Wrapped in the Flag: A Personal History of America's Radical Right

by Claire Conner

Overview

A narrative history of the John Birch Society by a daughter of one of the infamous ultraconservative organization’s founding fathers.

Named a best nonfiction book of 2013 by Kirkus Reviews and the Tampa Bay Times
 
Long before the rise of the Tea Party movement and the prominence of today’s religious Right, the John Birch Society, first established in 1958, championed many of the same radical causes touted by ultraconservatives today, including campaigns against abortion rights, gay rights, gun control, labor unions, environmental protections, immigrant rights, social and welfare programs, the United Nations, and even water fluoridation.

Worshipping its anti-Communist hero Joe McCarthy, the Birch Society is perhaps most notorious for its red-baiting and for accusing top politicians, including President Dwight Eisenhower, of being Communist sympathizers. It also labeled John F. Kennedy a traitor and actively worked to unseat him. The Birch Society boasted a number of notable members, including Fred Koch, father of Charles and David Koch, who are using their father’s billions to bankroll fundamentalist and right-wing movements today.

The daughter of one of the society’s first members and a national spokesman about the society, Claire Conner grew up surrounded by dedicated Birchers and was expected to abide by and espouse Birch ideals. When her parents forced her to join the society at age thirteen, she became its youngest member of the society. From an even younger age though, Conner was pressed into service for the cause her father and mother gave their lives to: the nurturing and growth of the JBS. She was expected to bring home her textbooks for close examination (her mother found traces of Communist influence even in the Catholic school curriculum), to write letters against “socialized medicine” after school, to attend her father’s fiery speeches against the United Nations, or babysit her siblings while her parents held meetings in the living room to recruit members to fight the war on Christmas or (potentially poisonous) water fluoridation. Conner was “on deck” to lend a hand when JBS notables visited, including founder Robert Welch, notorious Holocaust denier Revilo Oliver, and white supremacist Thomas Stockheimer. Even when she was old enough to quit in disgust over the actions of those men, Conner found herself sucked into campaigns against abortion rights and for ultraconservative presidential candidates like John Schmitz. It took momentous changes in her own life for Conner to finally free herself of the legacy of the John Birch Society in which she was raised.

In Wrapped in the Flag, Claire Conner offers an intimate account of the society —based on JBS records and documents, on her parents’ files and personal writing, on historical archives and contemporary accounts, and on firsthand knowledge—giving us an inside look at one of the most radical right-wing movements in US history and its lasting effects on our political discourse today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807033319
Publisher:	Beacon Press
Publication date:	03/18/2014
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Claire Conner’s father was a national spokesperson for the John Birch Society for more than thirty years; her mother was also a staunch follower. Conner holds a degree in English with honors from the University of Dallas and a graduate degree from the University of Wisconsin. She lives in Tampa, Florida.

Read an Excerpt

Preface
(Continues…)

---

Excerpted from "Wrapped in the Flag"
by .
Copyright © 2014 Claire Conner.
Excerpted by permission of Beacon Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

Preface: I Know What Extremism Looks Like ix
Introduction: November 1963 1
Chapter One: Rally Cry 5
Chapter Two: The Captain’s Law 11
Chapter Three: Sacrifices 15
Chapter Four: Textbook Wars 21
Chapter Five: Hard Right 30
Chapter Six: Twisted 39
Chapter Seven: Moving Up 45
Chapter Eight: The Black Book 52
Chapter Nine: Stirring the Pot 58
Chapter Ten: The Uncivil War 72
Chapter Eleven: Here We Go Again and Again and Again 80
Chapter Twelve: The End of the World 90
Chapter Thirteen: Civil Rights Marching 100
Chapter Fourteen: A Big Texas Howdy 106
Chapter Fifteen: Crossfire 117
Chapter Sixteen: Carrying the Cross 130
Chapter Seventeen: AuH2O 137
Chapter Eighteen: Something’s Happening Here 147
Chapter Nineteen: A Good Man Is Hard to Find 156
Chapter Twenty: One Woman’s Heart 169
Chapter Twenty-one: Bang the Drum Slowly 180
Chapter Twenty-two: Attention Must Be Paid 191
Chapter Twenty-three: Hell in a Handbasket 201
Chapter Twenty-four: Bedtime Story 213
Acknowledgments 220
Notes 222
Index 245

Editorial Reviews

Both of Claire Conner’s parents were deeply involved in the cult of far right politics: they knew that Eisenhower was a secret Communist and they idolized Francisco Franco. Wrapped in the Flag is at once the heartbreaking and intermittently hilarious story of her coming of age and a first-hand history of the far right since the 1950s. Conner’s book is required reading for anyone who wants to understand the sources of the conspiratorial, hate-filled tropes of the right today—whether they emanate from the Tea Party, the gun movement, race realists, Sovereign Citizens, or, increasingly, from elected officials in the GOP." —Arthur Goldwag, author of The New Hate: Fear and Loathing on the Populist Right

