November 19, 1997: The McCaughey Septuplets

November 19, 1997: Septuplets are born to Bobby and Kenny McCaughey (pronounced like "McCoy") in Des Moines, Iowa: Kenny Jr., Alexis, Natalie, Kelsey, Nathan, Brandon and Joel. They were the world's first seven-baby birth to all survive infancy.

The McCaugheys already had one daughter, Mikayla, born on January 3, 1996. While under treatment with ovulation-stimulating Metrodin, Bobbi became pregnant with seven fetuses. She and Kenny declined "selective reduction," which would have aborted one or more to give the others a better chance, saying that they would "put it in God's hands."

The 4 boys and 3 girls were born prematurely, at the Iowa Methodist Medical Center, delivered by a scheduled Caesarean section, all within 6 minutes, attended by a team of 40 specialists.

The babies attracted the attention of the entire country. TV networks jockeyed for chances to interview the parents. They received gifts including a 5,500-square-foot house, a fan, 2 years' worth of diapers (I don't want to know how that was calculated), clothes, and the State of Iowa offered full college scholarships to any State-run university upon their graduation from high school.

The parents received a phone call from President Bill Clinton, and the surviving Dionne Quintuplets -- Yvonne, Annette and Cecile -- wrote them an open letter, congratulating the parents, but warning them to keep the children out of the public eye, and to try not to fall into the same pitfalls as their own parents did in Canada, 62 years earlier.

On The Tonight Show, Jay Leno had dancers dress up as giant babies, performing as "The Dancing Septuplets." Not that he or anyone affiliated with the show could have known at the time, but, in hindsight, this was in bad taste: Alexis and Nathan both have cerebral palsy, and use walkers to get around.

By the time of the septuplets turned 10 in 2007, the family was declining most requests for interviews, other than annual stories with the KCCI-Channel 8, the CBS affiliate in Des Moines, and the magazine Ladies' Home Journal. TLC, formerly known as The Learning Channel, made a documentary about them for their 13th birthday.

The 7 kids graduated from Carlisle High School in 2016. Rather than go to any of the State schools, 4 of them -- Natalie, Kelsey, Nathan and Joel -- accepted another of the scholarship offers they received at birth, from Hannibal-LaGrange University in Hannibal, Missouri, which is affiliated with their faith, the Southern Baptist Convention. Kenny Jr. and Alexis stayed close to home, going to Des Moines Area Community College. Brandon enlisted in the U.S. Army.

The McCaughey Septuplets, October 2022

Older sister Mikayla got married in 2015, and had a baby boy in 2017. Brandon is still in the Army, holds the rank of Sergeant, and is married with a daughter. Kenny Jr. is a cabinetmaker, married, and his first child is due within days of this posting. Kelsey is married, and works as a medical receptionist. Natalie is married, and working on her master's degree in athletic training. The rest are single: Joel and Nathan work at IT jobs, and Alexis works at a day care center.

*

November 19, 1997 was a Wednesday. Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. There were 8 games played in the NBA:

* The New Jersey Nets beat the Boston Celtics, 108-100 at the Continental Airlines Arena at the Meadowlands.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Washington Bullets, 97-86 at the CoreStates Center (now the Xfinity Mobile Arena) in Philadelphia.

* The Charlotte Hornets beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 106-92 at the Charlotte Coliseum.

* The Miami Heat beat the Los Angeles Clippers, 122-113 at the Miami Arena.

* The Orlando Magic beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 96-93 in overtime at the Gund Arena (now the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse) in Cleveland.

* The San Antonio Spurs beat the Golden State Warriors, 108-87 at the Alamodome in San Antonio.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Minnesota Timberwolves, 118-93 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

* And the Seattle SuperSonics beat the Vancouver Grizzlies, 107-87 at the KeyArena in Seattle.

And there were 7 games in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning, 6-3 at the Ice Palace (now the Benchmark International Arena) in Tampa.

* The New York Islanders beat the Detroit Red Wings, 3-2 at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.

* The Carolina Hurricanes beat the Montreal Canadiens, 2-1 at the Greensboro Coliseum.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Philadelphia Flyers, 3-1 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* The Boston Bruins and the Pittsburgh Penguins played to a tie, 3-3 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

* The Dallas Stars beat the Edmonton Oilers, 3-2 at the Reunion Arena in Dallas.

