The man (Louie Steven Witt) was asked to come forward and explain his actions before Congress, and he testified that the umbrella was a protest of Joseph Kennedy’s appeasement policies when he was ambassador to the Court of St. James’s in 1938–39. The umbrella was a reference to the umbrella often carried by British prime minister Neville Chamberlain. This is not as random as it may seem. An open umbrella was a common protest of appeasement policies.