“An invaluable contribution to understanding the mentality of extremist conservatism and its supporters.”  —Kirkus, starred review

“The John Birch Society had a huge impact on American politics. They were responsible for the lurch into insanity. The religious right, the Tea Party and the takeover of the Republican Party by extremists can't be understood unless you understand the paranoid xenophobia Birchers injected into America. This book is about a journey through and out of that Bircher netherworld. It's a vital piece of the puzzle to understanding the madness that overcame America and a moving story about one person's journey back to sanity.” —Frank Schaeffer, author of Crazy For God

"Experiencing this splendid volume is like reading a history book inside out: events you only knew about from afar are revealed anew, with the striking ground-level intimacy of a fine family memoir. I've been waiting for a book like this: one that demonstrates the shockingly effectual continuity of the John Birch Society as a force in American political life: from its early days discrediting the Cold War credentials of JFK, to its outsized role building up grassroots momentum in the Clinton impeachment, to its sudden eruption into mainstream Republican thinking with the rise of the Tea Party movement." —Rick Perlstein, author of Nixonland

“This passionate, personal history of the John Birch Society is timely and important.  At a moment when Tea Party activists have embraced many of the Birchers' most outrageous notions, Claire Conner has performed a great service by reminding us of the origins of some of most virulent ideas that continue to pollute our body politic.  As the skeptical daughter of two passionate Birchers, Conner may be the only person who could have written such a clear-eyed, insider’s account of the persistent dangers of right-wing extremism.” —Charles Kaiser, author of 1968 In America and The Gay Metropolis

“An affecting portrait of late-20th-century America on the fringe." —Publishers Weekly

“This insider’s view of the most radical right-wing organization of the Cold War era describes the seeming paranoia and questionable logic of the most devoted JBS members. Conner provides colorful descriptions of many of the eccentric JBS leaders, including founder Robert Welch. . . . Readers interested in learning more about this example of the Cold War era’s ultraconservative political trends will be fascinated by Conner’s description of the perpetual fear of JBS members regarding communist takeovers and communist infiltration of the highest levels of our government. Recommended.” —Library Jounal
 

From the Publisher

Conner’s memoir of being raised in a family whose political beliefs were shaped by the radical right-wing John Birch Society is an affecting portrait of late-20th-century America on the fringe. The eldest daughter of Stillwell “Jay” Conner, a national spokesman for the John Birch Society, Claire grew up in Chicago in a house of harsh discipline and even harsher political extremism in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The opinions of Revilo Oliver, who became a well-known Holocaust denier, and the writings of Fred Koch (father of David and Charles Koch, who are major funders of right-wing political groups) were frequently heard at the breakfast table. Conner’s political awakening is typical of college students in the 1960s, but her starting point was far more extreme than most young adults at the time. As late as 1961, Birch Society founder Robert Welch espoused the belief that former President Dwight Eisenhower was a communist and that the civil rights movement was part of a larger plan for a unified world government. Conner’s secret teenage dissent prompted her and her siblings to find paths to mentally escape the family’s politics without disturbing the peace. “My parents and I were in different universes,” Conner writes. While she effectively sketches out the political divergence within her family, more could have been done to explore the psychological gap caused by her parents’ zealotry and her emergent liberal beliefs. Agent: Jo Ann Deck, Gather Insight. (July)

Publishers Weekly

Prompted by the rise of the modern-day tea party, Conner writes of her experiences as the child of leaders in the radical right-wing John Birch Society. "My parents are back." That was the author's response to the rise of the tea party after the election of Barack Obama in 2008. In this memoir/history, she opens new insights into the conservative political movement, with the echoes of the profoundest aspects of family life providing the links between then and now. Her parents, Stillwell and Laurene Conner, were among the 1958 founders of the Birch Society, an organization that opposed racial integration, welfare programs, the United Nations and other seemingly progressive programs and organizations. Conner's parents were involved with the organization's national leadership for more than 30 years. Like her parents, the Birchers went too far with their anti-Semitism and extreme economic and social theories. She details how they were pushed out of the Republican Party and shows how they adopted what the author calls "Plan B," in which monied Birchers redirected their funds into think tanks and foundations. Among them was Fred Koch, founder and national leader of the Birth Society and father of current tea party backers David and Charles Koch. In 1993, some Birchers, including the author's mother, even offered mild support for the Oklahoma City bombers for "defending the rest of us from the government." Conner's parents employed threats and violence to condition her to represent her parents' politics to the broader world and accept the consequences of physical retaliation, ostracism and ridicule in return. The author's personal struggle to free herself from those whose minds "the facts never changed" shapes her memoir and enriches the accumulating literature on the tea party. An invaluable contribution to understanding the mentality of extremist conservatism and its supporters.

Kirkus Reviews