Pearl Harbor: The Consequential Death of Ralph Williams in 1940
An Old Republican Dies in Philadelphia. He May Have Been Killed. Either Way, His Death Had Global Consequences.
A friend of mine described me as an ‘archives rat’ for digging through old boxes of newspaper clippings, esoterica, and unpublished manuscripts and files. To me these things seem like ‘raw history’ and I find that there are special little treasures to find therein.
I have never gone through an archives box and not had my thinking about an issue, topic, or person fundamentally changed. I have spent hours, days, weeks, months of my life pursuing leads and digging up little things that I found while going through an archives box on an unrelated topic. It’s a little reminiscent of the opening to the Ray Bradbury theater TV show in the 80’s, “I’m surrounded on every side… I’ll never starve here. I just look around, find what I need, and begin.” Little ghosts pop out to you all the time demanding attention.
Perhaps my most favorite such occurrence is when you find a person who was enormously consequential but whom history has completely overlooked. Maybe they overlook them because they don’t know anything about them, or couldn’t place them in the proper context, but more often than not it seems they are overlooked because no one cares to take the time to find out. Historians, like journalists, are prone to peer pressure, laziness, and the regurgitation of mainstream views.
This is my lead-in for Ralph E. Williams Sr., who died in Philadelphia on May 16, 1940.
Ralph was 70 years old and was in town for the upcoming 1940 Republican National Convention on June 24-28. He had been involved in the inner-workings of the Republican Party for decades, since 1908.
Ralph was supporting Senator Robert Taft for the Presidency. There were several others running, including Michigan Senator Arthur Vandenberg and New York District Attorney Thomas Dewey.
Meeting over a month prior to the convention, in order to get everything prepared and in place for the event, Williams is said to have had a ‘cerebral hemorrhage’ in one report, and a ‘stroke’ in another. He apparently slipped while holding a chair and then regained himself, checked himself into a hospital, and was dead later that night.
The details are scant and somewhat conflicting. Here were two different news stories relaying Williams’ death and the reasons behind it:
There are some who claim that Williams may have been killed by agents of British intelligence in order to ensure a primary victory by interventionist Wendell Willkie. The British Empire in 1940 was facing peace between Germany and Russia, and a losing naval battle against Japan looming. The end of Empire was at hand, and Churchill and Chamberlain had already bankrupted the Empire via their deals with Roosevelt as part of the Lend-Lease program.
Pearl Harbor was the spark that set this plan in motion. It was the final domino to fall in a long-term plan to get another global war. The interests and motives behind those who were pushing for this conflict are important because they start to explain why Britain would withhold evidence from America, and would show that the power behind Roosevelt was moving the country into a war footing. The methods were quiet but the goals were loud.
If Williams was killed, the ethical question faced by British Intelligence would have been pretty simple: Was an Empire worth one 70 year old American’s remaining years?
The potential triumph of Senator Robert A. Taft was a major threat to Britain. A Taft nomination would also force Roosevelt to admit the obvious: that he was slowly prepping America for war. If Taft won in 1940, the entire international dynamic would change. There would be no continued violation of the Neutrality Act, and there would be enormous pressure to find a peaceful resolution to the continental conflict. So there could be no way Taft could win in 1940.
Ralph Williams was the head of the “arrangements committee” within the Republican Party. This is akin to the modern ‘credentials committee’ today. To party outsiders, that might seem trivial. But the credentials committee controls who gets let into the convention and thus who gets to vote.
In those days, most delegates were ‘unbound’ under their state laws. Only 300 out of a thousand delegates to the convention were ‘bound’ to one candidate or another. Meaning they were total wild cards in terms of who they were planning to vote for. If there was a ‘slate’ of delegates from a state, the credentials committee could admit them and not delegates from an opposing camp.
Williams was supporting Robert Taft.
Williams was replaced by Samuel Frazier Pryor, Jr. (1898-1985), originally from Missouri, who was a Connecticut millionaire with five kids. He was chair of the Connecticut Republican Party, and had only served as an alternate delegate once previously, in 1936. He was an executive with the American Brake Shoe and Foundry Company. Sam was also a VP with PanAm airlines previously. Vermont’s Harold W. Mason also assisted Pryor.
Samuel Pryor’s father worked directly for the ultra-rich Rockefeller family, specifically for William Rockefeller, who co-founded Standard Oil with his more famous brother John. The Rockefellers at various points have been considered the wealthiest family in America.
