another anti-war American ambassador?

[rob]

Ambassador Kennedy's opposition to FDR's plans to get the US into the war are pretty well known. In reading Goebbells diaries he mentions that the American ambassador to Belgium, one John Cudahy, who was also Harold Ickes uncle by marriage (Ickes was FDR's interior secretary) was in Berlin in 1941 and planning on meeting with Hitler. I believe that Cudahy was writing a book and so wanted to talk to Hitler, but the implication in Goebbels diary was that Cudahy was friendly toward Germany, that he had been impressed with the behavior of German troops in Belgium. Cudahy went back to the US where he died in 1943, unclear when he went back, or whether he spoke out at all against FDR.

[Cantankerous]

Ambassador Kennedy's opposition to FDR's plans to get the US into the war are pretty well known. In reading Goebbells diaries he mentions that the American ambassador to Belgium, one John Cudahy, who was also Harold Ickes uncle by marriage (Ickes was FDR's interior secretary) was in Berlin in 1941 and planning on meeting with Hitler. I believe that Cudahy was writing a book and so wanted to talk to Hitler, but the implication in Goebbels diary was that Cudahy was friendly toward Germany, that he had been impressed with the behavior of German troops in Belgium. Cudahy went back to the US where he died in 1943, unclear when he went back, or whether he spoke out at all against FDR.

Although this thread is two decades old, I should emphasize that John Cudahy was commissioned by a 1941 issue of the Life Magazine to interview Hitler, which he did by interviewing the Führer at Berghof.