Note: Irgun was a Jewish "terrorist" organization against British occupation of Palestine, in the years up to Israel's declaration that Palestine was Israel, the Jewish state, in 1948. Ben Hecht was a Zionist activist and supporter of Irgun. He was a newspaper reporter, and later a successful Hollywood screenwriter.

p. 614. "The play I'd written, A FLAG IS BORN [featuring Marlon Brando, who later -- as he noted in his autobiography -- regretted acting in such a piece of propaganda], netted the Irgun nearly a million dollars. Bergson bought a fairly large 'ocean liner' with the money. He put my name on its bows."

p. 615, [Hecht was later asked to help raise millions of dollars more for Irgun, by drafting a newspaper ad]. "The ad carried the headline: 'Letter to the Terrorists of Palestine.' It read: 'My Brave Friends. You may not believe what I write you, for there is a lot of fertilizer in the air at the moment. But on my word as an old reporter, what I write is true. The Jews of America are for you. You are their champions. You are the grin they wear. You are the feather in their hats. You are the first answer that makes sense -- to the New World. Every time you blow up a British arsenal, or wreck a British jail, or send a British railroad sky high, or rob a British bank, or let go with your guns and bombs at the British betrayers and invaders of your homeland, the Jews of America make a little holiday in their hearts ..."

p. 617, "The ad appeared in a few days. Some fifteen newspapers printed it at their 'usual advertising rates.' Hundreds of other newspapers in the U.S., Mexico, South America and France ran the ad gratis. It appealed to them, apparently, as news."