that. 92 percent, perverting 87 percent's. interesting thing is what you pay for it. the most avant-garde 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 government's 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 author's and knew releases. >> watching the nonfiction authors on book tv is the best television for serious readers. >> on c-span 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 c-span 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 behind-the-scenes. 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 that's 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 today's 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 right-wing anti-communist 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 didn't 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 50's 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. it's 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 middle-class americans, could have been your neighbors. i had a student earlier today who said my grandfather was a member of the birch society. it's 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 anti-communist? 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 father's 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 wouldn't 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 didn't 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 didn't 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 -- it's 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 wasn't 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 i'm 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 couldn't 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 didn't 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 didn't know they were coming. they turned off the runway lights thinking they were being attacked and so as i say this was birch's 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 single-handedly rescued doolittle and his men. doolittle never would have made that claim but this is one of the ways in which birch's 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 all-consuming 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 evangelical baptist. those who knew him and met him in china were attracted to him. arthur hopkins to is it the roguish looking guy in the upper middle with a pipe in his mouth, john had an amazing grasp of the chinese language and understood the people. he was absolutely fearless, completely and selfish, never thinking of his personal discomfort or danger. i should add that it's clear from letters that birch wrote and for people who knew him that he -- during the course of the war. the circumstances i think lead young men to grow up in young women as well to grow up very quickly and that's what happened to him. he developed a more open view of the world and other people including the chinese. ernie johnson who was to be 25 gun or shown on the right here wrote after the death of words that birch was not a bigot. he was not little person. while birch did not drink, smoke or sleep with women, he also did not self righteously criticize those who did. now birds never had time for romance or for that matter he didn't have much money. his family was really quite poor and face a lot of hardship but he never had time for romance when he was in college or in the bible institute at fort worth but when he got to china he decided it was time to settle down and get involved, meet somebody who he could marry. then he was engaged to audrey nehr, shown here. it was a scottish nurse who would arrive to the british red cross in 1943 where birch was on a radio intelligence team. he had a romance with a chinese-american woman, dorothy hewitt who worked with the 14th air force and he also had a very close relationship with marjorie tooker who was a nurse with yale china. yellowish china station. she is on the left and on the right after it was occupied by the japanese in june of 44, she decided to join the u.s. army and served as a nurse since she was actually in the philippines at the end of the war. she later wrote i was much attracted to this handsome young man with his devotion to china and is burning missionary zeal to say nothing of his charm and appealing southern courtesy. birch worked with radio intelligence teams. here he is right there. this was when he was a captain in the u.s. army. he coordinated bombing missions for u.s. pilots. he and his men assisted with the rescue of downed u.s. pilots, recruited and coordinated with chinese agents, intelligence agents, provided weather reports , gathered in television's information while birch was not in combat it was nonetheless risky and dangerous kind of work, often close to where sometimes even behind enemy lines. at the end of the war, or towards the end of the war the japanese were withdrawing their forces towards the north. birch moved from the south of china up to the province which really was behind japanese lines. and in this area, keep in mind the nationalist forces were primarily in the southwest and they had to retreat and withdraw after fighting so long and hard with the japanese. economists were forced to shun chi after the long march but their power increased through the course of world war ii so birch is in contact with communist forces from time to time and the policy of united states government is a very pragmatic policy and that is to cooperate with communist forces if necessary when there is a good reason to do so. he didn't have any particular sympathy for the communists or their