Pryor’s convention tricks to get Willkie selected involved not only controlling the voters, but even controlling those who got into the galleries to demand a Willkie nomination. I found this little gem on that topic in the July 10, 1940, page 2, Palmyra Spectator in little Palmyra, Missouri:
This clip is saying Sam Pryor used his position in order to admit only Willkie supporters into the arena, and that there was an ongoing pressure campaign to push Willkie. Willkie did not compete in the primaries and only became known as a candidate a mere two months prior, in April 1940. Willkie had been a registered Democrat until late 1939. In the rest of the Palmyra article, author and Democrat polemicist Charles Michelson, makes a persuasive point that the logical Willkie backers were probably rich and powerful New York City interests.
The Rockefeller Family were certainly rich and powerful New York City interests.
I think we look back on 1940 and look at it as inevitable that Roosevelt was going to win. It was a sure thing. This election happened a year before America went to war. It was after a decade of the great depression no doubt now aggravated by Roosevelt’s disastrous policies, the rampant corruption throughout the ‘New Deal’ and the people involved, along with the sense from both the left and the right that Roosevelt was a chronic liar about his campaign promises such as those to keep the nation out of war, there were strong movements to oppose him.
By 1936/1937, many of Roosevelt’s prominent public backers were upset at his policies that favored Wall Street, ignored farmers and workers, court packing plan, and challenged him politically from both the right and the left. Roosevelt then purged disloyal party members in the 1938 elections. So by 1940, even Roosevelt’s own Vice President, John Nance Garner, ran against him for the 1940 nomination.
Roosevelt may have won by a large margin in 1940, but the paranoia of politicians at losing their power meant that all angles had to be pursued to preserve that power.
If Roosevelt had to face a serious Republican opponent, then it would be a challenge. If the Republicans nominated anybody but Willkie, that would be challenging. If Willkie was to be the nominee, you had to have control of the arrangements committee. If you needed control of the arrangements committee, Ralph Williams stood squarely in your way. The challenge standing in the way of war was Ralph Williams.
The goal was to get America into the war. There were people who had the connections to make it happen. We get to see, even now 82 years later, little glimmers of their various connections and interests. But there was a plan in place to get America into the war on the side of Britain. Ralph Williams stood in the way of that plan.
Poisoning someone with a large dose strychnine would present similar symptoms as witnessed in Williams. It was easy to obtain because, in 1940 unlike now, it was widely prescribed. Because of Williams’ age, it wouldn’t seem as suspicious. If you didn’t look for it within the body, you likely wouldn’t find it.
The fate of the British Empire rested on whether a 70 year old Oregonian lived or died. He conveniently died, right on time.
Here is the final resting place of Ralph E. Williams Sr.
Politica | PEARL HARBOR SERIES:
Pt 16 - John T. Flynn Wasn’t the Originator of the ‘Advance Warning’ Thesis
Pt 15 - Surviving Parents Want to Know How and Why
Pt 14 - Senior Soviet Amb. Toured Honolulu day before Pearl Harbor Attack
Pt 13 - No, White Men Probably Weren't Piloting Pearl Harbor Attack Planes
Pt 12 - FDR was Jap Oil 'Appeaser'... Until he Cut it Off a Week Later to Start a War
Pt 11 - A Week Prior to the Pearl Attack, Admirals Discuss "Offensive" Against Jap Fleet on the Move
Pt 10 - Fr. Aloysius Schmitt & John Austin aboard the sinking USS Oklahoma
Pt 9 - Weak Leads-- Pearl Military Judge Drafts Martial Law Before Attack
Pt 8 - Reporter Tells US Japs Will Attack After Midnight on Dec. 6th
Pt 7 - Toward a Taxonomy of Claims about “Advance Knowledge” of the Attack
Pt 6 - Japs Were Trying to Escape Panama on Dec. 2nd
Pt 5 - Yes, there was Warning of the Pearl Harbor Attack
Pt 4 - ‘Very Bitter’ Housewife in ‘45 Notes Flaws in the Official Story
Pt 3 - Lloyd’s of London Cancelled Insurance Policies in August 1941
Pt 2 - Tips About The Pearl Harbor Attack 77 Years Late
Pt 1 - Pearl Harbor Revisionism
Pearl Harbor: The Consequential Death of Ralph Williams in 1940
For the record, this was an amazing piece about a topic that I had only recently become aware of, and I apologize for not commenting on it sooner. I vaguely remember someone telling me the matter is taken up in this book: https://www.amazon.com/Secret-War-Ciphers-Guerrillas-1939-1945/dp/0062259288
I bought and skimmed it a while back but haven't yet found the part that deals with Williams' death. Maybe I'll get around to reading the whole thing soon.