Soon after publication of Sarah Churchwell’s essay, I received an email from a biographer of Senator Burton K. Wheeler that insisted the senator was not giving a Nazi salute; it was, he wrote, a “Bellamy salute,” a patriotic gesture to the American flag widely used at pledge of allegiance ceremonies. We should correct our caption, I was told, since it was a slur against Wheeler, who was no fascist. We do occasionally find possible errors of fact in captions from Getty Images. If so, we communicate that to the agency’s staff; they make their own assessment, and, if need be, correct the caption. On this occasion, however, I was not persuaded. While I could see that Wheeler’s gesture appeared half-hearted and not very Nazi, Lindbergh’s salute looked full-on fash.
