Wrapped in the Flag by Claire Conner

opponents “The Birch-Barkers.” 14 Those articles were just the first in what would become a multiyear effort to neutralize the Birchers.
    Long after the Mabley columns had appeared, I learned more of the mystery surrounding the infamous book. Like all the other folks who had a copy of
The Politician
, my father had signed a confidentiality agreement stating he would never reveal the book’s contents. Dad made one exception to this rule: my mother. But, in every other case, he kept his promise to Robert Welch by lying, even to me.
    I never found out who the woman in Glenview was or how she got a copy of the controversial manuscript. My father swore he’d never seen her before that meeting, and he never saw her again.
    In 2007, I discovered that the FBI had investigated the John Birch Society as part of its Subversive Trends of Current Interest Program. In a report filed on September 16, 1960, agent J. A. Meyertholen described not only the Glenview meeting but a later one where my father threatened another woman who asked about the same book. According to the agent, “If she ever revealed the nature of the book, he [Conner] would promptly discredit her and deny the existence of the book and its contents.” 15 The agent hinted in the comments section of his report that “there is an element of deceit in the manner of recruiting people” into the Birch Society and that “fortuitous revelation” of
The Politician
could have been deliberate.
    Years after the controversy around the book subsided, Robert Welch admitted to a Birch audience that he had really wanted the manuscript to “gather dust.” 16
    The uproar around
The Politician
had a brutal impact on my parents. The Birch Society acknowledged that reality in the 1965 publication of their pamphlet
Responsible Leadership through the John Birch Society
. “Since the very early days of The John Birch Society, Jay Conner and his wife, Laurene, have been two of its most knowledgeable, unwavering and dedicated members. They have probably suffered more personally harmful effects from their unceasing support of the Society than any other member of our COUNCIL, and they have taken it all in stride without a word of complaint.” 17
    What happened to us kids . . . not on anybody’s radar.

Chapter Nine
Stirring the Pot
    Not only did the newspaper attacks cause acute embarrassment to many of our members in the areas affected; but to some it caused serious distress, danger to their jobs, and many reactions from neighbors and relatives for which embarrassment was too mild a word. Some of our staunchest friends and strongest supporters, especially among our Coordinators and members of our COUNCIL, were badly hurt. . . . Nor is the end of such cruel unfairness . . . even foreseeable
.
    —R OBERT W ELCH, S EPTEMBER 1960 1
    A week after Jack Mabley’s articles were published, I woke in the middle of the night with a terrible headache. I tiptoed into the bathroom for aspirin, swallowed three, and inched my way back down the hall. An hour later, I was still staring at the crack that snaked across the ceiling. “You have to talk to them,” I told myself. “It’s August.”
    Two months earlier, my parents’ textbook antics had gotten me kicked out of Regina, but, as yet, they had not said a word about a new school. All summer long, I’d been fantasizing about Carl Schurz, the public high school closest to my house. What the place was like, I had no idea, but I found one compelling reason to enroll. “They never expel anyone,” Jay R. told me. “No matter what you do.”
    Schurz High had one other positive characteristic—it was really, really big. Hardly anyone would know me or my parents. As the weeks rolled on and the John Birch Society attracted so much publicity, anonymity became more and more appealing to me. “There could be lots of kids named Conner,” my brother said. “No one will connect you with Dad.”
    The next day, I broached the subject. But the