My Association with Tyler G. Kent

Tyler Kent [American diplomat and alleged spy] contributed much to my position [on revisionst issues relating to World War II]. He knew that Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), Churchill, and their Jewish ‘advisors’ were adamant about starting a war to destroy Germany. He also knew that the largest beneficiary of such a war would be the USSR. I know I told you that I’d read somewhere along the way that FDR told Secretary of State Cordell Hull to get Ambassador to Poland, William Bullitt, to "put some iron up the backside" of the Poles to resist Hitler’s very conciliatory proposals regarding Danzig and the Corridor. Being a member of the diplomatic corps and a decoding agent for the US Embassies (first in Moscow, then in London ) Kent was privy to so much that was going on. He was sharing some of that info with British royalty who opposed Churchill and the anti-German crowd in the British government, and he learnt from them what they knew. I know that Mr. Kent was sympathetic to Oswald Mosely and that he had contact socially with pro-German and/or anti-war British aristocracy. He told me that his boss was covertly very anti-Jew and shared his (Kent’s) own feelings about the efforts by FDR and Churchill to get a war started. Tyler Kent understood that when he got caught [in 1940 and tried and convicted under the 1911 Official Secrets Act], Joseph Kennedy had to disavow him to both FDR and to the British authorities, and never blamed Kennedy for what happened to him.

The reason Tyler Kent got arrested was because he made copies of the messages between FDR and Churchill after he decoded them. His job was to decode them, then encode replies back to FDR. This was correspondence directly between the American president and Churchill – who, at that time, was not even Prime Minister. His position then was First Lord of the Admiralty – akin to the US Secretary of the Navy. That correspondence in itself was certainly a breach of protocol, as FDR was dealing covertly with a lesser minister of the government on such vital issues.

I asked Mr. Kent how many messages he decoded and copied, and he said "hundreds." Keep in mind that the war was not yet underway and yet these two (FDR and Churchill) were conniving and writing in language that said they knew it would be a certainty. Once the war actually started September 1, 1939, the tone of the correspondence became urgent regarding getting the US into it. After Churchill replaced Chamberlain, communication between these two warmongers continued to be covert. The reason for that was, FDR was facing strong opposition to US entry into the "European quarrel" from over 80% of the American people as well as many politicians and well-known patriots. Kent told me that in the early stages of the war, when Germany was battering all opposition and kicked the Brits off the Continent at Dunkirk, Churchill’s messages evinced panic at times. FDR’s responses were that he was trying his best to get us into the war but the "damned Germans won’t take the bait." He let Churchill know that he was scheming with his own plotters to goad Japan into war, as he (FDR) knew that Hitler would honor his mutual defense agreement with the Japanese.

Tyler Kent did break US law by making those copies. He told me that his intention was to get them to the America First Committee so that they could expose FDR, who was continuously telling Americans, "I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – I will not send your boys to fight in any European war!" Actually, a few Americans did know of FDR’s covert hypocrisy, but could not prove it. Kent had the proof.

He kept the decoded correspondence in his flat. He went out one evening, and when he returned, London police were inside his flat (I’m sure there was a British MI agent or two with them), had rifled every container, and found the messages. They placed him under arrest (though he had broken no British law), and he then had to call his boss, Joseph Kennedy. Kennedy was furious. Kent had diplomatic immunity, and Kennedy had to contact FDR about what had happened. Of course FDR was scared to death and wanted to make sure that ALL copies Kent had made were seized. They were. If I may digress a bit here, I’m sure that FDR was feeling the same panic that LBJ felt when Lee H. Oswald did not walk into the trap set for him and instead, temporarily escaped. LBJ delayed leaving Texas until Oswald was in custody. The guilty will react in that manner in the heat of the moment.

FDR ordered Kennedy to waive Kent’s diplomatic immunity and let them hold him for trial. The Brits, with some fancy footwork and language, charged him with violating some vague home-security law of theirs. They held his trial ‘in camera’ (secrecy, no public allowed), found him guilty, and put him in prison on the Isle of Wight. They kept him there until 1947!!! He said he was well-treated while in prison and given daily newspapers. All correspondence to or from him was closely monitored and censored.

It took 2 years after the war, and some devoted work by Kent’s mother and a few Congressmen, to get him released. His release was conditional – that if he ever spoke or wrote about what was in those messages, he would be tried again, for treason, and either executed or imprisoned for life. He agreed to those terms so that he could come home.

When he came to Victoria in October and November of 1984 and visited in my home, he said that the ADL was keeping constant tabs on him. We had been conducting written correspondence for a maybe a year before we actually met. When we began corresponding, he lived near the Mexican border in South Texas at Harlingen, but moved to the Texas Hill Country near Kerrville, at the small community of Ingram. He was a very health-conscious man and was in good shape for his age. There is more I could write about his being here and our conversations, but I will save that for another time.