Lindbergh

Rating:
Summary: A Great book about one of America's Great Heroes
Review: Lindbergh was an extraordinary man. He was brilliant, patriotic, brave and highly disciplined.
He made the 1st solo transatlantic flight from NY to Paris in 33 hours. He was a pionear in aviation. He worked as a spy for the usa airforce by going to Germany to investigate their airforce bases. He was highly criticised for his isolationist views prior to WW2 and even called antisemitic by some such as the big hypocrite democrat himself FDR. FDR was a notorious antisemite. During WW@ their were thousands of Jewish refugees waiting in boats just offshore from NY city. FDR refused to allow them to come to the USA. FDR also refused to desegregate the military. Later it was another democrat named Truman who said to give the Jewish peoples the country of Israel rather than let them come to the USA. Many persons including Truman were isolationist before WW2. They felt that what could be better than nazis and communists killing each other. No one knew at that time what a monster Hitler was and what was to follow.
When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, it became obvious to everyone that the usa must enter WW2. Lindbergh volunteered and flew combat missions and bomber missions against the Japanese. He shot down at least one Japanese plane. Remember, he was overage and did not need to go. He could have just gone as an advisor. He personally insisted in flying on combat missions. This is tremendously heroic. General Eisenhower once president promoted Lindbergh to the rank of General. Lindbergh and his wife were very intelligent and wrote several books on their own and together. The book is extremely well written. I recommend the audioversion. It was so intense and exciting, that I missed my exit on the highway. Linbergh is to aviation what Michael Jordan is too basketball. He is a superhero.

Rating:
Summary: Fabulous book, amazing subject...
Review: I'm a fairly avid reader of America history and American biographies. I was a little worried at first that the only interesting events in Lindbergh's life would be the flight and the kidnapping, the end. Fortunately, Mr. Berg was able to uncover an absolutely enormous amount of infomation about Lindbergh's life including major events, beliefs, achievements, philosophies, ethics, and flaws. The fact that Mr. Berg had unprecedented and unfettered access to Charles' and Anne's letters, artifacts, and diaries makes for an especially in-depth and interesting read.

The key to Mr. Berg's success in writing this book, in my opinion, was his ability to really boil this unwieldy amount of information on the Lindbergh's down to the essential elements without spending too much time on boring details. However, Mr. Berg also manages to not just give us an overview of the facets that shaped the Lindbergh's lives, but to show us how these facets came about.

A great book about a great, and perhaps somewhat flawed, man. If you like to read biographies, you should read this book.

Rating:
Summary: great bio of a great , though hardly flawless, man
Review: It seems to me impossible to overpraise this Pulitzer Prize winning biography. I would urge every American to read it. There are not simply subplots in the life of The Lone Eagle, there are at least three totally separate major plots, a leit motif or even two and then various subplots:

THE PLOTS

1) First, of course, is the solo flight from New York to Paris on May 20-21, 1927. Beyond the historic nature of the achievement, is the fact that Lindbergh himself was involved in every step of producing the airplane, The Spirit of St. Louis, and planned the entire thing virtually by himself.

2) The Kidnapping. To a generation grown weary watching Court TV, OJ, the Killer Nanny, etc., it may be hard to remember that there once was a real Trial of the Century. The disappearance of the Lindbergh Baby, the search for the killers, the trial and subsequent conspiracy theories all blend together in a horrifying sequence of events.

3) America First: Many people still recoil at the mere mention of Lindbergh's name and mistakenly remember him as a Nazi. His leadership of America's isolationists did tremendous and lasting damage to his reputation. I'll return to this topic.

THE LEIT MOTIFS

1) Lindbergh achieved his fame at a moment in time which made him both one of the last heroes of the age of Exploration and the first celebrity of the Media Age. Only the astronauts remained to be placed in the pantheon of explorers and their accomplishments were so much driven by technology and bureaucracy, that they were inevitably somewhat diminished. And noone had ever had to face the glare of media attention that greeted Lindbergh after his flight. He was famous in a sense that had never been seen and was, perhaps, never seen again. Parisians spontaneously flooded the field where he landed. One in three New Yorkers turned out for the parade that greeted him. He was made offers totaling some $5 Million at a time when the country was plunging into Depression. His every move was news. Every word was scrutinized; every action analyzed. For the remainder of his life, this celebrity would be a boon and a bane, but it would always be inescapable.

