"In Contact with the Enemy: The Nazi Spy and US Navy Lieutenant JF Kennedy" by David Kohnen, Ph.D.

December 12th, 2019 "In Contact with the Enemy: The Nazi Spy and U.S. Navy Lieutenant John F. Kennedy" A presentation by David Kohnen, Ph.D. Having secured a reserve commission in the U.S. Navy, Lieutenant John F. Kennedy served as the aide to the Director of Naval Intelligence at the Navy Department in Washington, D.C. In this role, he received unique access to high grade intelligence sources as American naval forces waged a quasi-war in the Atlantic during the months preceding the Imperial Japanese attacks in the Pacific. Yet, after the Federal Bureau of Investigation unveiled evidence of a very close relationship with a suspected Nazi spy, Kennedy was hastily assigned to Rhode Island. He volunteered for duty in Motor Torpedo Boats and, as a result, Kennedy won fame as a U.S. Naval hero of the Second World War -- eventually becoming President of the United States. Biography: David Kohnen earned the PhD with the Laughton Professor of Naval History in the War Studies Department at the University of London (King's College London). He is the author of 21st Century Knox: Influence, Sea Power, and History for the Modern Era (Naval Institute Press, 2016) and Commanders Winn and Knowles: Winning the U-Boat War with Intelligence (Enigma Press, 1999). Looking to the future, Kohnen examines the underlying influence of history upon "sea power" in, Two Kings and a Navy: U.S. Navy Admiral Ernest J. King, the Anglo-American Special Relationship, and the Fifty Years War at Sea, 1901-1946 (under contract, Naval Institute Press).