Controversial Lindbergh Letters

Controversial manuscripts written by aviators Charles and Anne Lindbergh on the eve of World War II and thousands of letters in response to them have been unsealed by Princeton University.

The documents included drafts of a magazine article by Charles and a book by Anne, both advocating that the United States stay out of World War II.

The Lindberghs had stipulated that the documents not be unsealed until both had died. Anne, who penned 13 books of memoirs, fiction, poems and essays, died in February at age 94. Charles died in 1974 at age 72.

They were revered for aviation exploits including Charles' solo nonstop flight from New York to Paris in 1927 and for setting the transcontinental flight speed record together in 1930.

But when anti-German sentiment spread across the country, the couple were reviled by many for Charles Lindbergh's refusal to denounce Adolf Hitler or return the Service Cross of the German Eagle that Herman Goering gave him in 1939 during a trip to survey German airpower for the U.S. military.

Don C. Skemer, curator of manuscripts in Princeton University's libraries, said repeated revisions to Lindbergh's magazine article show his convictions were not as firm as is now believed.

"You find him changing his opinion every day on every page," Skemer said. "He went through a lot of agony as to what he was going to say."

Lindbergh gave numerous speeches at the time denouncing President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Jews as "warmongers." He opposed entering the war partly because he was convinced America could not defeat the German military.

When his article, A Letter to Americans, was published nearly a year before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, as many as 90 percent of Americans opposed U.S. involvement in the war in Europe, Skemer said.

Included among the documents made available to researchers Thursday were 1,500 letters written to the Lindberghs after the fall 1940 publication of her book, The Wave of the Future: A Confession of Faith, and his March 1941 article in Collier's magazine.

The letters, most of which strongly supported the Lindberghs' position, came from average Americans as well as powerful and famous ones, including poet W.H. Auden and writer and Nobel laureate Pearl S. Buck.

"Some people would say, 'You're just a Nazi swine,' but others would say, 'I'm just a salesman from Iowa, but you're on the right track,"' Skemer said.

The papers are the first of thousands of archived Lindbergh documents made public, Skemer said.

None of the papers released Thursday mention the 1932 fatal kidnapping of the couple's infant, Charles Jr., from their New Jersey home. After Bruno Richard Hauptmann was convicted in a sensational trial, the couple moved to Europe to escape the media glare. They returned after the start of the war in 1939.

More than 1,000 boxes of Lindbergh family files remain sealed aYale University and other locations around the country, generally with more stringent conditions for their release. But Skemer expects most will be made public within a few years.

©MMI The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed