Chapter IX, Kennedy and Lindbergh – appeaser meets isolationist
Winston Churchill might have been expected to report and discuss the US Ambassador’s behaviour in his post-war book ‘The Gathering Storm’. The same applies to Charles A. Lindbergh, who was so willingly and heavily criticized on account of his ‘defeatist’ reports. His utterances could be viewed as favouring appeasement, if not indeed the Nazis. Yet one searches in vain for either of these names in the Index of ‘The Gathering Storm’.[1]
Kennedy undeniably made Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh the chief witness for the isolationist policy he represented. With the aid of findings supplied by Lindbergh, he sought to exert political influence in Cliveden, and especially on Neville Chamberlain. That makes it necessary for us to briefly consider Lindbergh’s activities.
For William Manchester, like many others before him, to portray Lindbergh simply as an innocent aviator who had permitted himself to be dazzled by Göring and his henchmen and then to underpin his supposed ‘naivety’ through a piece by his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, is none too illuminating.[2]
True, both in Paris and London Lindbergh was asked to explain the findings gained on his ‘inspection trips’. His facts and his interpretations of these were considered at length in the relevant bodies. They are also significant here in that they led to considerable activity on the part of decision-making groups and government circles. Failures were named, also responsibilities, and considerable military efforts came to be made in Britain in the light of Lindbergh’s assessments. It was up to those ultimately responsible, e.g. Chamberlain, to take political action as a result. To put it briefly, Lindbergh’s findings had considerable repercussions. It remains surprising, however, that these ‘repercussions’ first became apparent with the coming to a head of the Sudetenland crisis, and then especially after Lindbergh’s return from the Soviet Union and his meeting with the French Minister of Defence.[3]
It is not irrelevant for the entire context that Lindbergh’s inspection trips were derived, not from some whim of his own, but from an official commission. His clients, the US Army, made corresponding use of them. The following background should be remembered: In 1936 the US Army had appointed the career officer Major Truman Smith as Military Attaché at the US Embassy in Berlin. Smith had been especially tasked to “…‘to report to Washington about the growth of the German army, including the development of new weapons and new battle tactics’.” Even Smith as an army officer was soon clear that something was up in the Luftwaffe. He found the specialist he sought for interpreting what he had learnt in Charles A. Lindbergh, just then on an inspection trip in France. Yet Smith initially contrived a contact with the German Air Ministry and actually secured an invitation from Göring in person. He wrote “assuring Lindbergh that his visit would be “interesting, private, and ‘of high patriotic benefit’”[4] in order to persuade Lindbergh to go.
Lindbergh was received with great ceremony, then also receiving an opportunity to inspect a great variety of German production facilities. The latest technical developments were very proudly demonstrated for him. “In light of all the new construction he saw, Lindbergh concluded that Germany was ’now able to produce military aircraft faster than any European country.’ …” He reported to Henry Breckinridge[5] that: ‘A person would have to be blind not to realize that they already have built up tremendous strength.’[6]
In 1937 Lindbergh received a second invitation to Germany. Officially, this was to attend the Congress of the ‘Lilienthal Society for Aviation Research’, and ‘unofficially to gather more intelligence about the Luftwaffe for the United States Army.’ On this occasion he was more impressed more by the system of small, decentralized plants than by the new aircraft types. Before leaving for Germany, he helped the Military Attaché in compiling his “Report no. 15540, ‘General Estimate (of Germany`s Air Power) of November 1, 1937.’ This four-page report stated that “Germany is once more a world power in the air…,” and later: “…‘her air force and her air industry have emerged from the kindergarten stage. Full manhood will still not be reached for three years.” It included a detailed report of what Lindbergh had seen. There was also an estimate of the state of the Luftwaffe as a whole and an assertion that technically, the Luftwaffe had already far surpassed the French air force and had almost caught up with the British.[7] Perry D. Luckett writes that ‘Although U.S. military authorities took the report seriously, the administration and the State Department did not.’[8]
It is not apparent that either the British government or the British military had a chance to note this report. Nor can that be assumed, since formally the US Secretary of State would have had to arrange for its delivery. At this juncture, in any case, there was no military cooperation between the two countries, and indeed all the signs are that Hull never had a sight of this report.
