"FASCIST LACKEY"

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23647, 3 November 1938, Page 12

"FASCIST LACKEY"

COLONEL LINDBERGH SOVIET PAPER'S OUTBURST STATEMENTS REFUTED LONDON, Oct. 10. A bitter attack on Colonel Lindbergh, the American airman, is made in the Moscow newspaper Pravda. The attack is in the form of a letter from a group of Russian airmen, and accuses Lindbergh, who visited Russia in August, of making statements against the Soviet Union at a dinner party given by Lady Astor. Under the headline, 'Lindbergh's New ' Record,'" the letter says that he has Fascist sympathies, and that he visited Russia without an invitation " under the instructions of English reactionaries in order to testify about the weakness of Soviet aviation, so as to provide Mr Chamberlain with arguments for capitulat- 1 ing at Munich." " Fascist Lackey " 'Paid-liar Lindbergh,'' it adds, 'duly perormed his duty to his bosses." Describing him as " a Fascist lackey who performed a non-stop flight into the realms of slanderous and calumnious fabrications," the writers indignantly deny Lindbergh's alleged statement that he had been offered a Soviet civil aviation directorship. They also refute another alleged statement that the German Air Force would be able to defeat the combined forces of the Soviet Union, Britain. France, and Czechoslovakia. "According to information in the highest quarters in London, Paris, and Prague," they add, " the Soviet air fleet is quantitatively, at least, equal to the German and Japanese air forces combined, and qualitatively much superior." Lindbergh's alleged remark that Soviet civil aviation was known to be in a chaotic condition is singled out for specific refutation. " Perhaps owing to ' chaotic conditions,' Soviet airmen hold the majority of world aviation records." says the letter. " The Soviet Union possesses hundreds and thousands of splendid pilots who can not only fly but also £ excellent organisers and administrators. " Colonel Lindbergh is a former airman and a political speculator, who, since his transatlantic flight, has not done anything any Soviet peasant or workers could not do." The letter goes on to ridicule his achievements after his Atlantic flight, "and his marriage to a millionaire's daughter." "Laughing Stock" It concludes: "Colonel Lindbergh is now feeding Lady Astor's guests with the usual anti-Soviet tales. "He has made himself the laughing stock of the world. He has proved himself to be a stunid liar, satellite, and lackey of the German Fascists.and their English followers." Among the 11 signatories of the letter (says the 8.U.P.) are- Molokov, chief of the civil aviation; Kokkinaki, who set up a new nonstop inland record recently; Gromov and Chkalov, commanders of the machines which made the transpolar flights to America; and Slepnev, personal . escort to Colonel Lindbergh during his visit.