John Cudahy

Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on December 10, 1887, John Cudahy trained as a lawyer before moving into public service. During Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency, he held a series of diplomatic appointments, serving as Ambassador to Poland from 1933 to 1937, then as Minister to Ireland, and later as Ambassador to Belgium and Minister to Luxembourg.

Those postings put him at the center of a fast-changing Europe in the years just before World War II. That background helped shape his later writing, which drew on firsthand experience of international politics and diplomacy.

He died in 1943. Remembered both as a diplomat and an author, Cudahy stands out as a figure whose public career and writing were closely connected.