Jerryworld 5: Love / Machine, Pt. 1

Fourth Reich Archaeology

Jerryworld is back, baby! This week, we introduce the female lead in our saga, Betty Bloomer Ford, and we explore the parallels and rhymes between Betty’s and Jerry’s lives.

For example, like Jerry, Betty was raised by a mother who was acutely aware of ancestry, social status, and etiquette. In fact, Betty’s mother, Hortense, and Jerry’s mother, Dorothy, ran in the same social circles. Also, like Jerry, Betty had an alcoholic biological father who spent much of his life tormented by his demons. And, like Jerry, Betty always had a good attitude about life and a cheery disposition. So the story goes.

Betty’s life was not without its excitements, nor was she far removed from the Cold War deep state. Betty spent some of her most formative years studying modern dance with Martha Graham - one of the State Department’s (and the CIA’s) favorite cultural exports to expound the virtues of the American way of life. We’ll pick up some of the threads we opened up in our interview with Matt Farwell around Frank Wisner’s “Mighty Wurlitzer” and the dynamic between propaganda on a mass scale and mind control at a more micro level.

Wherever we dig in Fourth Reich Archaeology, we always find something that ties back into that continuity of interests and tactics between the Third Reich and the (American) Fourth.

We’ll also catch up with the man himself, as he returns to Grand Rapids as Lieutenant Commander Ford, ready to take on the McKay political machine. In fact, one of the first things Jerry does when he gets back from the war is take over his stepfather’s duties as president of the Republican Home Front Organization. Jerry also takes a job in private practice for the prestigious law firm Butterfield, Kenney, & Amberg. With looks to kill and a job in Grand Rapids’ preeminent law firm, it’s no surprise that the people of Grand Rapids think Jerry is the town’s most eligible bachelor.

In part 1 of this two-parter, we focus on Betty’s background and her and Jerry’s courtship. In part 2, we’ll pick up with Jerry’s law firm gig in Grand Rapids and his final face-off with the weakened McKay machine, from which he’ll emerge a victorious Congressman.