* And the Chicago Blackhawks beat the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, 4-0 at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim (now the Honda Center).

November 13, 1969: Vice President Spiro Agnew's "Media Speech"

November 13, 1969: Vice President Spiro Agnew delivers a speech at the Hotel Fort Des Moines in Des Moines, Iowa, as part of the Midwest Regional Republican Conference, an annual meeting of campaign strategists.

The speech was written by William Safire, later a Pulitzer Prize-winning longtime conservative columnist for The New York Times. Ten days earlier, President Richard Nixon had delivered a speech written by Safire, outlining his policy of "Vietnamziation," a process of slowly but surely turning the responsibility of defending South Vietnam over to the country itself, and pulling U.S. troops out.

Nixon appealed to what he called "the great silent majority of Americans" for support, and he did gain support for the plan in opinion polls.

But not everyone agreed, and Nixon thought that he was being undermined by the national networks' news broadcasts: The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, The Huntley-Brinkley Report with Chet Huntley and David Brinkley on NBC (not yet NBC Nightly News), and The ABC Evening News (not yet World News Tonight) with Howard K. Smith and Frank Reynolds. Nixon thought the newsmen, their correspondents, and their interviewees weren't giving him a fair shake.

Nixon had been through this before: When he ran for Governor of California in 1962, he lost badly, and blamed the media, telling them the next morning, "Just think of how much fun you'll be missing. You don't have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference." He lied, running for President in 1968, and winning.

He took Governor Spiro T. Agnew of Maryland as his running mate. Agnew had been Baltimore County Executive, and won the Governorship as a liberal Republican against a segregationist Democrat. At first, Agnew was seen as tough but fair. But his response to the riot in Baltimore after Martin Luther King's assassination on April 4, 1968 got Nixon's attention, and he was nominated for Vice President. His image as a moderate would soon be shattered by remarks of what we would now call "casual racism," and he very nearly cost Nixon the election.

As Vice President, he tended to give speeches that showed he had an acute affinity for alliteration. Safire, who later wrote a column titled "Language Maven," enjoyed writing for him, giving him the phrases "the nattering nabobs of negativism," "the professional pessimists," "the troubadours of trouble," and "the 4-H Club: The Hopeless, Hysterical Hypochondriacs of History."

Safire was Jewish, and it was more likely one of Nixon's other speechwriters, the Catholic Patrick J. Buchanan, who gave Agnew the line "the vicars of vacillation." And, while this phrase didn't reflect anyone's religion, or offer any alliteration, I suspect it was also Buchanan who had Agnew call the media "an effect corps of impudent snobs."

Agnew did not use that line in this speech, which all 3 networks broadcast live, an unprecedented forum for a sitting Vice President who, at the time, was not also a candidate for President. Among his remarks:

No nation depends more on the intelligent judgment of its citizens. And no medium has a more profound influence over public opinion. Nowhere in our system are there fewer checks on such vast power. So nowhere should there be more conscientious responsibility exercised than by the news media. The question is, "Are we demanding enough of our television news presentations?" "And are the men of this medium demanding enough of themselves?"

Monday night, a week ago, President Nixon delivered the most important address of his Administration, one of the most important of our decade. His subject was Vietnam. My hope, as his at that time, was to rally the American people to see the conflict through to a lasting and just peace in the Pacific. For 32 minutes, he reasoned with a nation that has suffered almost a third of a million casualties in the longest war in its history.

When the President completed his address -- an address, incidentally, that he spent weeks in the preparation of -- his words and policies were subjected to instant analysis and querulous criticism. The audience of 70 million Americans gathered to hear the President of the United States was inherited by a small band of network commentators and self-appointed analysts, the majority of whom expressed in one way or another their hostility to what he had to say.

It was obvious that their minds were made up in advance. Those who recall the fumbling and groping that followed President Johnson's dramatic disclosure of his intention not to seek another term have seen these men in a genuine state of non-preparedness. This was not it.

