by Noel Behn
During 1953, an autobiography Lindbergh had been working on for a dozen years was published under the title The Spirit of St. Louis. The book became a best-seller, received a Pulitzer Prize, was made into a movie, which starred James Stewart as Lindbergh, and earned the author a substantial amount of money.
On April 7, 1954, by order of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, not only was Lindy’s commission restored, but Lindbergh was upgraded and sworn in as a brigadier general in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. At the same time he was appointed to the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, which put an official certification on the work he had been doing for his country since the war’s end. That year was also a time of loss. Lindbergh’s mother, Evangeline, died, a passing he did not take well. The following year, 1955, Elizabeth Morrow, Anne’s mother, died. The fortune she left added to the Lindberghs’ already substantial wealth.
Anne broke away from the rigors of raising a family and coping with a famous husband to write A Gift from the Sea—a book dealing with the many problems confronting a contemporary woman, mother, and wife—which became a best-seller and made her into one of the most popular authors of the decade. In 1970 Charles published his wartime diaries.
Lindbergh’s priorities had changed dramatically. He saw other dangers beyond communism, and far graver jeopardy. The Lone Eagle had begun to oppose the very science and technology for which he had been the symbol and spokesman most of his adult life. Nature, not progress, was the answer. He was against the building of the SST, which he saw as an environmental hazard. For a man who remained inveterately skeptical of people and manipulative and devious in many of his dealings with them, he at long last found a species he could trust: animals. Always an insatiable traveler, he visited every corner of the earth and became actively involved with the World Wildlife Fund as well as the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and its Survival Service Commission, the Nature Conservancy, and the Oceanic Foundation. He was in the forefront of those protecting the whales, the Alaskan polar bears, the one-horned rhinoceros of Java, marine life in Hawaii, and countless other endangered species. He found peace and solitude on the Hawaiian island of Maui, where he and Anne built their final home.
In 1974, Charles Lindbergh was hospitalized in New York City. Told he was suffering from an advanced form of lymphatic cancer and didn’t have long to live, Lindy insisted on flying back to Maui. He spent his final days getting his affairs in order and preparing for his death and funeral. He lapsed into a coma on the evening of August 25, 1974. The next morning at 7:15, with Anne by his side, he expired.
Badgered by an unrelenting hostile press and fervid antagonists within the New Jersey Republican party, Harold Hoffman did what he could in the wake of Bruno Richard Hauptmann’s execution to shore up his political career. Rather than backing off from the Hauptmann matter as advisers urged—he was desperately short of funds as well—the governor doggedly tried to continue with the investigation that had played such havoc with his life. It didn’t matter that no one cared or was listening; Harold Hoffman insisted on proving he was right about the case and that everyone else was wrong. It was exactly what his enemies wanted.
Despite the bipartisan setbacks he had encountered, Hoffman still entertained national political ambitions. With the 1936 elections coming up, his supporters thought it feasible for the governor to maneuver himself into being a presidential or vice-presidential nominee. In a way he had no other choice—and nothing to lose. A New Jersey governor by law could not succeed himself in office. This was providential, since there was a strong likelihood that if allowed to run, Hoffman would not have received his party’s nomination.
Harold Hoffman later blamed his humiliating reversals of fortune not on the policies of his administration, such as the ill-fated tax legislation, but solely on the stand he took regarding Bruno Richard Hauptmann and the kidnapping. In a series of articles for Liberty published during the early months of 1938 and entitled “What Went Wrong with the Lindbergh Case: The Crime, the Case, the Challenge,” the by then ex-governor defended his actions in an often rambling, often detailed account of what brought him into the fray and why he’d done what he’d done. His written belief in Hauptmann’s complicity ranged from none at all to that of a mild coconspirator, but the general tenor of the articles was clearly on the side of the German carpenter not having been involved.
