http://storyoftheweek.loa.org/2010/08/flying-fool.html

When Lindbergh accomplished his “perfect flight,” nobody was
prepared; “the diplomats, the airport authorities, the police, the
journalists” - all were caught flat-footed, both because nobody expected the young
25-year-old to actually make it and because few understood how his
accomplishment would capture the imaginations of adoring mobs on both sides of
the ocean. In his posthumously published 1987 memoir, Root (who is today
remembered for his best-selling books on food) admits that he didn’t even know
who Lindbergh was on the morning of May 21, 1927. In “The Flying Fool” he pieces
together the chaos in Paris on that historic day.