At the suggestion of Colonel Raymond L. Lee, the Air Attaché at the US Embassy in London, in August 1938 Lindbergh made a trip to the Soviet Union. Here again, his task was to submit a report on Russian aviation. Lindbergh recorded this 14-day stay in the Soviet Union in his diary.[9]
Lindbergh came to see a great deal, although of all the time he spent in the USSR, only the shorter part was reserved for seeing objects of importance for him. On Thursday, 18 August he noted that: ‘The most interesting events on the program were the glider towing and parachute-jumping demonstrations. These were the two things done better in Russia than in other countries.’ [10]Otherwise, while he did not necessarily rate the battle worthiness of the Russian aircraft types as necessarily equivalent, he thought pretty highly of this, and also the means of production. He was struck that entire production units had obviously originated in the USA, while many machines were of German manufacture.”[11]
He noted one significant finding on Thursday, 25. August, the day of his departure: ‘I went to the airport and told the mechanics about servicing our plane. Had planned on servicing it myself but found the mechanics very able. The Russians have been extremely considerate about helping with such things. I like the people I meet in the majority of instances. But this system will not work. There has already been a great change since the Revolution, and it will continue to change for a long time to come. There would be far greater progress if they had not killed and pushed out so many of their best people.’[12] That was also his most negative comment, apart from a reference to ‘heavy’ meals that he could barely stomach.
Back from Moscow and accompanied by Bullitt, the United States Ambassador, on 8 September he met Guy La Chambre, the French Minister of Aviation in Paris and explained the situation to him. He told him that the French air force was hopelessly inferior to the Luftwaffe.[13] Having seen the French Foreign Minister after a meeting of the Council of Ministers, on 13 September Sir Eric Phipps, the British Ambassador, reported in a ‘Most immediate’ telegram to the Foreign Office: ‘M. Bonnet was very upset and said peace must be preserved at any price as neither France nor Great Britain were ready for war.’ Phipps went on to describe Bonnet’s conclusions from his discussion with Lindbergh, continuing: ‘He said there had been rumours that today’s council had decided upon mobilization; this was quite untrue. On the contrary, no further military measures were contemplated, and peace must be maintained at any price.’ After expressly pointing out that Bonnet feared the ‘bellicose attitude of certain organs of British press’ that could influence their counterparts in France, he concluded:’ M. Bonnet’s collapse seems to me so sudden and so extraordinary that I am asking for an interview with M Daladier.’[14]
Only a little later, indeed on the same day, Phipps saw Daladier. He then commented that Daladier did not see the situation so pessimistically, and in particular judged the Russian air force to be stronger, and in any case would not in the last resort duck confrontation in the form of war.”[15] In that connection, it remains important that neither Guy La Chambre nor Bonnet, Daladier nor Bullit, expressed any doubt about Lindbergh’s credibility or expertise.
After a discussion with Bullit, the US Ambassador, on 20 September Phipps sent Cadogan as Permanent Under-Secretary a telegram: ‘Bullit would, I think, be ready to ask Lindbergh to go over to England in order to give his views to our people on aeroplane production. Lindbergh apparently seems to think that we are now working on quite the wrong lines and that the further we go on those lines the more backward we shall be vis-à-vis the Germans – a cheerful prospect.”[16]
Nonetheless, the exactness of Lindbergh’s evaluations was questioned in a report to Michael (later Sir Michael) Cresswell. This ran: ‘You will have seen from Goddard’s note to you, ….., that Colonel Lindbergh did not appear, when questioned over here, to have had very much first hand knowledge either of the German aircraft industry or of the German Air Force.’ Yet what was meant by ‘very much’? No claim is made that his knowledge was inadequate, and again in this case, Lindbergh’s credibility was not questioned.[17]
The Lindberghs spent the third week of September in London – I should mention that from the end of 1935 they lived in England, and were frequently in the company of Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy: ‘More than ever, Lindbergh felt that ‘the English are in no shape for war … They have always before had a fleet between themselves and their enemy, and they can’t realize the change aviation has made,’” wrote Berg, continuing: “At Kennedy‘s request, Lindbergh committed to paper the next day some of his comments regarding military aviation in Europe, so that they could be transmitted to both the White House and Whitehall. Kennedy promptly wired the bulk of the letter to Secretary of State Cordell Hull – including Lindbergh’s estimates of German production and his conviction that ‘Germany now has the means of destroying London, Paris and Prague if she wishes to do so. England and France together have not enough modern war planes for effective defence to counter attack.’ …”[18]
