Dr Simon Topping discusses Wendell Willkie: the most fascinating presidential candidate you’ve never heard of.
Willkie was an American lawyer, corporate executive, and the 1940 Republican nominee for President of the United States.
He tried unsuccessfully to unseat President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He subsequently became identified with his famous “One World” concept of international cooperation.
Willkie had been a Democrat in the early 1930s, but turned Republican because of what he felt to be unwise government restraints on business enterprise and Roosevelt’s New Deal.
Roosevelt later asked Willkie to be his informal personal representative on a trip to Britain early in World War Two.
Dr Simon Topping is Associate Professor in United States History in the School of Humanities at the University of Plymouth.