High rise
Robert Skidelsky Lindbergh: A Biography Leonard Mosley (Hodder and Stoughton £6.50) BY making the first non-stop flight from New York to Paris in 1927, Charles Lindbergh became one of this century's authentic heroes. He continued to hit the headlines for the rest of his life, but the s,tury behind them changed dramatically. In 1932 the world was horrified by the kidnapping and murder of his baby son. A few years later many friends and adMirers were shocked when he became an admirer of Nazi Germany, and an opponent of American involvement in the European war. The 'sixties saw him in yet another role: as the champion of wildlife, and primitive soeieties menaced by progress. The chal lengel enlle facing any biographer is to make sense of each of these careers, and of all of them. ,The challenge is only partly met. Leonard . Mosley has many virtues as Lindbergh's b""°graPher. He is an excellent storyteller. ul Weis interested in. and knowledgeable about, Ying, and conveys very well the exhilarat,iori of its early days when pioneers chal'ieiriged nature in their absurd machines. , e„aiso admires Lindbergh, and has done from his early childhood. This is an asset in a biographer. Debunking biographies are often fun to read but rarely help the reader to understand their subjects. For this You need sympathy, not aversion. 1'7 Mosley has it. Unfortunately it deserts "Ililwhen it is most needed. K.I-et us start, though, with the good things. b'vlr Mosley most skilfully unfolds Linditergh's early circumstances and character. Or fl 1902 of Swedish background, he grew Up on a farm in Minnesota, in the heart r_illicklie America. His father, a. Republican u p`ngressman, preached the gospel of rural r he,gressivism: protection for the farmer, o ni.4tilitY to Eastern financiers, non-involveIn foreign affairs. His son obviously absorbed it even if, as Mr Mosley says, he rrias 'not listening' then. But as is true of n_Y high achievers, Lindbergh's most relationship was with his mother. 'In the father away most of the time, eilla°„tiher and son protected and supported be'rn, ?ther from the first years of Lind , Ign s lit' A i SCience .e. '.1 strong-willed, self-sufficient, her s_ teacher, Evangeline Lindbergh set . un high standards of personal integrity and e,, reiat, nellence. She also complicated his nr,„ in (311s with other women. He met only sl; his life who ever measured up to her. 'was Ann -.• e c Morrow, daughter of a op1 oNdt• He I appro.._ married her, with his mother's
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I appro.._ married her, with his mother's
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LThereare a number of tell-tale signs of -ness. -r .° a quite unusual degree,
Lindbergh fashioned himself into the person he needed to become in order to achieve outstanding feats in the air. Mr Mosley gives three examples: he eschewed drink, tobacco, and coffee, not on principle, but because he worked out that they would slow down his reactions. As with some other outstandingly brave people, Lindbergh had to conquer an exceptional fear of danger.
A natural loner, who disliked society and small talk, he could turn on a famous grin
and .much charm to attain his ends. The cost of all this self-control must have been great; the one clear sign of it was the release he found in practical joking.
Lindbergh was an unusual combination of technician and dreamer. From his early childhood he was fascinated by all things mechanical. (At ten he fell in love with the internal combustion engine in the shape of a Model T Ford, brought home by his father.) He was also a romantic. Early flying offered a unique union of the technical and the romantic, of modern machinery with primitive instinct. But i all matters of practical life, Lindbergh's cast of mind was severely logical. He attached very high value to precise evidence, clear presentation, respect for facts, accurate inferences from facts, and meticulous planning. He hated sloppy thinking and sloppy living.
Here is one important root of his hatred for the press which, according to Mr Mosley, soured his view of democracy. It was the press which, following his transatlantic flight, made him internationally famous. But there was a fearful price to pay. Lindbergh never accepted the continual physical presence of reporters, the flashing of cameras, the intrusion into his private life. He and his wife seem to have blamed the constant publicity which they received for the kidnapping of their son. But perhaps Lindbergh found even harder to accept the essential mendacity of the media, the low regard in which newspapers seemed to hold accuracy and truthfulness. He first experienced this immediately following his flight, when Hank Wales, Paris correspondent of the Chicago Tribune, cabled an exclusive interview with Lindbergh which earned him a s500 bonus. The interview had never taken place. Misreporting, the obsession with the trivial and irrelevant, so different' from the orderly technique of writing up flight logs, was to dog him throughout his life.
Mr Mosley is least successful when he deals with Lindbergh's campaign against American entry into the European war.
He rightly repudiates Roosevelt's asper sions on Lindbergh's loyalty. But he is too completely identified with the Anglo American Establishment to concede that Lindbergh did, in fact, have a reasonable case. It is not just a matter of his own isolationist background. Lindbergh's honesty and his respect for facts were deeply affronted by some of the arguments and activities of the pro-war lobby. The Germans, after all, were not 'knocking on the gates' of America in 1941; most Amen
cans were in fact against going to war, even though supporting help to Britain; Roosevelt was trying to manoeuvre America into war by the backdoor; the active war party was, to a large extent, made up of special interests. Mr Mosley does not count it to Lindbergh's credit that he wanted to save American lives. Instead of trying to weigh Lindbergh's arguments, he reports in pain that the Lindberghs (for Anne supported her husband) were now shunned by the 'best' society. Lindbergh's judgment was not impeccable, and he failed to grasp the evil aspects of Nazism. But the stand he took was not contemptible, intellectually or morally. If Mr Mosley had read Bruce Russett's essay No Clear and Present Danger he would have realised why.
Refused active service by Roosevelt in the war, Lindbergh nevertheless made an important contribution to the Allied effort in the air. He also brought a number of German rocket scientists to America after the war. The Cold War, in fact, gave him partial rehabilitation. His final years were devoted to ecology. Lindbergh's enthusiasm had been captured by the balance between technology and nature represented by early flying and, in his later life, he became a determined enemy of technological excess which threatened to destroy nature altogether. In this cause he worked indefatigably until his sudden death in 1974. His life had taken many turns, some highly controversial, but there is a certain unity about it One can't take Lindbergh in bits and pieces as Mr Mosle■ Wants to
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