Lindbergh in Des Moines 9/11/41

I was unaware, totally, of the fact that one of the most important events of the pre-war era in America happened right here in Iowa, in Des Moines, on September 11, 1941, just four months before America's role in World War II was no longer in question.

Charles Lindbergh was an authentic American hero. He'd been the first to fly solo over the Atlantic in his plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, which hangs--I believe--in the Twin Cities airport. Named the very first "Man of the Year" by Time magazine in 1928, a year after his epic flight, Lindbergh could not have been more popular, more universally admired. After his epic flight, an American tour brought him and his plane to all 48 states, 82 stops in all. Long before TV or the internet, Lindbergh was a media giant.

At the height of his popularity, a man named German-born carpenter named Bruno Richard Hauptmann stole into the Lindbergh house, kidnapped Charles and Anne Murrow Lindbergh's 20-month-old son, and then murdered the child. It's almost impossible to understand how closely America watched what they could of that tragic story, how deeply sadness reigned, coast to coast, when the little boy's death was announced, how much sympathy the entire nation gave the Lindberghs, who became as close as America would ever get to royalty.

Lindbergh, for reasons all his own, determined to keep the nation who loved him out of a war he claimed was essentially European. Despite news reports that made  clear that Hitler's henchmen were carrying out atrocities against their own Jewish people, Lindbergh famously claimed that night in Des Moines that three powerful forces argued for American intervention in that "European war"--the Brits, the Roosevelt administration, and European Jewry.

These wars in Europe are not wars in which our civilization is defending itself against some Asiatic intruder,” Lindbergh had already said a year before. “This is not a question of banding together to defend the white race against foreign invasion.”

Although he claimed great admiration for the Jews and horror at what was happening to them, his whole "America First" movement was crystalized that night into the anti-Semitic character of his arguments. If anyone should oppose American intervention, he said, it should be the Jews, who will suffer should such intervention ever occur. Somehow the illogic of that argument became clearly visible that night. It was clear, in Des Moines, Iowa, that Charles Lindbergh did not consider the Jews truly "American."

What he wanted, more than anything, was to keep America out of yet another world war, another "European" war. But his prejudice against Jews that night, in that speech, not only gained no followers, but also turned popular opinion against him eventually and dampened sympathy for the "America First" cause.

The sharply divergent arguments in this country with respect to our participation in the war were suddenly made moot when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, a day Roosevelt said, would live in infamy.

Eventually, Lindbergh himself flew combat missions in the South Pacific.