One commentator twice contradicted the President's statement about the exchange of correspondence with Ho Chi Minh. Another challenged the President's abilities as a politician. A third asserted that the President was following a Pentagon line. Others, by the expressions on their faces, the tone of their questions, and the sarcasm of their responses, made clear their sharp disapproval.

To guarantee in advance that the President's plea for national unity would be challenged, one network (meaning ABC) trotted out Averell Harriman for the occasion. Throughout the President's address, he waited in the wings. When the President concluded, Mr. Harriman recited perfectly. He attacked the Thieu government as unrepresentative. He criticized the President's speech for various deficiencies. He twice issued a call to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to debate Vietnam once again. He stated his belief that the Vietcong or North Vietnamese did not really want a military takeover of South Vietnam. And he told a little anecdote about a "very, very responsible" fellow he had met in the North Vietnamese delegation.

All in all, Mr. Harriman offered a broad range of gratuitous advice challenging and contradicting the policies outlined by the President of the United States. Where the President had issued a call for unity, Mr. Harriman was encouraging the country not to listen to him.

A word about Mr. Harriman. For 10 months, he was America's chief negotiator at the Paris peace talks, a period in which the United States swapped some of the greatest military concessions in the history of warfare for an enemy agreement on the shape of the bargaining table. Like Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, Mr. Harriman seems to be under some heavy compulsion to justify his failures to anyone who will listen. And the networks have shown themselves willing to give him all the air time he desires.

Now, every American has a right to disagree with the President of the United States, and to express publicly that disagreement. But the President of the United States has a right to communicate directly with the people who elected him, and the people of this country have the right to make up their own minds, and form their own opinions, about a Presidential address without having the President's words and thoughts characterized through the prejudices of hostile critics before they can even be digested.

Agnew was underestimating the intelligence of TV viewers. He believed they were incapable of making up their minds about what Nixon said before any opposing views could be aired. He also underestimated their ability to decide for themselves about what Harriman, also a former Governor of New York, and others opposing Nixon had said.

Agnew continued:

When Winston Churchill rallied public opinion to stay the course against Hitler's Germany, he didn't have to contend with a gaggle of commentators raising doubts about whether he was reading public opinion right, or whether Britain had the stamina to see the war through. When President Kennedy rallied a nation in the Cuban missile crisis, his address to the people was not chewed over by a roundtable of critics who disparaged the course of action he'd asked America to follow.

And when those speeches were given, they were on the subject of existential threats to the countries involved. North Vietnam was not Nazi Germany. Nor was it the Soviet Union. And there had already been plenty of doubt about what America was doing in Vietnam. Americans were very much used to questioning their leaders on that subject. If they hadn't been, Nixon -- and, by extension, Agnew -- could never have been elected.

So for Agnew to suggest that Nixon's words should go unchallenged was an authoritarian gesture. And the American people didn't like that. He wrapped up:

In tomorrow's edition of The Des Moines Register, you'll be able to read a news story detailing what I said tonight. Editorial comment will be reserved for the editorial page, where it belongs. Should not the same wall of separation exist between news and comment on the nation's networks?

Now, my friends, we'd never trust such power, as I've described, over public opinion in the hands of an elected Government. It's time we questioned it in the hands of a small and unelected elite. The great networks have dominated America's airwaves for decades. The people are entitled to a full accounting of their stewardship.

At the conclusion of the speech, all 3 network's anchors interviewed their own network's president, to give their own response. Frank Stanton of CBS gave the best one, calling the speech "an unprecedented attempt by the Vice President of the United States to intimidate a news medium which depends for its existence upon government licenses."

The networks were not intimidated. As the years went on, all 3 would be rather harsh toward Nixon -- and Agnew. They couldn't convince people not to re-elect the Republican ticket in 1972. But when Agnew fell under investigation for tax fraud and bribery, the networks covered it as a serious news story worthy of investigation, keeping whatever glee they may have had to themselves.

Agnew resigned his office on October 10, 1973, cutting a plea deal to avoid prison time. That same month, the Watergate scandal that had engulfed Nixon got worse, and ABC's Smith became the 1st network anchor to issue an on-air editorial calling for Nixon's resignation.

Early the next year, Dan Rather, then CBS' White House correspondent, stood up to ask Nixon a question during a press conference. Upon introducing himself, he got a round of applause from his colleagues. Nixon, smiling, asked him, "Are you running for something?" Rather, not smiling, answered, "No, Mr. President. Are you?"

