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The Duncan & Coe History Show
FDR v. Lindbergh
00:40:26
Author Paul Sparrow helps Mike and Alexis navigate Charles Lindbergh's bumpy descent from American hero to Nazi Germany apologist--and thorn in FDR's side. Buy some books! Paul Sparrow, Alexis Coe, Mike Duncan,
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- [00:05]
A
Hello and welcome to season zero of the Duncan and company Show. I'm Mike Duncan, my co host is Alexis Ko, and we are two far flung history buddies.
- [00:15]
B
And this is our wide ranging archival mix of a show which thus far we've caught up on recent work that we've done. We've talked about, imagine work we might do in the future.
- [00:27]
A
And who could forget doing rabbit holes? You like typing dirty words into the search bar of founders online.
- [00:32]
B
And other things. Other things.
- [00:34]
A
And other things, yes. You also do research and I do. I like. I like cruising around Wikipedia and going to Gladiator too.
- [00:41]
B
Right. So we are. We are really truly season zeroing this season zero. But originally, two long years ago, we had talked about covering books, and that's how. That's how we introduced it to people. And then there were all these delays and we decided, this is definitely my phrasing here. It should be obvious that we would be like FDR in his first hundred days and just throw a bunch of things at the wall and see what sticks in this kind of experimental season. But we always intended to have some book coverage in here, and today is the day. This is the inaugural book coverage. Six or seven episodes in, and the path here is lined with books we talked about covering but ultimately decided not to.
- [01:34]
A
Yeah, we had a lot of conversations about what kind of books should be in this and what shouldn't. And then we were having a conversation one day about Charles Lindbergh, you know, as one does.
- [01:47]
B
Sure, sure.
- [01:49]
A
And you're saying things to me about Charles Lindbergh that I did not know, like I hadn't heard about before and caught me off guard a little bit.
- [01:57]
B
Right. Because everyone knows who Charles Lindbergh is. He's this American aviator. He's a trailblazer. He became famous when he was young, made history when he took a flight from New York to Paris. It was solo and it was nonstop. Those two things had not happened before.
- [02:17]
A
Yeah. And was he. Was he known at all before he did that?
- [02:20]
B
No, not really. His father, you know, these guys never come out of nowhere. His father was, of course, a congressman for about a decade, but by that time he had faded into obscurity. His name is also Charles Lindbergh, but it's not Lindbergh the Aviator. His middle name is Augustus, and we're talking about his father, Charles August Lindbergh. He had faded into obscurity. He had this failed Senate bid because he was an isolationist to the core. He lost to someone who wasn't. A year before America joined World War II. So the senior Lindbergh, he championed American neutrality during the Great War, which was a sentiment that was shared by many Americans until the tide turned. And that is the path that his son, aviator Charles Lindbergh, follows to a much greater effect. He was like an isolationist icon. Yeah.
- [03:19]
A
And so I know Lindbergh as he's the aviator. He has baby get kidnapped. Like, I know he's an anti Semite and I know he's a Nazi sympathizer, but I don't think I knew.
- [03:30]
B
I.
- [03:31]
A
Well, I know I didn't know all of the details about what he was up to in the years leading up to the war to drive FDR crazy.
- [03:39]
B
Right. And that's why I think this story is important, why I think it's a really good topic, because Lindbergh became this bristling thorn in FDR side. And so I suggested you read this book. Just read Paul Sparrow's book.
- [03:53]
A
Right, so you suggested Paul Sparrow's book, which is awakening the spirit of FDR's war of words with Charles Lindbergh and the battle to save democracy. And you know, the author, and we're enthusiastic to talk about this. And we know he's enthusiastic to talk about it. And so it seemed like a great first pick for us.
- [04:10]
B
Yes, I know Paul Sparrow because I am a presidential historian and he is the former director of the FDR Presidential Library and Museum. He's run other museums, he's worked in tv, he's an Emmy Award winning producer. And I like him. And I'm also fascinated by his job because it's such a big job to be the director of a library like that. It's a research library. So scholars like us go there and they look for primary sources and they hope to get fellowships there. And they have an amazing collection of secondary sources. It's also a museum, a place for dialogue events. I'm doing one tonight. I go to them all the time. And so when you see everything at the library, you run the education initiatives, no exhibition gets by you. You are overseeing visitor experiences. You're also doing pr, you're showing donors around, you're moderating events. You know what stories are out there and you know what stories need to be told. And so I already felt like this focus was so good. But when it was clear that it was not this commonly known story, I thought this, this is the book. So I called Paul Sparrow and interviewed him. Mike was not there. So you, dear listeners, and Mike are in the same boat right now. You're hearing these Clips for the very first time. Time. So, of course, I started with the obvious question, Paul Sparrow, why is this the book you wanted to write?