One thing Harold Hoffman was able to maneuver was a $12,000-a-year job for himself as executive director of New Jersey’s Unemployment Compensation Commission, the UCC, from which he mounted a nonstop campaign to be elected the GOP’s gubernatorial candidate in the 1940 primary elections. His effort was vigorous but fell short when he lost, just barely, to the candidate of his perennial enemy, the Clean Government Group. In June of 1942, with World War II in full sway, he received a commission in the U.S. Army’s transport command. In June of 1946, he separated from the army with the temporary rank of colonel and returned to his post at the Unemployment Compensation Commission. When the administration of Governor Alfred E. Driscoll formed the Division of Employment Security within the state’s Labor and Industry Department, Harold Hoffman left the UCC and became the DES’s first administrator, a post that paid $13,500 per annum. He implemented his income as a dinner speaker, thanks in part to his own popularity and in part to the Thomas Brady Agency, which booked most of the engagements. His gratis performances were usually in New York City, as the ringmaster of bashes sponsored by the Circus, Saints and Sinners, an organization that had made him its honorary life president.
Robert B. Meyner, a Democrat, was installed as governor of New Jersey on March 18, 1954. Rumors of improprieties in Hoffman’s handling of state funds had been wafting for some time, and during his first month in office, Governor Meyner asked two respected businessmen to make a survey of the accusations. Their findings left little doubt that state money had been intentionally mismanaged, if not stolen. Presented with the preliminary findings at a meeting with Meyner and the state’s attorney general, H. Norman Schwarzkopf, who was now head of the Department of Law and Safety, was asked if he could objectively investigate the case, in light of his well-publicized conflicts with Hoffman over the Lindbergh crime. Asked by Meyner if he thought he could carry on an unbiased inquiry, Schwarzkopf answered in the affirmative. He was assigned to delve further into the charges, two of which asserted that Hoffman had improperly transferred some $2.5 million of state funds to a bank run by a friend of his—and that he had deposited $300,000 from New Jersey’s disability fund into his own bank in South Amboy, where it had lain in a dormant account, drawing no interest for the state.
That same afternoon Governor Meyner suspended Harold Hoffman from his state job pending a full investigation into his financial affairs. Hoffman loyalists went on the attack, assailing Meyner for a political witch-hunt even before the details were made public. The Democrats knew only part of the story. When all the facts came to light, the picture painted was unnerving. Harold Hoffman, plagued by debt, had, among other things, sold political favors and fallen victim to blackmail.
The crisis began during Hoffman’s successful bid for a congressional seat in 1926. A running mate reneged on a promise to pay Hoffman’s campaign expenses, which came to $17,000. Life in Washington, D.C., and “the expensive naïveté of a newcomer congressman” saw the initial $17,000 debt sharply increase.15 Costs incurred by his private investigation of the Lindbergh-Hauptmann case aggravated the matter. Dunned by creditors who could imperil his political reputation, Harold Hoffman began to draw on inactive accounts at the bank of which he was still president. When he stepped down as governor in 1938, his borrowing had reached $300,000. To avoid disclosure, he was forced to pay another $150,000 to a state official who was blackmailing him.
On May 1, 1954, less than two months after his suspension by Governor Meyner—with the investigation into his affairs continuing and most of the truth not yet known—Harold Hoffman gave his eldest daughter, Ada, a letter to be opened only after his dea
th. A month and three days following that, on June 4, he was found dead in the New York City apartment of the Circus, Saints and Sinner’s organization, which he often used. Most reports assert that he died of a heart attack while bending over to tie or untie his shoe. Rumors floated to the effect that he committed suicide. Ten thousand people are said to have attended his funeral. Intense pressure was put on Governor Meyner to clear the name of Harold Giles Hoffman.
“The governor had personal problems that interfered with the investigation,” Harry Green revealed. “There was only so much he could do to prove she was the one. Time ran out before this happened. But we were close.”16
In the letter to his daughter Ada, opened posthumously, Harold Hoffman admitted to the embezzlement and apologized for the sad heritage bequeathed his family. “Morality, in its ultimate determination,” the fallen ex-governor wrote, “is a funny thing.”17
Image Gallery
Lindbergh and his mother, Evangeline, prior to the flight. (Library of Congress)
The ransom letter allegedly left in the nursery the night of March 1, 1932.
