Amid the turmoil of World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted a respected American to travel the globe boosting morale among the Allies. The itinerary included 13 countries on five continents, including China, the Soviet Union and the nations of the Middle East. FDR's choice of emissary might have seemed strange from a distance: He picked Wendell Willkie, the Republican he had defeated in the 1940 election.
Everything had changed after the Pearl Harbor attack on Dec. 7, 1941, and Willkie gladly undertook this mission on behalf of a Democratic president. When he returned from his trip, Willkie enthusiastically shared his advice with both Roosevelt and the rest of America: Humanity needed a one-world government to avoid a future filled with unimaginable horrors. The onetime GOP presidential nominee wasn't the first or last person to reach that conclusion, but his story is both striking and strange.