cause nor did he have any sympathy for the nationalist. his loyalties really were what the chinese people. there was great relief on his part at the end of the war. here he is in on why province, right there in the middle of the back row. and he was ready to go home. he had been in china for five years. he had suffered from malaria. he had refused a 45 day leave to return home. he wrote to marjorie tucker. japan was trying to surrender. i realize for the first time how utterly weary and heartsick this war has made me. the same mixture of excitement, exhaustion and relief marked the u.s. effort in general. almost no one could imagine the horrendous civil war would result in a communistic. within the next four years. birch however was not permitted to turn around and go home. by this time he's working for the oss the office of strategic services which is the forerunner of the cia. the oss asked him or told him, ordered him i should say to take a final mission from his base. up to the city and this is where bill brown's grandparents and parents were missionaries, presbyterian missionaries. and on the way there, he and his team of 10 chinese, two koreans who presumably spoke japanese and could help translate, and three other americans, total of four americans they were intercepted and detained by a detachment of chinese communist from the eighth army. birch is mission was to proceed to gather intelligence on the condition of the airbase there sees the documents that the japanese had left behind to see what was going on but on the way there in a town of watt -- huang he he runs into this detachment that have orders to detain and disarm any intruders. birch refuses to be disarmed. he is carrying a 45 still on his hip. they are not heavily armed. they are not expecting trouble. the war is over and birch says in chinese to the communists, why are you trying to disarm a? what are you, bandits? the united states of america is just won the war. i'm not going to give you my weapon and one thing leads to another and tempers flare. birch is shot and killed. this is 10 days after the surrender of japan in august of 1945. it's a tragic incident. no one expected this to happen. lieutenant william miller who got news about the death of virtue and arranged for his funeral in the city of shoe joe just a couple of weeks after birch lost his life, the funeral site is on a hillside close to the city. colleagues that bill brown introduced -- they took us to this the site, a chinese medical doctor took us there on the first morning that we arrived and he said i know exactly where birch was buried. he said my father was a presbyterian missionary and he was there at the burial service and he took us right there. there's no evidence, nothing but a few cement slabs now that exist. there is no memorial and no sign or anything like that but we were able to look at the site as well as the catholic church before the funeral took ways. the funeral which william millard describes is attended i japanese officers and other -- others who had just surrendered to the americans at the end of the war. this very curious collection of people japanese as well as chinese who had worked for the japanese who are attending the funeral of this american officer. the death of john birch came as a shock to americans in china. general albert wiedemann or who succeeded stillwell was the commanding officer. he received news just a few days after a radio telegram, and he was deeply concerned that the death of an american soldier, the detention of americans with birch who were the three americans with him as well as they chinese were taken by the commonest detachment and eventually made their way to the chinese headquarters. that took about two months for them to get their. we do meyer was deeply concerned about what this meant. where the chinese shifting their policies after they have been cooperated with the americans? .. can. >> when an american plane, see 47 i think it was. this was miles first trip on a airplane. you can sort of see this physical look on his face wondering what to make of all of this. i think it is worth noting this is not just a photo, he stayed and remained in cho chang for 43 days to negotiate some kind of copper mess compromise with the nationalist. both economists and nationalist at this very delicate point at the end of world war ii are hoping to avoid civil war. hoping they might be able to arrange a some sort of accommodation. it is a very sensitive. in their relationship. but would a meyer takes advantage presence to arrange for a meeting at the home of ambassador hurley on the evening of august 30, 1945. this is just five days after the death of burch. he says to mao that he has information about the death of an american officer in the area. he points to a map and he says that this is a very serious very grave incident. why was he there s joe? he was sent there by me several weeks ago to obtain information about the japanese, answered with a meyer. i feel i can and must send americans anywhere in china to carry out my mission. you mean anyplace? yes, said whitmire. mao seem to be caught by surprise, we cannot say that the chinese communist troops killed him or not. if this is true that the communist troops shot this american officer, i asked him my deepest apology. i would like would like assurance that this will not occur again, demanded we do meyer. i would like assurance that this will not occur again. i cannot have americans killed in by chinese communists or by anyone else. i am directed by the president of the states