2) Throughout his whole life, from college to the grave, Lindbergh was one of the prime movers in the field of aviation. Besides his historic flight, he served on numerous Corporate, Government and private boards and committees to foster and improve aviation speed, safety and efficiency.

3) His marriage to Anne Morrow was complex, tragic, glorious, productive--you pick an adjective, it probably fits. Just the story of the relationship between these two remarkable people could fill a book

THE SUBPLOTS

Along the course of this incredible life, Lindbergh also won a Pulitzer for his book The Spirit of
St. Louis, developed a pump that revolutionized major organ surgery, shot down a Japanese
fighter plane, met Presidents, royalty, dictators, etc. and due to the unique combination of his
celebrity and his mobility he saw Hiroshima from the air, Holocaust remains, the Apollo 11
launch, and so on.

All of these things make for fascinating reading. Sections like the flight and the kidnapping are as exciting as any novel. But, of course, the section that grips our attention is the America First period. Was he or wasn't he? A Nazi that is.

There is something truly perverted about the fact that this question even arises. Recently there have been a number of stories about how labeling Milosevic, or Saddam for that matter, a Hitler and making charges of genocide, removes our capacity to reason about and discuss events. In the same way, the viscious and baseless charges of Nazi sympathizer, anti-Semite, traitor, and so on, ad nauseum, that were lodged by men like FDR and Harold Ickes and many others, have long made it impossible to discuss Lindbergh, America First and the isolationist movement logically. Berg remedies this unfortunate fact in an even handed and straight forward account of the events.

A number of factors combined to push Lindbergh in the direction of isolationism. His father had been an isolationist congressman during WWI. His parents chaotic marriage and his own wanderlust lead him to place an elevated premium on order and he thought that he had found a well ordered society in Nazi Germany. His tours of their airbases and plane factories had impressed him and left him believing that they would be a more formidable foe than anyone else realized. He always expressed bewilderment at the Nazi obsession with the Jewish problem, but he never understood the degree to which it would overtake them and lead to the Holocaust. In fairness, who did realize it then? Finally, he perceived the Soviet Union as a significant and permanent threat to Europe and the West. He felt that destroying Germany would leave an exhausted Europe prostrate at the feet of the Communists.
For all of these reasons, he called upon Americans to stay out of the War, rearm America into an impregnable fortress and let the Nazis and the Communists tear away at one another.

But along with these sentiments, he also perceived the world in racial terms. He feared the Communists more than the Nazis because in the end, the Nazis were German and Western and when Hitler was gone they would return to their senses. But the Communists were Russian and semi-Asiatic and were fundamentally Eastern, not Western. In the same sense, he spoke of Jews as a race and inevitably, he eventually became entangled in verbal thickets that he could not escape. In the speech that forever marked him as an anti-Semite, when he was trying to describe what groups of people were pushing the U.S. towards war, he said the following:

It is not difficult to understand why Jewish people desire the overthrow of Nazi Germany. The
persecution they suffered in Germany would be sufficient to make bitter enemies of any race. No
person with a sense of the dignity of mankind can condone the persecution of the Jewish race in
Germany. But no person of honesty and vision can look on their pro-war policy here today
without seeing the dangers involved in such a policy, both for us and for them.

Instead of agitating for war, the Jewish groups in this country should be opposing it in every
possible way, for they will be among the first to feel its consequences. Tolerance is a virtue that
depends upon peace and strength. History shows that it cannot survive war and devastation. A
few far-sighted Jewish people realize this, and stand opposed to intervention. But the majority
still do not. Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our
motion pictures, our press, our radio and our Government.

I am not attacking either the Jewish or the British people. Both races, I admire. But I am saying
that the leaders of both the British and Jewish races, for reasons which are understandable from
their viewpoint as they are inadvisable from ours, for reasons which are not American, wish to
involve us in the war. We cannot blame them for looking out for what they believe to be their own
interests, but we must look out for ours. We cannot allow the natural passions and prejudices of
other peoples to lead our country to destruction.

This sense of Jewish otherness was seized upon by interventionists in politics and the press, and, along with his use of the classic anti-Semitic theory about inordinate Jewish influence in the media and government, enabled them to smear him as a Nazi.

To our eyes, the easy reference to races of people seems odd. Noone considers the British a race anymore. But this racialism was common at the time. Indeed, few men have ever written and spoken about race as vehemently as Winston Churchill. But the implication that somehow Jews weren't Americans was simply too inflammatory and with Roosevelt and the Eastern establishment champing at the bit to get into the war, Lindbergh had handed them a weapon with which to pummel him. They gladly used it.

