If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#21
|
|||
|
|||
"Lawrence Dillard" wrote in message news:... "JDupre5762" wrote in message ... "codefy" wrote Some American hero. When Lindbergh died in Hawaii did he consider the people there with any more maturity than when he made his racist comments or did he just consider them his coolies ? Lindbergh died in what 1973? There had been a lot of change in Americans views toward race by that time. I think above all Lindbergh was an American and while he probably echoed the prevalent racial and isolationist views of the 1920's and 1930's in his heyday, ultimately he would be swayed by performance and character. Seems to me that the essence of a Great Man is to be able to see beyond conventional wisdom and to examine persons and situations independently and reach one's own conclusions and where possible, act on them. When it came to race and to anti-Semitism, Mr. Lindbergh, although IIRC a minister's son, seems not to have conducted such a self-examination. One wonders whether Lindbergh ever was in touch with the so-called "average American" or whether he could recognize and relate to views other than those fashionable in the circles in which he habituated. By the end of his life he could not have been ignorant of the Tuskegee Airmen, Chappie James and Jesse Brown let alone Jackie Robinson. I can't prove it but I dare say he would have rather forgotten any racist remarks he might have made. Don't forget that after Pearl Harbor Lindbergh volunteered for active duty and was denied several times by Roosevelt who harbored a grudge over Lindbergh's comments on the superiority of the Luftwaffe in the late 1930's. A superiority that was as much Roosevelt's responsibility as it was Hitler's. Actually, FDR desired to harness the charisma and persuasiveness which Lindbergh possessed. Although FDR was certain, because of access to sources of his own, independent of Lindbergh's, that Nazi Germany's aircraft industry had not the prowess its propaganda claimed for it, and that the US armaments industry, and especially the aircraft portion thereof, could be resuscitated and could become strong enough in a rather short period of time so as to be able to interpose effectively against any expansionist ambitions held by the Axis, it is apparently not widely known that FDR, in the wake of Lindbergh's German tour, offered the latter the position of US aircraft acquisition czar, with wide delegation of authority in overseeing US R&D and contracting; he wanted Lindbergh "on the team" instead of jeering from the sidelines and counseling caution, if not defeatism. Lindbergh refused, believing that FDR merely wanted to remove an irritating naysayer and silence his independent voice of opposition. Whereas FDR's attitude was "We'll show them!", Lindbergh's attitude reflected a certain defeatism, "We'll never be able to match them, and let's not waste our energies trying to" attitude, and he appeared to be ready to accept a second-rate status for the US in world affairs, because intimidated by a Nazi/Axis show of force. As for his return to active duty, I submit that such a thing would have opened a can of worms. Would Lindbergh have been able to submit to military discipline? Would he have been able to contribute effectively in a system where his word or opinion was not necessarily considered tantamount to revelation? It is well to remember that no nation, including the US, forced the Nazis to re-arm in defiance of the WWI peace accords. FDR bore no responsibility for the collapse of the world-wide economy, other than to try to bring the US portion of it back to life. Lindbergh's comments in those days were that the German's were so superior to us and we were so hopelessly outclassed we could not possibly affect the outcome of a modern war in Europe so why bother. He was right of course the US Army was not even in the top ten in size in the world. Bulgaria had a larger standing army. A single Luftflotte in 1940 had more aircraft than the entire US Army Air Corps. Again, a Great Man has to have matching vision. In this case, he seemed determined to Think Small and seemed to lack an understanding of the latent manufacturing potential of the US, which was still badly scarred by the economic depression of the 1930's. As is well-known, once Gen Marshall's system was in place, the US began producing trained divisions at such a pace that, for example, WS Churchill initially could not comprehend how it was being done. Lindbergh could not envision a dramatic increase in the number of training a/c, pilots, transports, bombers, fighters, etc. which the US proved to be capable of producing in relatively short order. Lindbergh also appears to have missed out on the inter-allied information interchange which kick-started US electronics and airframe development efforts. Lindbergh was rightly called "Lucky Lindy" due to his successful solo Atlantic crossing. However, the intense and universal celebrity (and wealth) that became attached to him attendant thereto seems to have caused him, (as well as many a person in other fields), to wrongly consider himself expert at everything to which he turned his attention, and to believe that his every opinion was sacrosanct. But Lindbergh was not a trained engineer, as he demonstrated when the Nazis showed him around their alleged production facilities, and was clueless in assessing the current and potential industrial prowess of the US. Any of Gen Marshall's top staff could have told him that the US would expand its army many-fold in a brief time, if tasked to do so. Any of Adm Stark's top staff could have alerted him to the swelling size and strength of the US Navy, similarly. Lindbergh was guilty more of naivete' than Nazism. Lindbergh was taken in many ways by such ruses as the only handful of a bomber type being flown from factory to factory and put back in the "production line" for him to examine all over again. According to author "Ladislas Farago", intercepted German documents showed that the Germans considered Lindbergh to be akin to one of their propaganda agents who could be relied upon to cause their sentiments to become widely heard in the US. They were especially impressed by Lindbergh's expressed anti-Semitism. SNIP |
#22
|
|||
|
|||
vincent p. norris wrote in message . ..
