On 29 December 1939 the Seattle Star, in a full-page editorial, invited Buchman to hold a round-table conference of all the elements in their city which, it wrote, had 'come out of the thirties with a black eye'. ‘The Star apologises publicly for the mistakes it has made in the past... and offers its hand to competitors and all others who want honestly and consciously to help build a new Seattle,' the newspaper added. The Boeing Aircraft Company, Seattle's major industry, then gearing up to produce the B17 Flying Fortress bomber, was in turmoil, due partly to break-neck expansion and partly to the ideological confusion spread by the Communist leadership of the local branch of the machinists' union. At the round table initiated by The Star Buchman met the District President of the Union, Garry Cotton, who invited him to speak to 5,000 of his members. The meeting was crowded, as Cotton assured his guest it would be, since under union rules there was a five-dollar fine on absentees. Buchman introduced workers from Britain's shipyards and factories as well as from other American aircraft plants. From this developed a training programme for the Boeing branch, and shortly afterwards, Cotton's leadership prevented a strike in Boeing which would have halted production of aeroplanes on the whole of the West Coast.6 At the Lockheed Company in Los Angeles a similar Moral Re-Armament training programme was launched in the largest union local branch in the country, with 35,000 members.7

Buchman's influence with these aircraft unions challenged Communist plans for industrial slow-downs. The Communists denounced him for co-operating with their greatest enemy, the armament manufacturers. This continued until Hitler invaded Russia. Then, for the Communists, the war industries and the armament makers became overnight the saviours of democracy and 'the Fascist Churchill' became the heroic friend of the Soviets. Their description of Moral Re-Armament also changed, if not so beneficially. From being a 'militarist pro-British spy network', it became a 'pacifist, anti-union organisation' busily interfering in American war industry and fostering mysterious peace moves.

Buchman's people were, meanwhile, introduced from one industry to another all across America, and found themselves in demand in aircraft and steel plants, and later in shipbuilding yards. His manpower was always at full stretch, and without those he had brought from Britain he could have undertaken little.

The outbreak of war, however, did raise the question of where the Britons' duty lay, and this presented them with a dilemma. Ought they to return to Britain and enlist in the armed forces? Or should they remain in America doing the work which they were doing? In September 1939 they sought the official view upon British subjects in the United States and seem to have been advised by the British Consul-General in San Francisco, Paul Butler, and by the Consul in Seattle, C. G. Hope-Gill, to remain in America.8 In May 1940 this advice was repeated for Britons generally in America* but by now Butler and Hope-Gill had reassessed MRA's position and were strongly representing to the Embassy in Washington that Buchman's British colleagues be called home. Their reasons, according to Foreign Office files recently released, were a mixture of representations which had come to them from "local" sources and some fantastic errors of identity.9* It is clear that, after much minuting to and fro at the Foreign Office, the Consuls were overruled by the Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, though officials took measures to conceal that he had intervened.*

(* New York Times, 31 May 1940: 'Britain Gives Mission to Nationals in US — Rejects Service Offer but Bids them Cultivate Good-will'.)

(* For example, Hope-Gill alleged that the Dutch woman, Charlotte van Beuningen, who was subsequently decorated by Queen Wilhelmina for her heroism in the Resistance, was a 'Nazi agent'. 'It has also been pointed out', he added, 'that Denmark, Norway, Belgium and Holland were the most heavily "morally rearmed" countries in Europe and that the leader of the Movement is probably of German origin.' (A 4219, 21/8/1940.)

(* A3942/26/45 Public Record Office. In August 1940 William Jaeger applied for a renewal of his passport. It was granted on the grounds that (a) the war effort did not require his return: (b) to deny renewal would be discriminatory and would involve the Foreign Office in controversy in Britain and America. This appears to have been the occasion of Lord Halifax's memo, and a further case referred from Seattle was decided on this precedent. (A 4219, 17/9,1940.)

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