The Pittsburgh Press (April 28, 1941)
AVIATOR DENOUNCES ROOSEVELT’S ATTACK
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Sees ‘no honorable alternative’ to resigning; President had deplored ‘minority’ view
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Col. Lindbergh, who resigned from the United States Army Air Corps Reserve today because of criticism leveled at him by President Roosevelt, is shown above in one of the few pictures ever made of him in uniform. He was on active duty with the Army, making a survey of technical facilities, when this photo was taken.
New York, April 28 (UP) –
Col. Charles A. Lindbergh in a letter to President Roosevelt today announced that he was resigning as colonel in the United States Army Air Corps Reserve.
Col. Lindbergh told the President that his remarks in a White House press conference on April 25 left him “no honorable alternative to tendering my resignation.” Col. Lindbergh wrote:
I am, therefore, forwarding my resignation to the Secretary of War.
The letter, released here, follows:
My Dear Mr. President:
Your remarks at the White House press conference on April 25, involving my reserve commission in the United States Army Air Corps, have, of course, disturbed me greatly. I had hoped that I might exercise my rights as an American citizen, to place my viewpoint before the people of my country in time of peace, without giving up the privilege of serving my country as an Air Corps officer in the event of war.
But since you, in your capacity as President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief of the Army, have clearly implied that I am no longer of use to this country as a reserve officer, and in view of other implications that you, my President and my superior officer, have made concerning my loyalty to my country, my character, and my motives, I can see no honorable alternative to tendering my resignation as colonel in the United States Air Corps Reserve.
I am, therefore, forwarding my resignation to the Secretary of War.
I take this action with the utmost regret, for my relationship with the Air Corps is one of the things that has meant most to me in life. I place it second only to my right as a citizen to speak freely to my fellow countrymen, and to discuss with them the issues of peace and war which confront our nation in this crisis.
I will continue to serve my country to the best of my ability as a private citizen.
Respectfully,
CHARLES A. LINDBERGH
In his April 25 press conference, President Roosevelt criticized Col. Lindbergh and others in this country who express the opinion that the Axis will defeat Britain. He compared them to the Copperheads of the Civil War period.
The President said he was sorry that there were people with such mentalities in high places where they could write or talk. He declared that Col. Lindbergh and others who think as he does constitute a small American minority.
Their viewpoint, Mr. Roosevelt told his press conference last Friday, is like that of the appeasers who wanted George Washington to surrender to the British during the hardships of Valley Forge.
Those who say that the dictatorships are going to win are wrong, he continued. The American people, he said, were going to fight for democratic processes.
Mr. Roosevelt said some people here are adopting a rather curious attitude, which has not been thought through. That, he said, is the idea – like one expressed in an editorial he had read that morning – that there is a new order in the world.
A person of this attitude, Mr. Roosevelt went on, says out of one side of his mouth that he doesn’t like dictators; and on the other side that the democracies are going to be defeated. Therefore, he continued, this person says that while he does not like dictators he might as well accept them.
The President said such an attitude was not good Americanism, but that it was the attitude of a minority of the people.
In the Civil War, both the North and the South accepted the aid of liberty-loving peoples from other countries. Both sides, on the other hand, let certain people go, the President said. For example, he said there was Vallandigham who wanted to make peace in the Civil War from 1863 on because he said the North could not win.
The President’s reference was to Clement Vallandigham, who was so active in seeking to bring about a peace in the Civil War that Northern authorities banished him to the South.
Asked why the Army had not ordered Col. Lindbergh to active duty, the President indicated at the Friday press conference that he was uncertain whether the flier had resigned his reserve commission.
Isolationist leader
Col. Lindbergh in recent months has been a leader of the nation’s isolationist group and, as a member of the America First Committee, has made anti-war speeches and written anti-war articles the major premise of which was that Great Britain cannot win the war even with American aid.
Last Wednesday night in a mass meeting in Manhattan Center here, he declared that:
The British government have one last desperate plan remaining; they hope that they may be able to persuade us to send another American expeditionary force to Europe, and to share with England militarily, as well as financially, the fiasco of this war.
Col. Lindbergh said the United States was being led toward war by a minority which had great power but “does not represent the American people.”
‘Smear campaign’ charged
William S. Thomas, son of Socialist leader Norman Thomas, came to Col. Lindbergh’s support today in a statement charging that the flier was the target of “a cruel and vicious campaign of slander and smear.”
Mr. Thomas said:
To call Col. Lindbergh a Fascist, a Nazi or a Fifth Columnist is absurd.
Col. Lindbergh has given up his privacy and sacrificed himself to point out the truth as he sees it to America. The facts have borne him out when he calls attention to England’s plight – a plight from which he is trying to save us.
Fourteen years ago, America took Charles Lindbergh to her heart as her greatest hero. His stand today is just as courageous as his flight to Paris, and he has become a greater hero to all sincere thinking Americans who believe that only through America’s peace at this time can democracy be saved for the world.
Col. Lindbergh’s appointment as colonel in the United States Army Air Corps Reserve was one of the many honors he received immediately after his historic flight to Paris in May 1927. He received the appointment on June 12, 1927.
On active duty
In April 1939, Col. Lindbergh was assigned to active duty with the U.S. Army to make a survey of technical research facilities available to the Air Corps. His findings were kept confidential.
When assigned to active duty, he had just returned from Europe where he had studied aviation facilities of leading nations, including Germany and Russia. At that time, some military authorities credited him with more knowledge of aviation developments in Europe than any other American.
Just prior to his return to America, Col. Lindbergh had submitted a secret report to government officials on Germany’s air force, urging that the United States speed its research facilities to keep abreast of the totalitarian nations.
His visit to Russia created a controversy when unsubstantiated reports were published in Great Britain that he had told British officials that the Russian Air Force was overrated. Russian aviators condemned him for purportedly violating their hospitality.