The President and Amelia Earhart

This story identifies Franklin Roosevelt as a spy master and questions whether Amelia Earhart was pressed into service as a Spy for the government.

Transcript

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Welcome to Kitts, Myths, and Mysteries. Listened in all 50 states and 39 countries. Stories from a world you thought you knew. Today we take another look at Amelia Earhart. Some of the things I recite on this podcast, you'll say, Oh, I already knew that. But some may have you scratching your head. The year was 1937. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president. The Japanese were slowly advancing across the South Pacific, and a nave tracks named Amelia Earhart was preparing to circumnavigate the globe. FDR was known in certain political circles as a spy master. He had sent many of his high society cronies to various parties held across Europe to eavesdrop and return to the White House with information on Germany, France, and the UK. But he was totally in the dark when it came to the Japanese movement across the Pacific. Amelia Earhart was a pioneering American aviator and noted author. In 1932, she became the second person and the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. As her fame grew, she met and befriended a number of important people, who included Eleanor Roosevelt, with whom she frequently corresponded. Was Amelia Earhart pressed into service by FDR? Was she captured by the Japanese? Back in the day, a near legendary figure in Earhart research circles named Jim Golden had a unique career that included eight years as a Secret Service agent in the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration, two years as Howard Hughes Chief of Security in Las Vegas, and a stint in the U.S. Justice Department from where he was given a glimpse, but not a possession, of top secret files on Amelia Earhart. They were presented to him by John Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, in 1963, just before he was assassinated. We wonder what they revealed. As early as 1935, Japan had complained about the Pan American Airways clipper ships flying through airspace above Japanese Mandate Islands. The Japanese actually filed official complaints with the U.S. government and even voiced their displeasure in various American newspapers. In November 1935, just before Pan American launched the maiden flight of their Trans-Pacific run, two Japanese nationals were arrested aboard the Chinese Clipper, caught in the act of tampering with the ship's directional finder. Was Amelia Earhart a spy for FDR? Her Lockheed Electra was a state-of-art airplane with many modifications not available in models for sale commercially. Did she fly through Japanese airspace, possibly recording war preparation activities? When Roosevelt led the press and public to believe that she had simply disappeared over the Pacific, was it because revealing that she was a spy might have cost him votes in the next election? One theory is that she was indeed taking reconnaissance shots of Japanese naval facilities when her plane was forced down and that she died at the hands of the Japanese. But there's another theory, of course a lot more, simply that she survived whatever ordeal took place over the Pacific in 1937. Longtime Earhart investigator, while attending a meeting in Palmdale, California in 1965 of the Early Flyers Club, was introduced to Irene Bolum. He was struck by her resemblance to Amelia Earhart so much that he took her picture despite her objection. When this investigator published the book Earhart Lives, which contained the implication that Bolum was a 68-year-old Amelia Earhart, Bolum took him to court. But when the judge asked her to give her fingerprints to the court in front of the judge to cement her identity, she refused. Years later, in 2002, screenwriter Ted Swindle arranged for two forensic pathologists to use the modern technology of superimposition of photos of Irene Bolum and Amelia Earhart. It was concluded that the facial and hand bone structure coincided exactly. And that leads some to speculate that Amelia Earhart died in 1982 at the age of 85, but with the identity of Irene Bolum. This is Kit Crumb. Be sure to listen tomorrow to another story from a world you thought you knew.