Now, it should give us some pause to consider that:
1) Woodrow Wilson set us on the course to having ethnicity be the determining factor in statehood.
2) FDR, within a year, was rounding up Japanese Americans and sending them to Concentration Camps.
3) FDR's Democrat party oversaw the venomous system of Jim Crow laws in the South
4) Following the war, Israel was founded as a Jewish homeland and even today, Israel does not consider a person Jewish unless they are borne of a Jewish mother, making Jews a de facto race.
5) Today, in Europe NATO is bombing Slavic Christian Serbs to benefit Albanian Moslems. And in America, race is once again a determining factor in getting a job or a government grant.

None of this excuses Lindbergh's ill considered language about Jews. But it does raise the question of why he is the one who is dogged by the reputation of being an anti-Semite and a Nazi. When you think of FDR, your first thought is not: "

Rating:
Summary: Lindbergh
Review: My only previous knowledge of Lindbergh was that he was from Minnesota and flew across the Atlantic. With the reading of this book, I feel as if I really know the man. Many nights I couldn't put it down because it is so well written. It is the story of a great man and a patriotic American who wasn't afraid to share his views even when those views were not popular. If you are at all interested in history, this is the book for you.

Rating:
Summary: Engaging story!
Review: This book is written so well that the words just seem to jump off the pages. By the end of the book you will come to feel that you know this man personally. A truly amazing story !

Rating:
Summary: Lindbergh: genius, aviator, and obsessive despot
Review: Bergs book, like any bio., is a long read and a real commitment, but in the end you are left unsatisfied. Apart from the early sections you rarely feel the presence of Lindbergh, just his shadow - an hueristic bio. In all honesty I came away knowing more about Anne Morrow Lindberg, than Lindy himself. For example we get to know of her affair, but nothing of his other loves (or even friends for that matter). But maybe that is what Berg was getting at. Lindy was as aloof in the book as in real life.

Lindbergh was a heroic figure. A loner who could not accept his own failings. So solitary that he redfines lack of empathy. Clearly he was very talented, but also very troubled. Berg describes him as a despot - particularly as a family man. He never appears to grieve the infamous loss of young Charles, while Anne grieves for years. After the kidnapping he never quite settled down again, and was always moving the family home. The caustic letters he wrote his sons will make you mad.

He was drawn to highly idealistic causes, and eccentric gurus, one of whom convinced him of the benefits of Hitler's racial purification thinking. He was obsessive in the extreme - a continual list maker who dictated exact instructions about his burial to the gather pre-mourners.

Look, heres the thing - he was one of the greatest pilots of the 20th C, but he was vastly flawed in his self annointed role as a roving embassador. The moral of this great story is "stick to your knitting", and please seek medical assistance before you ruin the lives of those you love, and those who look up to you.

PS: It is a great shame that some other great aviators of his era are completely ignored, like Hinkler and Kingsford-Smith.

Rating:
Summary: The lone eagle was large.
Review: Berg writes a fine account of the life of Lindbergh who was the most famous and widely known man in the solar system in 1927. I appreciate Berg's attempt at balanced, unbiased writing when describing Lindbergh's battle with his reputation for racism/anti-Semitism during the late 30's and 40's. The author essays to be as fair as possible to the man but ultimately, after critically evaluating Lindbergh's written and spoken words, Berg concludes, it seems, painfully, that his subject indeed harbored racist ideas. I enjoyed the flow and rhythm of the book, though the last section seemed a bit uneven. Berg tries to "tie up loose ends" regarding relationships Lindbergh had with his family, yet very little of this had been introduced earlier in the book. I certainly forgive the author for the foregoing because when the minute details of Lindbergh's own funeral arrangements are discussed, I realized that this bizarre ending perfectly describes the enigmatic life of the Lone Eagle.

Rating:
Summary: Less than great
Review: The audio book version of LINDBERGH focuses on the three reasons we remember Charles Lindbergh: (1) his historic flight; (2) his baby's kidnapping and murder; and (3) his ultra-isolationist views leading up to World War II. The resulting portrait is balanced and very human, but something is lost. Having not been around when Lindbergh became the first person to cross the Atlantic in an airplane, I never quite understood the full source of his celebrity. The human Lindbergh of this book seems less than great, so the exact reason for his great fame remains a mystery for me.

LINDBERGH does a better job with the kidnapping. The story is quite bizarre and not a little creepy. Author Berg manages to convey the drama and suspense, but also debunks some of the conspiracy theories that survive to this day.