Two views of the Lindbergh estate in Hopewell, NJ. Top photograph shows police examination of kidnapper’s appararent route of entry into nursery. (Library of Congress)
William J. “Wild Bill” Donovan, who may have been at the Lindbergh estate on the night of the disappearance. (Library of Congress)
Al Capone and an unidentified detective. (Library of Congress)
Gaston B. Means (Library of Congress)
Mrs. Evalyn Walsh McLean (Library of Congress)
Remains of baby found in the woods on Mount Rose.
Hauptmann’s garage, where ransom money was discovered. (Library of Congress)
Mrs. H. Norman Schwarzkopf accompanying Anne Lindbergh from the courthouse. (Library of Congress)
Charles Lindbergh testifying at the Hauptmann trial, January 3, 1935. (Library of Congress)
Jasfie Condon (left) with his friend and ex officio bodyguard Al Reich. (Library of Congress)
New Jersey’s court of pardons on their way to deliberate Hauptmann’s final fate, January 11, 1936. Governor Hoffman is third from the left. (Library of Congress)
Jacob J. Nosovitsky, “international spy” and master forger, fit most of the physical descriptions Condon gave regarding “Cemetery John.” (Journal American Morgue, University of Texas)
Naval Credential (possibly a forgery). The author found over sixty aliases for Nosovitsky, a third of which used the initials J. J. (Journal American Morgue, University of Texas)
Notes
Chapter 1 Moth to Flame
1. Conflicting figures exist regarding the distances between the Lindbergh estate and other locations. This is partially due to the changes in road construction, routing, and cartography since 1932. The FBI Summary Report of the crime (62–3057, February 16, 1934, New York) states that the Lindbergh house is located ten miles northwest of Princeton, New Jersey, twenty miles north of Trenton, New Jersey, and about fifty miles south of New York City. Traveling two different routes, the author found the current distances between the estate and New York City to be fifty-eight miles and sixty-one miles. The average driving time back in 1932 between the estate and Manhattan seems to have been approximately two hours.
2. Whipple, The Lindbergh Crime, 233.
3. This version of Wally Stroh’s story comes from Jesse William Pelletreau’s own writings (collection of the author), not from the accounts in the New York American.
4. Ibid.
Chapter 2 What the Police Were Told
1. Kennedy, The Airman and the Carpenter, 82.
2. There are minor contradictions concerning this call. In a statement made ten days later, Lindbergh claimed that he waited upstairs in the nursery while Whateley telephoned the Hopewell sheriff, and after finding out the phone lines were not cut, he personally called Colonel Henry Breckinridge (his lawyer) in New York City and after that made the call to the New Jersey State Police at Trenton (statement to Lieutenant John J. Sweeney, Newark Police Department, March 11, 1932, Lindbergh Archives). In his January 1935 testimony Lindbergh stated that after he found the telephone wires weren’t cut, he called the state police and then Colonel Breckinridge (transcripts of the State v. Bruno Richard Hauptmann, 1935, Lindbergh Archives). In the FBI Summary Report the claim is made that on arriving at the scene, Chief Harry H. Wolfe suggested to Lindbergh that he contact the state police, and this was done at 10:40. The facts seem to bear out the FBI, which in those days was still the BI, the Bureau of Investigation.
3. Corporal Joseph A. Wolf’s Major Initial Report, 371, March 1, 1932, Lindbergh Archives.
4. Ibid.
5. Lindbergh Archives.
Chapter 3 Crowded Idols
1. Charles A. Lindbergh, Autobiography of Values, 75.
2. Charles A. Lindbergh, quoted in Time, Time Capsule 1927, 37.
3. Time, January 7, 1928.
4. McElvaine, The Great Depression, 55.
5. In his Autobiography of Values, printed three years after his death, Lindbergh says the plane was flown to Rochester, New York, and serviced there (p. 126). According to a May 28, 1929, front-page box in the New York Times, the plane was at Roosevelt Field, where, on Lindbergh’s orders the day before, it was prepared for the trip.
