Herman Roth's political opposition to Charles Lindbergh

Herman Roth's political opposition to Charles A. Lindbergh is a sustained refusal to treat the president's promises of peace and national unity as harmless. Herman reads Lindbergh's isolationism, dealings with Hitler, and programs directed at Jewish Americans as connected threats: foreign aggression may be accommodated abroad while Jewish citizens are pressured at home. His opposition is expressed chiefly in family arguments and in his interpretation of the administration's policies, but the growing public consequences of dissent give those private warnings a wider political meaning.

Opposition to Lindbergh's foreign policy

Herman's criticism develops around the gap between Lindbergh's declared aim of keeping the United States out of foreign wars and what Herman believes that policy will enable. As Germany advances into Russia, Herman follows events in the left-wing newspaper PM and contrasts the continuing British resistance with the apparent ease of German expansion. He sees Lindbergh's policy not as a neutral withdrawal from conflict but as a choice that leaves Hitler free to gain power. The newspaper in his hands becomes a recurring sign of his attention to events and of his frustration with what he regards as American complacency.

When Philip asks why Hitler has not invaded England, Herman explains his understanding of the secret Iceland agreement: Lindbergh, he believes, expects to broker a sham peace after Germany has expanded further, with a fascist government imposed on Britain as the price of avoiding invasion. This is Herman's political analysis, not an independently confirmed account of the agreement. Its importance lies in the conclusion he draws: a president who presents himself as a peacemaker may, in Herman's view, be helping Germany dictate the terms of peace. He distinguishes Lindbergh's rhetoric from the consequences he expects it to produce.

Herman's opposition is also explicitly moral. He argues that Hitler's record of conquest and broken agreements makes reliance on his assurances reckless, and that persecution of Jews wherever the Nazis gain control makes American Jews especially vulnerable. He fears that Lindbergh will not defend them if Hitler's ambitions reach the United States. In this argument, foreign policy cannot be separated from the safety of citizens at home: the administration's accommodation of Hitler and its treatment of Jewish Americans belong to the same political crisis.

The administration at the family table

The conflict becomes personal when Herman confronts Lionel Bengelsdorf, who defends Lindbergh's administration and the Office of American Absorption. Bengelsdorf presents the office as an invitation for Jews to participate more fully in national life and contrasts it with the exclusion imposed by Nazi Germany. Herman rejects that distinction as inadequate reassurance. He is not persuaded by the claim that the program offers inclusion, and tells Bengelsdorf that hearing this defense makes him more alarmed, not less.

The argument has consequences within the family. Sandy has applied to Just Folks, the administration-sponsored summer program that sends Jewish boys from cities to work on farms, with support from Aunt Evelyn, who works in the Office of American Absorption. After the dinner-table confrontation, Sandy is selected as a New Jersey recruiting officer for the program. Herman sees the appointment as a political reward and as evidence that his son is being drawn into the administration's project. Thus opposition to Lindbergh is not merely a disagreement about national policy: it divides the household over whether official invitations to participate represent opportunity or pressure to assimilate.

The same disagreement appears in Herman's conflict with Monty Roth. Monty points to economic prosperity and the fact that the country remains out of the war as reasons to support Lindbergh. Herman counters that prosperity does not settle the question of what else matters, and insists that his sons' safety cannot be measured by business conditions. His concern is sharpened by Alvin Roth's service with the Canadian army and return after losing a leg. Herman rejects the suggestion that this outcome proves the wisdom of keeping the United States out of the war; instead, it makes the human stakes of political choices impossible for him to treat as abstractions.

Dissent beyond the household

Herman's private opposition takes place as public dissent becomes more precarious. Walter Winchell, removed from his radio and newspaper platforms, campaigns against Lindbergh's political allies. His speeches and the attack on his campaign in Boston show how opposition can move from formal political speech to street violence. The evidence does not place Herman at these events, but the escalation gives context to his fear that open warnings about Lindbergh are being marginalized while organized hostility toward Jews grows.

After violence in Detroit, Jewish residents in Newark begin preparing for the possibility of attacks. Civic leaders establish the Newark Committee of Concerned Jewish Citizens and seek contingency planning with local and state authorities. Separately, Longy Zwillman arranges for Bullet Apfelbaum to recruit young men into the Provisional Jewish Police. These responses show a community trying both official channels and its own protective organization because it doubts that authorities will respond adequately. Herman's earlier insistence that the government may fail to protect Jewish citizens therefore belongs to a wider atmosphere of practical fear, not only to household speculation.

That fear reaches Herman's home in the form of a radio bulletin announcing Winchell's assassination. The announcement interrupts Herman while he is speaking with a neighbor who has offered a pistol to help protect the family. The juxtaposition makes the political conflict immediate: public violence, the perceived need for private defense, and Herman's appeal to the family's status as citizens converge in one domestic scene. His opposition is directed at a government he believes has failed to confront the danger, even as the family must consider how to protect itself.

Crisis and significance

The disappearance of Lindbergh is followed by Acting President Wheeler's declaration of martial law, the sealing of borders, and a broad expansion of military and law-enforcement control. The authorities later arrest Bengelsdorf and numerous other public figures on suspicion of conspiracy, while troops enter New York and protests are suppressed. These events transform the political landscape against which Herman has argued: dissent and insecurity are no longer confined to the family table or to campaign crowds but are entangled with emergency powers and the detention of political opponents.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh's broadcast from hiding challenges the government's account and calls for troops to withdraw, detainees to be released, civil rights to be restored, and constitutional succession procedures to be followed. The broadcast does not erase the dangers Herman has feared, but it demonstrates that resistance to the Wheeler government can also come from within the political order. Across the novel's progression, Herman's opposition to Charles A. Lindbergh remains grounded in a refusal to equate nonintervention with peace or official assurances with protection. Its significance lies in the contrast between his insistence on judging policy by whom it endangers and the competing assurances of peace, prosperity, and inclusion offered by Lindbergh's supporters.