Around the time of WWII the following people, among others, were members of an organisation I have seen referred to with the initials C.R.A. Admiral Sir Barry Domvile - interned in WWII for pro Nazi views and connections Major General J F C Fuller - involved with Oswald Mosley Earl of Portsmouth - member of pro -nazi English Array and British People Party Viscount Bennett - one time Prime Minister of Canada but involved at some time with anti-Semitics and fascists Captain Arthur Roger - supporter of Anglo-German relations at time of Czech crisis From this one can imagine the sort of organisation the C.R.A. was. Does anyone know what C.R.A. stands for or anything about it?
Drailton Welcome to the forum from Canada. More information on R.B. Bennett, former PM of Canada is here www.en:wikipedia.org/wiki/R._B._Bennett Please advise where you got your facts regarding his association with fascists or Anti-Semitics. Cheers
Information as to names of some of the members of the CRA including R B Bennett comes from "Very Deeply Dyed in Black: Sir Oswald Mosley and the Postwar Reconstruction of British Fascism" by Graham Macklin. Since posting my query I have found that the initials CRA stand for Constitutional Research Association which was apparently formed in 1941. (This is not necessarily the same organisation as any with a similar name in countries outside UK). In his book on Mosley, Macklin refers to "The key group leading the far right's foray against the Nuremburg Trials was the Constitutional Research Association...". In "Le Livre Noir du Canada Anglais" Lester Normand alleges that Adrien Arcand, the Canadian journalist and fascist was provided with funds by Bennett to propagate anti-Semitism. This is also quoted in a number of other sources including "Jews & French Quebecers: two hundred years of shared history" by Jacques Langlais. Although it would initially seem that Bennett's views were based on a pre war need to act against communism it is surprising that he is, during the war, found mixing with those of the far right. Others in the CRA, in addition to those mentioned in my initial posting, included Norman Hay of the anti-semitic news sheet "Information and Policy", Phillip Farrer a fried of Oswald Mosely, Captain Russell Grenfell who seems to have been involved post war with holocaust deniers, Rex Tremlett a member of the British Union of Fascists and others. If it was not true that Bennett was not of this persuasion or had turned against any previous tendancy to it it is very strange that as a politician he did not have the understanding that it was not in his interests to mix with such people. While I now understand that one of the aims of the CRA was to oppose the Nuremberg trials I would still be interested hear from anyone who can tell me any more about this organisation.
Information as to names of some of the members of the CRA including R B Bennett comes from "Very Deeply Dyed in Black: Sir Oswald Mosley and the Postwar Reconstruction of British Fascism" by Graham Macklin. Since posting my query I have found that the initials CRA stand for Constitutional Research Association which was apparently formed in 1941. (This is not necessarily the same organisation as any with a similar name in countries outside UK). In his book on Mosley, Macklin refers to "The key group leading the far right's foray against the Nuremburg Trials was the Constitutional Research Association...". In "Le Livre Noir du Canada Anglais" Lester Normand alleges that Adrien Arcand, the Canadian journalist and fascist was provided with funds by Bennett to propagate anti-Semitism. This is also quoted in a number of other sources including "Jews & French Quebecers: two hundred years of shared history" by Jacques Langlais. Although it would initially seem that Bennett's views were based on a pre war need to act against communism it is surprising that he is, during the war, found mixing with those of the far right. Others in the CRA, in addition to those mentioned in my initial posting, included Norman Hay of the anti-semitic news sheet "Information and Policy", Phillip Farrer a fried of Oswald Mosely, Captain Russell Grenfell who seems to have been involved post war with holocaust deniers, Rex Tremlett a member of the British Union of Fascists and others. If it was not true that Bennett was not of this persuasion or had turned against any previous tendancy to it it is very strange that as a politician he did not have the understanding that it was not in his interests to mix with such people. While I now understand that one of the aims of the CRA was to oppose the Nuremberg trials I would still be interested hear from anyone who can tell me any more about this organisation. R.B. Bennett left Canada in 1938. He was a politically spent force. He died in 1947 of a heart attack at the age of 77. I am not a historian but would assume that the Nuremburg trials were well behind his political will at that period of his life. Additionally, one would have to realize that many Quebec separtistes would naturally write to discredit any politician with a Western Canadian background. This would also hold true on writings by Jacques Langlois. To this day, the separtistes will rewrite history for their own purposes. It appears that the slant you are aiming for is derived from dubious sources such as Macklin, Hay, Farrer, Grenfell and Tremlett. To think that Bennett would countenance men of this type is suspect. Interesting thread that I am sure will be reviewed and discussed further. Just so you know, my brother in law's father, RB Coates MC, was the nephew of R. B. Bennett. Served with the 51st Highland Div as a Canloan officer. Small world, eh?
I have no slant on this and am just giving the background information I have found on the CRA. My aim is to find more about this organisation. I agree that Bennett may well have been discredited by others but on the basis of judging a man by the company he keeps in the CRA one does wonder! The names of members of this organisation come initially from "Man of Secrets" the diaries of Maurice Hankey, British Government Cabinet Secretary. My interest in the CRA is mainly in connection with another of its members, Lachlan Loudon MacLean, who was for a time an Air Officer Commanding an RAF bomber Group in WWII. MacLean was the second husband of Winifred Strangman, daughter of Sir Thomas Strangman, the prosecutor in the Bombay courts of Ghandi. Winifred's first husband was the actor and pioneer aviator Robert Loraine. So to bring it all back to my original query - can anyone tell me anything about the Constitutional Research Association (CRA)?
