Lindbergh’s “inclination Toward Fascism” Cited by Dorothy Thompson

Col. Charles A. Lindbergh’s “inclination toward Fascism” was cited today by Dorothy Thompson in her nationally syndicated N.Y. Herald-Tribune column, “On the Record.”

In an analysis of the noted aviator’s broadcast last Friday night, during which he urged retention of the arms embargo in advocating American neutrality, Miss Thompson takes her cue from his warning that the public should inquire into the personal interests and nationality of every commentator on the current European situation and into “who owns and influences the newspaper, the news picture and the radio station.”

Examining the history of the aviator’s three-and-a-half year residence in Europe, Miss Thompson finds that he was the recipient of a medal from the Aero Club of Nazi Germany in 1936; he gave a report on the German air force which contributed to the Munich “appeasement”; deprecated the Russian air force, thus encouraging opponents of collaboration between the Western powers and the Soviet; received in 1938 the Service Cross of the Order of the German Eagle with Star, the second highest German decoration, at the hands of Gen. Goering; indicated his intention, dropped upon a storm of criticism, of renting an apartment in Berlin at a time when the whole world was shocked by the breaking of the Munich pact and the outbreak of the anti-Jewish pogrom.

Miss Thompson also points out that Col. Lindbergh’s most intimate friend, the scientist Dr. Alexis Carrel, was considered the official philosopher of the French Fascist party headed by Jacques Doriot, and emphasizes that the aviator’s “inclination toward Fascism is well known to his friends.”

Concluding, the columnist writes: “‘Pity, sentiment and personal sympathy’ (a quotation from Lindbergh’s address) play a small part in his life. On the other hand, he has a passion for mechanics and a tendency to judge the world and society purely from a technical and mechanical standpoint. The humanities, which are at the very center and core of the democratic idea, do not interest him, and he is completely indifferent to political philosophy. A man who has never spared himself physically…. He has the utmost contempt for physical weakness…. He also is a national hero, and because this country loves its heroes, the press, which Col. Lindbergh hates, has behaved very chivalrously toward Col. Lindbergh’s ideas. But since he himself has warned that all who speak in the present situation should have their personal interests inquired into, he cannot object to an inquiry into his own biases. And his are not the predilections of the majority of Americans or of democracies anywhere.”