I don't want to take sides in the main issue being disputed here, but merely point out that the following remark is mistaken : Second, where is the money to pay for these tanks coming from? It's a depression, and tax revenues are in the toilet. Economists have understood since the mid-30s that the SOLUTION to depression is for government expenditures to EXCEED tax revenues. But only by a small amount and only when needed. Consistant increases of the money supply (often driven by fanatic welfare-stateism, pork-barrelling of electorates are as bad and far more common as the consistant under expenditure that occured in the depression. That creates employment, and thus income, and is the way out of the depression. Over protectionism was also an element. Indeed, it was the spending on military build-up that brought the economy out of the Great Depression of the 1930s. I think this is somewhat of a myth with some truth. There are better ways to galvanise an economy. To an extent the WW2 economies were all command economies with elements of market theory. (This is not to deny the role of other measures, such as monetary policy, in combatting depression.) You are talking about monetary policy. vince norris |
#23
|
|||
|
|||
|
#24
|
|||
|
|||
Cecil Turner wrote in message ...
James Linn wrote: "S. Sampson" wrote in message ... "codefy" wrote Some American hero. When Lindbergh died in Hawaii did he consider the people there with any more maturity than when he made his racist comments or did he just consider them his coolies ? If there's a Hell I'm sure Lindbergh is roasting there for his racism & Nazi sympathies. You have to wonder how Lindbergh's grandson deals with that nasty part of the legend that he's living off of. Lindbergh's been dead longer than you've been alive. Only a red-neck would equate pacifism with sympathism. Just watched A&E Biography on the man - he was more than sympathetic - he admired Hitler. At one point he was going to move to Germany(1938), but Kristallnacht disturbed him and his wife, so he never bought the house and did move back to America. I'd have to say that while he was a mechanical genius and great aviator, he wasn't a great intellectual. He seems to have absorbed the views of some of his friends and made them his own. While his views on eugenics and Jews were and are abhorrent, I'm not sure they came from his heart either. He was caught up in hero worship - of Hitler and others. And he seemed also to be a contrarians - whatever Roosevelt said was bad. It cost him his Army Air Corps Career. And yes he was snowed by the Nazis about the power of the Luftwaffe - they played him - and he delivered the message the Nazi's wanted -that the Luftwaffe was invincible. Lindbergh passed the message on to Ambassador Kennedy - who was more than ready to believe it, being anti British. More discerning people in the state department took it with a grain of salt. I'm sure someone here has read a decent biography of the man which covers this stuff. Make sure it also covers his work in the Pacific during WWII as a civilian tech rep in front-line units (flight test and profiling P-38s that resulted in nearly double operational range). Provides a bit of balance. rgds, KTF Recognize that even in this position he was still commenting that "What we are doing to the Japs in the Pacific is the same as what the Germans are doing to the Jews". Certainly some sickening moral relativism. |
#25
|
|||
|
|||
"
A man who put together the finance and funding of an aircraft that for the first time crossed an ocean non stop. Lindbergh was the 97th to cross the Atlantic ocean. |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
FS: 1955 "WE" Charles A. Lindbergh Autobiography, Hardcover Book | J.R. Sinclair | Aviation Marketplace | 0 | September 23rd 04 05:55 AM |
FS: 1955 "WE" Charles A. Lindbergh Autobiography, Hardcover Book | J.R. Sinclair | Aviation Marketplace | 0 | May 27th 04 07:27 AM |
Signed Charles A. Lindbergh 1953 Presentation Edition | Rare Old Things | Aviation Marketplace | 0 | February 27th 04 05:22 AM |
Signed #25 "Spirit of St Louis" Charles Lindbergh | Rare Old Things | Aviation Marketplace | 0 | February 24th 04 04:37 AM |
Charles Lindbergh –"Spirit of St. Louis" Prints on Ebay | Phillip Rhodes | Aviation Marketplace | 0 | December 5th 03 03:52 PM |