Lindbergh's activities leading up to World War II mark his last really noteworthy set of activities, and they border on the tragic. Lindbergh comes off as stupid and insensitive (actually accepting a Nazi award from Herman Goering). It is easy to understand why he may have been perceived as a Nazi sympathizer, but Berg doesn't portray him that way. Instead, Lindbergh comes off as a naïve farm-boy, way out of his league in the America First movement. Really, he had no reason to emerge as an authoritative voice on world affairs. What did he do? He stayed awake in a plane in his 20s. Accepting that that was a great act of endurance and navigation, it has nothing to do with foreign policy.

In many ways, Charles Lindbergh was ahead of his time. His flight foretold the space age. The media hype around the kidnapping was shades of OJ, Monica and the media-saturated 1990's. The attention paid to him as he ignorantly leapt into the public debate is worth contemplating as Arnold Schwartzenegger considers running for Governor of California, and candidates for public office with no experience often seem more appealing than those with. Lindbergh was just a man, his image was the product of hype. He may have been the first person of the 20th Century to be famous mostly for being famous. He was far from the last.

There's something empty about the Charles Lindbergh of this audiobook. That may be useful in understating a man of a past age in the present, but the emptiness carries over into the book itself. LINDBERGH was enjoyable to listen to, but as with Charles Lindbergh, I was left wanting something greater.

Rating:
Summary: A Lonely Life for the Lone Eagle
Review: To this baby-boomer growing up, Charles A. Lindbergh was a shadowy hero about whom little was known. We knew of his heroic flight across the Atlantic in 1927 and the tragic kidnapping and murder of his son a few years later. As time went on I came to know that there was some controversy about his stand in the years leading up to World War II. Occasionally a magazine article would associate his name with some environmental cause, but the human being remained in the shadows of the spectacular dash across the Atlantic. In this biography, A. Scott Berg brings the man, his times, what the world would make him and the ways he influenced the world all to life. The book does even more than that, for it gives us a biography, not only of Charles, but also of his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

The book starts with the family background of Charles A. Lindbergh. The grandson of a prominent member of the Swedish Riksdag and son of a Progressive Minnesota Congressman, Lindbergh was no stranger to the public forums into which he would later delve. Both his father and grandfather would fall from political favor and seek a modicum of success in regions far from their political bases. Lindbergh actually got much of his familial support from his maternal family, based in Detroit. His parents marriage would long exist in name only, a trait which would bear some comparison to Charles and Anne's marriage.

Throughout the book, Berg makes the reader clearly aware of the contrasts in Lindbergh's life. Although the son of a former Congressman who might be expected to have the support of establishment figures, Lindbergh undertook the Trans-Atlantic flight with the credentials of a Midwestern mail pilot, who had primarily flown routes in Missouri and Illinois. Before the Trans-Atlantic flight he was far from being considered one of America's prominent aviators. Although seemingly flying out of the mists onto the world stage, he was to become a prominent force in American corporate and public policy debates for the rest of his life.

With touchdown in Paris, everything changed for Lindbergh. He became an instant celebrity on a scale the world had never seen before or since. The press would hound his every movement for years. This provided Lindbergh with both an opportunity and a curse. He suddenly became accepted as an expert on any subject on which he might choose to express an opinion. He used his new persona to promote the causes in which he believed. At the same time his life became a constant struggle to preserve some degree of privacy and normalcy for himself and his family.

Lindbergh's first passion was to promote aviation. For several year she devoted his energies, both through personal appearances and through corporate and governmental positions, to the advancement of aviation throughout the world. It was during this period that the tragic death of his first son, Charles, Jr., occurred.

As the clouds of war arose over Europe, Lindbergh devoted himself to the crusade to keep America out of war, serving as the most prominent member of the America First movement. As Berg points out, Lindbergh was, as were many of his time, motivated, less by a fear of Nazism, than by a fear of Communism. Lindbergh's main argument was that the greatest tragedy for Western Civilization in general, and the United States in particular, was the establishment of Soviet hegemony over Europe. He felt that the West needed Germany as a bulwark against Asiatic Russia. He felt that Germany, based as it was in the Western tradition, would moderate its extremist tendencies more quickly than would the Soviet Union, steeped in its autocratic antecedents. The history of the 50 years following the triumph of the Soviet Union over Germany goes far toward justifying Lindbergh's fears. Lindbergh's involvement in national politics and international affairs made turned Lindbergh from the international hero to national pariah. Never again would his public acceptance be what it had been prior to 1940.

