Merwin K. Hart

Merwin Kimball Hart (June 25, 1881 – November 30, 1962) was an American lawyer, insurance executive, and politician from New York who founded the National Economic Council, Inc. and was "involved in controversial matters throughout his career."

Background Merwin K. Hart was born on June 25, 1881, in Utica, New York. His parents were H. Gilbert Hart and Lucy Lord Kimball. In 1904, he obtained a BA from Harvard University (in the same class as Franklin D. Roosevelt). He spent a half year studying in Germany. He then studied law. Hart demanded a retraction by Ickes, saying that his "statements are absolutely false." In reply, Ickes offered Hart a "trade." "I will retract my statement gladly when I hear that you have come out to fight against the asserted gangs of native Fascists and fifth columnists that are trying to pave the way for the dictators here as they prepared it in other lands; when I hear that you have come out in defense of civil liberties and American democracy. Until then, my dear sir, you remain in my eyes, and in the eyes of the American people, what I said you were." An unsatisfied Hart replied, "I am and always have been absolutely opposed to fascism, nazism and communism in the United States ... [they] are building up in Washington a government well-nigh as fascistic, as despotic, as anything in the dictator countries of Europe." Ickes would later denounce Hart as a bigot, one of the five American "Quislings." Hart accused Ickes of slander again.

In 1943, the council changed its name again, this time to the National Economic Council."

In 1960, Hart became a chairman of the New York branch of the John Birch Society. Although he denied allegations of anti-Semitism before the Buchanan committee, the 1961 letter of the National Economic Council carried the following statement: ... If there were 6,000,000 Jews within reach of Hitler, which number is widely questioned, and if they have all disappeared, where are they? ... Is it not likely that many of these 6,000,000 claimed to have been killed by Hitler and Eichmann are right here in the United States and are now joining in the agitation for more and more support for the state of Israel—even if the American Republic goes down.

Works America, Look at Spain (New York: P.J. Kennedy & Sons, 1939)