Why England Slept "The New York Times," to assist in redrafting the thesis, which had originally been titled "Appeasement At Munich". The writer Garry Wills claims that this assistance amounted to rewriting and retitling the manuscript, as well as finding an agent for its publication. As ambassador to Britain, Kennedy, Sr. supported Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement during the late 1930s. John F. Kennedy lived with his father in Britain at that time and as such witnessed the Luftwaffe's bombings of Britain first-hand. After publication in 1940, the book sold 80,000 copies in the United Kingdom and the United States, collecting
Friendly Fascism (book) comments that the book offers "faint hope of averting neofascism", but as a possible offset suggests raising aspirations, notably by "setting forth clear lofty goals, broad enough to embrace a great majority". Help may come from insiders since "bubbling upward from all levels of the Establishment are longings for fulfilling employment disconnected from consumer exploitation, environmental degradation, or militarism". Reviewer Dennis Phillips notes in the "Australian Journal of Law & Society" that Gross wrote "Friendly Fascism" before Ronald Reagan had become President of the United States, but Reagan's United States, presumed in part to be a result of neofascist techniques