On 21 September Lindbergh wrote: ‘Talked with Ambassador Kennedy for an hour after lunch. We discussed the crisis and the aviation and general military situation in Europe. …Kennedy says England is ready to fight, even though not prepared. Chamberlain realizes the disastrous effects of a war with Germany at this time and is making every effort to avoid one. English opinion (Kennedy) is pushing him toward war. …’[19]
On 22 September Lindbergh noted: ‘Finished draft of letter to Ambassador Kennedy. … Back to embassy in afternoon. Kennedy wants me to talk to some of the British officials.’[20]
It is not really clear what special importance should be attributed to a report drafted specifically for Kennedy. As mentioned above, the military reports had already been sent to Washington. There is no knowing whether Kennedy and Lindbergh had the impression that the Roosevelt Administration had no wish to take note of the attaché’s report. Nor can one know whether Kennedy encouraged Lindbergh to stress or formulate certain points. It remains clear though that the report emphasized the need for an isolationist policy. Kennedy sent this report to Hull and asked him to pass it on ‘to the president and to the War and Navy departments.’ He also had his secretary place a call to the office of the British chief of staff for the air force ‘to say that Colonel Charles Lindbergh was in London for a day or two … and would be willing to meet someone from the Air Staff and discuss the situation with him.’[21] This meant then that this report was politically relevant, as distinct from the Air Attaché’s that had by no means credited the German Luftwaffe with any outstanding superiority (‘full manhood will still not be reached for three years’).
Discussions on the superiority of the German Luftwaffe were arranged with British serving officers, and Group Captain (later Air Marshal Sir John) John Slessor, the Deputy Director of Plans, subsequently wrote: “His attitude ‘struck us as being entirely sympathetic to the British,’ though he exhibited ‘an enormous admiration for the Germans and likes them personally.’” Lindbergh made it as clear as he could, ’that our only sound policy is to avoid war now at almost any cost.’ [22] From this point onwards, then, British officers possessed more precise facts and were able to put Chamberlain in the picture accordingly. This was precisely one week before Munich. General Henry H ‘Hap’ Arnold, Chief of the US Army Air Corps, wrote in his memoirs: ‘Three days later, the Air Ministry in London urgently cabled the British attaché in Washington for an estimate of the aircraft that could be bought in the United States for delivery to Great Britain within a month.’[23]
David E. Koskoff points out that in a newspaper interview with Walter Winchell, Kennedy ‘boasted that Lindbergh’s information was available to Chamberlain on Kennedy`s expressed request,’ continuing: ‘Lindbergh’s comments reinforced the previous conclusions of British leaders that Britain was much too unprepared to risk war; they were a final factor to Chamberlain`s decision to avoid war at all costs.’[24] From Koskoff’s account, one may deduce that Kennedy indeed used Lindbergh as an instrument for causing Chamberlain to behave as desired. Yet Koskoff is alone in saying so.
Early in October, Lindbergh learnt through Major Smith of a looming press scandal. He noted in his diary that he had telephoned Smith on 10 October: “He was very good humored about it. Said also that Colonel Faymonville was greatly worried because of a story which had come out in London, quoting me about Russia in an uncomplimentary way. I telephoned Lee in London to find out about this. Lee told me that a ‘scurrilous’ weekly, with only private circulation, had come out with a statement to the effect that I had stated that 1) Russian aviation was in chaotic condition; 2) I had been invited to be the chief of the Russian Civil Air Fleet; 3) the German air fleet could whip the Russian, French and English air fleet combined. … He said the Russians probably wouldn`t know the difference between the standing of the sheet that printed the story and the Times”[25]
Lindbergh had indeed mentioned other points contained in this article at a luncheon hosted by Thomas Jones, Lloyd George’s Private Secretary. The Soviet side took the article, along with the discussions at the lunch, as the occasion to settle accounts with Lindbergh, in ‘Pravda’, the official organ of the CPSU.
