Joseph Kennedy, the father of JFK, was a rumrunner and a womanizer who used his money to become Ambassador to the United Kingdom during the presidency of FDR. Known for his anti-semitism and pro-Nazi views, his tenure as Ambassador was a trail for FDR, but he needed the financial support and Kennedy’s connections with the underworld and unions to win an election.

Kennedy was in London at the start of the Blitz but quickly moved his office away from the official Embassy to his home in the suburbs of London. Within the Foreign Office, the joke of the day was: “I always thought my daffodils were yellow until I met Joe Kennedy.”   The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson, pp 194