Throughout his career, Lindbergh dabbled in medical and scientific experiments, culminating in his rather gadfly involvement in the environmental movement.

During these years, the Lindbergh marriage was blown by the personalities of Charles and Anne as well as the currents the world circulated around them. The financial independence resulting from Charles' notoriety and Anne's inheritance permitted each of them to undertake projects without the obligation to commit to a stable lifestyle. For Charles this meant the freedom to come and go, largely as he pleased, in order to promote the causes to which he was devoted at the time. This left Anne, who made her own mark as an aviator and a writer, to provide much of the domestic support for the children, often without knowing when Charles would leave or return. Although Berg presents Charles as having an affection for, interest in and influence over his children, the reader is left with the impression of Charles and Anne as filling more the roles of "married singles" rather than functioning as a mutually supportive partnership.

Overall this is an excellent book. The reader is left with an understanding for the world in which Charles Lindbergh lived and acted. The development of aviation is seen through the report of his actions. The story of an important segment of public opinion on the European situation leading up to World War II is well explained. The postwar Lindbergh, bouncing from project to project without any apparent driving force brings the book to its conclusion. It is an excellent portrayal of an extraordinary life.

Rating:
Summary: Authentic Hero, Convenient Villain
Review: This book accomplishes a monumental task: to do justice to perhaps the most interesting and most publicly challenged American of the 20th Century. Charles Lindbergh may have aimed his plane in whatever direction caught his fancy, but after his celebrated Paris landing, he would forever struggle to navigate around the perilous gusts and storm clouds of political exploitation.

For one person to have been touched by so much of the best and worst of the modern era challenges one's sense of credibility, but this man of indefatigable energy and curiosity, uniquely placed in time, flew his Spirit to fame only to return home and have America batter his soul. For almost every one of his remarkable achievements he paid a tariff of grief to one of a host of All-American scoundrels, be they kidnappers, crackpots, newspapermen, or partisans.

This book is evenly presented, brilliantly structured, and deserving of its Pulitzer Prize. That said, there is much to be skeptical about in the way the author, who is Jewish, examines Lindbergh's pre-war politics and focuses on the subject of anti-Semitism.

As explained by the author, Lindbergh held European culture in the highest regard and was passionately committed to saving it from a destructive war. His enthusiasm for some aspects of Hitler's Germany was clearly related to two things: his love of science and technology, and his belief that Germany was all that stood between Europe and what he considered the ultimate evil, Stalin's Russia. After inspecting Germany's military machine (at the request of his country), Lindbergh came to believe that Germany could not be defeated in war. He also realized that if she somehow were, Russia would quickly move-in and become an even greater threat to Western Culture.

Out of a patriotic sense of duty, Lindbergh, like many good Americans, became involved in the America First campaign, aimed at keeping the US out of the conflict in Europe. In doing this he was carrying-on the isolationist politics he'd learned at his father's side. Not to be confused as a traditional pacifist, Lindbergh called for the immediate modernization and expansion of the US military, recognizing the importance of strength in securing peace.

That he had good intentions and was carrying-on the American tradition of political discourse mattered not, for the truth was that American Jews had decided to condemn Lindbergh simply because the Nazi persecution of Jews did not consume and overwhelm his conscience and politics. He was promptly branded a Nazi, threatened with mob violence, and subjected to a public campaign of vilification.

Despite the fact that Lindbergh set-aside his isolationist beliefs once America entered the war, he was never forgiven for his sins. No matter the virtue of his actions, his every word was analyzed for anti-Semitic content. Jewish groups in America continued to slander him for decades, affecting his portrayal in the media, his access (and his wife's) to book publishers, and, even twenty-years later, undermining the distribution of the film story of his famous flight.

Had Lindbergh been pro-Stalin before the war, as were thousands of American Jews, he would have continued to have been treated as a patriot, despite the fact that Stalin's secret police, a disproportionately Jewish organization, was itself busy killing millions of Gentiles. Was then Lindbergh's mistake, his alleged "political naiveté," merely his failure to understand that the spilling of American blood would be determined not by a dialogue of logic and reason, but by a campaign of ink and influence?

Please read this book. You will see that Charles Lindbergh was interesting, weird, remarkable, and much too much of a real hero to deserve to have been ground and processed for the political purposes of any group. This biography radiates respect, and it is obvious that Charles Lindbergh won the author's admiration--just as he will win yours.