In the novel, King George VI, the British royal family and the Prime Minister Winston Churchill fled into exile in Canada. Edward VIII regained the British throne soon afterwards, with Wallis Simpson as his queen. The US defeated Japan in 1945 and used nuclear weapons, as in real life. Germany tested its first atomic bomb in 1946 and fired a non-nuclear "V-3" missile above New York City to demonstrate its ability to attack the Continental United States with long-range missiles. Thus, after a peace treaty in 1946, the US and Germany are the novel's two superpower opponents in the Cold War. Another significant divergence is the political career of Joseph Kennedy, who in real life was disgraced in 1940 during the Battle of Britain. In the novel, for an unexplained reason, his political fortunes did not suffer or possibly recovered after the German victory, and he eventually became US President and is seeking re-election in 1964.