The Foreign Service Journal, October 2021

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | OCTOBER 2021 65 was joined by a mounted escort. They were also followed by hundreds of private cars, prompting one reporter to remark, “If any automobile in Bogota was not in the parade it must have been in the machine shop.” Flowers and streamers poured down as Lindbergh waved politely from the back of the open car. A correspondent estimated that 100,000 people lined the streets to welcome Lindbergh to Bogotá. If accurate, that would have been almost half the city’s population. The parade finally arrived at the American legation building at 6 p.m., where Lindbergh and Piles appeared on the balcony. Lindbergh gamely headed out to tea, followed by a late-night reception at the Anglo-American club. Meanwhile, a colorful crowd lingered hoping for one last glimpse of their hero. As a reporter described it, “They were of all classes. Sandal-clad or barefoot Indian men and women of the country districts touched elbows with Bogota’s ‘nicest people’—a strange picture in contrasts, illuminated by many searchlights flooding the neighborhood of the legation.” The Lone Eagle After a late breakfast and a meeting with reporters and fellow aviators, Lindbergh paid a courtesy call on Colombian President Miguel Abadía Méndez. The president presented Lindbergh with the Cross of Boyacá—the country’s highest military distinction, which had been awarded just nine times before and never to an American. Lindbergh then went back to the airfield to inspect his plane, which had been topped off with gasoline and oil provided by the Colombian government. In the evening, Lindbergh attended a banquet at the legation for 600 guests. He was continuously called out to the balcony “to acknowledge, with the ‘Lindbergh smile’ very much in evidence, the prolonged cheers of the Colombians.” The banquet was followed by a ball at the Jockey Club, where Lindbergh was “serenaded until midnight.” The next day, Lindbergh was up at the crack of dawn. After a final breakfast at the legation, he headed back to Madrid Field to ready the plane for departure. As the Times reported, “There he was surrounded by a hundred or more cheering Colombians, many of whomwere in evening attire, having attended the dance given in his honor last night. High officials were on hand to bid him farewell and to express the wish that he would visit the city again for a more extended trip. “ The Spirit of St. Louis responded quickly to the turn of the propeller and rose gracefully from the field under the touch of her distinguished pilot. A fewminutes later a silver speck high in the Charles Lindbergh works on the engine of the Spirit of St. Louis in 1927. sky completely disappeared beyond the mountains and the ‘Lone Eagle’ was winging his way to another city that eagerly awaited his presence.” When approached by a reporter at the scene, President Abadía Méndez offered a final tribute: “If Horace eulogized the man who crossed the seas, what can be said of the man who crosses the seas in the air?” Postscript Lindbergh’s journey from Bogotá to Maracay, Venezuela, would pioneer yet another route. The trip took 11 hours and required Lindbergh to fight his way back to land after being swept off course due to wind and fog. Despite the difficulty, “the supreme audacity which is Colonel Lindbergh’s birthright carried him through to another aeronautical triumph.” He would go on to visit Caracas by car before flying to the Vir- gin Islands, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Cuba. The last leg of the journey was direct fromHavana to St. Louis. Two months to the day after setting out, the Goodwill Tour had reached its end. When asked about future plans, Lindbergh said simply, “I have none beyond getting a good night’s rest and mak- ing my air mail flight next week.” n LIBRARYOFCONGRESS