The gesture in question is known as the "Bellamy salute", named after Francis Bellamy, the Christian Socialist and Baptist minister. Bellamy was the author of the original Pledge of Allegiance; it was written at the request of his nephew, James Upham, who published a magazine called "Youth's Companion" and had a side business selling flags to schools. The pledge was nothing more than a marketing tool for flag sales. However, as Bellamy was a fervent Socialist, he also saw it as an oath of loyalty to the state.


Bellamy's original instructions introducing the pledge, published in 1892:

At a signal from the Principal the pupils, in ordered ranks, hands to the side, face the Flag. A...

The gesture in question is known as the "Bellamy salute", named after Francis Bellamy, the Christian Socialist and Baptist minister. Bellamy was the author of the original Pledge of Allegiance; it was written at the request of his nephew, James Upham, who published a magazine called "Youth's Companion" and had a side business selling flags to schools. The pledge was nothing more than a marketing tool for flag sales. However, as Bellamy was a fervent Socialist, he also saw it as an oath of loyalty to the state.


Bellamy's original instructions introducing the pledge, published in 1892:

At a signal from the Principal the pupils, in ordered ranks, hands to the side, face the Flag. Another signal is given; every pupil gives the flag the military salute -- right hand lifted, palm downward, to a line with the forehead and close to it. Standing thus, all repeat together, slowly, “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands; one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.” At the words, “to my Flag,” the right hand is extended gracefully, palm upward, toward the Flag, and remains in this gesture till the end of the affirmation; whereupon all hands immediately drop to the side.

– From The Youth’s Companion, 65 (1892): 446–447.

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Later, holding the hand over the heart replaced the military salute for civilians, but the outstretched arm continued to be used until the Flag Code was enacted on 22 June 1942. The gesture was eliminated due to its similarity to the Nazi and Fascist salutes. In 1943, the Daughters of the American Revolution, initially resistant to the change, endorsed the hand-on-heart gesture during the Pledge.


From 1939 until the attack on Pearl Harbor, detractors of Americans who argued against intervention in World War II produced propaganda using the salute to lessen those Americans' reputations. Among the anti-intervention Americans was aviation pioneer Charles L...

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Later, holding the hand over the heart replaced the military salute for civilians, but the outstretched arm continued to be used until the Flag Code was enacted on 22 June 1942. The gesture was eliminated due to its similarity to the Nazi and Fascist salutes. In 1943, the Daughters of the American Revolution, initially resistant to the change, endorsed the hand-on-heart gesture during the Pledge.


From 1939 until the attack on Pearl Harbor, detractors of Americans who argued against intervention in World War II produced propaganda using the salute to lessen those Americans' reputations. Among the anti-intervention Americans was aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh - pictures of him appearing to do the Nazi salute were actually pictures of him using the Bellamy salute.

So it was true that Liddy was giving a "Nazi salute" when he was in school, and it was true that he was instructed to do so; so was everybody else alive at that time who learned how to recite the pledge. For someone who recited the pledge daily, instructed in the Bellamy salute, it would naturally be hard to break the habit.