Jon Lindbergh, Second Generation Adventurer

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31862, 14 December 1968, Page 27

Jon Lindbergh, Second Generation Adventurer

■(Newsweek Feature Service) ■ Periodically, Jon Morrow Lindbergh crops up in the news —an aloof, shadowy figure, quietly pursuing a career of sporadic adventure, then resolutely dropping once more out of public view. Thus it has always been for the son of the man who first flew solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Since the family tragedy in 1932, the kidnapmurder of the infant Charles Lindbergh, jun., Jon, now 36, has avoided publicity, as have his parents and four younger brothers and sisters.

| It hasn’t been easy, given | the life he has chosen for i himself. Jon Linbergh is an ‘ oceanographer, and for the last 15 or so years has spent much of his working time under water. His latest exploit was the’search for the missing sea leg of the hydrofoil vessel, Victoria, which was damaged on November 20, in Puget Sound. The $3.5 million Victoria was on its regular passengerferry run from Victoria, 8.C., to Seattle when it struck a concealed object in the water, stopped, then limped the last 38 miles into Seattle. There were no serious injuries to crew or passengers, but the company is understandably concerned to find out what caused the mishap. “The foil was wiped off a foot below the surface, as if cut by a knife,” said Mr I. Niedermair, president of Northwest Hydrofoil Lines. “That kind of damage couldn’t occur unless it struck a static immovable object.” Undersea Work Mr Lindbergh has been retained to supervise the diving operations that, it is hoped, will clear up the mystery. He is well-equipped for the assignment, for he has worked under the seas all around the world. Among his previous jobs have been prospecting for oil in the Mediterranean , recovering a kelpharvesting vessel in Ensenada Harbour, Mexico, and underwater dynamiting for Florida’s Silver Springs aquatorium. Four years ago, he participated in an experiment in undersea living sponsored by the National Geographic Society. He and a diver, Robert Stenuit, spent 48 hours on the ocean bottom off the Bahamas. Though

other divers had been submerged for longer periods in similar open-bottomed chambers, pressurised to keep the water out, none had previously done so at such great depth—43oft. Lindbergh also assisted in the recovery of a lost hydrogen bomb off the coast of Spain in 1966. On that occasion, he was in charge of two civilian craft attached to the United States Navy. These midget research vessels, one a 22ft submersible, the other a 51-footer, belonged to Ocean Systems, Inc., for whom Lindbergh was project manager.

It is all a long way from fear-ridden years after his brother’s kidnapping, when Jon Lindbergh was known as “the most carefully guarded child in the world.” But the solitary habits enforced by his childhood situation have never wholly deserted him. Lived In Tent At Stanford University, he refused to join a fraternity or even to live in a dormitory for most of his time as an undergraduate. Instead, he pitched a tent in a deserted woodland, six miles from the campus, and drove an old car to and from classes. He was not a recluse. He is handsome, sturdily built, though darker and shorter than his famous father. Classmates knew and liked him, and he was renowned as a mountain climber and, even then, as an explorer. In that period he made his first formidable dive—a 150-foot descent in Bower Cave in the Mother Lode country of northern California. At Stanford, also, he married Barbara Robbins, whose father once headed the Ocean Systems company for which Mr Lindbergh later went to work. Typically, the wedding was secret, only

coming to public attention when reporters noticed the legal records. Now the Lindberghs and their six children live in the Seattle area on an island in Puget Sound. He is as reticent as any Lindbergh on family matters. When asked how his airman father feels about his underwater career, he merely says: “Oh well, I think Dad is all for it.” Sea The Challenge Lately, the younger Lindbergh has been spending more and more time in the air, but with someone else flying. His job has become increasingly an executive one, and he moves all over the world supervising various company projects. “He’s got a damn good business sense,” said the company president, Mr A. C. Smith. Though he became a licensed pilot in college, Mr Jon Lindbergh is not keen on flying. “Aviation,” he notes, “is in a different era from when my father was in it.”

oergn nas oeen spending more and more time in the air, but with someone else flying. His job has become increasingly an executive one, and he moves all over the world supervising various company projects. “He’s got a damn good business sense," said the company president, Mr A. C. Smith. Though he became a licensed pilot in college, Mr Jon Lindbergh is not keen on flying. “Aviation,” he notes, “is in a different era from when my father was in it.” It’s the ocean, as he sees it, that presents the big challenge now. “It hasn’t been developed,” he says. “It contains vast quantities of unexploited resources. It offers a brand new field in so many ways.”