in November 1940. Lothian played a central role in enlisting American support for economic aid to the British war effort. His change of view of Nazi intentions following the 1939 invasion of Czechoslovakia led him, as Ambassador to the United States, to seek a comprehensive program of aid for Britain. On 1 September 1939, Lothian arrived at the White House to present his credentials to President Roosevelt as His Britannic Majesty's Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the United States of America. The ritual, which was normally a formality under which the new ambassador presents his credentials to the president who then accepts them, was overshadowed by the news that Germany invaded Poland earlier that day. Most of the meeting was taken up with the discussion of the crisis in Europe with Roosevelt telling Lothian that he sympathised with the Allies with "every fibre", but that he had to obey the neutrality laws passed by Congress or else face impeachment for violating the law. Unlike Lindsay who chose to stay out of the limelight, Lothian aggressively sought media attention right from the moment he arrived in the United States. Lothian sought to engage in what he called "mutual education" by talking to the American media as much as possible, which won the disapproval of the Foreign Office, who felt that Lothian was debasing the office of an ambassador by acting like a salesman for an Anglo-American friendship. Lothian's various eccentricities and his sometimes erratic behavior also worried the Foreign Office. Lothian chose to engage in populist gestures and became a media star as the American historian Joseph Perisco noted that Lothian: "...grasped that Americans were much taken with bluebloods exhibiting a just-plain-folks demeanor. Thus, he wore a battered gray fedora, drove his own car, and bought his own train tickets when travelling in the United States." Lothian's sense of humor also appealed to Americans who liked an aristocrat who was not pompous or stuffy. One of Lothian's favorite jokes was to point out to American visitors a gigantic portrait of King George III that stood in the lobby of the embassy, saying this was the "founder of the American republic". Upon his arrival in Washington D.C., Lothian accepted the advice of Robert "Van" Vansittart, the Chief Diplomatic Adviser, to accept the services of a British historian living in the United States, John Wheeler-Bennett, the "archetypal Anglo-American intellectual-an Oxford don and visiting