to use whatever force i require to protect american lives in china. so you can see this is a very intense conversation. the record of this is in the national archives in college park. now, mao was apologetic at the time but subsequently he was angry, he felt humiliated about the way he had been lectured by mouth. at this point in time the united states position is to try to maintain some neutrality which of course is impossible because the states recognize the nationalist to the republic of china. the u.s. is trying to not get a mashed and what is a looming civil war in china. so we do meyer says to mao and joe that he very much helps china will not become involved in a civil war and that the very political factions could settle their differences without resorting to warfare. we have republican and democratic parties in the united states. they have differences but they do not resort to the use of arms or the force of arms. [laughter] we will see. back in fort worth texas, fl burch is attending a memorial service for their son, frank is on the right, the service was attended by -- ethel burch had been informed by u.s. military authorities that her son had been shot on august 25, 1945 in route to xuzhou on the railroad i and was killed as a result the stray bullets. will that was not the full story of course. as of burch dug into the story and tried to find out what had actually happened to her son, her eldest son, she became increasingly skeptical and increasingly frustrated about the real issue. she was also angry because she felt her son had been denied recognition. she came to believe as the cold war developed, as debates over the loss of china takes hold after 1949 to her son deserved recognition, deserved credit but that never happens. she was open to the idea of a conspiracy. open to to the idea that her son had been wronged. this leads us to senator william nolan, prominent senator from california. he was the senate majority leader for a time during the 19 fifties. after the outbreak of the korean war in 1952, 1950, that fall he stands up on the floor of the senate and delivers a speech that breathes fresh life into the story of john burch. it was really just a footnote of the history and it would have been long forgotten had it not been for noland. noland and here i quote told the simple story of a lone american officer who is willing to sacrifice his life so that this nation might find out whether these communists were friends or enemies. the incident claim nolan was one of the least known and most significant indications of communist intentions in china. the senator went on in his speech to ask rhetorically if members of congress had had this information in august or september of 1945, the end of the war against japan, is there any person here who feels they would have tolerated the subsequent activity of the state department and trying to force a coalition between the government of the republic of china in the same communists represented by a man who shot john burch, captain john burch in cold blood. burch was willing to sacrifice his life according to noland, to test the communists who pretended to be cooperating with the united states. so this is a rewriting of history, or it is new orleans attempt to say that history would have been different if only the truth of the death of this officer had been revealed at the time. >> why did he do that. >> he gave a speech i believe in october. actually it was september and it was a couple of months before the chinese enter the korean conflict. of course relations are already badly freighting and he will communists in general is the real threat. nolan was sometimes called the senator from vermont said. he gave so many speeches in defense of taiwan and junk a ship that he earned that. it wasn't robert welch who came up with the story of john burch, it was because robert welch read a speech in the congressional record of all places, imagine reading the congressional record it was in the congressional record three years later that robert welch read the speech, it did not get much attention in september of 1950, americans were dying by the hundreds and eventually thousands in korea at this point. it did not get much attention, this was old news. it was something that happened in 1945, alone american officer, and five, alone american officer, and what would that really signify. but robert welch read the speech and latch onto it. he went to georgia to visit with purchased parents, told them that he believed their son was a great patriot compared him to nathan hale, and said that he, robert welch would bring the recognition to their son that he deserved. despite the fact that the u.s. military and the u.s. government had refused to even award burch a purple heart because the u.s. was not at war with the communist in 1945. welch never met burch and he never did visited china, but george and ethel burch here they are with their children and elbow was holding a portrait of john they were open to this proposition to robert welch. ethel burch gave welch material that she had been collecting for her own biography of her son. welch wrote a short biography of welch, there no footnotes, no documentation, it is a frustrating book. welch called him at a heroic young patriot who recognize the dangers of long before the others. it's actually he said that death of burch was a deliberate and unjustified killing. claim that burch had sacrificed his life as a warning to others about the intentions of the communists. so with enthusiastic permission of parents, welch