Lindbergh

by A. Scott Berg

  Anne had never seen her husband so galvanized. She watched with envy and awe as he plotted a course of political action for himself; and she sometimes questioned why she did not feel equally passionate. Because their marriage had made Anne so utterly dependent upon Charles for most of her feelings and actions, she hardly allowed herself to see that she did not actually share all his political views. Living less with Charles than through him, she only knew that she was feeling incomplete and unfulfilled—and mildly depressed. That summer, most unexpectedly, Anne found inspiration, and even more, as she fell in love with another man.

  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was not yet forty but already an international legend. A pioneering airmail pilot, his yearning for adventure had led him across the cities of Europe, the mountains of South America, and the deserts of Africa. Born to a notable family without money, he had grown up without a father and become unusually close to his mother. This nomad who appreciated nature was six-foot-two, shy but exuding sex appeal. Anne Lindbergh had never met anybody like him.

  Unlike Charles Lindbergh, “Saint-Ex,” was not only a man of action and science but also of philosophy and art—an aviator unafraid of expressing emotion. He was lauded in his native France as the first prose-poet laureate of the skies—the celebrated author of Night Flight and Wind, Sand and Stars. (He would soon write and illustrate The Little Prince, a perennial bestseller that would make him France’s most widely translated author.) And he liked to perform card tricks.

  Anne read Wind, Sand and Stars upon its American publication in the summer of 1939 and found it contained all she “ever wanted to say and more of flying and time and human relationships.” Seeing a kinship between their books, her French publishers enlisted Saint-Exupéry to write a one-page preface to their forthcoming edition of Listen! The Wind. Upon reading Mrs. Lindbergh’s book, however, Saint-Exupéry wrote nine pages, a penetrating analysis of both the work and the author. When she learned that he was then in New York City, she found the nerve to invite him to Lloyd Neck for dinner and the night.

  With Charles off at a meeting, she picked him up at the Ritz and was surprised to find him stooped and balding and “not at all good looking.” Nonetheless, she fell instantly under the spell of his “inscrutable” face and intense dark eyes. Anne drove just a block from his hotel when her car stalled and refused to restart. They pulled over to a repair shop, then took a taxi to Pennsylvania Station. Waiting for a train to Long Island, they sat on high stools at a counter and drank orangeade, like a pair of teenagers on a date. They nattered in French all the way to Huntington, about everything from aviation to their mutual admiration of Rilke. Despite Anne’s rusty French, they spoke the same language. Before long, they were finishing each other’s sentences.

  “It was very exciting,” Anne would write in one of the longest entries to be found among decades of diaries.

  Perhaps it was only because it was almost the first time anyone had talked to me purely on my craft. Not because I was a woman to be polite to, to charm with superficials, not because I was my father’s daughter or C.’s wife; no, simply because of my book, my mind, my craft. I have a craft! And someone who is master of that craft, who writes beautifully, thinks I know enough about my craft to want to compare notes about it, to want to fence with my mind, steel against steel.

  More than sparks filled the air. “Summer lightning,” she wrote in her diary.

  Charles was not waiting for them at the station nor back at the house. Peculiarly, he got caught in traffic that night and did not return home until ten o’clock. Anne and Saint-Exupéry carried on their spirited conversation, barely interrupting its flow when he returned, for Lindbergh hardly spoke a word of French. They sat up until midnight, with Anne summing up her two-thousand-word entry exclaiming, “What an incredible day!”

  The next morning Charles steered the conversation to the war—Germany’s strength, England’s strategy, France’s struggle. After dropping Saint-Exupéry off at a friend’s house for lunch, Anne commented to Charles that she feared the Frenchman would be killed if he continued flying.

  They picked him up at five and brought him home for a swim, supper, and a walk along the beach. Conversation continued for hours. By the time they all retired, again at midnight, Anne was practically beside herself. “When one finds a person who has the same thought as yours,” she wrote in the most uninhibitedly jubilant pages she had written in years, “you cry out for joy, you go and shake him by the hand. Your heart leaps as though you were walking in a street in a foreign land and you heard your own language spoken, or your name in a room full of strangers.” It had been a most unusual weekend, one of the few times in the Lindbergh marriage in which Charles was not the center of attention.

