WAR & PEACE: Hero Speaks

Last week began the Great Debate on U. S. Neutrality. Franklin Roosevelt argued for action, short of war (see p. 11), Idaho's Borah for Isolation (see p. 12), Elder Statesman Henry Lewis Stimson for traditional neutrality. These and many another who joined issue were professional exponents of known views. None owned a fresh voice to bespeak the people's horror of war. But at 10:45 o'clock (E.D.S.T.) one night last week that voice was heard, the voice of the one U. S. citizen who could command a radio audience comparable to Franklin Roosevelt's.

Charles Lindbergh last spoke on the radio eight years ago, in Tokyo. Not even the chance to plead for the return of his kidnapped son in 1932 had brought him to a microphone since. The sudden break in his silence was a phenomenon of World War II (which he painstakingly refused to call a World War), an evidence of its great impact upon the U. S. It was also the end of his protective pretense that Charles Lindbergh is just a private citizen. By his act last week Hero Lindbergh deliberately undertook a spokesman's, if not a leader's, responsibility.

The idea was planted in his head last month by bumptious, able MBS Commentator Fulton Lewis Jr., who got Washington press galleries opened to radio reporters (TIME, May 8). At a small dinner party in Washington, Fulton Lewis heard Colonel Lindbergh on war in the world, peace in the U. S., and suggested that he broadcast his thoughts. On a Sunday afternoon three weeks later, Charles Lindbergh urgently telephoned Commentator Lewis, asked whether the offer of radio time was still good. It was, said Mr. Lewis. Hero Lindbergh then drafted a speech. His wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, writer of repute (Listen! The Wind, North to the Orient), smoothed out the draft, typed the finished version, left on it the hallmark of her husband's direct simplicity.

He was pure & simple Lindbergh when, with his wife and Mr. & Mrs. Lewis, he repaired to the Carlton Hotel suite in Washington where MBS, NBC and CBS had set up their microphones. He greeted all the announcers and technicians, with his mechanic's eye pried into the electrical arrangements, wanted particularly to know whether telephones would be ringing during the broadcast.

As he stood and read his piece, shifting continually from foot to foot, some among his hearers remembered his father, who died in 1933. Charles Lindbergh Sr., of Minnesota, was one of 56 Congressmen (50 in the House, six in the Senate) who voted against declaring war in 1917. Outwardly cold, privately devoted Father Lindbergh wrote on Feb. 4, 1917: "Charles is fifteen today. He does not allow me to forget that, but I would not have forgotten it anyway, for this is a serious time. The world has gone mad. . . ."

Last week, having just returned to inactive status in the Army Reserve (after looking over aircraft production facilities for the Air Corps), Charles Lindbergh could say what he pleased. His associates in the War Department guessed enough of what he wanted to say to ask him not to say it. Some of his few intimates insisted before & after he spoke that Charles Lindbergh is for shipping arms and airplanes to the Allies. If he expected his speech to be so interpreted, he was notably naive. It was as the son of his father that he said: