On February 27, General Walker boards a specially equipped tour bus owned by his close friend, the anti-​communist televangelist Billy James Hargis. The two men are departing on a speaking tour to twenty-​nine cities, mostly in the South: “To alert the public to the enemy within and without.” Taking their inspiration from Paul Revere, they are calling their tour Operation Midnight Ride. Hargis is a thirty-​seven-​year-​old, three-​hundred-​pound Texas-​born leader of the Christian Crusade, a fervent group of a hundred thousand paid followers based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He has an unusually boyish and doughy face, prefers tailored suits, and decorates his...