  The next day, the Lindberghs drove their guest into the city. Charles became so engrossed in a fable Saint-Exupéry was relating that, until his engine began to sputter, he did not notice that he had run out of gas. Lindbergh was plainly embarrassed; but, fortunately, they stalled on a downgrade just before the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge and coasted into a gas station just ahead. At last they parted. Charles was pleased to have made his acquaintance. Anne was changed forever.

  “In Saint-Exupéry,” one of her oldest friends would later confide, “Anne saw that a man of machinery could also be a man of poetry. Oh, there’s no doubt, she fell in love—not just with Saint-Exupéry … but with all the possibilities he embodied. For the first time she understood that she did not have to remain trapped under her husband’s foot forever and that her marriage contract contained an escape clause.”

  Anne was hardly about to leave her husband; and, indeed, Saint-Exupéry already had a wife and mistress. Instead, she reinvested her new feelings into her decade-old marriage, renewing the vows she had made to herself to become an artist. “My mind has quickened, and my sight and feelings,” she wrote in her diary while his memory was still fresh. “For a week now the world has been almost unbearably beautiful. It cries out everywhere I turn. A twisted branch tears at the heart. The tendril of a dried vine is infinitely pathetic. A driving white rainstorm gives me wings, and trees steeped in the drowsy dark of evening stand up like rooted gods, reaching for the sky.”

  Charles did not yet realize the impact Saint-Exupéry had made, absorbed as he was in his own work. During his frequent visits to Washington—staying in a small pied-à-terre he rented in an apartment house called The Anchorage—Lindbergh renewed an old acquaintanceship with William R. Castle. Both a former Ambassador to Japan and Undersecretary of State, Castle had helped the Lindberghs with diplomatic arrangements when they had made their trip to the Orient. A rock-solid conservative, Castle was then working with the Republican National Committee. Dining with him that summer, Lindbergh spoke of “having a small group ready to jump in if a war begins in Europe, with the purpose of keeping this country out of trouble.”

  Castle could not have been more sympathetic, writing him afterward that he wished to share Lindbergh’s thoughts with another friend, the conservative news commentator Fulton Lewis, Jr. The three men met alone for dinner at Castle’s house on August twenty-third and found themselves in accord over the need for action should war break out in Europe, as seemed imminent.

  Privately, they agreed on another subject as well. “We are disturbed about the effect of the Jewish influence in our press, radio, and motion pictures,” Lindbergh confided to his journal that night. “It may become very serious. Lewis told us of one instance where the Jewish advertising firms threatened to remove all their advertising from the Mutual system if a certain feature were permitted to go on the air. The threat was powerful enough to have the feature removed. I do not blame the Jews so much for their attitude, although I think it unwise from their own standpoint.”

  An expurgated portion of that evening’s entry revealed that the three men had more to say on the subject.

  We must, however, limit to a reasonable amount the Jewish influence in the Educational agencies in this country—ie. press, radio, a
nd pictures. I fear that trouble lies ahead in this regard. Whenever the Jewish percentage of total population becomes too high, a reaction seems to invariably occur. It is too bad because a few Jews of the right type are, I believe, an asset to any country, adding to rather than detracting from its strength. If an anti-Semitic movement starts in the United States, it may go far. It will certainly affect the good Jews along with the others. When such a movement starts, moderation ends.

  On the first of September, Germany invaded Poland. “What stand should America take in this war?” Lindbergh asked his diary the next day. “This is now our most pressing issue. We have enough internal problems without confusing them with war. I see trouble ahead even in times of peace. War would leave affairs chaotic—and always the best men lost.” The next day Roosevelt addressed the nation, pledging American neutrality. Lindbergh liked the speech but said to himself, “I wish I trusted him more.”