- [05:41]
C
I think a lot of Americans think that World War II, America's role in World War II and the Allies eventual victory was sort of a fait accompli. You know, very few people understand the intense internal opposition to America's involvement in the war, the dangers that America faced, and the fact that even after America got into the war, it was alongside that we were going to be able to defeat Adolf Hitler in the Japanese Empire.
- [06:09]
A
But we're America, right? Weren't we super strong coming out of World War I? Like we were about to take our first step onto the global stage as the great superpower of the 20th century?
- [06:20]
B
A lot of that is true, and it's also untrue because there are things that happened after. It's a big deal for us. But the topic of JFK's senior thesis, and of course the subject of my next book is. Is jfk, young jfk. So. So I was, you know, I'm in this. It's called why England Slept. And Churchill wrote a version. He JFK kind of stole the title While England Slept. And it's all about how these old great empires were vulnerable to Germany, to Russia, to Japan, because they did not rearm after World War I. And so Paul broke this down.
- [07:01]
C
It was literally an existential threat, not just to the British Empire, but to American democracy, to freedom everywhere. You know, Hitler had come right out and said he wanted to have global domination. He wanted to kill all the Jews in Europe, which he was almost successful at. And he wanted to take that Nazi philosophy and expand it around the world. So the stakes were high, and America was hopelessly unprepared for the war. And this period between September 1, 1939, when Germany invades Poland, and, you know, January 1942, when the United nations is formed and America is fully involved in the war, is really one of the most dramatic and important periods in American history that often gets left out. You know, people forget that there was this long period between when the war started and when America actually got involved. And FDR spent that time slowly moving American public opinion from opposing intervention to supporting intervention and starting to build up our military, which was 18th in the world at the time. I mean, we had less than 200,000 soldiers in uniform. You know, the German army spent 2 million men when they invaded France and the Low Country. So it really is a period that reflects the importance of leadership. And in some ways, the Importance of words, how FDR used language to move popular opinion to where we needed to be.
- [08:27]
B
So it's actually three big failures. You have the failure to rearm, you have the failure to innovate, and then you have these growing threats. So Paul said that America was 18th as far as military prowess. What does that mean? What are we talking about here? So the Germans have this incredible fleet of airplanes. That statement is true, but it's also not true. America had a couple dozen pilots in the army, but Germany, they had a lot more. But when they invited Lindbergh to see all these planes, of course this famous American aviator who was very sympathetic to their ideas, it was a total setup. It was just propaganda. Many of the planes that they showed him were non operational. And of course he wasn't testing all of them, but he just was blindly accepting everything that they had to tell him because they wanted him to go back to America and report, this is hopeless. We're too far behind. Make nice with Hitler, who I just happened to agree with, you know, when it comes to most things pointedly Jews. And so Lindbergh reported, just as he had been told, he said, you know, they're a military powerhouse. And he becomes this national hero who is now the face of America First. And that is the movement that's steeped in isolationism at the time and then, you know, later becomes very explicitly antisemitic, mostly thanks to Lindbergh. And this is familiar, this slogan, America first, because it was adopted by Donald Trump in, I think, 2016, 2017, and was recently used again in the election. There were a lot of, you know, signs that I saw around that said America First.
- [10:19]
A
Yeah, the America first campaign signs are starting to go back up again in a very troubling way. So what was the second failure?
- [10:26]
B
The second failure was diplomatic. The European superpowers, America, they all failed to contain Hitler and to under, you know, to really take seriously the rules that he broke. He broke the Treaty of Versailles. And they also believe that he could be sated. So he started invading countries and his excuses were flimsier and flimsier. At the same time, though, Hitler has been openly blaming the Jews for everything under the sun. Before he invaded Czechoslovakia, before he invaded Poland, he took their citizenship, their possessions, their freedom, and eventually as many of their lives as he could. And so there's this moment for each country. First, it was the invasion of Poland. You know, for others, particularly in America, it was seeing Hitler pose in front of these sites that people grew up seeing of this great empire. So, like the Eiffel Tower when he had taken over France. And for others like Charles Lindbergh, this moment comes much later.
