Tyler Kent

Tyler Gatewood Kent was born on March 24, 1911, in Yingkou (Newchwang), northern China, where his father, William P. Kent, was serving as the American Consul. The family had strong roots in Virginia. Kent’s English forebears settled there in 1644. President John Tyler was a distant relative. A grandfather was Speaker of the Virginia Assembly and lieutenant governor.

While working as a code clerk in the American Embassy when the United States was still neutral and not entered into WW2, Kent decided to make copies of certain diplomatic dispatches documenting Roosevelt’s secret war policies. He had hoped to alert certain congressmen and senators.

This eventually led to arrest and cost him five years in prison in England. He was 29 years old at the time. He was never charged by an American court but by the British authorities.  Many lies have been invented about Tyler Kent, libeling him as a spy for Germany. He was a genuine patriotic American who was sacrificed by his own government.  He wanted the war mongering of Roosevelt exposed and stopped. The secret dossiers he translated were proof that the American president worked very hard to join the British to fight Germany. Had Kent’s interceptions in 1939 to 1941 become a public scandal, he would have been a hero to the  patriotic  opposition to the war and possible, war for the US could have been avoided.

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