  After three years of observing conditions in Europe firsthand, Lindbergh did not intend “to stand by and see this country pushed into war if it is not absolutely essential to the future welfare of the nation.” To his journal, he announced, “Much as I dislike taking part in politics and public life, I intend to do so if necessary to stop the trend which is now going on in this country.” He considered the radio and magazines the most effective forums in which to air his views.

  Lindbergh began thinking about the effect aviation had already had on the world—not only in augmenting military strength but also in decreasing the size of the planet. With his Olympian view of the earth—in which populations of continents appeared to him as masses of people—Lindbergh wrote: “We, the heirs of European culture, are on the verge of a disastrous war, a war within our own family of nations, a war which will reduce the strength and destroy the treasures of the White race, a war which may even lead to the end of our civilization.” Dr. Carrel had no doubt contributed to his thinking; but the words were all Lindbergh’s—handwritten in pencil, then edited on secretary-typed drafts.

  Peace, Lindbergh felt, could exist only so long as “we band together to preserve that most priceless possession, our inheritance of European blood, only so long as we guard ourselves against attack by foreign armies and dilution by foreign races.” He viewed aviation as “a gift from heaven to those Western nations who were already the leaders of their era … a tool specially shaped for Western hands, a scientific art which others only copy in a mediocre fashion, another barrier between the teeming millions of Asia and the Grecian inheritance of Europe—one of those priceless possessions which permit the White race to live at all in a pressing sea of Yellow, Black, and Brown.”

  Lindbergh believed the Soviet Union had become the most evil empire on earth and that Western civilization depended on repelling it and the Asiatic powers that lay beyond its borders—the “Mongol and Persian and Moor.” He wrote that it also depended on “a united strength among ourselves; on a strength too great for foreign armies to challenge; on a Western Wall of race and arms which can hold back either a Genghis Khan or the infiltration of inferior blood; on an English fleet, a German air force, a French army, an American nation, standing together as guardians of our common heritage, sharing strength, dividing influence.” He did not believe the nations of the West should “commit racial suicide by internal conflict,” but must look instead to earlier fratricidal conflicts, such as the Peloponnesian War, in which Athens and Sparta battled, leaving much of Greece in ruins.

  Lindbergh incorporated these thoughts into an article for the November Reader’s Digest, which he called “Aviation, Geography, and Race.” DeWitt Wallace, the magazine’s founding editor, was proud to publish it. Sending Lindbergh a check for $2,500, he wrote, “No one in the country is able to exert a deeper influence on public opinion than yourself.” The following March, The Atlantic Monthly published a continuation of Lindbergh’s thinking, a piece called “What Substitute For War?”

  In that second article, he pointed out that the “history of Europe has always been interwoven with conflict … the Ethiopian war, the World War, the Boer War, the Franco-Prussian War, the war between Germany and Austria, the war between Prussia and Denmark, the Franco-Sardinian war against Austria, the Crimean War, the British opium war; revolutions and uprisings in Spain, Germany, Italy, France, Ireland, and the Balkans; British actions in Africa, India, China, Afghanistan, Palestine, and elsewhere; French action in Africa, Indo-China, and Mexico” all taking place within the last century. This new confrontation, Lindbergh believed, was but another convolution in the great coil of history.

  From his perspective, “This present war is a continuation of the old struggle among western nations for the material benefits of the world. It is a struggle by the German people to gain territory and power. It is a struggle by the English and French to prevent another European nation from becoming strong enough to demand a share in influence and empire.” A strong Germany, he asserted, was as essential to a strong Europe as England and France, “for she alone can either dam the Asiatic hordes or form the spearhead of their penetration into Europe.”

  “Europe divided in war,” Lindbergh believed, “reduces the stature of our civilization and lessens the security of all western nations. It destroys life, and art, and the spiritual growth that spring from peaceful intercourse among men.” He was reminded of his great flying trip to India in 1937, when he and Anne saw only “the bones of marble and of bronze that represent the greatness of Rome, and Greece, and Egypt, and Babylon.”

