Charles Lindbergh
America's #1 Hero

If he's good enough for Lindy,
      he's good enough for me.
If he's good enough for Lindy,
      he's good enough for me.
If he's good enough for Lindy,
      he's good enough for me.
   Herbert Hoover is the only man to keep this country free!

We don't know if the endorsement by America's #1 hero - much less the catchy campaign song - is what landed Herbert Hoover the nation's top spot. But although the stock market crash of 1929 pretty much wiped out Herbert's chance for re-election (and a lot more), nothing could diminish the fame of Charles Augustus Lindbergh.

The surprise wasn't that Charles became famous for making the first nonstop flight from New York to continental Europe. Instead what was amazing was how long the adulation lasted. Even with the advent of the space age and a landing on the moon, Charles's flight of 3000 miles in what was essentially a cloth covered gas can remains ranked as one of mankind's greatest achievements.

Slim Lindbergh from Minnesota

First things first. Charles "Slim" Lindbergh was not some poor small town kid who somehow managed to get some St. Louis businessmen to back him for a crazy publicity stunt. Charles's father was, in fact, a United States Congressman from Minnesota. Charles, Sr., was a Republican - at that time still the "liberal" party - and had opposed America's entry into World War I.

Charles did not have an All American Midwestern childhood. His father tended to be remote and stern, and his mother, Evangeline, was hot tempered and loud (she was nicknamed "The Anvil Chorus" by friends and family). The parental arguments were loud, strident, and verged on disaster. The story is that once Evangeline pointed a gun at her husband's chest and didn't pull the trigger only because Charles, Sr., told her to go ahead and shoot. The parents, not surprisingly, separated and their son went back and forth as he attended various schools, sometimes staying with one parent, sometimes with the other.

Young Charles early on showed a strong aptitude for mechanics, and it was natural he started out studying mechanical engineering at the University of Wisconsin. He didn't graduate but that was no handicap. The early 20th century was a time when it wasn't de rigueur to have a sheepskin for a technical career - or any career for that matter. Some full professors at major universities - and we're talking Harvard, Cambridge, and Oxford - often had no earned degrees higher than a bachelor's.

Charles got his dad to bankroll him for his first plane. It cost about $500 for the second hand vehicle, and Charles was able to fix it up into flying condition. Now the trick was to make a living with it.

The most direct career path for early fliers was to be a "barnstormer". That is, you went around to small towns and fairs and offered people flights for a fee. The typical price was $5 a flight - very good money if you had a good crowd.

Barnstormers, though, were most famous for giving exhibitions. One of the stunts was "wing-walking". That's just what it sounds like. You stood and walked along the wings of the plane while it was flying. The pilots also took their planes into rolls and loops, and parachuting exhibits were also part of the act. Charles did all of these.

Barnstorming was OK, but it wasn't steady work. So Charles enlisted in the Army, and as a pilot he was sent to flying school. He graduated in 1922, but as there was no war on, he didn't go into active duty. Instead he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Army Reserve.

With true professional credentials now in his pocket, Charles was able to land a job as a mail pilot. He was based in St. Louis and made his run up to Chicago.

Being a mail pilot was not easy in the 1920's. You flew in all kinds of weather in an open cockpit and - a point relevant to the way Charles's most famous airplane would be designed - the mailbags were often piled high in the first seat. So you learned to fly without being able to see directly in front of you.

Having a steady job didn't mean that Charles gave up exhibitions or competitive flying. After all, this was a time when flying records were continually being broken. In particular distance records were ripe for the plucking.

The first airplane distance record was set in 1903 when Orville Wright flew his plane 112 feet in 4 seconds. The next distance record was set a few minutes later when Wilbur flew 120 feet in 12 seconds. Then in 1905, Wilbur took off from the Huffman Prairie in Dayton, Ohio, and circled the field for nearly 40 minutes and covering a total of 24 continuous miles in the air.

Since it was now clear you could construct airplanes that could serve as a practical means of transportation, various groups and individuals began offering money for firsts in aviation. In 1908, Wilbur picked up twenty thousand francs for flying over 75 miles. Then the next year, French flier Louis Blériot flew across the English Channel and picked up £1000 from England's Daily Mail.

By 1915 the first passenger air service opened in St. Petersburg, Florida. Specifically the flights went across Tampa Bay, turning a 4 hour boat ride or a 20 hour drive into a 20 minute flight. The service made two flights a day and charged $5 per passenger and $5 per 100 pounds for carrying freight. The next milestone was now obvious but formidable.

Strictly speaking, the first to fly across the Atlantic was a six man crew commanded by Lt. Commander Albert Read of the US Navy. They took off on May 16 from Trepassey Bay in Newfoundland and arrived in Lisbon, Portugal on May 27. Since the trip duration was 11 days they obviously made multiple stops along the way. Their time in the air was 26 hours.

Actually Lt. Commander Read's plane was one of three aircraft in the convoy. All were "flying boats", that is, airplanes intended to land and take off in water. Two planes were forced down by fog, and one crew was picked up by a ship. The other plane actually made it to the Azores Islands about 800 miles west of Portugal by skirting along on the water.

There was, of course, quite a bit of hullabaloo about the trip, certainly in the United States. The crew received the Congressional Gold Medal and Lt. Commander Read continued to serve in the Navy up to and through World War II. He retired as a rear admiral.

However, in all honesty, we can't cite this trip as a demonstration that flying would revolutionize trans-Atlantic travel. Steamships had been making the crossing in five days since 1900 and carrying thousands of passengers to boot.

Of course, what people were shooting for was a non-stop flight. Sure enough, on June 14, 1919, not even three weeks after Commander Read's team reached Europe, two British fliers, John Alcock and Arthur Brown, took off from St. John's Newfoundland and flew non-stop to Ireland, landing on June 15. The plane was damaged as they landed nose down in a soft bog, but both men were unhurt. They not only received knighthoods, but also picked up a £10,000 prize, again from the Daily Mail.

