A Mormon Helps Save Conservatism from the Loonies

"Getting It Right" is a historical novel by the godfather of modern American conservatism, William F. Buckley Jr. I don't think I've ever read a historical novel written by one of the actual participants, but here's one. Buckley was present at the creation of "the vast right-wing conspiracy:" the post World War II conservative movement (that would later remake American politics) as it took form in the late 1950's and early 1960's. Buckley tells the story of two extremist groups that could have derailed the new insurgency: the John Birch Society and Ayn Rand's "Objectivists."

Buckley's protagonist is Woodroe Raynor, who we first meet as a young Mormon missionary in 1956 in Austria, along the Hungarian border. I must say young Woodroe's mission is unlike any I experienced as an elder. He lives with a young American couple, teaches English to the natives, and builds houses on the side. It could be that Buckley is familiar with more recent LDS humanitarian missions, or he may be thinking of the effort led by Elder Ezra Taft Benson immediately following the second world war, or he could be making up this part of the story out of whole cloth. But it's very unlikely that a 19-year-old elder would have served a non-proselyting mission like this in 1956. Then there's the little manner of his girlfriend, Teresa, who he sleeps with. She is Hungarian, and she draws him into the 1956 Hungarian revolution against the Communist Russian occupiers. Woodroe is shot trying to help refugees escape, and Teresa turns out to be a double agent. This political and sexual betrayal helps make Woodroe a convinced anti-communist.

Woodroe then attends Princeton University where his mentor is professor Theo Romney, a Mormon from Utah who is the only conservative on the history faculty. His hobby is painting from memory as massive mural of the Wasatch mountains. Together they meet the circle around Robert Welch, a wealthy candy manufacturer who founds the fiercely right-wing John Birch Society in 1958. Buckley doesn't display much curiosity about distinctive LDS beliefs. He assumes for the purpose of his narrative that Mormons believe in Jesus and are bound by a code of comprehensive morality, which makes them Christian enough for him. Buckley must have noticed during these years the fervency and numbers of LDS members involved with the John Birch Society. A little later in the novel Woodroe attends a local meeting of the Birchers in Salt Lake, where Ezra Taft Benson is seated on the dais.

Meanwhile a young Jewish woman, Leonora Goldstein, becomes involved with the intimate circle in New York City around Ayn Rand, the novelist and libertarian philosopher. There she witnesses at first hand the sexual intricacies of Rand and her very married lieutenant Nathaniel Branden (later one of the fathers of the "self-esteem" movement.) Buckley is witheringly satirical about the Randoids. He targets their cruelty, self-deception, and intellectual arrogance. (The very title of the novel could be a double-entendre about the romantic entanglements of the various right-wing characters.) The word "creepy" comes up more than once in referring to the Objectivists. It's pretty outrageous material, but Buckley appends a "Notes" section where he lists the sources for every chapter (when he's not relying on his own recollections.)

Woodroe progresses through the JBS and begins to meet some its more colorful characters. There's Major General Edwin Walker, who tries to seduce Woodroe even as Lee Harvey Oswald fires a shot at Walker through a glass window. Then there's Revilo Oliver, an academic classics genius who spins increasingly elaborate, paranoid conspiracy theories to explain every bad aspect of American life. (Both these men were real people who Buckley came to know.) Woodroe becomes appalled by the racism, meanness, and downright looniness of the Birchers and breaks with them. He writes to Theo Romney:

Us folks from Utah aren't racists. I never even felt the urge to look down on Jews and Negroes. So many people do. You commented in your course how the Chinese railroad workers were treated when they crossed God's country. That's our God, Theo. Other Christians get it almost right. We get it all right.

Woodroe goes to work for Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign, which is vividly described. We also meet along the way Jack and Bobby Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, a young Alan Greenspan (who was a Randoid), and other prominent figures from the time. Buckley himself appears as a supporting character. So does this make "Getting It Right" a Norman Mailer-ish "nonfiction novel"?

Woodroe meets yet another Mormon, Than Koo, a refugee from Communist terrorism in Vietnam. The climax of the novel comes when "National Review" in 1966, Buckley's hugely influential magazine, publishes a special issue denouncing the JBS as dangerous and deranged in its paranoid analyses of America. The novel ends as Leonora leaves the Objectivists, becomes a Catholic, and becomes engaged to Woodroe, who is leaving to fight in Vietnam. I see a sequel in the works.

Buckley's Mormons are defiantly idealistic, even as they are backsliders who drink and cohabit with their girlfriends. They are tolerant, compassionate, and committed to truth. Although their forceful presence in the JBS suggests they are susceptible to unwise fanaticism. Buckley captures well the feverish intoxication of extremist ideas, of how systematic ideologies take flight from reality. (Buckley seems to imply that some Jews has a similar cultural predisposition for Rand's cult.) Buckley himself has always been a model of civilized humanity. He comes across an an emotionally intact, jolly man who is able to successfully integrate faith and reason.

It appears that in recent years Buckley is constructing a fictional narrative history of post-war America in his novels "Nuremberg", "The Redhunter", "Spytime", "Elvis in the Morning", and this volume, which fairly screams "to be continued." For sheer literary value these novels are no threat to the "American chronicle" novels of Buckley's old nemesis, Gore Vidal. Vidal creates deeper characters, more involving plots, and infuses his history with stinging wit. But his political views grow more extreme and psychotic the closer he gets to his own lifetime. Buckley's books radiate sanity and reasonableness and they are pretty funny in their own right. Plus he is arguably the most influential American journalist of the past 50 years. Some may find his books too abstruse for their tastes. Me, I eat 'em up like candy.

R.W. Rasband
Heber City, UT
rrasband@yahoo.com