The Republicans hated Rather for the rest of his career, and hated CBS above all networks, until the 1990s, when NBC spun off the network MSNBC, which frequently challenged the conservative movement's own favorite network, Fox News Channel.

Speaking of which: Spiro Agnew died on September 17, 1996, at the age of 83. Exactly 20 days later, Fox News Channel went on the air. Something tells me he would have been just fine with the way they have conducted themselves since then.

*

November 13, 1969 was a Thursday. Scottish actor Gerard Butler was born on this day.

Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. There were 3 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Chicago Bulls, 114-99 at the new Madison Square Garden.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Phoenix Suns, 124-110 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.

* And the Seattle SuperSonics beat the Detroit Pistons, 117-113 at the Seattle Center Coliseum.

There were 2 games played in the American Basketball Association. The Indiana Pacers beat the Miami Floridians, 115-109 at the Dinner Key Auditorium in Miami. And the Kentucky Colonels beat the Denver Rockets, 109-104 at Freedom Hall in Louisville.

And there were 2 games in the NHL. The Boston Bruins beat the Detroit Red Wings, 3-1 at the Boston Garden. And the St. Louis Blues beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 4-0 at the St. Louis Arena.

October 14, 1977: Anita Bryant Gets "Canceled" With a Pie

October 14, 1977: Gay activist Thom Higgins responds to singer Anita Bryant's anti-gay legislative campaign by hitting her in the face with a pie during a press conference in Des Moines, Iowa. At first, she maintained her composure, and joked, using a slur on gay men, "At least it's a fruit pie." She soon broke down in tears.

Gay people had run a boycott of her most famous endorsement, of Florida orange juice. The growers soon realized they were losing money, and dropped her as a spokesperson. Jokes about her had become part of Johnny Carson's monologue on The Tonight Show and questions on Match Game.

Bryant as a young singer

Although she had peaked as a decidedly non-rock singer in the early 1960s, she was still fairly popular until her "Save Our Children" campaign. But after this, her career was ruined. Her marriage soon broke up. Eventually, the only town where she could get hired was Branson, Missouri, the place known as "the Redneck Vegas." She is still alive, age 82, an early victim of "cancel culture." Higgins died in 1994, from complications of AIDS.

The most recent picture of her I could find, dated 2011

(UPDATE: Anita Bryant died on December 16, 2024, at the age of 84. It had been 3 years since her granddaughter, Sarah Green, had come out as gay and announced she was marrying a woman.)

Also on this day, Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby dies at age 74, of a heart attack following a round of golf at a country club in Alcobendas, Spain, a suburb of Madrid. How good a golfer the legendary singer and actor known as "Der Bingle" was is open to debate, but he did sponsor the Bing Crosby Open tournament.

Golf isn't a real sport? I agree. Okay, then: From 1946 until his death, he was a part-owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates, while his frequent movie costar and golfing buddy Bob Hope was a part-owner of the next-closest big-league team, the Cleveland Indians. Fortunately for them, the 2 teams are in different leagues, so the nasty Pittsburgh-Cleveland football rivalry did not spill over into baseball. (In fact, 2013 marked the 1st time both the Pirates and the Indians ever made the postseason in the same year.)

*

October 14, 1977 was a Friday. The New York Yankees won Game 3 of the World Series, defeating the Los Angeles Dodgers, 5-3 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Mike Torrez went the distance for the win, and Mickey Rivers collected 3 hits, 2 of them doubles.

Football was in midweek. The NBA season began 4 days later. There were 2 NHL games. The New York Islanders and the Los Angeles Kings played to a tie, 0-0 at the Nassau Coliseum. And the Vancouver Canucks beat the Detroit Red Wings, 3-2 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.

And there were 2 games in the World Hockey Association. The Quebec Nordiques beat the Cincinnati Stingers, 5-1 at the Colisée de Québec. And the New England Whalers and the Indianapolis Racers played to a 2-2 tie at the Market Square Arena in Indianapolis.

September 11, 1941: Charles Lindbergh Destroys His Hero Reputation

This picture is not from that speech.

