Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion John Birch 20160423 :

That. 92 percent, perverting 87 percents. Interesting thing is what you pay for it. The most avantgarde was gasoline tax. They would pay a gasoline tax to Fund Increased research and development and commercialization portals. s polling agencies the whole methodology. I think it is an Incredible Opportunity to leverage. May have an innovation advocacy council. And the book, i think we have been talking about these types of things for a long time. And i think the book gives a lot of credibility and the way that it was written to bring back to our city governments and leaders and really be able to talk about what needs to happen as we accelerate this transformation. The era of piece is over. Thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] s. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] when i tune in on the weekends authors and knew releases. Watching the nonfiction authors on book tv is the best television for serious readers. On cspan they could have a longer conversation and delve into their subject. Book tv weekends, author after author after author that is spotlighting the work of fascinating people. I love book tv, and i am a cspan fan. Up next, terry lautz talks about john birch, the namesake of the john Birch Society. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] good afternoon, everyone. We would like to get started. My name is eric arneson. I am from George Washington university, and i am the cochair of the washington history seminar along with my colleague of the history of Public Policy program here at the Woodrow Wilson center. The washington history seminar, as many of you know, is a joint product of the Woodrow Wilson center and the American Historical Association National History center. We have now been going for a good number of years. As we do every week, like to thank the people that make this possible behindthescenes. Pete, amanda, the folks behind the scenes to make sure that these sessions come off without a glitch, that our speakers survive, that the schedule works and the like. Their labor is [applause] indispensable to our success. As is the support of a number of individuals and institutions, the society of story and Society Relations as generously underwritten the seminar for a number of years now, as has the George Washington University History department, and a number of individual donors. The support is crucial for their programming. Feel free to join our ranks, should you see fit. So after our session today, there will be a reception outside of these doors. There are books for sale. I highly recommend that you pick one up and get a signature on it. And with that, i will turn over the introduction of our speaker today. Thanks, eric. Good to be here. Welcome everyone to the seminar at the Wilson Center. It is wonderful to have terry lautz back at the center. He is an alumnus of the Wilson Center, and spent part of the work on his book here at the Wilson Center. We arecenter. We are delighted today to have him come back with the final product. Let me just say by way of introduction thats he is interim director of the East Asia Program at syracuse, university and a former Vice President of the henry Lewis Foundation and that capacity supported an enormous amount of good work all around the globe on china and asia research. He is also trustee and share of the harvard institute, director of the National Committee on us china relations. He graduated magna cum laude from harvard college, surf of the u. S. Army and holds an a in phd degrees several university. s already reviewed by the new yorker and wall street journal and were all very much looking forward to his presentation today. Thank you very much. It is a special privilege to be here because, as christian mentioned, this is where this project started. I really want to take this opportunity to not only thank you for being here, but to express my heartfelt thanks to all of the staff of the Wilson Center, to christian for his encouragement and support for this project another work, lee hamilton was director when i was here is a Public Policy fellow in 2010. s former director of the asia program here at the Wilson Center. I also want to express appreciation for bill brown, who is the person who introduced me to chinese colleagues and the city of shooter joe where john birch was laid to rest, and more on that in a little bit, a little bit later. A great privilege to be here todays for all of those reasons. When i started this project back in 2010, i had no idea who john birch was. Like most americans, his name was synonymous with rightwing anticommunist politics in the us. When i was a kid growing up part of the time in michigan , there was a satire of the Birch Society, the chad mitchell trio, if any of you remember that. We only hail the hero from home we got our name. We are not sure what he did, but he is our hero just the same. s so that made me kind of curious about who he really was, but not enough to actually dig into it and find out. Lo and behold when i read and stumbled upon information that he had been a missionary and military Intelligence Officer in china who lost his life shortly after the war, i was quite astounded and quite curious. One of my 1st trips was up to the National Archives in college park, and there was a sick oss file that have been declassified on the death of john birch. And a lot of interesting information on