-Semitic publications, such as The International Jew, constituted one of the most most vicious, public hate campaigns in U.S. history? Does she know that Henry Ford refused to build aircraft engines for Britain but accepted Hitler's Grand Cross of the Supreme Order of the German Eagle in 1938? Does she know that Henry Ford's German subsidiary, Ford-Werke, built over 120,000 trucks for the German army during World War II, used Nazi forced labor, and earned substantial profits for Ford?