established the john birch society in 1958, as mentioned, as mentioned it became one of the most influential and controversial organizations of its time, its platform was anti- communism and anti- big government. welch had decided that john burch was the ideal symbol for his new movement founded in late 1958, he did so for three reasons, one is that burch represented the mind of robert welsh the epitome of american values, he had been a missionary, military officer, military officer, and helped to rescue jimmy doolittle. he was described by noland and welch is the first casualty of world war iii. the first casualty of the cold war, the first victim at the hands of the communist. equally important to welch was the idea, his belief that there was a computer conspiracy to cover up the death of john burch. the top-secret file of john's death was not released until after nixon. robert welch realized it was the geopolitical context that gave john burch story the greater significance. he noted that burch commanded no armies, head and no government, converted no nation to his grief. his murder at murder at the hands of communist illuminated at crossroads across civilization. and in the other direction toward greater freedom, further growth and more enlightened mints. as welch put it with his death, and in his death the battle lines are drawn. if burch had sacrificed his life in some other country, this is me now not robert welch, say greece or india, it would it would have mattered far less. the fact that he was murdered by chinese communist imbued with much more meaning because the overseen loss of china was so dismayed and disoriented to americans. china's rejection of capitalism and democracy in favor of marx lennon is a representative profound failure of u.s. leadership, accusations blaming the truman administration ranging from poor judgment to appeasement and even treason. transformed a complex form policy problem into a potent political issue. so the name of john burch is caught up in all of this. robert welch is in belmont massachusetts headquarters, with a portrait of john burch, john burch believed that the story of a welch a missionary, patriotic soldier and of itself is martyr would inspire and instruct americans about conspiracy and communism. instead his memory was misappropriated and synonymous with extreme politics. let me and there and thank you very much for your interest. [applause]. >> now it is time for discussion in question and answers. the hands are going up. let say the rules are to please wait for the microphone to reach you, please identify yourself when you get the mic and please use it. so everyone can hear you. there is a gentleman here on the left side of the table. >> my name is stephen sage, i was formally the american vice consul and that beijing. my question concerns the chinese sources for the death of john burch, shirley given the high profile that welch endowed upon him must've been some kind of investigation in some kind of regarding it. >> yes. in response to this confrontation between mao and we do meyer, the chinese did investigate the circumstances of the death. judah, the commander of the communist literary forces wrote a letter and gave a report to we do meyer based on the information he had been able to gather from the field. the communist report said that search was responsible for his own death. that he had pulled his weapon and had threatened the local communist commander and that the communists had retaliated in self-defense. i think it is hard to imagine because it would have been suicidal. to actually pull out your weapon. but it is clear that burch had lost his temper, that, that he was angry and the u.s. investigation of the incident does come to the conclusion that burch did bear some responsibility that he had been provocative provocative. nonetheless in the final analysis it was classified as a murder. there. there is no justification for his death. when i went to xuzhou i did try to get into some archives, it was not possible, as you may know archives in china have become more respective not only for foreigners but for chinese as well. so i was not able to obtain any further information, but what we do know is that this incident, there was a follow-up as you suggest, as a result of this incident we also know that the chinese communist party reversed its standing order to detain and disarm any intruders. they said specifically that if any americans come into contact with your forces, treat them very carefully. treat them diplomatically. do not attempt to disarm them. basically they were saying we cannot afford to risk another burch incidents. so there was a fallout from this which i think is significant in light of delicate policies of the time. >> i can't wait to read the book. i'm glad the wilson center had a small part in it. were you able to track down how noland got a hold of the story? >> absolutely. nolan's papers at the university of california berkeley, it turns out he was informed about the incident by william miller, william familiar miller b of the young lieutenant who had arranged for the funeral of burch and xuzhou. miller was convinced that burch had been wronged, there should have been more attention given to his death and that he did deserve recognition. since that had not happens, since incident have been forgotten he wrote to noland and noland then as u.s. senator was able to gain access to the secret files. nolan chose to interpret it as a revision of history, as a rewriting of history saying that we would have known, had