The Foreign Service Journal, October 2021

60 OCTOBER 2021 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Jay Raman is the director of the Office of Interna- tional Media Engagement in the Bureau of Global Public Affairs. Joining the Foreign Service in 2002, he previously served as the cultural affairs officer in Bogotá, Colombia. He inherited a lifelong fascination for civil aviation from his father. Note: All unattributed quotations in this essay are from New York Times articles published during Lindbergh’s tour. The Man Who Crossed the Seas Charles Lindbergh’s Goodwill Tour, 1927-1928 A complicated and controversial public figure, Charles Lindbergh was also one of the first cultural ambassadors for the United States, as seen in his ambitious Latin America journey. BY JAY RAMAN FS HERITAGE F ew Americans have left as complicated and confounding a legacy as Charles Lindbergh. He was the hero of his age but tarnished his reputation with his outspoken isolationist, racist and anti-Semitic views in the leadup to World War II. Today, he is remembered as much for his discredited politics as his daring aviation skills. But for all his flaws, Lindbergh was undeniably a pioneer, and not just in the cockpit. He was a conservationist, a Pulitzer Prize– winning author and an inventor. He was also one of our nation’s first cultural ambassadors. The Goodwill Tour The first three decades of the 20th century saw U.S. soldiers and ships deploy to Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Venezuela and most of Central America. This was a direct result of President Theodore Roosevelt’s 1904 corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which declared that the United States had the right to intervene in the internal affairs of its southern neighbors. By 1927 the Roosevelt Corollary had run its course and the United States was eager to recalibrate its relationship with Latin America. In this context, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Dwight Morrow hit on the idea of inviting Lindbergh on a “Goodwill