Two weeks later, in a similar hearing before the Senate, Lindbergh testified against the lend-lease bill on grounds that sending vast quantities of U.S. armaments abroad dramatically weakened America’s ability to defend herself against an enemy attack from any quarter—including the Pacific. But his refusal to take sides in the present conflict, with most of Europe occupied and England under heavy attack, made him sound unpatriotic. The only moment of levity in the proceedings came when Florida’s senator Claude Pepper, who considered Lindbergh a “fifth columnist” and was a little dotty even
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