The WMCA microphone gives it away

as in New York, probably at Madison Square Garden.

September 11, 1941: Charles Lindbergh gives a speech in Des Moines, Iowa. For 14 years, he has been America's biggest hero. Never again.

At the request of the U.S. Department of War, Lindbergh, who in 1927 became the 1st person to fly an airplane from the North American continent to the European continent, traveled to Nazi Germany several times between 1936 and 1938, to evaluate German aviation. General Henry "Hap" Arnold, eventually the only U.S. Air Force general to hold five-star rank, wrote in his autobiography, "Nobody gave us much useful information about Hitler's air force, the Luftwaffe, until Lindbergh came home in 1939." Lindbergh also undertook a survey of aviation in the the Soviet Union in 1938.

In 1938, Hugh Wilson, the American Ambassador to Germany, hosted a dinner for Lindbergh with Germany's air chief, Generalfieldmarschall Hermann Göring. At this dinner, Göring presented Lindbergh with the Commander Cross of the Order of the German Eagle.

Lindbergh's acceptance proved controversial after Kristallnacht, an anti-Jewish pogrom in Germany a few weeks later. Lindbergh declined to return the medal, later writing, "It seems to me that the returning of decorations, which were given in times of peace and as a gesture of friendship, can have no constructive effect. If I were to return the German medal, it seems to me that it would be an unnecessary insult. Even if war develops between us, I can see no gain in indulging in a spitting contest before that war begins."

Lindbergh subsequently accepted an invitation to inspect the rising power of the Luftwaffe. Impressed by German technology, and the apparently-large number of aircraft at their disposal, and influenced by the staggering number of deaths from World War I, he opposed U.S. entry into the impending European conflict. Invited by the French government to tell what he had been shown -- which was eventually discovered to have been exaggerated, for the Nazis' benefit -- Lindbergh's testimony influenced France into trying to avoid conflict with Nazi Germany through the Munich Agreement.

At the urging of Joseph P. Kennedy, the U.S. Ambassador to Britain, Lindbergh wrote a secret memo to the British warning that a military response by Britain and France to Hitler's violation of the Munich Agreement would be disastrous. He claimed that France was militarily weak, and Britain over-reliant on its Royal Navy. In both cases, he had a point. But he also urgently recommended that they strengthen their air power to force Hitler to redirect his aggression against what he called "Asiatic Communism." Lindbergh's bigotry was showing.

On September 15, 1939, 2 weeks after the Nazis began World War II by invading Poland, Lindbergh gave a nationwide radio address, in which he called for isolationism, and indicated some pro-German sympathies and anti-Semitic insinuations about Jewish ownership of the media, saying, "We must ask who owns and influences the newspaper, the news picture, and the radio station... If our people know the truth, our country is not likely to enter the war."

In fact, Lindbergh was fooling himself. Most of the nation's media was owned by conservative Republicans, not eager to go to war against Hitler, who had been opposing Communists and labor unions. Henry Luce, who ran Time magazine, and named Lindbergh the magazine's first "Man of the Year" in 1927, was an exception. And even he, born in China to American missionaries, was more eager to defend China from Imperial Japan than to defend Britain and France from Nazi Germany. Again, there was a matter of racism involved.

In a 1939 article for Reader's Digest, Lindbergh expressed pro-eugenics views: "We can have peace and security only so long as we band together to preserve that most priceless possession, our inheritance of European blood, only so long as we guard ourselves against attack by foreign armies and dilution by foreign races." He said that certain races have "demonstrated superior ability in the design, manufacture, and operation of machines," and that "The growth of our western civilization has been closely related to this superiority."

What's more, Lindbergh, raised in Minnesota but born in the "Motor City" of Detroit as the son of a former Congressman from Michigan, developed a friendship with the automobile pioneer Henry Ford, who was well known for his anti-Semitic newspaper, The Dearborn Independent. In a famous comment about Lindbergh to Detroit's former FBI field office special agent in charge in July 1940, Ford said: "When Charles comes out here, we only talk about the Jews."

In late 1940, Lindbergh became the spokesman of the isolationist America First Committee, soon speaking to overflow crowds at Madison Square Garden in New York and Soldier Field in Chicago, with millions listening by radio. He argued emphatically that America had no business attacking Germany.