that. Robert welch was a Business Executive with the james o. Welch Candy Company based out of boston and he was quite successful and was able to retire at the age of 60 and decided to get involved in politics. He however had decided not to run for political office. He actually tried that around 1929, ran for Lieutenant Governor of massachusetts. He didnt do that well so he decided to set up an Advocacy Group that was very effective, very popular, very widespread at the Grassroots Level. His agenda was opposition to not only communism but opposition to big government. In a sense two sides of the same coin if you will and if you are driving around the highways around the United States during the late 50s early 60s might very well up noticed signs, billboards saying save the republic impeach earl warren chief justice of the Supreme Court preview would also see signs saying get the United States out of the United Nations so the Birch Society and robert welch represented and stood for strict constitutionalism, states rights. This is why they opposed earl warren because of his support for brown versus board of education, the school integration. Welch defended himself saying he was not a racist and he felt it was up to the states to make these kinds of decisions. Opposition to social security. You may have sent some resonance with contemporary political rhetoric and there are scholars who draw a line of continuity between the Birch Society and the contemporary tea party not to mention the libertarian. Its interesting to note that fred koch the father of the koch or others who are supportive of the tea party, fred koch was one of the founding members of the Birch Society on their national council. The Birch Society was effective as i mentioned at the Grassroots Level but it was in 1960, 61 when it was revealed that dwight eisenhower, hero of world war ii, president of the United States had been accused by robert welch, he had written what he said was a private letter to about 350 people expressing the opinion that eisenhower was a dedicated conscious agent of the communist conspiracy. [laughter] piece that eisenhower knowingly accepted and was abiding by communist orders serving the communist conspiracy for all of his adult life and he went on for a think pink Something Like 350 pages to prove his thesis. Well, needless to say this is what led to the Birch Society becoming so notorious. It became an explosive topic in the u. S. Media and newspapers commentary and so forth. It also became a subject of satire. The same group that sang about the john Birch Society said in their song, you cannot trust your neighbor were even next of kin. If your mommy is a than you have got to turn her in. Keep in mind of course this is still, they are still in the throes of really the height of the cold war and the second taiwan straits crisis was august of 1958. Castro is on the move in cuba. Sputnik, the soviet satellite was launched a year earlier so there was a sense of concern, a sense of anxiety if not feared. This led a lot of americans who were respectable middleclass americans, could have been your neighbors. I had a student earlier today who said my grandfather was a member of the Birch Society. Its not uncommon and so there were many advocates for the rich society. But the question i wanted to get to it might look was who was john birch . Here we have robert welch pointing to his portrait at his headquarters in belmont massachusetts and i wanted to try to understand why his name was used after his death, posthumously. Was birch really a hero and a martyr . Was he an anticommunist . With john burt have been a member of the john Birch Society and what does all this tell us, what might be the commentary of her lessons with u. S. China relations . Birch birch was one of seven children. Birch himself who was in the middle here was the eldest of seven children. He was born in india where his parents were missionaries for three years, grew up in violent new jersey end macon georgia, he movedtheir wedding as a teenager. Which was his fathers home. He graduated from Mercer University baptist in 1939. A very bright young man who was the head of his class. Dominated by mercer to be a Rogue Scholar candidate. Birch following the footsteps of his parents decided early on he wanted to be missionary and so Many Americans aspire to go to china as missionaries. It was the largest country that received missionaries men and a significant number of women as missionaries and it looms large in the emotional imagination of americans who aspire to do something great with their lives and were looking for some kind of adventure. So birch decided he wanted to go to china and in order to accomplish this he hooked up with an evangelical preacher by the name of frank norris. Birch is the second from the left and here he is graduating from a small Bible Institute in texas. The leader of this Bible Institute was a man named frank norris. He was kind of the billy graham of his age, very charismatic. Graham norris had met john birch in georgia and promised him he could send them to china. He was recruiting young men like birch to go to china. Here is john birch on the right with his colleagues from the fort worth Bible Institute and they had just arrived in shanghai in july of 1940. Looking at this photograph you would never imagine that china had been at war for three years, from 1937 on, and china was still a refuge at this point and had not been attacked and occupied. That