Kennedy turned out to be a smash choice from the moment of his arrival in 1938 at the palatial thirty-six-room embassy residence on Grosvenor Square. The British public embraced Kennedy, his appealing wife, Rose, and brood of nine handsome children. The luck of the Irish held as the ambassador scored a hole in one on his first round of golf at the Stoke Poges course in Buckinghamshire. Joe Kennedy's London life appeared charmed.

He may have been a favorite of the British people, but Joe Kennedy was not popular in government circles. Early in 1939 he angered FDR by attempting to consort with Nazis. Helmuth Wohlthat, an economic advisor to Reichsmarschall Hermann Goring, wanted to meet with Kennedy to consider an American gold loan to Germany. Kennedy's request to see the man was instantly turned down by a horrified FDR. Unabashed, Kennedy repeated the request, and again the President refused. Kennedy then, in direct contradiction of FDR's orders, allowed Wohlthat to come see him in London. Learning of the ambassador's insubordination, Roosevelt put a stop to any further encounters....

Churchill's son. Randolph, remarked of the American ambassador's defeatism: "We had reached the point of bugging potential traitors and enemies. Joe Kennedy, the American ambassador, came under electronic surveillance: " Ironically, during that May 20 encounter between Tyler Kent and Kennedy, an American ambassador who himself did not believe in the war, who ridiculed Britain's chances of' survival, and who practiced his own brand of anti-Semitism berated a lowly code clerk who shared both his politics and his prejudices. Kennedy treated the matter as he always did when his principles collided with his survival. He pulled the rug on Kent. Two days after his talk with the ambassador, Kent was fired by the State Department. Kennedy denied him diplomatic immunity, and the code clerk remained in the custody of the British. In this matter, at least, the President showed no disagreement with his ambassador's conduct. Kent's loss of immunity was instantly approved in Washington. Kennedy declared that if the United States had been at war during Kent's betrayal, he would have recommended that he be sent home and shot by a firing squad.

FDR had just returned from a dip in the White House pool when he received a transatlantic phone call from an uncharacteristically contrite Kennedy. Because of Tyler Kent's treachery, the Gray code, through which the President and Churchill communicated, had been compromised, the ambassador informed FDR. An American assistant secretary of state, Reckoning Long, reckoned the cost of Kent's disloyalty in his diary: "Appalling ... it means that not only are our codes cracked a dozen different ways, but that our every diplomatic maneuver was exposed to Germany and Russia. It is a terrible blow - almost a major catastrophe."

Tyler Kent was tried in secret in the Old Bailey on October 23, 1940, charged with violating Britain's Official Secrets Act and the Larceny Act for stealing the documents. Kent's defense attorney, a London barrister, Maurice Healy, argued that this court had no jurisdiction over an American whose arrest and trial were "entirely contrary to the general principles of international law and the comity of nations." After four days of testimony, however, it took the jury of twelve Englishmen only twenty-five minutes to find Kent guilty of endangering their Country. He was sentenced to seven years and, with equal secrecy, packed off to the windswept Isle of Wight, to a camp for political prisoners. In a separate trial, Anna Wolkoff received ten years.

The Churchill government found in the Kent-Wolkoff scandal just the provocation it wanted. Within forty-eight hours of Kent's arrest a massive roundup of British fascists took place, including the Jew-baiting Captain Ramsay. The Low Countries had fallen to Germany within days, and on June 20, France surrendered after only a shocking six weeks' struggle. Obviously, British leaders believed, Poland, Luxembourg, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, and France could not have fallen under Hitler's heel simply because they were weak. Fifth columnists had to be the answer. The British were convinced that Norway had been flooded with German "tourists" before the invasion. German parachutists who dropped into the Netherlands were rumored to have been guided by enemy agents signaling them from the ground. The contagion of suspicion crossed the Atlantic, and FDR eagerly embraced the conspiracy rationale.