Lindbergh justified this stance in writings that were only published posthumously: "I was deeply concerned that the potentially gigantic power of America, guided by uninformed and impractical idealism, might crusade into Europe to destroy Hitler without realizing that Hitler's destruction would lay Europe open to the rape, loot and barbarism of Soviet Russia's forces, causing possibly the fatal wounding of Western civilization."

In his testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on January 23, 1941, opposing the Lend-Lease bill, Lindbergh proposed that the United States negotiate a neutrality pact with the Nazis. President Franklin D. Roosevelt publicly decried Lindbergh's views as those of a "defeatist and appeaser." On April 28, Lindbergh resigned his colonel’s commission in the U.S. Army Air Corps Reserve, writing that he saw "no honorable alternative," given that Roosevelt had publicly questioned his loyalty.

At an America First rally at the Des Moines Coliseum in Iowa on September 11 -- which has been a problematic date in American history, going back at least as far as 1776 -- broadcast live over national radio, Lindbergh accused 3 groups of "pressing this country toward war: The British, the Jewish, and the Roosevelt Administration":

It is not difficult to understand why Jewish people desire the overthrow of Nazi Germany. The persecution they suffered in Germany would be sufficient to make bitter enemies of any race.

No person with a sense of the dignity of mankind can condone the persecution of the Jewish race in Germany. But no person of honesty and vision can look on their pro-war policy here today without seeing the dangers involved in such a policy both for us and for them. Instead of agitating for war, the Jewish groups in this country should be opposing it in every possible way for they will be among the first to feel its consequences.

Tolerance is a virtue that depends upon peace and strength. History shows that it cannot survive war and devastations. A few far-sighted Jewish people realize this and stand opposed to intervention. But the majority still do not.

Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government.

Lindbergh continued, telling half-truths:

I am not attacking either the Jewish or the British people. Both races, I admire. But I am saying that the leaders of both the British and the Jewish races, for reasons which are as understandable from their viewpoint as they are inadvisable from ours, for reasons which are not American, wish to involve us in the war.

We cannot blame them for looking out for what they believe to be their own interests, but we also must look out for ours. We cannot allow the natural passions and prejudices of other peoples to lead our country to destruction.

His message was popular throughout many Northern and Midwestern communities, with large populations of German-Americans favorable to their ancestral homeland, and Irish-Americans who did not want their country to fight for Britain. But the South was anglolphilic, and supported a pro-British foreign policy.

What's more, Jewish Americans called Lindbergh out for his apparent anti-Semitism. And Americans of British, French, Dutch and Polish descent were furious with him. So were those of Russian and Ukrainian descent, as it had been nearly 3 months since Hitler had broken his Non-Aggression Pact and invaded the Soviet Union. These communities within America all turned on Lindbergh, their admiration of him turning to disgust.

Even his own wife, Anne, a poet of some renown, saw that he had wrecked his reputation. Writing in her diary, she did him, and herself, no favors: "I have the greatest faith in Charles as a person‍ -- in his integrity, his courage, and his essential goodness, fairness, and kindness‍ -- his nobility really... How then explain my profound feeling of grief about what he is doing? If what he said is the truth (and I am inclined to think it is), why was it wrong to state it? He was naming the groups that were pro-war. No one minds his naming the British or the Administration. But to name 'Jew' is un-American‍ -- even if it is done without hate or even criticism. Why?"

FDR blew his stack over the speech. To Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, who was Jewish, he said, "If I should die tomorrow, I want you to know this: I am absolutely convinced Lindbergh is a Nazi." And he wrote to Secretary of War Henry Stimson: "When I read Lindbergh's speech I felt that it could not have been better put if it had been written by (Nazi propaganda minister Joseph) Goebbels himself. What a pity that this youngster has completely abandoned his belief in our form of government and has accepted Nazi methods because apparently they are efficient."

Still, despite 3 naval confrontations with German ships, FDR found too much opposition from Congress to get a Declaration of War on the Nazis. Then came December 7, and the attack of Nazi ally Japan upon the American naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. FDR asked Congress for a Declaration of War against Japan the next day, and got it. Three days later, Nazi Germany declared war against America, and Congress responded in kind.

