Joe Nocera

Because it's a 94-year-old mystery.

that many people feel has never been solved.

I think there's two other aspects to it, though.

One is, it's the original true crime story.

I mean, it really is.

And we're a culture that's obsessed with true crime now.

And secondly, I think it gives a snapshot

of a different America, a more innocent country, where a man like Charles Lindbergh could be almost godlike in the admiration Americans had for him, which doesn't really exist anymore.

Lindbergh was the first person to prove that flight could be more than daredevils or war machines.

It was an American hero kind of thing.

It was like, only an American could have done this.

He was a believer in eugenics, as many upper-class white people were at the time.

Which is the sort of selective breeding to promote certain traits.

Yes.

And he made trips to Germany.

before the war, and they gave him some medal at one point.

And he became part of the America First movement, which was an effort to persuade the country not to go to war.

He also was shown to be, during this period of his life, anti-Semitic.

Well, it was a Tuesday night.

The Lindberghs were never at Hopewell, which was really their weekend retreat on a Tuesday night.