Prescott Dennett
Prescott Freeze Dennett (October 12, 1907 - October 7, 1992) was a defendant in the Great Sedition Trial of 1944 and ran the Columbia Press Service which was considered a front for National Socialist Germany.[1]
Dennett was the secretary-treasure for the Make Europe Pay War Debts Committee founded in December 1939. He also helped organize the Citizens Committee to Keep America Out of the War with George Sylvester Viereck.[2]
It has been claimed these committees were used as fronts to spread German propaganda[3] by have Senators inserting isolationist speeches into the Congressional Record and mailing them to constituents at the US government’s expense.
Dennett was named in all three sedition indictments. At the time of the first indictment (1942) he was an US Army draftee and was arrested on a Army base in St. Louis, Missouri.[4] The sedition trial ended with the sudden death of the presiding judge and a mistrial was declared. Prescott Dennett was the only defendant who wished to stand trial again, apparently in an attempt to clear his name.
Dennett worked closely with North Carolina’s Senator Robert Reynolds. In his later years he was the operator of Congressional Record Clipping Service.
Notes
- ↑ [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,765767,00.html Time, Books: Double Exposure, June 16, 1941
- ↑ The Berlin Observer (US military occupation paper), May 31, 1946
- ↑ Buncombe Bob, by Julian M. Pleasants, p. 175.
- ↑ U.S. At War: Crackpot's Roundup