At 2:53 a. m. on Sunday, Dec. 22, Charles Augustus Lindbergh, with his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh and their 3-year-old son Jon, sailed furtively out of New York Harbor toward Europe aboard the S. S. American Importer. On that slender foundation of fact the U. S. Press last week reared as enormous a fabric of conjecture, rumor, implication and denunciation as has been built in nearly two thousand years on the 67-word story of the Flight into Egypt.* News of the Lindbergh flight broke in the final Monday edition of the New York Times, on the streets at 4 a. m. The New York American, morning Hearstpaper, cribbed the Times' copyright story, slapped it on the front page of an extra edition. The rest of Manhattan's morning newspapers were left sitting on their hands.
Since Colonel Lindbergh had offered no public explanation of his departure, and radiograms sent to him on the American Importer were returned with the notation "Addressee not aboard," the Times' story remained the scripture on which the week's exegesis was built. It was written by bespectacled Lauren D. ("Deac") Lyman, who as the Times' aviation editor befriended obscure young Aviator Lindbergh before his flight to Paris in 1927. Throughout the week Reporter Lyman stoutly refused to reveal the source of his scoop. But Colonel Lindbergh's hatred of certain sensational newspapers, and his corresponding affection for the courteous Times, have long been well-known. Therefore Newshawk Lyman's statements could reasonably be accepted as authentic, possibly firsthand.
In keeping with the Times' policy of protecting Hero Lindbergh's privacy, Reporter Lyman weakened his otherwise first-rate scoop by failing to disclose the time and place of the Lindberghs' sailing, their ship's name, their exact destination. But he did state flatly the following facts:
The Lindberghs had secretly obtained passports in Washington a week in advance, slipped away from the Morrow home in Englewood, N. J. with farewells only to the immediate family. The only passengers aboard their ship, they were now bound for England to establish a home which might be permanent. They had been driven to this decision by mounting threats to kidnap or kill Son Jon. They had chosen England because they believed the English to be the world's most law-abiding people. Their chief aim was to give Jon a normal childhood. Colonel Lindbergh, though he might become the No. 1 expatriate, did not intend to give up his U. S. citizenship.