Mayor Fiorello La Guardia appointed Blanshard head of the New York City Department of Investigations and Accounts in 1934. Blanshard's exposures of graft and corruption attracted national attention. These efforts were not possible without learning the complex role in power politics played by the Archdiocese of New York. This admixture of and contests of church and state provoked his curiosity. Fifty years old by the onset of World War II, Blanshard served the State Department as an official in Washington and the Caribbean. As an atheist, he observed the role of religion in these settings generally, but began to focus more upon the specifics and the influence of the Roman Catholic Church.