we only known about this incident we would have known better. >> thank you. since we're talking about archives and at the maybe you could talk for a moment about what kind of documents, what can the the sources you use for the book. you've eluded to the fact that access to china is difficult these days. what kind of sources did you use in second question, what to you was the most challenging thing about writing a biography? >> putting this book together was a real detective story. there are so many different pieces to it, different aspects to it so as i mentioned before i was very fortunate to meet three of burch's surviving brothers. the 14th air force archives in alabama, at the maxwell air force base that was really an exciting trip and an exciting fine because buried in those materials is a 242-5425 page interview, oral history interview with john burch that was conducted about five months before his death. a historian arrange this interview because john burch was the first of these intelligence officers, he had had met doolittle and let a colorful life. there is some wonderful detail in that interview. another source that was extremely helpful was a newspaper called the fundamentalist which was published by the bible baptist institute in fort worth. i went down there and vicki bryant, the curator of that archive was extremely helpful in showing me different sources. burch. burch had written letters to his parents and also to the fundamental or independent baptist back in texas. they publish these letters and so there are detailed accounts of how he traveled across the japanese lines. or how he encountered doolittle. so it was really quite a remarkable experience to just be able to identify these different sources and piece them together. i went to new jersey about information information about the marriage of burch's parents. they made trips to west or college where apple burch and i found alumni information, she had had been president of the ywca. the greatest challenge in putting the book together, aside from trying to find a publisher which took a while because i think people hear the name john burch and it's fascinating to tell people and friends and others that i have written a book about john burch. the eyes get wide and the eyebrows go up and they say you mean, the john birch society and i say yes but he is not who you thought he was. so i think probably for that reason it was not easy to find a publisher. i was fortunate that oxford press was willing to take it on. i think just getting insights into who he really was through the letters he had written to these three women and the letters home, i entered this project skeptical. i entered the project believing that john burch may well have been a member of the john birch society, by the time i read his letters and read what people who knew him well in china thought about him and what they said about the john birch society, i reach the the conclusion that he would have never joined. his only interest was to stay in china as a missionary after the war, he had no other purpose. his brother said there was no connection between my brother john burch and the john birch society. i think think that summed it up. burch was interested in religion, welch was interested in politics. >> i had a similar question about the sources of the archives and the birch society itself. at the end of the story you didn't tell us about what became of the society and what the significance. >> the birch society still exist, you can go online and still find it the headquarters are in appleton, wisconsin which is the home of joseph mccarthy. [laughter] i asked about getting access to the archives, they are apparently available to members. i did not take out a membership. [laughter] there still are, i don't what the numbers are, at the height of the birch society there may have been as many as 100,000 members pay induced and meeting on a regular basis. i wanted to see if i could use some extended quotes from robert welch but the birch society was not inclined to give information for that. unless they could review my manuscript which i declined. fortunately robert welch, fortunately for my purposes robert welch was prolific. he was quite a brilliant man. he graduated from university of north carolina at the age of 17. he attended the u.s. naval academy for two years. attended harvard law school for two years. then decided to get married and become a businessman. but welch produced reams of material, he had a monthly magazine called the new american that the birch society puts out. he produced no and of lectures, videos, materials for the local members to discuss and review and so forth. he gets speeches. all is widely covered in the media at the time. there is plenty of material. more than enough material about the birch society itself which i do weave into itself which i do weave into the story to explain the how and why the name burch was used. >> i'm going to slip in a question. i am surprised about the difficulty defined as a publisher a publisher because it is an absolutely engaging story. really, it held my attention from start to finish. you. you do recover a john burch very different from the one who was appropriated to or in your telling misappropriated and put to political use. that is what my question is about, is another real reading this and this is about robert welch's brilliance in appropriating this figure john burch and impressing him into political service after his death, with the assistance of the mother. so john burch may not have been a