Lindbergh did offer to fight for America, but, approaching his 40th birthday, he was denied the opportunity until 1944, serving as a private consultant to aviation companies in the interim. He flew 50 combat missions -- all in the Pacific Theater of the war, against Asiatic Japan, not European Germany.

After World War II, Lindbergh became an unofficial goodwill ambassador to the Germany that was being rebuilt, in part in America's image. But, while there, he had several affairs, and fathered several illegitimate children, which was not revealed to the public during his lifetime.

In 1969, due to his status as an aviation pioneer, he was invited to watch the Florida launch of Apollo 11, the 1st mission to land on the Moon. Other than that, he lived a very private life until his death in 1974. But his reputation never recovered from the Des Moines speech.

Sixty years later to the day after Lindbergh's speech, airplanes were used to attack America again. What he would have thought about it, only he would have known.

In his 2004 novel The Plot Against America, Jewish-American author Philip Roth imagined that Lindbergh had given his Des Moines speech over a year earlier, before the 1940 Republican Convention that nominated Wendell Willkie to oppose FDR, who was running for a 3rd term, on the basis that only he could stop Nazi Germany from taking over the world.

In this novel, an America less aware of Nazi atrocities, and more receptive to rhetoric in Germany's favor, rallied behind Lindbergh's isolationist message, and he was nominated for President, and defeated Roosevelt. His Administration became one that treated Jews as badly as black people were treated in the South.

It is revealed in the narrative that the reason Lindbergh was so willing to act as a puppet for the Nazis is that what was generally believed about the 1932 kidnapping of his toddler son wasn't true, that the son was alive and well in Germany, and that this would remain true as long as Lindbergh did the Nazis' bidding. A chilling miniseries version aired on HBO in 2020.

The Des Moines Coliseum, site of Lindbergh's September 11, 1941 speech, opened in 1908. It hosted speeches by Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson and Herbert Hoover -- but not Franklin Roosevelt. It served as home court for the Drake University basketball team, and hosted other sporting and entertainment events until it burned down in 1949. The site is now occupied by a federal courthouse.

*

September 11, 1941 was a Thursday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Detroit Tigers, 5-4 at Yankee Stadium. Al Benton outpitched Marius Russo, both of them going the full 12 innings. Joe DiMaggio went 1-for-6. In the top of the 6th inning, catcher Bill Dickey was injured, and replaced by Ken Silvestri. This ended up being critical.

In the top of the 12th, Dutch Meyer singled, Russo mishandled Tuck Stainback's intended sacrifice bunt, Barney McCosky struck out, Rudy York was intentionally walked, and Pinky Higgins grounded back to Russo. But Silvestri was out of position, so, instead of trying to throw Meyer out at the plate, Russo threw to 3rd, forcing out Stainback, and Higgins was then thrown out at 1st for the 3rd out. But Meyer had already scored, and the run counted, and it made the difference.

Not that much of a difference, though: The Yankees had already clinched the American League Pennant.

* The New York Giants beat the Cincinnati Reds, 6-0 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Bob Carpenter pitched a 4-hit shutout. Mel Ott went 0-for-1... with 4 walks. Billy Jurges went 1-for-5, but the hit was a 3-run double.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 6-4 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Dolph Camilli hit a home run for the Dodgers. Dixie Walker singled home the winning run in the top of the 11th inning.

These teams were in a tense fight for the National League Pennant, and this win put the Dodgers up by 2 games. Stan Musial would make his major league debut for the Cardinals on September 17. It didn't help this season, as the Dodgers clinched the Pennant on September 25. But the Cardinals would win 4 of the next 5 Pennants, and remain the Dodgers' most competitive opponents for the rest of the 1940s.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Chicago White Sox, 2-1 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia.

* The Cleveland Indians swept a doubleheader from the Washington Senators, 8-5 and 3-2 at Griffith Stadium in Washington.

* A doubleheader was split at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Pirates won the opener, 7-5. The Boston Braves won the nightcap, 10-0. Tom Earley allowed 9 hits, but kept the shutout.

* The Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Browns were not scheduled. At the time, the Red Sox' Ted Williams was batting .413.

* And the Chicago Cubs and the Philadelphia Phillies were also not scheduled.