The Transformation of an American Baptist Missionary Family into Covert Operatives David Lawitts Abstract—Harold and Vincent Young were brothers and Baptist missionaries who played a pivotal role in the formation of early American foreign intelligence in Southeast Asia. They capitalized on a unique combination of linguistic abilities, powerful local contacts, and the religious devotion of their followers to organize pro-American paramilitary forces during World War II and the Cold War. Introduction William Marcus Young was a pioneer American Baptist missionary who proselytized to the ethnic Lahu, Shan, and Wa peoples residing in the mountains of China and Burma (Myanmar). Their ancient oral mythology predicted a “White Man” in “White Robes” would bring them a sacred book containing knowledge of the one true God.1 This providential folk tale provided an open door for Western missionaries who, in the early 1800s, began converting mountain dwellers in numbers hitherto unprecedented in the Baptist Foreign Mission Society.2 William’s sons, Harold and Vincent, were born at the mission compound in China, and, though Caucasian in appearance, were raised with a mindset akin to the local mountain peasants.3 At the outset of World War II, Harold and Vincent’s intimate knowledge of the region and its culture suddenly brought them to the attention of America’s fledgling foreign intelligence efforts in the Pacific. Unlike the former colonial powers, the United States had no significant international intelligence networks to draw on prior to World War II, and therefore sought missionaries as one of the only recruitment pools of Americans with on-the-ground experience, local knowledge, and high-level contacts in regions suddenly vital to U.S. national security. Fluent in six tribal languages, Harold and Vincent were recruited as tribal experts, able to influence the myriad ethnic groups of China, Burma, and Thailand who revered their family as a dynasty of prophets and bringers of the Word of God. 1 Lintner 1999: 50-1; Smith 1999: 454-5. 2 By William Young’s own reports, total converts were as high as 40,000, a number confirmed by his supervisor, J.C. Robbins. American Baptist Foreign Mission Society [ABFMS] FM-307, April 16, 1936. 3 Li 1987: 71. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 106, 2018 61-04-003 295-308 jss106 i_coated.indd 295 4/3/18 8:47 PM 296 David Lawitts This article argues that the Youngs were uniquely situated to serve the Baptist Foreign Mission Society as well as American and British intelligence services in Southeast Asia, initially through luck and coincidence, and later through a distinct set of specialized skills acquired through decades of life among the hill tribe people. Pioneer mission: 1861–1899 William Marcus Young was born in 1861 to a Baptist farming family in St. Augustine, Illinois. At age seventeen he began preaching and by 1884 had a following of around sixty church members.4 In the 19th century, American church theology taught that the Second Coming of Christ was contingent upon a worldwide acceptance of the gospel, citing, among other scriptures, Matthew 28: 16-20 (King James Version), in which the resurrected Jesus Christ instructs his disciples to “teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” within “the end of the age”, i.e., before 2000 AD. This millenarian view was responsible for the rapid expansion of mission stations in Asia during the late 1800s,5 and perhaps also for the vision William received on the night of his father’s death as Christ appeared at his bedside and commanded him to leave his country and spread the gospel to the farthest corners of the earth.6 William enlisted with the American Baptist Mission Society, which sent him to British Burma in 1891. The British colonized Upper Burma in 1885, which circumscribed the Chin, Kachin, and Shan States into a growing province of British India. The northern limits of Upper Burma were referred to as the Frontier Areas or Unadministered Territories due to their distance from central government, their inaccessible mountainous terrain, and their ethnically diverse populations resistant to British rule. The British therefore welcomed American missionaries into these outlying territories, hoping they would act as “civilizing agents” and help reign control over recalcitrant areas.7 The first man to translate the Bible into Burmese was the American Protestant missionary, Adoniram Judson, in 1834. Most of his converts were among ethnic Karen, whose ancient traditions spoke of a “White Man” carrying a “Golden Book” who would one day arrive “to bring salvation,” a legend that perfectly prepared the Karen to accept Caucasian missionaries—wearing cool white robes in the tropical climate of Burma and carrying Bibles embossed with gold leaf—as their prophets.8 The Karen are an ethnic minority that live at the lowest elevation of all highland groups in Burma, and were a logical starting point for missionaries who wished to work their way uphill toward the Unadministered Territories. Many Karen were fluent in the languages of their highland minority neighbors through centuries of trade, intermarriage, and casual contact,9 and as American missionaries arrived in British Burma, the Karen worked alongside them as 4 Young, W. “Questions to Candidates for Missionary Appointment.” ABFMS 1889. 