John Sullivan Reek is the stodgy career politician, yes-man, and ex-governor who becomes the Commissioner of District Three in the Northeastern Province. He implements Windrip and Dewey Haik’s agenda by censoring journalists, opening the Trianon concentration camp, and running corrupt schemes with Shad Ledue. Eventually, Reek becomes anxious and afraid because he realizes that his colleagues will throw him under the bus for their own professional advancement. Sure enough, when Effingham Swan becomes the Provincial Commissioner, he immediately fires, arrests, and imprisons Reek.
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John Sullivan Reek Character Timeline in It Can’t Happen Here
The timeline below shows where the character John Sullivan Reek appears in It Can’t Happen Here. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 16
Colonel Dewey Haik becomes commissioner of the Northeastern Province, while the slick ex-governor John Sullivan Reek becomes the commissioner of District Three. Reek orders all of the district’s journalists to meet...
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At the conference, Commissioner Reek announces that all journalists should contact the government directly for all news, rather than asking...
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Chapter 22
...the government. The punishment will be execution or imprisonment in the regime’s new concentration camps. John Sullivan Reek and Shad Ledue open a concentration camp at Trianon, an old girls’ school near Fort...
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Chapter 25
...years. So, Jessup drives to Hanover and personally tells the “pale and hesitant and frightened” Commissioner Reek that he wants to quit. Reek agrees—he even offers to hire Jessup on the newspaper...
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Chapter 26
...and Mrs. Candy’s cousin get evidence on the granite scam that Tasbrough, Shad Ledue, and Commissioner Reek are running together.
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Chapter 29
...Secretary of War Osceola Luthorne with Provincial Commissioner Dewey Haik, who will be replaced by John Sullivan Reek . Tasbrough might be getting Reek’s job as District Commissioner, and he wants Jessup’s support....
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Chapter 30
...War, while Francis Tasbrough becomes the District Commissioner. However, the new Provincial Commissioner is not John Sullivan Reek , but rather Judge Effingham Swan. (Swan immediately—but courteously—arrests Reek and several assistant commissioners.)
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