wouldnt happen until after december 1941. But looking at this picture you would imagine that urge and wells were getting to go out for a picnic or going out to a race course or Something Like that with their white shoes and white shoes suits. The rowdy was quite different which they soon learned. They were totally unprepared. They really didnt know what to expect. Birch is job was as a fundamentalist evangelical and depended this to missionary to convert the chinese to christianity. And here he is right about there with welch to his right with the congregation in shanghai and birch to his credit unlike a lot of foreign missionaries did not isolate himself. He didnt remain in shanghai for more than a few months after he studied chinese buddy moved onto hahn joe and consequently beyond on show. Birch was independent he was stubborn. He was very dedicated to what he was doing. He was really quite courageous. So as i mentioned he started off in shanghai move down to poncho for about a year where he taught at a boys school and then its occupied by the japanese at this time and he decided to strike out on his own with two or three chinese colleagues and to go beyond the japanese lines on the corner of genji province. Quite remote in quite isolated from the rest of china. Initially he did all right but subsequently he wasnt getting enough to eat. He was suffering from malaria. He was not getting any money from his mission at home and after pearl harbor the japanese attack on pearl harbor in december of 41 he wrote a letter to the American Military mission and he volunteered for the u. S. Army. He wrote a letter which i quote in full in the book and he said im willing to do anything if you will take me on but his feeling was it was necessary to defeat the japanese before he could return to his work as a missionary. He couldnt be effective in his mind and he could do more if we were to join the military in some capacity. While he was waiting for a reply from the u. S. Army, he was on the small river and he was told by the chinese where he was eating lunch that there were some americans tied up in a small boat along the river down below. Birch was skeptical. He said, how could it possibly americans in them vote down there so he went down, he knocked on the door of the cabin of the boat and he said are there any americans in their . The door opened up and lo and behold there was none other than Timmy Doolittle with his crew of men who would just bomb tokyo. This was the famous tokyo raid. The doolittle raiders in april as 1942. John birch was the first white man that any of them had seen and because birch spoke chinese into the territory, google asked asked doolittle asked if he would accompany him which he did for a few weeks of this was his introduction to the u. S. Military this was the transition from military life. Birch was helpful to doolittle and his men as you may know had launched the 25 bombers, 16 planes totaling 80 men from the uss hornet, about 500 miles to the east of tokyo. They didnt just bomb tokyo by the way. They bombed six different cities in japan. Nobody had ever launched the bomber from an aircraft carrier. This had never been done and nobody imagined it could be done but doolittle was fearless and he figured out how to do this. The problem was that you could land an airplane the size of the bomber on an aircraft carrier. It was one thing to launch it with another two landed so the plan was to fly from japan down to Zhejiang Province and to land on bases there. There was a miscommunication. They arrived in the middle of the night in a rainstorm. The chinese didnt know they were coming. They turned off the runway lights thinking they were being attacked and so as i say this was birchs introduction to the army. The doolittle raid was turned into a famous movie. We have 30 seconds over tokyo with Spencer Tracy playing the role of jimmy doolittle. He the john Birch Society claimed that john birch had singlehandedly rescued doolittle and his men. Doolittle never would have made that claim but this is one of the ways in which birchs name was misused and was inflated. As i mentioned, urged then went shun ching, introduced to the army. He quickly made the transition. In his mind there was no contradiction between his former life as an events list in joining the army, no need to reject or deny his past. He is substituted one allconsuming passion for another the battle canst the difference war of evil, the tyranny that happened to be temporal instead of spiritual. He quite naturally expected to be a chaplain which would afford a double opportunity to serve the country. Little did he imagine he was about to assume an entirely new identity not as a preacher but as an Intelligence Officer. A famous commander on the flying tigers who knew china quite well as in the process of setting up Intelligence Network and he recruited men like john birch to be field Intelligence Officers, to live and work in the countryside with chinese armies. People who could adapt to those conditions who knew the language knew the territory could eat chinese food and chinese food for the chinese army was not necessarily great food. Birch was the first of these Intelligence Officers recruited by him. And he did this quite well and here is chenault decorating john bursch birch with the legion of barrett for exceptional service. He and chenault were quite close. People word drawn to john birch despite the fact that he was a hard line evangel