- [11:31]
A
Yeah, so people knew what Hitler was doing pretty early, but there's a lot of like, yeah, this is just, this is not my problem. This is not our problem at all.
- [11:40]
B
That's how a lot of people feel. This is not my problem. It's far away. FDR is not of that mind. But he's got to play a long game. He's got to kind of sluggishly win public and congressional favor for intervention. And that takes a while. So he is wielding this tool of diplomacy through fireside chats. But there's another person who is also using the radio to great effect, and that is Charles Lindbergh.
- [12:13]
C
And the Great Depression had broken America, broken America's spirit and the sense there was enormous anger, particularly towards England and France, who hadn't repaid their debts to the United States that they incurred during World War I. Many Americans, partly because of misinformation and propaganda, believe that America had been tricked into joining World War I by what they called arms merchants and global bankers, you know, which was a code word for Jews. And so, you know, that was a very deep set of beliefs. You don't want to call conspiracy theory because there are elements of truth, but it was widely held and it was one of the reasons. So majority of Americans didn't want to get involved because they felt that they had been burned in their involvement in World War I and they weren't that well informed really about the political situation in Europe because they were desperate to find jobs and have houses and try to get back on their feet because America had been absolutely devastated by the Great Depression. So that's an important context for understanding why Americans were opposed to this involvement. But you also have to remember enormous misinformation being foisted on the American public by the German propaganda machine. You know, bribing members of Congress who would then deliver Nazi propaganda on the floor of the House and then use their franking privileges to send that out to millions of unsuspecting Americans who assume that it was from their congressman, it must be legit. And again, this massive media campaign directed by right wing media, William Randolph Hearst, Colonel McCormick, other leading radio personalities and newspaper columnists. So there was a lot of parallels in terms of foreign intervention in that election in 1940, and then after the election, continued foreign intervention in propaganda, trying to tear down the British and build up Nazi Germany. So again, you've got a lot of parallels there, Taemin. How The American public was being manipulated by foreign intervention.
- [14:21]
B
So FDR has to get Congress and the public over to the right side. This is a process and some of that is legislative. But there are limits, right? There are guardrails. And all of that is for not if FDR can't get the public on board. So he does these fireside chats, which we, by the way, as an aside, misremember. We think they were like weekly. That's not true. There were, I think, about 14 or 15. It wasn't a monopoly. FDR, yes, he can command the airwaves. There's a lot of power there. He's the President. All that is very clear. But Lindbergh we've reviewed is a hero, a pilot. He's also good looking, even though you're not seeing him. Of course, the newspapers are covering what's going on in the radio. They're not, you know, we don't have TVs in, in every household at this point. He's a good looking guy. He's got a beautiful wife and he has this Midwest accent. It was interesting. Paul, obviously has spent a lot of time listening to him.
- [15:19]
C
It's hard for people today to understand how famous Charles Lindbergh was and that he had spent, you know, four and a half years in Europe because he had to flee the American newspaper hounds and the journalists who were absolutely terrorizing he and his wife after the kidnapping and murder of his baby. So he was completely off the scene for a number of years. And after he returned to this country in 1939, when the war started in Poland, FDR went on the radio, as he had many times before, to try to explain what America's role was going to be because the Neutrality act forced us to be neutral. And less than two weeks later, Lindbergh goes on the air for the first time in years and attacks the President of the United States and says, we need to be an isolationist country. We should not get involved in this war. I mean, in many ways it's quite shocking for a private individual, no matter how famous they are, to directly challenge the President of the United States on a foreign policy issue of such incredible global significance.
- [16:20]
A
Oh, shit.
- [16:23]
B
Yeah, yeah. I mean, Lindbergh could get millions of listeners. This is a real time drama and they are eager to hear about it because for most people, the Great Depression was absolutely devastating. It drastically altered their life. And these are not distant memories. Many people haven't recovered and they're terrified of it happening again. This is the vast majority of people I'm not talking about a minority here. And so fdr, he's this great orator. What he's saying is right, it's moral. He's not pushing it too hard yet, but he's starting. But you know, the thing about America, this has always been true. We love a celebrity.