Nothing inspires innovation like money, and it was also in 1919 that New York hotelier Raymond Orteig offered $25,000 for a successful flight from New York to Paris either way. The Orteig Prize stipulated the flight had to be non-stop with a pilot from the "Allied" states. Strictly speaking Raymond did not put limits on the number of the crew.

Anyone who knew Charles figured that if anyone could win the Prize, it was him. So when Charles broached the subject with Harry Knight, one of his former flying pupils who had become the president of the St. Louis Flying Club, Harry suggested Charles contact the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce. Charles met with Harold Bixby, the C of C chairman, and made a sales pitch on how great the publicity would be for St. Louis. Harold said fine, and he brought together the city's businessmen, and they put up $15,000.

The reason Charles opted to fly solo was not just because it would bring glory to him alone. One pilot weighed less than a pilot and crew, and Charles's goal was to reduce the weight to an absolute minimum. No radio, no parachute, special lightweight boots, and the pilot's seat was to be made of wicker. Charles also opted for a single engine plane, again to save weight that could be used for fuel. One engine also meant there was only one engine that could break down.

And it was he, Charles, who was going to fly the plane. When he was shopping around for airplane manufacturers, one of them said, yes, they'd build it, but they would stipulate the pilot and crew. Thanks, but no thanks, Charles said, and went to the Ryan Airline Company in California. They said they could deliver the plane for $6,000. Even back then, that was a good deal, and in two months the Spirit of St. Louis was ready.

In a day when $25,000 could comfortably support a family for 10 years, there were a lot of people trying for the Prize. Among the contenders was Richard Bryd, who in 1926 had laid claim to be the first to fly to the North Pole. However various delays prevented Richard from actually getting across the Atlantic.

The Prize, as we said, was for a flight from New York to Paris or vice versa. So in September, 1926, French pilot, René Fonck and his co-pilot, Igor Sikorsky, and two crew members loaded up in what was for the time a huge airplane. - 44 feet long and with a wingspan of over 100 feet. They fired up the engine and taxied off. But before they got into the air a wheel broke and the plane caught fire and burned. Rene and Igor survived but the other two crew members died.

Then on May 8, 1927 - twelve days before Charles's flight - French aviators Charles Nungesser and François Coli actually took off from Paris and headed toward New York. They were never seen again.

And Charles?

Charles took off in the Spirit of St. Louis on May 20, 1927 from Roosevelt Field on Long Island and 33 hours later landed in Le Bourget Field outside Paris. He flew more or less in a straight line - that is, along a great arc of the Earth - which took him up along the coast of Canada and Newfoundland and across the Atlantic just south of the coast of Ireland (which he spotted).

Charles figured the flight would garner him fame and bring more opportunities for him in the field of aviation. But even he was surprised by what happened. When he made it to Le Bourget, there were 100,000 people waiting. Accolades and awards rolled in. Charles received the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Hubbard Gold Medal of the National Geographic Society. He also was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the French Legion of Honor, and even the Congressional Medal of Honor.

There's been a bit of controversy about the last award as it is the highest military award and usually given for extraordinary acts of bravery in combat. According to the Code of Federal Regulations, the Medal of Honor is awarded "in the name of Congress to a person who, while a member of the Army, distinguished himself conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while engaged in an action against an enemy of the United States; while engaged in military operations involving conflict with an opposing foreign force; or while serving with friendly foreign forces engaged in an armed conflict against an opposing armed force in which the United States is not a belligerent party". So brave as Charles was, it is indeed a bit difficult to see how the feat fits the stipulated criteria. But that's the way it goes, and for what it's worth, Richard Byrd had also received the Medal of Honor for his flight to the North Pole.

On the way back - by ocean liner - Charles stopped in England and met King George. Back then you met the king in a frock coat and white tie, but Charles only had a simple business suit. But that wasn't much of a problem since when Charles was ushered in, George leaned forward.

"Now tell me, Captain Lindbergh," be said. "There is one thing I long to know. How did you pee?

Such an ordinary question - not one you expect from the worlds' most powerful leader - put Charles at ease.

"Well, you see. sir," be said, "I had a sort of an aluminum container. I dropped the thing when I was over France. I was not going to be caught with the thing on me at Le Bourget."

Another mystery solved.

But just what was it that not only brought Charles his fame but made it perpetual?

Well, for one thing, he did fly alone. No mean feat. Next it was the longest non-stop flight made to date as far as distance traveled although it wasn't the longest non-stop flight based on time in the air. The year before, two fliers, Bert Acosta and Clarence Chamberlin, had flown non-stop for 41 hours and covered over 4000 miles. However, they did this by circling around New York City.

We also have to admit that the sheer publicity associated with the Orteig Prize helped build Charles's fame. There had been such a build up that the Prize had attracted some of the best fliers in the world - including as we said Richard Byrd. So to have the young unknown and yet tall and handsome Midwesterner win the Prize caught the world's imagination.

As far as how many people had flown across the Atlantic before Charles, the number varies depending on the source and definitions. Robert Ripley determined that 67 men had flown the Atlantic before Charles. He was, though, counting the crews of trans-Atlantic dirigibles.

The Employable Charles

OK. But just what did Charles do after he got back? He had been making a living by flying mail from St. Louis to Chicago. Now he was the most famous person in the world.

Harold Bixby, who had helped Charles finance the trip, was worried that Charles would end up getting exploited by sleezebags wanting to capitalize on what could have been fleeting fame. In fact, some companies had been offering Charles seemingly generous but actually rather chintzy pay to plug their products.

But then Harold got a call from an old college chum, Dwight Morrow. Dwight, it seems, had also been a classmate of Calvin Coolidge at Amherst and was now working with Calvin as an advisor on aviation issues. They decided that Charles should not waste his time endorsing commercial products for a couple of hundred bucks. Instead, Charles should be a promoter of aviation for tens of thousands.