  Lindbergh saved more trenchant rhetoric for his first radio address, the text of which would conjure up Washington’s Farewell Address—warning the people of America against becoming “entangled in European alliances”—and the Monroe Doctrine, opposing further European interference in the Western hemisphere. He intended to urge his audience to view the world situation as he did, with utter detachment—without permitting “our sentiment, our pity, or our personal feelings of sympathy, to obscure the issue, to affect our children’s lives. We must be as impersonal as a surgeon with his knife.” Incisively, Lindbergh asserted, “We should never enter a war unless it is absolutely essential to the future welfare of our nation.” He saw nothing essential in our participation in this one. “We must either keep out of European wars entirely,” he warned, “or stay in European affairs permanently.”

  Lindbergh intended to call on Americans to accept his synthesis of years of xenophobic thinking. “[T]hese wars in Europe are not wars in which our civilization is defending itself against some Asiatic intruder,” he wrote, in what would prove to be the speech’s most memorable excerpt. “There is no Genghis Khan or Xerxes marching against our Western nations. This is not a question of banding together to defend the White race against foreign invasion. This is simply one more of those age old quarrels within our own family of nations—a quarrel arising from the errors of the last war—from the failure of the victors of that war to follow a consistent policy either of fairness or of force.” Lindbergh believed nothing less than Western civilization itself was at stake in this war, and that “as long as America does not decay within, we need fear no invasion of this country.”

  Anne approved of the speech, but she feared “it will be confused, it will be smeared politically and brought down to the level of the Neutrality Act issue.” She worried that her husband would come under “heavy-fire criticism from many quarters,” friends as well as enemies. “He knows this & does not mind it,” Anne wrote Charles’s mother, for he felt “sure that he sees the right course.”

  On Wednesday, September thirteenth, Lindbergh took the milk train out of New York’s Pennsylvania Station to Washington. “Won’t it be strange,” Anne wrote Mrs. Lindbergh, “if Charles will be fighting the same fight as his father, years ago!”

  Thursday morning, Lindbergh went to see General Arnold and told him of his intention to take to the airwaves. Arnold recognized the strength of Lindbergh’s commitment and therefore suggested that he discontinue his current “inactive-active” st
atus in the Air Corps so long as he was taking an active role in politics. Lindbergh concurred. Anxious not to embarrass the Air Corps, he offered a copy of his speech for Arnold to read. The General found that “it contained nothing which could in any way be construed as unethical” due to Lindbergh’s connection with the Air Corps; and he felt that Lindbergh was “fully within [his] rights as an American citizen” to broadcast the remarks. Arnold and Lindbergh discussed whether or not they should show the address to Secretary of War Woodring. Lindbergh said he preferred not to, unless it was absolutely necessary.

  The next day, Lindbergh met with Truman Smith, then active in G-2 (General Staff, Military Intelligence Division), at Smith’s request. Colonel Smith said he had an urgent message to deliver, even though he knew what Lindbergh’s response would be. Smith said the Administration was “very much worried” by Lindbergh’s intention to broadcast his opposition to their country’s entry into a European war … and that a cabinet position of Secretary of Air would be created for Lindbergh if he would refrain. “So you see,” Smith said, laughing, “they’re worried.”

  At 8:30, the Lindberghs and the Fulton Lewises went to the Carlton Hotel, where they walked through a lobby full of photographers. Upstairs they found a room filled with radio equipment and twenty people. At 9:45, Lindbergh stood before six microphones—two each from the National Broadcasting Company, the Columbia Broadcasting System, and the Mutual Broadcasting System—and spoke. He was not happy with his high-pitched and flat delivery; but, strangely, his unimpassioned tone accentuated his sincerity. As soon as he was finished, everybody in the room congratulated him; Jim Newton sat in the corner and beamed. One step ahead of the press, the Lindberghs raced outside the hotel and down several blocks, escaping to Fulton Lewis’s house, where they listened to a rebroadcast of the speech. Commentators were already signaling the speech’s political significance. The Lindberghs boarded the two A.M. train to New York.