bircher, but mom was. so she is the facilitator providing him with material that allows burch to do his version of the biography and seems to even it, even if the brothers expressed doubts later on, she is the transmission belt and she gives the golden feel of approval. this could be read slightly differently as a brilliant political act on welch's part. you take raw material, you embellish it, and then you are assisted along the way by family members and even by the independent baptist to work chronically in an exaggerated way john burch's own activities earlier. even from the start there is a fictionalized john burch accompanying the real one. >> rights. i think you put it so well, the mother, ethel birch as i mentioned earlier was frustrated and angry and bought into this idea that there is conspiracy about her son's death. she was very much open to welch. i think the other reason welch lost last touched on to this is because the story was not widely known. the figure of burch was so anonymous in a way, it really was, he was not a major symbol. he was not a household name. that that meant for the purposes of robert welch that the image of burch was malleable. it could be appropriated in use for these political cold war anti-communist purposes and essentially nobody would know the difference. so i think that was at least part of the strategy, part of the thinking of robert welch in addition to the fact that there was the china connection which loomed large in the american political imagination as well as the way in which it pointed to evidence of conspiracy. i think you're saying something very important and that is why pick somebody who is so unknown, and reality of course it should have been called the robert welch society not the john birch society. the fact that john burch was an unknown was actually attractive. when welch establishes this society in indianapolis with a small small group of business people in 1958 he says to the group, i am not going to talk much about john burch. he says basically go read the biography that i have written and you'll understand why i am using his name. >> i'm bill brown. i am retired from cia and do consulting work. you have seen in the television the lobby the star in the memorial hall the people who died from cia. >> on one side of the hall there are cia people who died in action, on the other hall there is one star, one big star for o ss people there is a little book underneath it listing oss people who died in action. something like cold war. after i've been talking to terry about the project a couple of years ago i asked the historian, i looked at the book it is just one page of oss people and of course john burch is not listed. so i asked the historian why isn't john burch on the sheet? she said you mean john burch? i said yes and she said well i don't know anything. and i said i think you should investigate and she did. she e-mail me back two weeks later and said bill, i think you are right. do you want us to put john burch at the top of our list? after all the first casualty of the cold war. i said it's not my business, but yes. she said you should put in a form and it might happen. and i said i don't think i'm the person to put in the form, you should talk to the family. this was two years ago, it is still not on the list. she said effectively it it's political. just a second commentary though i was in xuzhou in october, they were interviewing me about my grandparents who lived there for 40 years. i went on the hill and i stopped at the gravesite the tv crew says why are you looking here and i said this is the gravesite of john burch. oh two on talk about that and i said no. they said please talk about that. i said it's too political. [laughter] great story. gentleman in the back. wonderful idea to write this book, i'm jack hedman from the statement permit. everyone, a certain age boomers grew up in the john birch society was a really big deal. to remember deal. to remember the song, the chad mitchell trio. where the john birch society stamping out the rest. we use her hands and hearts but we must not use or heads. would you have any interest about going on, it was such a symbol of the ultimate right wing. where would they stand now? >> as i mention there's a lot of consistency with today's tea party politics. if you look at their website today you will see it is very much about strict interpretation of the constitution, states rights, opposition to gun control, opposition to abortion, opposition to federal income tax. the litany of conservative issues and so it is an interesting connection and we live in very different times. what is intriguing is the way the birch society was treated at the time by william buckley and the national review and barry goldwater who felt that because the birch society had become so notorious with the accusation of eisenhower being a communist that welch had to be read out of the conservative movement. echoes of mr. trump. the way in which the conservatives today, the national review for example has said donald trump is not a real conservative he should not represent the conservative movement. so there's some interesting parallels there. goldwater and buckley as well went to some pains to say many of my best friends are members of the birch society. their outstanding citizens, respectable americans, but robert welch should resign as head of the birch society. >> i cannot help but be reminded by the use made at a different nation in a different time but i believe it was at least horse vessel was at least a nazi. >> do