First Harold and Dwight put Charles's immediate finances in order. They decided to make sure 1) any debt Charles owed in building the Spirit of St. Louis would be forgiven, 2) Charles would get his own investment of $2000 back, and 3) Charles could keep the entire $25,000 Orteig Prize.

Next they arranged a meeting with Charles and megafinancier J. P, Morgan. J. P. would handle Charles's investments. And although $25,000 was good money in 1927, as a principal for investments it was OK but not great. So J. P., Dwight, and Harold put Charles in touch with Harry Guggenheim.

The Guggenheims were one of the richest families in the world. The family patriarch, Meyer, had come to the United States in the mid-19th century and made a fortune in mining and metallurgy. Like many multi-billionaires, the Guggenheims deflected some of the flack from garnering their fortunes from paying employees starvation wages and busting union workers in the heads by setting up philanthropic organizations. By the 1920's Guggenheim money was funding a good part of the innovations in science and the arts.

Harry had learned to fly, and along with his dad, Daniel, had been a major supporter of aviation. They had offered a number of prizes for technological breakthroughs and made generous grants to major American universities to develop aeronautics.

Dwight, Harold, and Harry agreed Charles would tour with Harry to promote aviation. The two would fly to all 48 states in three months, and for his efforts, Charles would be paid $50,000.

But first of course, Charles had to write a book. Originally it was ghost written by the New York Times correspondent, Carlisle MacDonald, but Charles didn't like the text, and to his publisher's dismay, he rejected the entire manuscript. It was too fabricated to make his feat look terrifying, he said. Instead, people should be reassured of the safety of flight. So Charles sat down and hammered out 10,000 words a week (in longhand) at Harry's Long Island mansion. Although some parts were still ghost written by Fitzhugh Green, a former navy commander and now a writer on aviation, by the time the book was finished, Charles had shown once more he could take charge of a project and deliver on time.

Not just any project but a successful project. The book, We, issued with Charles as the sole author, became a best seller. It went through six printings in the first month and sold over 600,000 copies, a huge number by the standards of the time. Ultimately, Charles earned $200,000 in royalties and from then on was not only famous but rich.

In 1927, Dwight was appointed Ambassador to Mexico and arranged Charles to make a goodwill tour south of the border with comedian Will Rogers. It was in Mexico that Charles met Dwight's pretty daughter, Anne. They were married two years later.

We shouldn't forget that Charles was not just a former barnstormer and mail pilot. He was an expert in airplane construction and flying. So he began to work as an advisor to the burgeoning aviation companies. Soon with his investments and consulting, Charles was making a very good living.

Charles was also looking beyond airplanes as a means of flight. He had learned of the experiments with liquid fuel rockets being carried out by Robert Goddard, an obscure professor of physics at Clark University in Worster, Massachusetts. Robert had been scraping by with some funding from the Smithsonian Institution, but it wasn't much. But Charles helped get Robert a $50,000 Guggenheim grant and use of the army proving grounds in Roswell, New Mexico. Charles also gave Robert his first plane ride, an experience that made Robert nervous. As we know now, Robert was the true inventor of the modern space age rocket but was too far ahead of his time to make any financial windfall from his patents.

In 1935 (for reasons we'll discuss later) Charles, his wife, Anne, and their two kids, moved to England. It was in Europe that Charles met Alexis Carrel who in 1912 had won the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology for his research into vascular surgery. Alexis had begun working on organ transplantation and trying to learn how to keep the organs alive when removed from the donor. The problems were largely mechanical, but Alexis still may have been surprised that Charles's technical skills became a major boon for his research. The two men soon began active collaboration and developed what is called a perfusion pump which kept organs alive.

There was, though, a negative effect of Charles's and Alexis's association. Alexis was a believer in the science - some say the pseudoscience - of eugenics. That is "directing" the genetics of humans to produce an improved species. Charles was intrigued at the notion and at some point it began to affect his philosophy.

The Crime and Trial of the Century

Everyone knows that on March 1, 1932, Charles and Anne's 20-month old son, Charles Lindbergh, Jr., was kidnapped from his bedroom in East Amwell, New Jersey. The toddler had been put to bed around 8:00 that night but when his mother checked on him at about 10:00, the crib was empty. There was a ransom note left on the window ledge, and a short way off lay a homemade ladder that had apparently been used to reach the second story bedroom window.

Although the New Jersey State Police were called in, Charles insisted they keep their distance until the baby was returned. A rather strange and possibly publicity seeking retired school principal, Dr. John Condon, volunteered to act as a go-between between the Lindberghs and the kidnapper.

After a series of complex and lengthy communications - which involved the exchange of over a dozen ransom notes - Dr. Condon met with a man identified only as "John" in the Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. During the meetings the man made a disturbing comment. He said he was worried he might "burn" and then asked if he would "burn" if the baby were dead. Dr. Condon was naturally concerned by the question, and they agreed to meet later. Then at the St. Raymond's Cemetery (also in the Bronx), Charles and Dr. Condon handed over $50,000, mostly in gold certificates.

The final note said that the baby would be found on a boat - or "boad" as the kidnapper spelled it - named the Nelly which would be found off the Elizabeth Islands near Cape Cod. Charles took to the air but found no such boat. Three months later the body of the child was discovered in the woods near the Lindbergh home.

What is not well-known - even today - is that the New Jersey State Police under the direction of Captain Herman Norman Schwarzkopf (yes, the father of famous General "Stormin' Norman" Schwarzkopf of Gulf War fame) had originally decided the crime was a group effort and an inside job. Their suspicions fell on two Lindbergh employees, Bessie Gow, Violet Sharpe, and Bessie's boyfriend, Red Johnson.

Betty. though, had a solid alibi and was quickly cleared as was her boyfriend. So the suspicion remained on Violet.

