“You people over here,” Tom went on, “tend to discount him because he wears a Charlie Chaplin moustache. But, believe me, he is no tramp. He knows Germans like a book and gives them just the sort of leadership they eat up. It reminds you of the old picture of the donkey with a carrot in front of him and a lash behind him. Hitler knows how to hold out the carrot with one hand and pop the whip with the other.”
Tom went on to muse about the curious way thoughts took wing. Here was a former corporal of the Landswehr who had dreamed up a screwy idea and by force of his own conviction had sold it to the German people. Similarly, Lenin had generated an idea and, through sheer fanaticism, had come up from the dregs to impose a new tyranny on a people who had never known much else. Worse still, the cockeyed idea had spread into other lands in the short two decades since the Armistice from a war to make the world safe from such things. In Italy, it was Mussolini; in Japan, Hirohito. Here were four men on horseback, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and no one was doing anything about a counterattack with a better idea. One was ready at hand in the Christian faith, but subversive influences had persuaded Christians that it was unsophisticated even to talk about it. Protestants were so busy attacking Catholics that they were unwittingly led into an attitude toward communism which, if not sympathy, is at least not outspoken opposition.
Meanwhile at home we buried our heads in the sand. Unable to conceive such an idea as attacking others, we persuaded ourselves that some miracle would protect us. Our only means of counterattack was to pass a law against war and the current nostrum went under the title of “Arms Embargo Act.” It had its origin in the ancient myth of the war profiteer, an old wives’ tale founded on the idea that greedy munition racketeers in search of profits had fomented World War I. Its approach to keeping the peace was to prohibit the sale of arms to all belligerents. But, as Tom pointed out, it wouldn’t work out that way.
To date it had served as a good excuse for French bureaucrats to oppose the purchase of arms in the United States, on the grounds that delivery could be cut off by Hitler; all that was necessary was to declare war on France and convert her into a belligerent. The Act thus became an invitation to Hitler to make war whenever it suited his convenience. The Germans and Italians needed no American help; they had made themselves self-sufficient. From the moment the air-mail cancellations had thrown a rough lock on our own aviation program, they had seized upon the opportunity to expand their own air power as a new weapon with which the have nots could take what they wanted from the haves. Hitler had made no bones about it; such Nazis as Goering, Milch, and Udet bragged about their prowess to every American who visited Germany.
Among these, Charles A. Lindbergh had sought to sound a note of warning when he said to a Nazi assembly in Flyers-House in Berlin in July, 1936,
Unlike the builder of the dugout canoe, we have lived to see our harmless wings of fabric turned into carriers of destruction even more dangerous than battleships and guns. We have lived to carry on our shoulders the responsibility for the results of our experiments which, in other fields, have passed to future generations.
We in aviation carry a heavy responsibility on our shoulders, for while we have been drawing the world closer together in peace, we have stripped the armor of every nation in war. It is no longer possible to defend the heart of a country with its army. Armies can no more stop an air attack than a suit of mail can stop a rifle bullet. Aviation has, I believe, created the most fundamental changes ever made in war. It has turned defense into attack. We can no longer protect our families with an army. Our libraries, our museums—every institution which we value most, is laid bare to bombardment.
Aviation has brought a revolutionary change to a world already staggering from changes. It is our responsibility to make sure that doing so, we do not destroy the very things we wish to protect.
Reports as to German preparations by Lindbergh and numerous other competent observers had been discounted at home. A naval air attaché at Berlin had been threatened with orders home and accused of being pro-Nazi because he had made a factual report of German preparations. And at the very moment when Tom could arouse no interest in France or England looking to utilization of American products, the Italians, the Germans, the Japanese, and the Russians had come knocking at his door. At the time it was difficult to be selective. As the Four Horsemen jockeyed for advantage in the race for world dominion, no one knew who would be on our side. As it ultimately turned out, all four were against us at one time, what with the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo axis supported by the Russian nonaggression pact. But United Aircraft did draw the line in one situation; we quoted such high prices for our technical assistance that the Russians refused to buy from us. We knew, of course, that this did not prevent their getting whatever they wanted but at least we kept them out of our plants.
Tom, having long resided in France, had a strong attachment to the country and its people. Now with Hitler arming, he redoubled his efforts to interest the French Air Ministry in an arrangement which would place our facilities at their command in the emergency. After much delay he had finally succeeded in persuading them to test our engines in their laboratories with a view to “homologuing” them and clearing the way for later purchase, if desired. The engines had met all demands and had even got by in spite of some sand and glass which somehow always tended to get into the test engines.