A DEEPLY FLAWED HERO
CHARLES A. LINDBERGH
1902-1976
EXPLORER, INVENTOR, ISOLATIONIST, AND MOST FAMOUS AVIATOR OF THE 20TH CENTURY

When I was twelve, my parents took my three sisters and me to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., where we saw hanging from the ceiling The Spirit of St. Louis, the plane that Charles A. Lindbergh piloted solo for 33 ½ hours from New York to Paris, France. We could scarcely believe that little plane could fly 3600 miles over the Atlantic Ocean without touching down to re-fuel.

On May 20, 1927 Charles Lindbergh took off alone in that tiny aircraft from Roosevelt airfield in Long Island New York, barely clearing the trees and wires at the end of the runway, and became an international hero.

In 1929 he married Anne Spenser Morrow, the daughter of the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico. He taught her to fly and together they charted new flying routes throughout the world. She became famous for her writings and her poetry.

On March 1, 1932 their twenty-month old son Charles, Jr., was kidnapped from their home in New Jersey. Ten weeks later his body was found. Bruno Hauptmann, a carpenter and German immigrant, was arrested for the murder and executed in 1936. The publicity over the trial and execution generated such a feeding frenzy in the media that the Lindberghs moved to Europe for their privacy and safety.

While in Europe between 1931 and 1935, Lindbergh invented an "artificial heart" for Alexis Carrell, a French surgeon and biologist. Lindbergh's device could pump the substances necessary for life throughout the tissues of an organ.

Lindbergh was asked by the German and French government to evaluate their aircraft industries. He was very impressed with the German airplanes, which he thought were far superior to those of the USA, and he conveyed that information to our government.

At a banquet in Germany honoring Lindbergh, Herman Goering, a high ranking German official, presented Lindbergh with the German medal of honor. Lindbergh’s wife, Anne, was not pleased, saying that the medal was an “albatross” the Germans were hanging around her husband’s neck. Her statement proved to be true because in the USA he was harshly criticized for accepting the medal at a time when the German government under Adolf Hitler was threatening to exterminate the Jews and to invade and dominate European nations. Lindbergh, however, never returned the medal.

In 1939 Lindbergh and his wife returned to the United States where he became a staunch supporter of the American First Movement, which opposed our country joining Britain and France in the war with Germany. Lindbergh became an isolationist. He denounced international bankers and the Jews for trying to lead us into war.

When President Franklin D. Roosevelt publicly denounced him, Lindbergh resigned his commission as colonel in the United States Army Air Corps. Many Americans accused Lindbergh of being a Nazi sympathizer and an anti-Semite.

After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Lindbergh tried to re-enlist, but Roosevelt refused his request because he believed Lindbergh’s sympathies were with the Nazis. Lindbergh then served as a technical adviser and test pilot for the Ford Motor Company and United Aircraft Corporation.

In April 1944, Lindbergh went to the Pacific war area as an adviser to the United States Army and Navy. Although he was a civilian, he “unofficially” flew about 50 combat missions against the Japanese. Lindbergh also developed cruise control techniques that increased the capabilities of American fighter planes.

After the War, Lindbergh withdrew from public attention, working as a consultant to the U.S. Air Force chief of staff. President Dwight D. Eisenhower restored Lindbergh's commission and appointed him a brigadier general in the Air Force in 1954. Lindbergh also advised Pan American World Airways on its purchase of jet transports and eventually helped design the Boeing 747 jet. In 1953, he published The Spirit of St. Louis, an expanded account of his 1927 transatlantic flight. The book won a Pulitzer Prize in 1954.

Lindbergh spent the rest of his life involved in the conservation movement, working with World Wildlife and traveling the world.

In 1973 he was diagnosed with lymphoma. His lifelong need for control was evident even as he approached death in a remote part of Hawaii at age 74. He specified every aspect of his funeral, burial and memorial service. He was buried on the island of Maui where he and Anne owned a home. His death was not announced for eight hours after his burial because he did not want reporters and the curious to intrude on the peace of Maui.

He had five surviving children, Jon, Land, Anne, Scott and Reeve. His wife Anne died in 2001 and was also the writer of several successful books.

A. Scott Berg, one of Lindbergh’s biographers, claims that the marriage of Charles and Anne was not a happy one and tells of instances when Charles behaved with great insensitivity, especially following the death of their son when he would not allow Anne to weep in his presence.

Berg said of Lindbergh that he “had the greatest breadth and depth in his thinking,” but added, “I would have enjoyed spending time with him, but I certainly wouldn’t have wanted him to be my father. He was a very cold customer.”

An obituary for Anne Morrow Lindbergh published in the Economist also points out Charles Lindbergh’s lack of warmth and inability to relate to others:

”The simple facts of Anne Lindbergh’s life are that she married Charles Lindbergh, the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic, a feat that briefly made him the world’s most famous man; and that she endured what was called the “crime of the century” when their first child was kidnapped and found murdered. But Anne, far from being a simple soul, was interestingly complicated. Her husband was the simple one, a man happy mainly with machines.”

Sources: Jon Blackwell; A.Scott Berg; Heather L. Dahl

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