[7]As a young man Philip Kerr's appearance was usually untidy, to the despair of his friends, but it was redeemed by his boyish good looks and a lack of self-consciousness, typified by his arrival at Westminster Abbey, with his ermine, for the coronation of George V in a tiny Austin 7.

Inspired by The Federalist Papers that led to the modern American constitution, Kerr founded in December 1908 a journal called The States that was published in both English and Afrikaans that urged for the federation of the four colonies and Dominion status.

At a meeting in London in January 1910, Kerr called for "an organic union to be brought about by the establishment of an imperial government constitutionally responsible to all the electors of the Empire, and with the power to act directly on individual citizens".

[18] In a June 1933 article in the Round Table Lothian had urged that nations should be on their guard ' for history warns us that dictatorships and brutality and worship of force at home tend in due time express themselves also in foreign affairs. '

[24] On 18 February 1919, Kerr advised Lloyd George that the only way to persuade the French to drop their demand for severing the Rhineland from Germany would be for an Anglo-American commitment to defend France against renewed German aggression.

[27] Kerr was very strongly opposed to the French plans to separate the Rhineland from the Reich as "unreasonable", writing in a letter to Lloyd George on 3 March 1919 he favoured peace "terms which gave the German people some hope and some independence".

Lloyd George retired for a weekend to the Hotel d'Angleterre in the Paris suburb of Fontainebleau together with Kerr and his closest advisers to discuss what peace terms should be sought with the main fear being of driving Germany towards Soviet Russia.

[37] He admired Rhodes ideal to promote 'the union of the English speaking peoples' to render war impossible and to achieve these purposes by providing a liberal education for young men of promise – and at Oxford – such ends and such means were entirely after the new Secretary's heart.

It needed to prepare them for the great expansion and development within the US borders, not only those who originated primarily from the Eastern States but the enormous numbers coming from Europe, and for a civilised life – roads, railways, automobiles, factories, law courts, churches and so on.

The onerousness of these terms, when they were finally set, combined with the loss of German territories under the Peace settlement, he thought was a great mistake and gave rise to an enormous festering resentment in Germany.

The "Black Horror on the Rhine" allegations – despite being mostly false – had done much to shift British sympathies away from France, which was accused of letting Senegalese soldiers engage in gross sexual violence against German women in the Rhineland, and towards Germany.

Lothian was against demands that Britain boycott the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, writing in a letter to The Times on 11 July 1935 that: ' I do not believe that individual protests under existing circumstances will have any effect except to salve our own consciences. '

These views Lothian expressed in an address to Chatham house and in a long letter to Anthony Eden, the new Foreign Secretary, with a copy to Chamberlain [75] on ways to improve Anglo-German relations, which cast France as the main problem in European affairs.

[35] In support of this thesis, Lothian cited the referendums held in the Third Reich where the Nazis always won 99% of the votes cast, accepting at face value Hitler's statement that the plebiscites were " the form of democracy appropriate to Germany ".

[65] A month later, he wrote to Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden: ' Personally I believe that, if we assist Germany to escape from encirclement to a position of balance in Europe, there is a good chance of the 25 years of peace of which Hitler spoke '.

President Wilson's lack of success, even at the cost of his own health and life, in persuading the American Congress to join his concept, the League of Nations, the Covenant of which was the foundation upon which much of the Peace Conference guarantees rested, was a serious setback.

[31] However, the fact that Lothian as the general secretary of the Rhodes Trust had often visited the United States; had many American friends including President Roosevelt; and was well known as a proponent of closer Anglo-American ties led Halifax to override Cadogan's objections.

On 1 September 1939, Lothian arrived at the White House to present his credentials to his longstanding friend President Roosevelt as His Britannic Majesty's Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the United States of America.

[101] Unlike Lindsay who chose to stay out of the limelight, Lothian aggressively sought media attention right from the moment he arrived in the United States to get the British message across directly to the American people.

[110] To counter this impression Lothian quietly formed the British Information Services in New York and put Wheeler-Bennett and Aubrey Niel Morgan, (brother-in-law of aviator Charles Lindbergh although he did not share his views) in charge.

[111] Lothian wrote to Halifax about how important the views of ordinary Americans were: "To an extant unknown under the parliamentary system, it is public opinion as revealed in the press, the Gallup polls, the tornado of telegrams addressed to Congress" that were the deciding influence on the Administration's and Congressional actions.

[114] Lothian told Moffat that he "wanted to be of help" while a dispatch to Lord Halifax presented the issue as a matter of public relations, warning that the blockade was damaging Britain's image in the United States.

On June 1, 1940 The New York Times in an editorial reflecting the views of many Americans described the evacuation, ' So long as the English tongue survives, the word Dunkirk will be spoken with reverence...' [121] For in that harbour in such a hell ... at the end of a lost battle, the rags and blemishes that have hidden the soul of democracy fell away.

[113] Lothian also pointed out that the political advantage of the destroyers-for-bases deal, namely if the British were willing to give up their bases in the Caribbean Sea, Bermuda, and Newfoundland to protect the United States in exchange for 50 elderly destroyers, it would encourage US reciprocity in further aid for Britain.

[137] On September 3, two months before the Presidential election vote, the improbable mid-election Destroyers-for-Bases Agreement was announced by the Commander-in-Chief, President Roosevelt, through Executive Order (after it was arranged that he had received leading legal advice that it was constitutional).

Churchill subsequently wrote of his ambassador during the critical days of that early summer: ' As the tension of events mounted, not only did Lothian develop a broad comprehension of the scene, but his eye penetrated deeply.'

There were then seven overrun Governments in Exile in Britain at the time; Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg and the self appointed representative of free France, General Charles de Gaulle.

The roll of honour for the Battle of Britain recognises 595 non-British pilots (out of 2,936) These included 145 Poles, 127 New Zealanders, 112 Canadians, 88 Czechoslovaks, 10 Irish, 32 Australians, 28 Belgians, 25 South Africans, 13 French, 9 Americans, 3 Southern Rhodesians and individuals from Jamaica, Barbados and the then Dominion of Newfoundland.

First there was Dunkirk.... Then came Mr. Winston Churchill, with almost the whole rest of the world on the run, standing undaunted in the breach, defying...Hitler and National Socialism, and inviting his fellow countrymen not to appeasement or retreat but to resistance at the price of blood, suffering, sweat and tears.... Then followed the great air battles of August and September in which the Germans lost nearly 200 machines in a day and five to six to one in pilots.

It has long been clear that your security no less than ours depends upon us holding the Atlantic impregnable and you the Pacific... We have both, therefore, a vital interest in decisively defeating the now rapidly maturing naval attack on British communications.