- [17:05]
C
You know, you think about it. He called up the Mutual Broadcasting System and said, hey, can you give me half an hour of prime time air? And they said yes. And every time he wanted to do a radio address, he would go to the networks and they had instantly give him whatever air time he wanted. Plus, he started traveling around the country, especially when he became the spokesperson for America first, speaking to 10, 20, 30,000 people at a time. You know, he sold out Madison Square garden. There were 4,000 people in the streets outside listening to his speech on loudspeakers. He was a very effective communicator. He was wildly popular. And in the beginning he was expressing the opinion of a majority of Americans, probably 70% of Americans agreed with him and with the isolationist point of view that we don't want to get involved in this war. So he was a real challenge to FDR and his ability to command his audiences.
- [17:58]
A
So what did he, what did he sound like?
- [18:00]
B
Lindbergh's voice was not great. The vocal Frei crowd, which we wouldn't know anything about, they would have a field day. But he offered this facade of Midwestern charm. It's deceptive, but it's disarming. And at first he seemed totally reasonable. He was like a man of the people, just wanted to keep everyone safe, wanted to be sound, wanted to be sober minded.
- [18:24]
C
It's interesting because he had a very unemotional voice, sort of a flat Midwestern accent. He spoke in very calm, logical terms. He, he would express his point of view. He would occasionally attack the policies of fdr. But even when he was attacking him, he was very reasonable and sort of calm. And it was such a dramatic challenge to Roosevelt that in the spring of 1940, the Republicans wanted to run Lindbergh against Roosevelt for the presidency, especially because it would have been an unprecedented third term for Roosevelt to seek. But Lindbergh didn't want to get caught up in the politics. He wanted to be his own man. He wanted to control his own message. And he didn't want to be a public servant. So you can't underestimate how powerful Lindbergh was, the enormous following he had, and the challenges that the Roosevelt administration and his speechwriters had in how to address it.
- [19:15]
A
Right. So he's he's coming off a little bit like Trump before he ran for president.
- [19:19]
B
Yes and no. It's not the cleanest comparison. Lindbergh, like Trump, was fine being controversial. He did not back down. So there's this incident that happened a couple years earlier that definitely he got in a little bit of trouble for where he went to Germany to accept a medal from Hermann Goering, who was the head of the Nazi Air Force, in honor of his transatlantic flight that had happened earlier. And then several weeks after he accepted this medal, in this highly publicized event, the Nazis launched the Night of Broken Glass, which was a pogrom against Jews. It was brutal. They beat Jewish men, women and children. Nothing was off limits. Their homes were invaded, raided. They were left with next to nothing. And many Jews were rounded up. Many died. And those who were left were fined by the government for the horror that was just inflicted on them. After that, the public was like, I don't know about Germany and Hitler. Lindbergh, maybe you should return your medal and renounce those honors and maybe your friendship. And he was totally unswayed. He claimed that there is peace between Germany and America. So why would he reject a gesture of friendship, which is also not true. There was not peace. There were already things happening at sea. It was not a gesture of friendship. It was manipulation. And that giving it back wouldn't do anyone any good, which we also know is not true. So Lindbergh wouldn't back down, but he's not craving attention in this way. He is not like Trump, especially after the kidnapping. He is reticent to be in public. He's not going to run for president. People are asking him to. To challenge FDR as he, you know, rallies for an unprecedented third term. So FDR is going to break the precedent that George Washington set of only serving two terms. It's not codified in the Constitution.
- [21:32]
C
I would say that Roosevelt was the most famous person in America and became one of the most famous people in the world. I would say Lindbergh's celebrity was almost equal to his and in some ways less tainted. But Lindbergh had a lot to lose when he would give these speeches, especially later on in 1941 when he would come out and be very anti Semitic in his statements on very pro Nazi Germany. He knew that he was going to, you know, suffer backlash. His wife warned him repeatedly about toning down his language. And he said, I want to say what I'm going to say. And again, this period, it's amazing how few people know that Lindbergh was a pro Nazi, anti Semitic isolationist during this period leading up to World War II. And it all just sort of gotten airbrushed out of his story. And it's, it's really remarkable how quickly we forget the roles these people play. Everybody at the time knew exactly what he was doing and what he stood for and who he was representing. Again, remember his, his closest allies were Henry Ford, a renowned anti Semite who had factories in Germany and strongly supported Hitler. William Randolph Hearst, who was, you know, essentially a media magnet, like that Rupert Murdoch of his day, with massive media control over newspapers and radios. And those were the people that were supporting Lindbergh. So they were all well known, right wing, powerful, rich, influential people who were pushing his story. And yet when the war ended, you know, everybody just sort of brushed their hands and walked away. And the history books record Lindbergh as this great aviation pilot, which he was. That he was also an anti Semite and a pro Nazi sympathizer.
