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Later life

After World War II, Lindbergh lived in Darien, Connecticut, and served as a consultant to the Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force and to Pan American World Airways. With most of eastern Europe under communist control, Lindbergh continued to voice concern about Soviet power, observing: "Freedom of speech and action is suppressed over a large portion of the world... Poland is not free, nor the Baltic states, nor the Balkans. Fear, hatred, and mistrust are breeding." In Lindbergh's words, Soviet and communist influence over the post-war world meant that "while our soldiers have been victorious," America had nonetheless not "accomplished the objectives for which we went to war," and he declared: "We have not established peace or liberty in Europe."

Commenting on the post-war world, Lindbergh said that "a whole civilization is in disintegration," and believed America needed to support Europe against communism. Because America had "taken a leading part" in World War II, he said it therefore could not "retire now and leave Europe to the destructive forces" that the war had "let loose." While he still believed his prewar non-interventionism was correct, Lindbergh said the United States now had a responsibility to support Europe, because of "honor, self-respect, and our own national interests." Furthermore, he wrote that "we could not let atrocities such as those of the concentration camps go unpunished," and he firmly supported the Nuremberg trials.

After the war, Lindbergh toured Germany, covering "almost two thousand miles during his last two weeks" in the country, and also traveled to Paris and participated in "conferences with military personnel and the American Ambassador" during the same trip. While in Germany in June 1945, he toured Dora concentration camp, inspecting the tunnels of Nordhausen and viewing V-1 and V-2 missile parts. He attempted to "reconcile," as Berg wrote, the technology he saw with how the "forces of evil had harnessed it." Reflecting on what happened in the camps, Lindbergh wrote in his wartime journal that it "seemed impossible that men—civilized men—could degenerate to such a level. Yet they had."

In the following page in his journal, he also lamented the mistreatment of Japanese people by Americans and other Allied personnel during the war, comparing these "incidents" to what the Germans did. As Berg wrote in 1998, Lindbergh returned from this two-month European journey "more alarmed about the state of the world than ever," but nonetheless "he knew that the American public no longer gave a hoot for his opinions." Drawing lessons from the war, Lindbergh stated: "No peace will last that is not based on Christian principles, on justice, on compassion...on a sense of the dignity of man. Without such principles there can be no lasting strength...The Germans found that out."

Soon after returning to America, Lindbergh paid a visit to his mother in Detroit, and on the train home he wrote a letter wherein he mentioned a "spiritual awareness," speaking of how important it was to spend time in the garden, take in the sun, and listen to birds. In Berg's words, this letter "revealed a changed man." As time went on, Lindbergh became increasingly spiritual in his outlook and grew concerned with the impact science and technology had on the world. In 1948, his Of Flight and Life was published, a book that has been described as an "impassioned warning against the dangers of scientific materialism and the powers of technology." In this book, he wrote of his experiences as a combat pilot in the Pacific theater, and declared his conversion from a worshiper of science to a worshiper of the "eternal truths of God," expressing concern for humanity's future. In 1949, he received the Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy and declared in his acceptance speech: "If we are to be finally successful, we must measure scientific accomplishments by their effect on man himself."

On April 7, 1954, on the recommendation of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lindbergh was commissioned a brigadier general in the U.S. Air Force Reserve; Eisenhower had nominated Lindbergh for promotion on February 15. Also in that year, he served on a Congressional advisory panel that recommended the site of the United States Air Force Academy. He also won the Pulitzer Prize for biography in 1954 with his book, The Spirit of St. Louis, which focuses on his 1927 flight and the events leading up to it. In May 1962, Lindbergh visited the White House with his wife and met President John F. Kennedy, having his picture taken by White House photographer Robert Knudsen.

In December 1968, he visited the astronauts of Apollo 8 (the first crewed mission to orbit the Moon) the day before their launch, and in July 1969 he and his wife witnessed the launch of Apollo 11 as personal guests of Neil Armstrong. Armstrong had met Lindbergh in 1968, and the two corresponded until the latter's death in 1974. In conjunction with the first lunar landing, he shared his thoughts as part of Walter Cronkite 's live television coverage. He later wrote the foreword to Apollo astronaut Michael Collins 's autobiography. While he maintained his interest in technology, Lindbergh began to focus more on protecting the natural world, and after viewing the Apollo 11 launch, he "participated in a WWF -sponsored dedication of a 900-acre bird preserve."