Viscount Chilston, the British Ambassador in Moscow, sent a summary of this article of 10 October to the Foreign Office on 14 October. Chilston initially pointed out that the article had been sent as a letter to ‘Pravda’ by ten ‘Heroes of the Soviet Union’. In short, these had represented Lindbergh as a liar, who had grossly abused the hospitality offered him in order to fulfil the task given him as the lackey of reactionary circles in Britain, namely “… ‘to testify to the weakness of Soviet aviation’ and thereby to give the Prime Minister an argument for capitulation at Munich on the question of Czechoslovakia. This hired liar, Lindbergh, has fulfilled the task of his masters. …”[26]
John (later Sir John) Russell of the Foreign Office’s Northern Department minuted on 24. October 1938: ‘Poor Col. Lindbergh is now paying the penalty for having spoken the truth, or, at least, what he thought to be the truth.’[27]
Here it should first of all once again be emphasized that in this context the only consideration was whether Lindbergh’s estimates of the strengths of the air forces tended to be correct, and whether these had political repercussions. That is quite clearly the case. It must also be said, however, that the articles in the ‘Week’ and ‘Pravda’ neither contributed anything illuminating to the current assessment of the air forces nor served any objective evaluation of statements by Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh himself. More crucial, by contrast, was the report sent to the F.O on 26 October 1938 by Hole, the British Consul-General in Salonica after an encounter with the aircraft designer Sikorski:
‘2. Sikorski, the Russian giant plane builder now established in the U.S.A. and an American citizen, was here a couple of days ago and dined with the American Consul. He said he had been shown round the German factories, and assessed their output at certainly more than the English and French put together and probably more than those two and the American thrown in. They have reached a point of mass production, where many of the parts are pressed out, and their production is beginning to resemble American motor car methods.
- He doesn`t know what they have already got in hand – Lindbergh may, who was there at the same time – but there is no doubt that they can turn them out at great speed.’[28] This report can be taken as indicating that an undisputed expert, and above all one beyond suspicion, shared Lindbergh’s assessments and still more, that he entertained no doubt whatever about his ability to judge and his professional expertise.
On 19 October, or 19 days after the Munich Agreement, Michael (later Sir Michael) Creswell produced a memorandum for the Foreign Office entitled ‘The criterion of parity’. He wrote: ‘Various arguments and excuses have been made to justify falling short of numerical first-line equality. … It is submitted that nothing less than a full execution of Mr. Baldwin’s 1934 pledge will really convince Germany that we mean business, and will put her in frame of mind to negotiate, and adhere to, an Air Limitation agreement providing real equality between the two countries. And for this it will be necessary for us to make plans to double the first line strength of the Scheme L force at the earliest possible date and to build up an industry (at home and in the Dominions) capable of maintaining this force in war.’[29]
If Churchill justified the necessity of rapid action against the Third Reich to Kennedy on 10 March 1938 by contending that at that juncture successful intervention by the British and French was still feasible, then one can only conclude that either he was unaware of the deficiencies of the Royal Air Force, or did not give credence to the available reports. In any case, his criticism of the Prime Minster was ill-advised. His contention that “Britain’s plan to delay ‘all action until they got stronger’ is a fallacy” instead smacks of self-deception. In stating his attitude towards Vansittart’s comments on the relative strengths of the German and British air forces, Cadogan had already written: “If we could beat Germany now in a good, hearty, preventive war, there might be something to be said for it. It might prolong a period of uneasy ‘peace’ for 15-20 years. But we can`t do it, and we shall be less able to do it in 1939 or 1940.’ [30]
Whether and to what extent Kennedy caused Lindbergh to sharpen up all that he had learned in such a way as to substantially influence the British position towards the Third Reich, e.g. to lead to a more conciliatory attitude from Chamberlain, remains an open question. It is more probable that sufficient findings of their own were available to the British government, so that Chamberlain at least felt himself confirmed in his fundamental attitude by the information from Lindbergh.