Violet was originally from England and had been working for Charles's mother-in-law for two years. But she also acted as a maid and housekeeper for Charles and Anne and spent a good part of her time at their residence. She had recently had a minor operation and was still running a fever so the police questioned her at the Lindbergh home rather than at police headquarters.

But Violet was not helpful. She was vague, contradictory, sometimes hostile, and even hysterical. To avoid more hysterics, the police even allowed Charles to sit in hoping the presence of her employer would calm her. It didn't - quite the contrary - and her demeanor was exactly what you expect for someone who had something to hide.

The police continued to question her. What had she done the night of the kidnapping? Well, she gone out. With who? Well, it was with a man she had never met before. Where did they go? To a film. What film? Well, she couldn't remember. What was the man's name? She couldn't remember that either. Maybe his first name was Ernie.

On later questioning, she changed her story. They hadn't gone to a film after all. It was a "road-house", that is a restaurant which sometimes had dancing. She still couldn't remember Ernie's last name or the name of anyone else who was with them.

The police thought they were onto something. Then in searching Violet's room, they found some business cards of a defunct taxi company owned by a man named Ernest Brinkert. A check of police records showed Ernest had been arrested for petty theft.

The police showed Violet the photograph. Was this the man, the asked. No, she said, it wasn't. Tired of Violet's dissembling, the cops told her to cut the [crud]. That was the Ernie who had taken her out, wasn't it? Yes, she admitted. It was.

Violet had been put through - in her opinion - three grueling interrogations. She told her friends she would never go through such an ordeal again. But then she learned there would be a fourth round of questions, maybe now at the police station. That was too much for Violet. She ran upstairs to a cupboard, found a can of silver cleaner containing cyanide, dumped the crystals in a glass of water, drank the poison, and died.

Norman was now sure he had cracked the case. But then the police got a call from none other than Ernest Brinkert. He had heard the news that he was being sought. So he thought it was best to turn himself in. They told him to come in for questioning.

At the police station, Ernie claimed he had never met Violet and had no idea how she got his business cards. He had been over a hundred miles away - in Bridgeport, Connecticut - on the night of the kidnapping. When he learned he would be kept in the custody of the New Jersey State Police, he asked a physician to examine him since NJ cops had a reputation for decidedly enhanced interrogations.

If that wasn't enough to make a firm case shaky, Ernest Miller, a twenty-three year old bus driver, walked into the police station of Cloister, New Jersey. He also had read the papers about the kidnapping and said he was the man who had taken Violet out. It had been all and above board. He and Violet had gone to the Peanut Grille roadhouse and had met some other couples. They had mostly sat around talking and he had dropped Violet back at the Lindberghs' at about midnight.

He had, he said, told Violet his full name and had no idea why she had identified him in a photograph as Brinkert - they didn't even look alike. The police completely confirmed his story and he - and Ernest Brinkhert - were released.

Norman, though, hadn't given up on the idea that Violet was involved. What really turned his suspicions is that Violet's sister, Emily, had left the country to return to England soon after the kidnapping. That was too much of a coincidence for Norman. He asked Scotland Yard to detain Emily. They did, but after three hours of questioning, they let her go.

Emily then spoke to reporters. Neither she nor Violet had anything to do with the kidnapping. So why had Violet killed herself? Emily replied her sister had been driven to her suicide by the merciless and harsh interrogation of the New Jersey State Police.

Immediately there was a hue and cry by the British about how the Crown needed to protect its citizens. The Consul-General in New York was instructed to investigate Violet's suicide.

Violet, it turns out, did indeed have a lot to hide - but it had nothing to do with the kidnapping.

First Violet was quite a party girl and had been - as they say - "intimate" with a number of local young men. Police snooping around could have shaken these skeletons out of her closet. A revelation that a young unmarried women was making indiscriminate whoopee was enough for her to lose her job, particularly with such a high profile employer. The depression was well underway at this point and unemployment was over 20%.

But even more of a skeleton to shake free was that Violet had been what today we call an "unnamed source" to the newspapers. Specifically she was blabbing about Charles and his family. It's not clear if Violet was actually paid for her information, but it is certainly possible (the police had been surprised at the amount of money she had in the bank).

The FBI had picked up this tidbit from a Daily News reporter. So the story was sure to come out that Violet had been responsible for at least some of the tabloid articles about her intensely private employers - news that would have left her forever ostracized, not only from the Lindbergh household, but almost any other type of domestic employment.

But we ask. Were any of these reasons really enough for a young woman to kill herself? Certainly it wouldn't be so for a normal and rational person who can handle stressful situations. But we also have to remember that people who kill themselves are not always the most normal and rational people who can handle stressful situations - such as your family learning you had been indulging in censurable conduct, your employer finding out you had been spilling their private lives to the newspapers, and the cops thinking you were a major suspect in a kidnapping and murder case.

But what about Ernest's business cards being in her room? How did that happen? And why did Violet insist that Ernest was the man she met?

In the early 20th century finding business cards of a taxi company in a house would not have been unusual. This was a time when cars were a luxury, and taking a cab was a far more common way of travel than it is today. That Violet didn't know about them simply meant that they had been left there by someone else. The Lindberghs did after all have many and frequent visitors and other live in-employees.

But why did Violet identify Ernest as the man who took her out?

Here we have to point out that the questioning by the NJ police was not conducted in the best way to extract accurate information. The police should not have shown her the picture and ask if it was "Ernie". They should have put the picture in with other mugshots and seen if she picked it out without prompting.

And if not the matter, then the manner of the questioning was way out of line. What we had here was the interrogator who knew the answer he wanted, rather than trying to find what the true answer was. At first Violet had denied the photo was the "Ernie" who took her out. But the officer challenged her answer and told her that it was so the man and she should just admit it. So Violet said yes, it was "Ernie". In other words Violet gave the answer the police wanted to get the questioning to stop.