6. In his Autobiography of Values, Lindbergh contends that after the wedding he and Anne slipped out of the Morrow house and “into the back of a big car and out of the gate without being recognized” (p. 127). Newspaper accounts of the event say the couple was seen driving out of the estate, and give some detail as to what they were wearing.
Chapter 4 The Eaglet
1. Donald E. Keyhole, Saturday Evening Post, May 30, 1931.
2. Anne Morrow Lindbergh, North to the Orient, 255; Kennedy, The Airman and the Carpenter, 48.
3. Kennedy, The Airman and the Carpenter, 49.
4. Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s statement to Lieutenant John J. Sweeney of the Newark Police Department, March 11, 1932, Lindbergh Archives.
5. Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s signed statement to Lieutenant John J. Sweeney and Detective Hugh Strong of the Newark Police Department, March 13, 1932, Lindbergh Archives and Harold Hoffman Collection.
6. The nursery’s bathroom was adjacent to the side of the nursery.
7. Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead, 225.
8. Bessie Mowat Gow quoted by Charles A. Lindbergh in his statement to the New Jersey State Police, March 11, 1932, Lindbergh Archives.
9. Charles A. Lindbergh quoted by Bessie Mowat Gow in her statement to the New Jersey State Police, March 3, 1932; Whipple, The Trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann, 164.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid., 115.
12. The FBI Summary Report’s title page alone misspells Whateley as Whately and refers to the Lindbergh family dog, Wahgoosh, as Trixie. Pages 49 and 50 refer to Lindbergh as forgetting “a speaking engagement” at New York University that was “given by the board of Regents.” Lindbergh was not to be a speaker but a guest of honor, and the dinner was held under the auspices of the Alumni Federation in cooperation with the alumni associations of several schools of NYU. The search through the forty-two-hundred-plus pages of material on the Lindbergh case at the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., was conducted by Joel Starr in March 1993.
Chapter 5 Old Enemies and Friends
1. Charles A. Lindbergh quoted in the New York Times, March 2, 1932.
2. The encounter between Charles A. Lindbergh and the Hearst journalists recounted in Vitray, The Great Lindbergh Hullabaloo, 22.
3. Ibid., 53.
4. Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead, 227.
5. Vitray, The Great Lindbergh Hullabaloo, 85.
6. New York Times, March 3, 1932.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
Chapter 6 Colonels
1. Kennedy, The Airman and the Carpenter, 93.
2. In 1907, the FB
I was known as the Special Agent Force. In 1908, it became the Bureau of Investigation. On July 1, 1932, its name was changed to the U.S. Bureau of Investigation. It became the Division of Investigation on August 1, 1933. On July 1, 1935, it was given the title Federal Bureau of Investigation.
3. Coakley, Jersey Troopers, 30.
4. Harry Green, interview with author, June 25, 1986, Los Angeles, California.
5. Coakley, Jersey Troopers, 57.
6. Ibid., 50.
7 Whipple, The Trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann, 7.
Chapter 7 Sleight of Hand
1. Bessie Mowat Gow, signed statement to Lieutenant John J. Sweeney and Detective Hugh Strong of the Newark Police Department, March 10, 1932, Harold Hoffman Collection.
2. Vitray, The Great Lindbergh Hullabaloo, 54.
3. New York Herald Tribune, March 3, 1932; Paul T. Gebhart quoted ibid.
4. Vitray, The Great Lindbergh Hullabaloo, 84–85.
Chapter 8 Noble Gangsters
1. A movie costing under one hundred thousand dollars was designated a B by the Hollywood studios of the day. An A movie cost over one hundred thousand dollars. The B was usually the second attraction in the popular double features of the day.
2. He was registered under the name of Kelly because he wasn’t allowed in the city.
3. William Kennedy, telephone conversation with author, March 1989.