Dorothy Celene Thompson (July 9, 1893 – January 30, 1961) was an American journalist and radio broadcaster. She was the first American journalist to be expelled from Nazi Germany in 1934 and was one of the few women news commentators broadcasting on radio during the 1930s.[1][2] Thompson is regarded by some as the "First Lady of American Journalism"[3] and was recognized by Time magazine in 1939 as equal in influence to Eleanor Roosevelt.[4] During the 1936 presidential race, Thompson characterized Black voters as a bloc "notoriously venal. Ignorant and illiterate, the vast mass of Negroes are like the lower strata of the early industrial immigrants, and like them are 'bossed' and 'delivered' in blocs by venal leaders, white and black."[14]
Zionism and the State of Israel
Thompson had been sympathetic to the Zionist movement since first setting off for Europe in 1920. On her voyage over, she had "endless discussions" of the movement with delegates traveling to the International Zionist Conference being held in London.[16] In the late 1930s, as Thompson emerged as a leading advocate for Jewish refugees fleeing persecution in Europe, she grew close with Zionist statesman Chaim Weizmann and his lieutenant in the US, Meyer Weisgal.[17] As World War II unfolded, Thompson went from being a sympathetic commentator to an outright advocate for the movement. She was a keynote speaker at the 1942 Biltmore Conference, and by war's end was regarded as one of the most effective spokespersons for Zionism. However, Thompson's attitude towards the movement had already begun to shift, most especially after a 1945 trip to Palestine, as she grew more concerned with the movement's right wing and its escalating terrorism against the British. After penning several columns critical of right wing Zionist terror, Thompson faced a tremendous backlash that ultimately led her into cooperation with leaders of the Jewish anti-Zionist organization, the American Council for Judaism.
After publishing a 1950 critique of American Zionism in Commentary that raised the specter of dual loyalty, that backlash only grew.[18] This included accusations of anti-Semitism, which Thompson strongly rebuffed, after being warned that hostility toward Israel was, in the American press world, "almost a definition of professional suicide".[19] She eventually concluded that Zionism was a recipe for perpetual war.[20] As Thompson's distance from the Zionist movement grew, she became an advocate for Palestinian refugees.[21] After traveling to the Middle East in 1950, Thompson was involved in the founding of the American Friends of the Middle East, which was secretly funded by the CIA.[22]