What a delight to see the All American featured as the frontispiece in the July/ August issue. I must point out, however, that the caption is a bit misleading. Although General Dynamics was the major corporate sponsor of the B-24 restoration, there are many others who deserve most of the credit. The plane belongs to the nonprofit Collings Foundation, and it was Bob and Caroline Collings who took on the challenge of raising the nearly one million dollars it would eventually take to get it back into the air. Significant funds were donated by nearly two thousand individuals and companies who shared the dream of seeing a fully restored B-24 touring the country, but the restoration is far from paid for. A note to the Collings Foundation, River Hill Farm, Stow, MA 01775, will bring information on how to help “pay off the mortgage” and keep the All American flying.
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January 2011
The All American is not the only flying B-24. Several are still in the air, thanks to many great people. It is however the only flying B-24J in mint condition, having been disassembled and rebuilt by more than ninety thousand work hours.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the Minneapolis-St. Paul 1890 battle to pad the census count (“The Census War,” July/August). I’ve read quite a bit of history about the census, and it’s been good for me to do so. When people ask me if this isn’t the worst time to be Director, I answer, “No—you should read about the nineteenth century. The census has always been controversial because it redistributes power—and, in recent times, money.”
Lloyd Ostendorf and James L. Swanson presented an intriguing circumstantial case for Dr. Philip O. Jenkins’s Lincoln canvas in “Lincoln from Life” (March). However, a reader familiar with the literature of Lincoln iconography might reasonably wonder why Jenkins would, years after his supposed sittings with the future President, boast to a prospective customer that he’d once painted not Lincoln but a mere senator. Most of the artists lucky enough to have painted Lincoln from the flesh were quick to let the world know. The sculptor Leonard W. Volk said that the future President sat for a bust in 1860, then told him, “Mr. Volk, I have never sat before to sculptor or painter—only for daguerreotypes and photographs.” If Volk’s was the first life portrait in 1860, how could Jenkins so qualify with an effort dated four years earlier?
The authors reply: We did not overlook Volk’s recollections. Lloyd Ostendorf’s research on Volk’s March 1860 life mask appeared several years ago in an article that he coauthored with Harold Holzer. Nor did we neglect Thomas Hicks, who also claimed the honor of being told by Lincoln in June 1860 that he was the first artist to render Lincoln in any medium other than photography. We do not know that Lincoln said those things to Volk or Hicks; we only know that these artists said that Lincoln said those things—more than twenty years later. No evidence corroborates their hearsay recollections.
The day was November 22, 1935. The place was San Francisco. A revolutionary Glenn L. Martin-designed four-engine flying boat recently christened China Clipper strained at her moorings. Before a host of national dignitaries, the Pan American Airways president, Juan T. Trippe, turned to Capt. Edwin C. Musick, the China ’s first skipper. “Captain Musick, proceed to Manila,” he ordered.
On September 1, 1939, Hitler’s armies invaded Poland, and World War II began. The United States immediately became security conscious. German nationals living here came under increasing FBI scrutiny. One such German, suspected of being a Nazi agent, was thirty-year-old Adam von Trott zu SoIz, who arrived in New York City by boat in late September. In early November he came to Washington, D.C., where he checked into the Mayflower Hotel.
As a young FBI agent assigned to the Washington field office, I received instructions to discover whether von Trott was engaged in any type of subversive activity. This involved physical surveillance and other investigative techniques. With other agents I proceeded to tail von Trott all over Washington—to the German Embassy, to the State Department, to Capitol Hill, to the National Press Club building, and even to the Washington Monument and Mount Vernon. We also followed him to Virginia Beach, Virginia, where he attended a convention of a peace organization.