In 1938, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed Joesph P. Kennedy Sr. U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom. The future presidential patriarch marveled at Adolf Hitler’s ability to reinvigorate postwar Germany and thought he could appease Hitler and his henchmen. Against the wishes of FDR, Kennedy went rouge: meeting with Helmuth Wohlthat, a prominent Nazi economic advisor to chat about preempting a world war with a payoff in gold.
As the German war machine overran Europe and England stood alone, Kennedy vehemently argued against providing military and financial assistance to the beleaguered Brits.
When the Luftwaffe bombed London night after night Kennedy retreated to the countryside, at a time when the entire British government – including the royal family – decided to remain under the crosshairs of German bombsights.
For Roosevelt, the final straw came when Kennedy revealed his thoughts in a November 1940 interview with the Boston Sunday Globe: “Democracy is finished in England. It may be here.”