Despite the fact that there are people that still believe Violet was involved, this is not likely. Instead what we have is one of those massive red herrings that crop up to bedevil and embarrass an investigation. And there was still a kidnapping and murder to solve.

Although ransom bills had started showing up in the New York area almost immediately after the kidnapping, the case had stalled. Then in 1934 - two years later - a customer at a gas station paid the attendant with a $10 gold certificate. Since gold certificates were being withdrawn from circulation, they were becoming rare. The attendant was suspicious - he thought the bill might be counterfeit - and jotted down the license number of the car on the bill. The license plate in turn led the police to Bruno Hauptmann, a German immigrant who lived in the Bronx.

Bruno had come to the United States in 1923 and had worked as a carpenter but had quit working right after the kidnapping. But he still had enough money for his wife to take a vacation to Germany, make a number of home improvements, and invest (and lose) a lot of money in the stock market. He had also served a three year prison stint in Germany for burglary where he gained entrance to the second floor of a building using a ladder.

A search of Bruno's residence - which ended up demolishing his garage - yielded a box with $14,000 in gold certificates - again with serial numbers from the ransom. An expert testified that a part of the ladder used to gain entry to the Lindbergh home matched the grain pattern of the wood in Bruno's attic. Nail holes of an unusual square shape were also found both in the ladder and planks in Bruno's home. Perhaps the most damning evidence was that tools found in Bruno's home left marks that were identical to those found on the ladder.

Then in a search of Bruno's home, the police discovered the phone number of Dr. Condon written on the wall of a closet. When the police confronted Bruno with the evidence, they expected he would fold up and confess.

But he didn't. He said he was completely innocent.

So why did he have the ransom money in his garage?

Well, Bruno said, a friend had left the money in his house.

And where was his friend?

Oh, he had returned to Germany.

How could they contact him?

Oh, they couldn't. Schade, but his friend had died.

But if it was his "friend's" money, why did Bruno spend it?

Well, his friend owned him money, and so it was coming to him.

The trial began January 3, 1935, at Flemington, New Jersey. It lasted five weeks - a very lengthy trial by the standards of the day. The prosecutor called the expert witnesses for the wood and handwriting analysis. Dr. Condon testified that the man he met in the cemeteries was Bruno.

The defense called three hand writing witnesses but two concluded that Bruno had written the notes. Naturally the defense didn't ask them to testify, and the third witness made a poor showing to the jury.

Bruno was convicted for kidnapping, extortion, and murder. All appeals were denied, and he was executed by electrocution in on April 3, 1936.

Despite the fact that the jury had no doubts about the evidence and most defense witnesses were actually harmful for the defense, there are people who are adamantly convinced Bruno was innocent. Bruno's advocates say the evidence is shaky at the best and some even claim it was fabricated. Bruno, they point out, was even offered commutation to life imprisonment if he confessed. But he never wavered in proclaiming his innocence.

Above all, Bruno himself testified at the trial. Now one standing rule is that if a defendant is guilty, he should never testify in his own defense. Cross examination could be too devastating, particularly in the old days when the prosecutors weren't required to show the defense their evidence. So surprises could be sprung and guilty clients don't respond well when surprised. So the fact that Bruno did take the stand, shows us both he and his lawyers were confident of his innocence.

Unfortunately Bruno's testimony actually hurt his case. When asked how Dr. Condon's number ended up in his closet, he didn't say he didn't know or that it was planted by a newspaper reporter (as was later claimed). He admitted he wrote it.

"That's what I always do," he said. "I was following up the case like everybody and wrote the number on the board."

Hm. Bruno was so interested in the kidnapping case that he wrote Dr. Condon's phone number in a closet? But with all his interest in the case, when "a friend" left a can with tens of thousands of dollars in exactly the same denominations and type of currency used to pay the ransom, he remained blissfully unsuspicious?

Not, as Eliza Doolittle said, bloody likely.

For many of the jurors it was the wood grain evidence that was crucial. The matching of the grain from the ladder and the wood in Bruno's attic was presented in photographs and show a convincing match.

Woodgrain Evidence With Artist's "Reconstruction"

But you'll notice one little thing.

For the prosecution to - quote - "prove a match" - unquote - they had to use an "artist's reconstruction" of a hypothetical missing section. For some this certainly weakens the case and even leads to the charge of fabrication. That is, to show there is a match of the wood grain of the ladder and wood from Bruno's house, the prosecutors had to hire someone to "fabricate" a section of the wood. And we now have a tact that the defense could have taken.

Note that if you put the two pieces of wood together without the artist's reconstruction, there is a quite decent albeit not perfect match.

Woodgrain Evidence Without Artist's "Reconstruction"

Well, doesn't this show us that the two pieces do match after all?

Well, no. Note that the individual grain lines that match in the simple juxtapositioning are not the same lines that match up in the artist's reconstruction. Doesn't this mean that two different pieces of wood could match up with the one plank from Bruno's house? And that picking any board could produce a "spurious" match?

Now if the defense could find another piece of wood and use an artist's reconstruction to make a match, they could claim the evidence was worthless. Even with such a match being found only 1 out of 10 times, they could claim there not the 95 % confidence that is deemed - quote - "proof" - unquote - for statistical tests.

You wonder why the defense attorneys didn't try this tact. Mostly likely they simply didn't have the technical knowledge to recognize this option. But also it's a good bet that if they had tried such a tact - going around to various lumber stores and sampling planks for a match - they would have failed in any case.

Of course, there are infinite shades in combinations on the "Bruno-was-or-was-not-guilty" scenario. One theory that has been given new life is that Bruno was guilty but was part of a gang involving perhaps two others. Profilers and experts have given high probability that Bruno was not the only kidnapper and the handwriting was written by someone else. They also have said that the police sketches don't match Bruno, but does fit the photo of another individual.

With all due respect and despite its phenomenal success in television shows, profiling cannot be considered valid for determining guilt or innocence especially if it is made after the fact or if the profiler has a particular individual in mind. Although professional profilers vouch for it's validity, we have to mention that profiling has also received considerable fame for its spectacular failures which have actually hindered police investigations.

