Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.
In 1938, the U.S. [[Air Attaché]] in Berlin invited Lindbergh to inspect the rising power of [[Luftwaffe|Nazi Germany's Air Force]]. Impressed by German technology and the apparently-large number of aircraft at their disposal and influenced by the staggering number of deaths from [[World War I]], he opposed U.S. entry into the impending European conflict. At the urging of U.S. Ambassador [[Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.|Joseph Kennedy]], Lindbergh wrote a secret memo to the British warning that a military response by Britain and France to Hitler's violation of the [[Munich Agreement]] would be disastrous; he claimed that France was militarily weak and Britain over-reliant on its navy. He urgently recommended that they strengthen their air power to force Hitler to redirect his aggression against "Asiatic [[Communism]]".