Winston Churchill succeeded Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, taking office in 1940. Churchill denounced Chamberlain’s failed negotiations with Hitler as “the stupidest thing that has ever been done.” Yet, Gladwell contends, Churchill never met with Hitler face-to-face and would have no idea how he would have responded to Hitler’s lies in person, since humans are fundamentally bad at detecting when a person is lying to their face.