As far as the "expert witnesses" testifying that the handwriting wasn't Bruno's, well, it is notorious that you can always find experts to testify for any side of a case. The author and illustrator of CooperToons once took a course in courtroom drawing and during a recess heard the judge laugh when one of the attorneys said he had an expert witness. "Of course," the judge said - and the jury was not in the room - "and then we'll have another expert witness who will say your expert witness doesn't know what he's talking about." If there are "handwriting experts" who say Bruno didn't write the notes and someone else did, there will always be experts who say the opposite.

But what about the police sketches? And the claim they match someone else?

Well, one thing everyone knows is that most police sketches are terrible. But we didn't really know just how terrible they were until a team at MIT ran some tests. They found when a police artist drew a sketch and the sketch was shown to someone who knew the individual, the identification was correct only about 5% of the time. Even the best computer-aided sketches are only good with abut 25 % recognition.

Again with due respect, the author and illustrator of CooperToons, drawing - no joke intended - on his own modest training in portraiture, thinks the sketch drawn of the Lindbergh kidnapping suspect either looks like both Bruno and the newer suspect, or it looks like neither depending on what part of the sketch you focus on. The sketch shows a man with narrow eyes and a small tight-lipped mouth - which both men had - and a small thin nose - which neither man had. Instead, both Bruno and the other man had pretty good schnozes. All in all, the two men look more like each other than they do the sketch.

The arguments on the pros and cons of Bruno's guilt inevitably end up as Point-Counter exchanges which generally satisfy no one. So you'll end up reading things like:

Point: No one would write a number on a wall in a place that is inaccessible to normal view and you can't read. You'd put it on a piece of paper.
 
Counterpoint: If you want to write a number down where it won't be lost or found by others, the best place is a permanent fixture that is inaccessible to normal view.

Point: But a newspaper reporter confessed to writing the number in the closet. and it was was well known by everyone involved.
 
Counterpoint: This supposedly "well-known" story only emerged in the 1970's. That something of this notoriety was spread all over New York City and only surfaced 35 years later is absurd.

Point: The prosecutors were so desperate for a conviction, they manufactured the evidence.
 
Counterpoint: Saying the evidence is manufactured simply means the original evidence is conclusive.

Point: Many people are convinced of Bruno's innocence.
 
Counterpoint: Today all you need to have "many people" believe something is to have it broadcast on former educational channels in one of their one-sided, inaccurate, and at times fact-fabricated programs where they hire actors to play scientists. In any case, the number of people who believe something is irrelevant to its being true or false. By far, legal experts have been virtually unanimous stating the case against Bruno was strong and Bruno was guilty.

You can, of course, go on ad nauseam. But that's enough for now.

The publicity of the kidnapping case didn't let up after the trial. So in December, 1935, Charles, Anne, and their new born son, John, left America and moved to England. They didn't return for three years.

 

Charles's Big Faux Pas

We now come to the episode that anyone who knows anything about Charles is familiar. That is his advocating non-intervention in World War II.

We have to emphasize that "non-interventionist" did not necessarily mean being "anti-war". There were some people who did not want America to declare war, but despised Hitler and wanted him defeated. Their idea was if England could defeat Hitler in air battles, then a full scale World War would not be avoided. So they urged America to supply arms and war matériel to England.

Charles, though, even after England declared War on Germany still wanted a negotiated settlement. Worse (for FDR), Charles was such a national hero with no political axe to grind that he gave credibility to the non-interventionists/negotiators. In particular, he became a leader of the "America First Committee" which was the strongest and most public of the non-interventionist groups. Wherever Charles appeared with them, his speeches were covered in the papers and even in national magazines.

Now, some of Charles's speeches had been well thought out - we hear he labored hours writing them out. But as Hitler became more bellicose and ended up occupying most of continental Europe, Charles's speeches became increasingly strident and even odd. He said that the elected government in America didn't represent the will of the people (a common complaint of smaller political groups), that free speech in America was dead (an odd comment to make by someone giving nationally reported speeches criticizing the government), that he, Charles, was better qualified to speak for Americans than the President (questionable as FDR was into his second term of eventually four elections), and that it was really Franklin Roosevelt who wanted world domination and who we should be worrying about (the old rhetorical trick of cross accusation). Charles even suggested Roosevelt might cancel the 1942 elections (he didn't of course).

Above all, Charles had strongly lobbied for a ban on any offensive weapons sold to Britain. Then in a big faux pas - the worst of his career - he testified before Congress that it made little difference whether Britain or Germany won the war. What the heck, Britain was going to lose, anyway, and so American assistance would simply be prolonging the agony.

From 1936 to 1939, Charles and his family had lived in England and had made a lot of friends. Now they were his former friends, and they were flabbergasted. By the fall of 1941, Charles had become persona maxima non grata both in England and in the Roosevelt administration which had been supplying Britain with much needed war matériel. FDR had also been gearing up our own industries - and rapidly ending the Depression - for a war which almost all Americans, if not really wanting, now saw as inevitable.

FDR thought of ways to shut Charles up. At first he figured he could invent a new cabinet post for Charles - Secretary of Air or something. But Charles wasn't interested in accepting a poorly concealed bribe. Well, FDR thought, we simply call him up for active service - Charles was a colonel in the Air Force reserve - and he'd be under FDR's orders to shut up.

But that option vanished after FDR publicly - possibly as a veiled threat - compared Charles to Ohio Congressman Clement Vallandigham whose statements against the Civil War got him arrested and ultimately banished to the Confederacy. Charles, finessing FDR adroitly, resigned his commission saying he valued his service to the Army Air Corps, yes, but he valued his freedom of speech more.

