Borah, William

Born June 29, 1865, in Fairfield; died Jan. 19, 1940, in Washington. Political figure of the USA. From 1907 on, a Republican senator; in 1924–33, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Borah upheld ideas of isolationism—political tendencies whose advocates favored limiting the activity and commitments of the USA outside the American continent, in order to maintain, to a certain degree, a “free hand.” He opposed, in particular, the Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919 and the entry of the USA into the League of Nations and the International Court of Justice in The Hague. He supported the establishment of diplomatic relations between the USSR and the USA and condemned fascism; however, in 1939, on the eve of World War II, he spoke in the Senate against repealing the neutrality law of the USA, which was blocking US cooperation with other countries and, above all, with the Soviet Union, in a collective rebuff to the aggressors.