John Birch: A Life

Lautz, a scholar of Sino-American relations, draws on myriad sources—including government archives and personal letters—to piece together the life of John Morrison Birch (1918–1945), the man who was posthumously enshrined as the figurehead for the John Birch Society (JBS), an archconservative political advocacy group. This book, the first academic account of its kind, is a full account of Birch’s brief life that covers his humble, pious upbringing, his calling as a Baptist missionary in China, his in-field recruitment and work as a military intelligence officer, and his death in a quarrel with a band of Chinese Communist operatives. In 1958, Birch’s fate was seized upon by Robert Welch, a right-wing ideologue, in his establishment of an organization that advocated for limited government, propagated a form of “conspiracy-minded anticommunism,” and soon came to signify “radicals, extremists, paranoiacs, and super patriots.” Lautz dispels numerous myths and convincingly argues that Birch was much less interested in political conservatism than he was in religious fundamentalism, and that the JBS “transformed him beyond recognition.” By identifying connections between the JBS and the modern conservative movement, particularly the Tea Party, Lautz rounds out a commendable study that fills a significant scholarly gap. Maps. (Jan.)