The issue indeed had became one beyond pro- or anti-intervention. When Charles was denied the right to speak in the Municipal Auditorium in the largest city of one of the nation's more pro-war states, he was offered some facilities by people who disagreed with him but who nevertheless thought Americans had the right to speak their minds.

The drama of World War II and it's aftermath has largely relegated the intervention/non-intervention debate to a now forgotten episode of American history. At the time, though, the arguments were fractious and divisive and many well-meaning people thought non-intervention was best for America. So Charles does not deserve censure for his opposition to American involvement in World War II up to December 11 (yes, December 11). What he does deserve censure for is the reasons for his opposition.

Charles put his views most succinctly into an editorial in the Reader's Digest. It is sometimes called an article, but it was really an ad. But in the ad he wrote - among other things:

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. And while we stand poised for battle, Oriental guns are turning westward, Asia presses towards us on the Russian border, all foreign races stir restlessly. It is time to turn from our quarrels and to build our White ramparts again. This alliance with foreign races means nothing but death to us. It is our turn to guard our heritage from Mongol and Persian and Moor, before we become engulfed in a limitless foreign sea. Our civilization depends on a united strength among ourselves; on 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.

Now given Charles's opening sentence, some people may prefer to say that Charles was referring to cultural or possibly technological superiority. While that's true that he was speaking for the superiority of European culture, that's not all he was talking about. After all, when someone uses words and phrases like "White race", "foreign races", "White ramparts", "Western Wall of race", and "infiltration of inferior blood", you have to say the proponent is a racist by any meaningful definition of the word.

Such words coming from Charles Lindbergh are indeed disturbing to admirers of Lucky Lindy. On the other hand, you have to be careful and realize that some - quote - "quotes" - unquote - of Charles that are accepted as verbatim are in fact of questionable veracity. For instance, you will read on the Fount of All Knowledge that Charles made a "speech" on December 17, 1942 that included the following:

There is only one danger in the world - that is the yellow danger. China and Japan are really bound together against the white race. There could only have been one efficient weapon against this alliance ... Germany

The truth, though, is that we are almost certainly not reading verbatim words of Charles. In fact, this "quote" is at least second, if not third hand.

Instead the "speech" comes from a rather snorting letter written to J. Edgar Hoover by a (now) anonymous correspondent. The correspondent was shocked! shocked! that Charles Lindbergh - now seen as an appeaser of the Nazis and at the nadir of his popularity - was looking to join the Army Air Corps. The letter in toto is:

[Letterhead Redacted]
Chicago

December 31, 1941

Mr. J. Edgar Hoover,
Federal Bureau of Investigation,
Washington, D. C.
Dear Sir:-

Regarding Mr. Charles Lindbergh, who has applied for a commission in the Air Force.

Are you informed as to his utterance in New York City on December 17, 1941. I am told that at the home of Mr. Edwin E. Webster, Beekman Place, Mr. Lindberg is said to have made the following statement:

"There is only one danger in the world - that is the yellow danger. China and Japan are really bound together against the white race. There could only have been one efficient weapon against this alliance, underneath the surface, Germany, itself could have been the weapon. The ideal setup would have been to have had Germany take over Poland and Russia, in collaboration with the British, as a bloc against the yellow people and Bolshevism. But instead, the British and the fools in Washington had to interfere. The British envied the Germans and wanted to rule the world forever. Britain is the real cause of all the trouble in the world today.

Of course, America First cannot be active right now. But it should keep on the alert and when the large missing lists and losses are published the American people will realize how much they have ben betrayed by the British and the Administration. Then the America First can be a political force again. We must be quiet awhile and await the time for active functioning. There maybe a time soon when we can negotiate a peace."

Please acknowledge receipt hereof.

Yours very truly

[Signature Redacted]

Chicago, Ill.

Edgar replied in a standard letter where he acknowledged the letter and appreciated the interest the sender had in corresponding the information with the Bureau [he wrote - or at least signed - a lot of such letters]. He also added he was forwarding the information to military intelligence.

Now some authors seem to accept the quote as authentic although it's clear from the context that the quote is not direct but that the letter writer had not even been present when Charles made his (alleged) diatribe ("I am told ... is said to have said..."). On the other hand, the words are in keeping with those of the Reader's Digest article and may well have represented Charles's by then bitter sentiments. Such sentiments could also explain when he volunteered to advise combat flyers, he opted for the Pacific, not European, theater.

Charles had indeed been forging alliances with Germany - or at least friendship with the German people. In the mid-1930's he had been asked by the American military attaché in Berlin to visit Germany and report on its air force. Charles was fêted by the Germans and attended the 1936 Olympics at the invitation of German Air Force Reichsminister of Aviation, Hermann Wilhelm Göring. Charles returned for two more visits, the last in 1938. There with pomp and fanfare, Hermann awarded Charles the Service Cross of the German Eagle. Charles and Anne had liked Germany so much that with the help of architect and Hitler's buddy, Albert Speer, they began looking for their own home in Germany.

The Germans recognized they had an exploitable asset in Charles. Deviously they even had a policy of not praising him too much since they thought that would hurt his credibility at home. But with the growing anti-German sentiment in the US - and at times violence between pro- and anti-interventionists - Charles abandoned his plans to relocate to Germany and returned home.

Now in fairness to Charles he actively spoke against Germany's persecution of the Jews - something some American politicians did not do. In 1941 in a famous speech in Des Moines, Iowa, he stated "no person with a sense of the dignity of mankind can condone the persecution of the Jewish race in Germany." But toleration, he argued, could only come from peaceful means, adding:

Instead of agitating for war, Jews in this country should be opposing it in every way, for they will be the first to feel its consequences. Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government.

Somehow, despite what Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, despite the Nuremberg Laws, and despite the appearance of articles and photographs about the concentration camps, Charles could not - or would not - make the connection that the persecution of the Jews was a deliberate policy of the Nazi government. Although he had actually been in Berlin on the night of the infamous Kristallnacht pogram where thousands of Jewish businesses were destroyed, nearly a hundred Jews killed and hundreds injured, and tens of thousands of Jews rounded up and sent to concentration camps, Charles was more perplexed than outraged. The riots, he wrote privately, were "unreasonable" and not in keeping with the German characteristic of orderliness.