- [23:22]
A
Yeah, so I knew he was anti Semite, I knew he was a Nazi sympathizer, but I had no idea about all of this.
- [23:30]
B
Yeah, the speeches are vile. But it's interesting the way it has been sort of whitewashed and the intense desire to make Lindbergh a cleaner hero. Years ago, there was a show about time traveling woman who was a brunette. And so of course people on Twitter decided that I would care about it and that I would be the one to save it because it was getting canceled, which was a whole thing. I was just sort of like inundated with all these tweets. And so I watched an episode and it just happened to be about Lindbergh. And I was absolutely shocked by the whitewashing. They were like, what if he didn't really hate jeers, he just really cared about America. So if that's happening now, imagine what was happening then. He's not just talking to Americans. He is an American. He is a man of the people. He's also a hero. And he's got the ear of very important people within government. I mean, Germany had the ear of many important people in government, but Lindbergh has become very good friends. But Lindbergh has become very good friends with the American ambassador to England, the first Irish ambassador to the Court of St. James. I have told you so much about this.
- [24:50]
A
Oh, yeah, I know where you're going with this because Lindbergh has quite a shadowy political network here.
- [24:56]
B
And at the helm is Joseph P. Kennedy, JFK's dad, and he's one of These men, one of the few men who got richer during the Great Depression. And he is an avowed isolationist, even though he was appointed by fdr. And that's like, a whole side drama. But JPK is not a huge fan of Jews. He worked with plenty of them in Hollywood, so he's got a few he likes. It's not at the Lindbergh level, but he's totally okay with people having problems with Jews because, like, he fundamentally gets it. So they become good friends. Lindbergh and the Patriarch, which is, by the way, an another title of another great book by a historian named David Nassau. And it's all about Papa Joe, who is great at business and absolutely garbage at politics, especially in that position. It was just like an ambassadorial disaster. So, like, Lindbergh is in Europe all the time, and he's just got a passion. To Kennedy's residence, to the American Embassy. He's going for lunch. But they're also, like, going away for weekends together. Fancy estates with British isolationists, by the way, who are already coming around because this is happening in their backyards. Lindbergh is telling Kennedy all the things that he's seeing and hearing. And Kennedy, who has access to actual surveillance, to sensitive materials, to spies, he's like, no, I think Lindbergh is right. They don't question anything. And then JPK parrots everything that Lindbergh tells him back to fdr. So these are, like, in diplomatic cables. And he also tells Lindbergh, look, we gotta cut. We gotta cut the middleman here. You sit down and write a letter to Neville Chamberlain, and I'll walk it over to Downing street, no problem. So, like, Lindbergh is talking to the ambassador. He's talking to the British Prime Minister, which is just sort of unfathomable to us. But as Paul kept pointing out, they are in the majority. They feel empowered not only by the information, but by the vast population who thinks they're right.
- [27:16]
C
Absolutely. And Joe Kennedy had been FDR's ambassador to England during this lead up to the war. He was very anti Churchill, very pro Hitler, and he was basically telling Roosevelt and anyone who would listen that America shouldn't be backing the British because the Germans were going to win and we should be making a deal with them. You know, we want to be on the side of the winners in this conflict. And FDR would have fired him earlier in 1940, but he was afraid he'd come back and run against him. You know, the country was very much split along these lines, and many people felt that like they do today, that they don't want to support Ukraine and Zelensky because they think they're going to lose and we can do business with Putin and Russia. That's exactly what the arguments were then. You know, Churchill's going to lose this war. We don't really like the British anyway. We should get in bed with Hitler and Germany. Not only are they going to be successful, but we can do business with them.
- [28:11]
B
So that, that is a, that's a cold assessment.
