I welcome professor H.W. Brands. His new book: America First: Roosevelt vs. Lindbergh and the Shadow of War.
It is April 1939. A young man is exiting a transatlantic steamer, and he's greeted by what appear to be a football team of bulbs popping as he walks off.
The police form a barrier for him to get off the ship. His name is Charles Lindbergh (“Lucky Lindy”). And he remarks in his diary, and I have this thanks to the professor, that the bulbs were popping so fast and they were smashing to the ground that it was like walking across glass.
The excitement here is because of events in Europe and in the United States that are about to lead to a huge controversy based on the understanding of not going to war again, as we did in 1917. The American people resented what they'd been told the war was for—the war to end all wars, a war to save democracy. The result had been the usual colonial empires battling each other for regions and space and resources in Europe, while America went home in grief.
This is an incredibly rich story with all kinds of connections about America and its reluctance to get involved in European wars.
Lindbergh at this point is 37 years old, and he's world famous. Why? What is it that they're still celebrating about him twelve years after the Spirit of Saint Louis flew the Atlantic in a in a solo flight?
Watch the full interview above, or listen to an audio version below:
LINKS:
CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor on YouTube
America First: Roosevelt vs. Lindbergh in the Shadow of War by H.W. Fields on Amazon
The John Batchelor Show on Apple Podcasts:
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