1 Winston Spencer Churchill. The Gathering Storm, London, 1949. Similarly, Duff Cooper omitted the two names from his autobiography ‘Old Men Forget’, London, 1954; on 2 November, 1948, however, Kennedy sent Chamberlain‘s widow a cutting from the New York Times of 27 September 1948 containing his reaction to Churchill’s ‘The Gathering Storm’ . He wrote: ‘The significance that will be attached to Winston Churchill`s memoirs leads me to observe that these should be handled with great care. They are replete with serious inaccuracies on the basis of which judgements are made that are unfair to individuals and events.’ NC 11/1/526. Neville Chamberlain papers, Cadbury Research Library
2 William Manchester: Allein gegen Hitler: 1932-1940, S. 432
3 Sir Robert Vansittart, ‘promoted‘ to the eminence of Diplomatic Adviser – bereft of functions – by Chamberlain in the first weeks of his term as Prime Minister, let himself become involved in a dispute with Alexander Cadogan, his successor as Permanent Under-Secretary at the F.O. On 24 April 1938 he wrote that he had already called attention to the deficits in the programme for the air force in 1935, and their negative repercussions on foreign policy. Cadogan commented: ‘If international relations have now degenerated simply into an armaments race, don`t let us talk any more about ‘foreign policy’ – we have none, and the war has already begun. And to read Mr. Creswell’s paper, there is not very much doubt as to how it will end.’ Naturally everything has to be done now, whatever may be possible during the next twelve months, for our own defence, but at the same time an attempt must be made to ‘reach a modus vivendi with Germany’, also asking: ‘is there really not room in the world for Germany and ourselves?’. Cf. FO 371/21710, C 5874; On 4 October Phipps reported to Sargent a suggestion from Bullitt that an aircraft factory should be built in Canada on the border with the USA, the idea being for trained American workers to do the work. Cf. FO/21670, C1143; Cadogan was informed by the Colonial Office on 18. 0ctober that: ‘There is already a plan for a single Canadian Company, organized ad hoc as the result of an Air Ministry Mission earlier this year, to manufacture R.A.F. bomber aircraft in Canada…’ – FO/21670,C12555; in writing his Memorandum dated 19 October 1938 on the strength of the British and German air forces, Michael Creswell was convinced: ‘…that we can only obtain an Air Limitation agreement with Germany providing real equality between the two countries if we now make a new start in our air expansion and show Germany that we are determined to catch up with her present programme. It was arguable before the events of last month that it would have been dangerous for us to be in a position to challenge Germany at a time when it was likely that we would be confronted in the near future with the question of Czechoslovakia on which it was desirable to give way …’ FO 371/21710, C 12571 .
4 A. Scott Berg, ‘Lindbergh’, New York, 1998, p. 355/56; the author received the ‘Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography’ for this biography.
5 Henry Breckinridge, Lindbergh’s attorney during the Lindbergh kidnapping trial and US Assistant Secretary of War 1913-1916
6 A. Scott Berg, op.cit, p. 357/358
7 A. Scott Berg, op.cit, p. 368
8 Perry D. Luckett, Charles A. Lindbergh, ‘A Bio-Bibliography’, 1986, Westport, Conn., p. 26; Perry D. Luckett, Associate Professor at the United States Air Force Academy, author of various technical works, primarily on aviation and aerospace
9 Charles A. Lindbergh, ‘The Wartime Journals of Charles A Lindbergh’, New York, 1970
13 Scott Berg, op.cit, p. 373/374; The gist of the comparison of air forces that Phipps sent to Bullit in the Foreign Office on 20 September as part of a brief record of an interview with the US Ambassador in Paris was that : ‘According to Mr. Lindbergh it would take the United States, England and France together two years from now to catch up with Germany in numbers, if they all started at once, adopting the serial system, without losing a moment.’ Cf. FO 371/21669, C 10379 PRO
14 Sir Eric Phipps to the Foreign Office, F0 371/21737, C9704, PRO
17 FO 371/21737, C 10379/G, PRO
18 Note: A. Scott Berg, op.cit, p. 374
19 Charles A. Lindbergh, op.cit, p. 72
21 Cf. David Nasaw, op.cit, p. 339
23 Henry Hap Arnold, ‘American Airpower comes of Age’, p. 69
24 David E, Koskoff, op.cit, p. 152, Walter Winchell was a by no means uncontroversial journalist and gossip columnist, also a passionate champion of an interventionist poicy