5 Hawley 1991: 21-36. 6 Young, H. 2013: 12. 7 Maung Shwe Wa 1963: 119, 160. 8 Anderson 1956:.215-28. 9 Renard 1979: 17-22. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 106, 2018 61-04-003 295-308 jss106 i_coated.indd 296 4/3/18 8:47 PM The Transformation of an American Baptist Missionary Family 297 interpreters, navigators, emissaries, and assistant preachers. William arrived in Rangoon (Yangon) in 1892, was given a team of four Karen assistants, and trekked north through numerous hill stations within the Shan States of eastern Burma.10 The Shan are a lowland ethnic group closely associated with the Thai. Every five days, as per local tradition, an array of ethnic villages would assemble into a huge bazaar organized by the Shan, and the missionaries knew this was the best place to reach a wide range of people from the surrounding areas.11 William and his Karen assistants preached to the Shan people, but quickly found that they were unreceptive to new religious ideas, sticking adamantly to their Buddhist beliefs. During his first seven- year term of service, William had zero converts.12 Kengtung, Burma: 1900–1920 In 1900 William received permission to transfer to Kengtung, a small but relatively cosmopolitan town close to the China border. He hoped Kengtung’s ethnic diversity would provide a wider array of cultures that might be open to conversion. Evangelizing at the five-day bazaar, William again got no response from the Shan; however, a group of migrant Lahu traders from China took interest in his sermons. The Lahu are a hill tribe minority living at a higher elevation than the Karen, but had also acquired the mythology of the “White Man, Golden Book.” The Lahu listened to William’s message, and then returned to China to announce that their prophet had arrived. Another ethnic group, the Wa, who live in the highest mountains of China and Burma, also shared the “White Man and Golden Book” myth. Both the Wa and Lahu had contemporary spiritual leaders who, coincidentally, had been preaching for the last decade that “the true God will soon reveal himself” and “we must purify and prepare for his arrival”.13 Now, it appeared, their divinations were correct. These fortuitous elements came together, and within a few years, thousands of Lahu and Wa began requesting baptism at the Kengtung hill station. During this period, William married a fellow missionary, Della Mason, and they had three sons: Harold Mason Young (1901–1975), Marcus Vincent Young (1904–1990),14 and Clarence Young (b. 1907 and died before his second birthday). Harold and Vincent grew up speaking Shan, Lahu, and Wa—frustrating their parents by refusing to speak English for their first five years. By their early teens, they were accompanying their 10 The word “Shan” comes from a Burmese corruption of “Siam”, the former name of Thailand. (Burmese has no final “m” consonant, so “Siam” became “Syan”.) The name indicates that the Shan are not related to any other ethnic group in Burma, and are closer to the Thai, Tai, and Lao people. See Lintner 1999: 52-3. 11 Maung Shwe 1963: 208. 12 Young, W. ABFMS FM-213, January 15, 1901. 13 Young, H. 2013: 32. 14 Marcus Vincent Young was known by his middle name, which he also used in correspondence. This article therefore refers to him as “Vincent” unless citing official Baptist Mission Board correspondence in which he used his full given name. His son, Oliver Gordon Young, took it a step further, using his middle name as his first name not only in everyday interactions, but also as a pen name for his published works. Journal of the Siam Society, Vol. 106, 2018 61-04-003 295-308 jss106 i_coated.indd 297 4/3/18 8:47 PM 298 David Lawitts father on mission trips through the hills for weeks at a time.15 As more Lahu and Wa traveled from China to be baptized, William realized that the biggest populations lay across the border, and received approval from the Baptist Mission Board to open a new station in Yunnan Province, China. But the British government in Burma considered the trip too dangerous, and refused to let him cross the border, citing two reasons: First, in order to cross into Yunnan, the Youngs would have to pass through the territory of the “Wild” Wa, feared for their tradition of headhunting.