Real and Fake News I've Heard in My Lifetime

A new commentary every Wednesday - March 1, 2017

Real and Fake News I've Heard in My Lifetime, Chapter One—Charles Lindbergh

It should come as no surprise that most of the monumental lies, both geopolitical and national of which I am aware, were generated in the crucible of politics. A great portion of it was inspired by the leaders of nations.

The founders of International communism were masters, not only of spreading the false word of their defense of the proletariat—the humble, downtrodden workers of the world—but Stalin in particular, successfully kept secret for decades the real news of the starvation, imprisonment and mass execution of millions of those he judged to be impediments to Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist socialism in the USSR.

Adolph Hitler came into power by playing up to German disappointment over their defeat in WWI and the reparations duly enforced afterwards by the victorious allies. Hitler was a natural-born rabble rouser and he was soon abetted by the gnomic genius-propagandist Joseph Goebbels in blaming Jews for all of Germany's problems wrought by the First World War and afterward during the great worldwide depression. After seizing the levers of power in Berlin, Der Führer (Leader) led in selling the lie that under their rule, the National Socialist (Nazi) Party would Make Germany Great Again. (No inference to our current president's favorite line intended).

To their enormous great credit, American media did not buy the Nazi propaganda line. Movie greats, such as Charlie Chaplin burlesqued Adolph in a film, "The Great Dictator."

To our great good fortune, Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi—the geniuses behind nuclear weapons, fled for their lives from the fascist dictators of Germany and Italy early on.

A great American hero, Charles Lindbergh, feted for his solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927, was invited by the Nazis to tour the new German airplane factories. In 1938, Hermann Göring, the number two Nazi, awarded him an Iron Cross called the "German Eagle." Lindbergh returned home an isolationist. He spoke at length of his admiration of German armed might and why America should avoid giving any assistance to our principal allies, England and France, both of which had fulfilled their promise to Poland and declared war on Germany when it invaded that country.

By then, the Nazis were already well into their extermination program, crushing all businesses owned by Jews and sending the first wave of some millions of Jews, along with a handful of dissident Christians, a few actual Communists, Gypsies and Homosexuals, to death camps.

In 1939, Lindbergh wrote an article in the Readers Digest, in which he stated: "Our civilization depends on a western wall, which can hold back the further infiltration by inferior blood."' It soon became apparent that "Lindy" was parroting the Nazi line. President Roosevelt called Lindbergh a traitor.

After December 7th, 1941, when Japan attacked us and it's Axis partners Germany and Italy declared war to support Japan, all pending invitations for Lindbergh to speak were canceled and his career went into eclipse. The word pariah was often used in circles where he and the awful 1935 kidnapping and murder of his son and the sensationalist recapitulation of the trial and execution of the kidnapper were revisited by the press from time to time. When Lindbergh attempted to rejoin the Air Corps, where he had learned to fly, it is a documented fact that Roosevelt blocked his re-entry.

It was not until after the Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945 that we learned through the media that in 1944 Lindbergh had flown 50 combat missions with the 475th Fighter Group as a civilian pilot in the Pacific Theater. How this was achieved has never been fully explained, but Harry Truman, who as Vice President became President upon the sudden death of FDR, is rumored to have had something to do with it. (Your Call File this under Fact or Fiction)

Lindberg was finally allowed to re-enter the Air Force in 1954 and eventually achieved the rank of Brigadier General.

Finally, a fascinating fact: In 2003, it was documented that Lindbergh had fathered seven children by three different European women, and his offspring did not learn of their famous father until 1984, ten years after his death in Hawaii. You could say that Charles L. Lindbergh had good reason to be wary of the press.

-Phil Richardson, Observer of the human condition and storyteller. "He goes doddering on into his old age, making a public nuisance of himself." - Joseph L. Mencken

k7os@comcast.net

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