- [28:14]
A
So FDR is running for this, like, unprecedented third term at a time when Americans are panicked about another world war. They're wondering what kind of, like, governance is happening out there. And this is, this is all an era of American history that does connect back to, like, you know, like how the Roman Republic functioned, where you weren't supposed to do these sorts of things, you weren't supposed to run for multiple terms. And people like Marius and Sulla then come into the system. And there are concerns about, like, what FDR is up to here and what this means for the future of the.
- [28:42]
B
Country, men in their relationship with power. It's one of the most interesting parts of all of this. What's really interesting to me about this moment in history that is not always at the forefront of the conversation is that it is about whether or not to go to war. Right. But this is also about fascism. And Kennedy and Lindbergh. I won't say that they were enthusiastic proponents of fascism, but they believed in its might. And that was a message that FDR ardently contested. And so at this point, while they are working these back channels, he is trying to fortify America's international and democratic resolve. So it's about democracy and it's also about, obviously, if he's running for a third term, the evolution of the presidency, the evolution of an international community, which of course, Paul and I obviously talked a lot about.
- [29:41]
C
I think fdr, you have to either give him credit or blame for the creation of the imperial presidency. He amassed enormous power around the presidency and he completely restructured the American government on a scale not unlike what Trump is saying he wants to do now in terms of completely reorganizing it, but in exactly 180 degrees opposite way. FDR wanted to create more power in the presidency so he could solve Americans problems and grow the federal government to provide services to the Americans. Trump wants to assimilate more and more power in the White House so he can deconstruct the very government that FDR built up. The very idea of a regulatory federal Agency, the administrative state, as they call it. So FDR understood that he could not be successful unless he created an international alliance. Of course, he was a big believer in the League of Nations, but he saw how it had failed and why it had failed. Because he was Assistant Secretary of the Navy when Wilson was the president and when the League of Nations was formed. And so he wanted to do something different. So initially, he creates what he called the United nations, you know, In January of 1942, as a group of countries who are going to fight fascism. Very specific goal and military target. And then right before he dies, they're trying to create a new diplomatic United nations, which is designed to be like the League of Nations, in which international conflicts are resolved before you get to the stage of war. So in some ways, the assimilation of power is similar, but the goals are diametrically opposed.
- [31:20]
A
Okay, so that's one kind of presidency. Right. More powerful than before. But we still have Lindbergh as a thorn in FDR side.
- [31:27]
B
Yeah, right. Because despite all that power, FDR is still making slower progress than he would like as far as winning the hearts and minds of Americans. Lindbergh still kind of has them. And then there is this event that changed everything. A lagoon harbor in Hawaii was the site of a surprise attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy on December 7, 1941.
- [31:57]
C
It is the date that you can look at and say, up until that point, America was primarily an isolationist nation who wanted to do their own thing. And after America started on the path to being a global superpower and the dominant force in the Western world in terms of political structure and what a government is supposed to do, that was the date that everything changed. And for Charles Lindbergh, you know, and for the entire isolationist movement, it ended that day. You know, on December 8th, Lindbergh comes out and says, we're going to be shutting down America first. You know, America was attacked by force of arms, and by force of arms, we must respond.
- [32:33]
A
So that's. So that's what did it. And for Lindbergh, too, right?
- [32:37]
B
Yes and no. But we can't. We can't tell this story without going back a few months before Pearl harbor, because Lindbergh will remain a persistent irritant. So on September 11, 1941, Lindbergh tarnished his reputation with a controversial speech in Des Moines. It asked a question, who are the war agitators? And then he answered the question, and he said, this is a quote. The three most important groups who have been pressing this country towards war are the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration. And he went on to analyze each of the group's motives. And guess who got it the worst?
- [33:24]
A
Oh, who?
- [33:25]
B
The Jews. So he, he said another quote from Lindbergh. Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government.
- [33:42]
A
Yes, that's, that's pretty anti Semitic. How did that go down?
- [33:46]
B
It did not go down well. No, it didn't. It didn't go down well. The papers ran lots of stories about it the next day. This was a heyday of opinion columnists and they were also displeased with this. It ignited, I would say, widespread condemnation. So the media, politicians, even his wife Anne, voiced concerns about this. And they were worried either about what he was saying, the antisemitism, or about what it would do for his image. And he again, was unrepentant. So just like the first time, he believed in free speech, he believed in his right to openly discuss Jewish influence, and he stayed the course despite this pretty substantial backlash that has marred his legacy. Not as much as it probably should, but more than anything at that time, what it did was it hindered the non interventionist cause. So these isolationists, it completely weakened the America First Committee's effectiveness in opposing, you know, Roosevelt's foreign policy. And that was a good thing for America, not a great thing for Lindbergh.