Charles never seems to have realized that what he was seeing in Nazi Germany was a refutation of his belief that "white races" were superior to all others. Even a "white" European culture - or "race" as Charles would have put it - which produced some of the world's towering humanitarians and geniuses - Goethe, Schiller, Heine, Leibniz, and Schweitzer - could still descend to collective paranoia and genocidal delusions when incited by xenophobic nutball politicians.

Of course, Americans know this can't happen in the Good Old USA.

Of course not.

Charles Last Years

Charles died August 26, 1974, at his home in Maui, Hawaii. When the news was announced a lot of people were surprised. They hadn't even known he was still alive.

Charles's anonymity was largely self-imposed and wasn't too difficult to achieve. After all, when people remembered Charles they saw the tousle-headed cherubic-faced 25 year old in a barnstormer's flying outfit. But by the 1960's Charles was the dignified and distinguished looking executive with the receding gray hair. He was rarely recognized and when he flew on commercial flights, no one knew they were sitting next to one of the most iconic figures of history.

Although you'll read the contrary, Americans were quick to forgive - and forget - Charles' opposition to World War II. Articles about him still appeared but they almost all were about his famous flight. He wrote another book in the 1950's, aptly titled The Spirit of St. Louis, and it won him a Pulitzer Prize. And an article appeared in the 1960's about how Charles had been crucial in the funding for Robert Goddard's rocket research. Charles was still the All-American Hero.

In his last years, Charles was heavily involved in the environmental and conservation movement. He was a director of the World Wildlife Fund, worked with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, and was an advisor to the Nature Conservancy and the Oceanic Foundation. He said that if he had to choose between birds and airplanes, he'd choose the birds. And when he died the accolades rolled in.

Then came the big surprise.

And we mean BIG surprise.

It turns out that one reason for Charles's globe hopping lifestyle which cut down on the time spent with his wife and family is that it allowed him to spend more time with his family.

Or rather with his families.

Families. That's plural.

In 2003, it was revealed that Charles had - quote - "set up housekeeping" - unquote - with three women and had three families in Europe. Not only that, but he was involved (as the wording goes) with other women as well. All in all he had ten children besides those with Anne.

It's amazing that in a country that blares out headlines of celebrity liaisons, possible celebrity liaisons, and rumored celebrity liaisons with élan and enthusiasm that no English language publisher has ever brought out an edition of Das Doppelleben des Charles A. Lindbergh by Richard Rudolf Schröck. True you'll find some stories about it in the news media, and it's been the basis of a novel. But all in all, the American media has virtually ignored the story.

You wonder. Is this because no one dares even at this late date to tarnish the reputation of Everyone's Hero?

Or is it just that people have finally forgotten Lucky Lindy?

References and Further Reading

As Charles's recedes into history, as is true of all historical figures, books about him have dropped off in frequency. But in the 20th century there were many books about Charles although a good portion are not full biographies.

Lindberg, Scott Berg, Putnam, New York, 1998. The authorized, Pulitzer Prize winning biography and the most recent "full" biography of Charles. The books contains lots of facts, but some reviewers feel it skirts over the controversial areas of Charles's life. Actually it covers his non-interventionist activities as a good part of the book. Really recent reviewers of this and later (English language) biographies criticize the authors for avoiding the controversy of Charles's multiple families. However, how authors can write about a subject that was only revealed after their books are published is a bit of a mystery.

The Flight of the Century: Charles Lindbergh and the Rise of American Aviation, Thomas Kessner, Oxford University Press, 2010.

Lindbergh, Leonard Mosley, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1976. A popular telling of Charles's flight that was written shortly after Charles died.

Charles A. Lindbergh and the Battle Against American Intervention, Wayne Cole, Harcourt Brace, 1974. A pretty balanced look at Charles and more than anything points out that the people opposed to America's entry into World War II were not restricted to any particular political parties or philosophical outlooks - except they thought American should stay out of the war. Charles himself was interviewed for the book.

The Spirit of St. Louis, Charles Lindbergh, Scribner's, 1953. This is Charles's second book about his flight, and the one that won him the Pulitzer Prize. Later editions are available. Charles tells the story in the present tense and gives considerable details. The telling of the flight itself - which starts after about 180 pages into the book - is divvied up into one hour sections complete with the plane's instrument readings.

The Lindbergh Case, Jim Fisher, Rutgers University Press, 1994

"Lindbergh's Double Life", Minnesota Historica Society

Lindy Truth. A website that discusses the evidence of the Lindbergh Kidnapping trial from the standpoint the verdict was correct but also covers the discrepancies.

"Lindberg Kidnapping Evidence Photographs"", New Jersey State Archives. There are photographs used in the trial of the ladder, ransom notes, tools, and other evidence.

Loss of Eden: A Biography of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Joyce Milton, Harper Collins, 1994.

The American Axis, Max Wallace, St. Martin's Press, 2003.

The Wright Brothers: The Invention of the Aerial Age, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

"World's First Commercial Airline", Tim Sharp, Space.com.

"America First to Fly the Atlantic", Tim Sharp, Aircraft Journal, Vol 4., No. 1, January 4, 1919.

"How Lindbergh Gave a Lift to Rocketry", Milton Lehman, Life Magazine, October 4, 1963, pp. 115 - 127.

FBI Vault: Charles Lindbergh, FBI Vault.

"The Lindbergh Kidnapping", The Federal Bureau of Investigation.

"Richard Hauptmann (Lindbergh Kidnapping) Trial, 1935", Douglas Linder, Famous American Trials.

"Germany Reveals Official Pictures of Its Concentration Camps", Life Magazine, August 21, 1939, pp. 22 - 23.