The President may have had an ulterior motive. Joe Kennedy had proved something of a misguided missile in Washington. The right wing saw him as a renegade, a businessman who attacked his own kind. The left painted him as a man who could be troublesome for labor. Within the administration, he was counted a power-hungry publicity hound, a harsh critic of the administration when it suited him, and a man whose business dealings might not stand up to close scrutiny. Henry Morgenthau met with the President shortly before Kennedy's appointment became official and recorded in his diary a presidential display that astonished him. "I have made arrangements to have Joe Kennedy watched hourly," FDR said, "and the first time he opens his mouth and criticizes me, I will fire him." He repeated several times, Morgenthau remembered, "Kennedy is too dangerous to have around here." Thus the bootstraps Irishman, snubbed while a student at Harvard, still socially banging on society's door, attained the most prestigious American appointment in international diplomacy.

Kennedy turned out to be a smash choice from the moment of his arrival in 1938 at the palatial thirty-six-room embassy residence on Grosvenor Square. The British public embraced Kennedy, his appealing wife, Rose, and brood of nine handsome children. The luck of the Irish held as the ambassador scored a hole in one on his first round of golf at the Stoke Poges course in Buckinghamshire. Joe Kennedy's London life appeared charmed.

He may have been a favorite of the British people, but Joe Kennedy was not popular in government circles. Early in 1939 he angered FDR by attempting to consort with Nazis. Helmuth Wohlthat, an economic advisor to Reichsmarschall Hermann Goring, wanted to meet with Kennedy to consider an American gold loan to Germany. Kennedy's request to see the man was instantly turned down by a horrified FDR. Unabashed, Kennedy repeated the request, and again the President refused. Kennedy then, in direct contradiction of FDR's orders, allowed Wohlthat to come see him in London. Learning of the ambassador's insubordination, Roosevelt put a stop to any further encounters....

Ironically, during that May 20 encounter between Tyler Kent and Kennedy, an American ambassador who himself did not believe in the war, who ridiculed Britain's chances of' survival, and who practiced his own brand of anti-Semitism berated a lowly code clerk who shared both his politics and his prejudices. Kennedy treated the matter as he always did when his principles collided with his survival. He pulled the rug on Kent. Two days after his talk with the ambassador, Kent was fired by the State Department. Kennedy denied him diplomatic immunity, and the code clerk remained in the custody of the British. In this matter, at least, the President showed no disagreement with his ambassador's conduct. Kent's loss of immunity was instantly approved in Washington. Kennedy declared that if the United States had been at war during Kent's betrayal, he would have recommended that he be sent home and shot by a firing squad.

FDR had just returned from a dip in the White House pool when he received a transatlantic phone call from an uncharacteristically contrite Kennedy. Because of Tyler Kent's treachery, the Gray code, through which the President and Churchill communicated, had been compromised, the ambassador informed FDR. An American assistant secretary of state, Reckoning Long, reckoned the cost of Kent's disloyalty in his diary: "Appalling ... it means that not only are our codes cracked a dozen different ways, but that our every diplomatic maneuver was exposed to Germany and Russia. It is a terrible blow - almost a major catastrophe."

Tyler Kent was tried in secret in the Old Bailey on October 23, 1940, charged with violating Britain's Official Secrets Act and the Larceny Act for stealing the documents. Kent's defense attorney, a London barrister, Maurice Healy, argued that this court had no jurisdiction over an American whose arrest and trial were "entirely contrary to the general principles of international law and the comity of nations." After four days of testimony, however, it took the jury of twelve Englishmen only twenty-five minutes to find Kent guilty of endangering their Country. He was sentenced to seven years and, with equal secrecy, packed off to the windswept Isle of Wight, to a camp for political prisoners. In a separate trial, Anna Wolkoff received ten years.

The Churchill government found in the Kent-Wolkoff scandal just the provocation it wanted. Within forty-eight hours of Kent's arrest a massive roundup of British fascists took place, including the Jew-baiting Captain Ramsay. The Low Countries had fallen to Germany within days, and on June 20, France surrendered after only a shocking six weeks' struggle. Obviously, British leaders believed, Poland, Luxembourg, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, and France could not have fallen under Hitler's heel simply because they were weak. Fifth columnists had to be the answer. The British were convinced that Norway had been flooded with German "tourists" before the invasion. German parachutists who dropped into the Netherlands were rumored to have been guided by enemy agents signaling them from the ground. The contagion of suspicion crossed the Atlantic, and FDR eagerly embraced the conspiracy rationale.