- [35:07]
C
No matter how misguided we think our leadership's policies were prior to getting us to this point. We now have to move forward. And of course, after that, he tried to get a job in the Air Force. Everybody shut him down. He ended up working for Henry Ford. But towards the end of the war, he went over as a private contractor to the Pacific and helped the Marines dramatically improve the performance of their fighter planes. He flew 50 combat missions unofficially, was never really conscripted. And then in 1954, he was reinstated as a lieutenant general in the US Army Air Force by President Eisenhower. And his, you know, reputation was redeemed and everybody just sort of forgot about those troubling years.
- [35:51]
A
So was Lindbergh swayed after Pearl Harbor?
- [35:55]
B
Yes. But that September 11 speech had already sort of precipitated his fall from grace. So even if Pearl harbor hadn't happened, I don't know if he would have continued on that path.
- [36:08]
A
Right, so Lindbergh, wrong fdr, Right?
- [36:12]
B
Yeah. I mean, America is right. And I think that was the fundamental difference here. FDR was a good person to have an office when this is happening because he believed in America. He believed in America. And he believed in its ability to harness its power to get its act together and to do the right thing.
- [36:35]
C
A lot of people ask me about, how do we apply this to today?
- [36:38]
B
Right.
- [36:39]
C
And so for me, the lesson from the Roosevelt era, but specifically from Franklin Roosevelt's leadership, is that you have to believe in the American system. He took office in March of 1933 at the darkest moment in American history. I mean, there were literally 12 million unemployed people, 25% of the workforce, 6 million people who were homeless. It was a terrible time. American democracy, American capitalism seemed to have failed. And he took office with this extraordinary confidence that the American system, with the right leadership, would recover and would blossom. He believed in that. And then, of course, in 1940, when the world is on fire and you're seeing this expansion of fascism and militarism all around the globe, and America's woefully unprepared and our allies are falling for he again never lost faith in the American ability to rise to that challenge, despite being woefully unprepared to rise to that challenge and to be ultimately successful. And I think we have to look at this again. We have to believe in the American system. Is this the end of it? Who knows? But it's up to us as the American public to insist that the American standards are not abandoned, that we continue to be this shining city on the hill, as Reagan said, for people seeking freedom around the world. And that's a role we cannot give up. And we have to believe in the American system, that this pendulum which swings back and forth will swing back and the American system will survive.
- [38:09]
B
Yeah.
- [38:09]
A
So the details of all of this are fascinating, right? And again, like, I have this top level understanding of who Lindbergh was and like, a little bit of his role in American history, but I don't. I did not have any of these details, nor the particular vileness of some of the things that Lindbergh was up to, nor how much trouble he was causing for FDR as FDR is trying to navigate us towards what we sort of believe as a country was our inevitable destiny, which is to get into World War II and fight the Nazis and do all this stuff. But what Lindbergh is representing here is a majority opinion that is against all of this.
- [38:45]
B
When we think about World War I, World War II, we think about the trenches, we think about battlefields, World War II, we think about concentration camps. And that's the way I always thought about it. That's the way I always approached it. But this study that I've been doing on JFK because his father was an ambassador. I have grown to really appreciate how delicate of a situation it was from a diplomatic standpoint. And all the various players and everything that I have just described is like a sliver. The story is itself worthy of its own epic. It is the incredible, slow, tense narrative. It is a slow, tense fight for America, even though it is about a foreign war. It is America deciding who it is and who it wants to be in the world that exists at the moment. And so I think, of course, everyone should pick up a copy of Awakening, the spirit of America, FDR's war of words with Charles Lindbergh and the Battle to Save Democracy, available wherever books are sold. It's wonderful. He's wonderful. You can follow him on all the platforms, too. And I also mentioned another book. I love David Nassau's book on Joseph Patrick Kennedy. And so I think everyone should get them both.
- [40:13]
A
I will be getting them both.
- [40:15]
B
Good.
- [40:16]
A
Yes. Sold. So this is another episode of season zero of the Duncan & Company Show. I'm Mike Duncan.
- [40:22]
B
I'm Alexis Caro. And this was our show.