you want to comment on that. >> know. i will will leave that is. any other questions. >> please state your name. yes i am really glad i am here today it is a very fascinating story. i'm interesting, what happened to the three americans that was -- >> they were to hagan, as i mentioned it took two months for them to make the journey was very arduous. there is a detailed report about their experiences and they observed the territory they are passing through, one of them had some very positive comments about the communist other was more negative. it took officers one was an enlisted man, judah apologized to them for the death of john burch, he said were very sorry sorry this happened, it was an accident and it's very tragic and we regret this. they flew directly directly to jean king. they were debriefed there and then they went to india back to the united states. i am sure they were told not to talk about this incident. it. it was too sensitive at the time. >> i remember driving across the country when i was quite young and seeing those billboards. i wonder if you could say more about the society itself. he said it was popular. i be interested in how large of a membership it had and where. welch himself was in massachusetts. was it a stronghold for the society? what other parts of the country tended to be areas of interest for the society? >> the epicenter for the birch society for right-wing political movement in general was southern california. the defense industry was growing there after world war ii, aeronautics industry. there are many people who are moving to southern california from the midwest and they did not have deep roots in their local communities. so southern california was really where a lot of the action took place the majority of the membership in the western state, texas, through the south but there were members and other parts of the country, one was in and claire connor wrote a book about her parents were devout members of the birch society in chicago. her book is called wrapped in the plague. she describes how they organize meetings in their home, they would stand up every couple of weeks and start the meeting with the pledge of allegiance to the flag. they would watch films or discuss articles, events of the day. so it was quite widespread. >> when i was teaching in 1962 our congressman was congressman was a member of the john birch society. [laughter] there was to congressman that i have been able to identify that were members, recently was one and i forgot the other but i think it was also california. birch did not believe in institutional politics. he did not think that -- he thought it was the part of the establishment, part part of what he came to describe as the insiders who work as pure tutorial, of whom in his opinion were communists. so he did believe that the most effective thing was to advocate at the grassroots level to infiltrate if you would parent-teacher association, to investigate books in public libraries, to operate at the local level. >> pat malloy, the trade lawyer but i -- you mentioned that the general new this young man, john burch. wasn't his wife and he, weren't they involved with the committee of 1 million or something and they supported -- did they get involved in any way in supporting the john birch society and this legend of this young man? >> schmaltz as you say was very close to birch. he had a mutual admiration society as far as the two of them are concerned. but even though as you also say he was very close to and became a strong supporter of the nationalist on taiwan, he never joined the birch society, largely because schmaltz died of lung cancer about the time the birch society was being established in 1958. so he was not around to take part in that, i'm not not sure he would have in any case. anna was very active for many years in the so-called china lobby. she was not a member of the birch society, norton the best of my knowledge was william noland who they talked about birch. albert we do meyer was on an advisory council for robert welch but he came to believe that welch had misused or misrepresented the facts about the death of birch and the investigation. we do meyer felt there was no conspiracy or cover up so we do meyer wrote a very testy letter to welch saying i don't want any more to do with the birch society, i i am resigning my position as an advisor. >> we have been talking about birch's memory and a political context but what about in a religious context. are there missionary is he an important figure for them? >> there was a biography of birch written in the early 1980s by conservative christian couple. they did have some new material. no footnotes or documentation but they did go into more detail about birch. however they made virtually no connection between john burch and the john birch society. so i think there were and i think there are conservative christians who do feel birch is an important person as a missionary to china. as part of that larger movement. who, and i don't think there a lot of people know the story but there are some at least who do appreciate his history as a religious figure rather than a political symbol. >> thank you. i wonder if you have any sense of birch in china. have you talked about chinese about it and i suspect it's not so much different than perhaps in the us, has there been an interest in rediscovering john burch based on your book and rewriting that history? >> i've been in in correspondence with the chinese scholar was issued joe who is extremely curious about the details of the story.