“Colonel” Osceola Luthorne is a Kansas magazine editor and real estate agent who joins Buzz Windrip’s campaign team from the very beginning and eventually becomes Windrip’s Secretary of War. He is not a real colonel, but his friend, the Governor of Tennessee, gives him the title anyway. He eventually gets fired and replaced by Dewey Haik because he didn’t give the Corpos enough power. He retires to his Kansas farm, until Lee Sarason orders him to be murdered without Buzz Windrip’s knowledge. His career trajectory shows how fascist administrations allocate power based on arbitrary loyalties, not ability or qualifications.
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Osceola Luthorne Character Timeline in It Can’t Happen Here
The timeline below shows where the character Osceola Luthorne appears in It Can’t Happen Here. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 10
Buzz Windrip and his team—Bishop Prang, Senator Porkwood, and Colonel Osceola Luthorne —give constant radio addresses and take a 40-day campaign trip around the country on a...
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Chapter 15
...Secretary of State, the tax-evading banker Webster R. Skittle as Secretary of the Treasury, and Colonel Osceola Luthorne as Secretary of War (even though his title is honorary and he has no actual...
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Chapter 29
...up Doremus Jessup and passes on some confidential information: Windrip is replacing Secretary of War Osceola Luthorne with Provincial Commissioner Dewey Haik, who will be replaced by John Sullivan Reek. Tasbrough might...
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Chapter 35
...and Windrip suggests taking control of the Minute Men back from Dewey Haik or hiring Osceola Luthorne to help run it. Embarrassed, Sarason reveals that the government has already killed Luthorne. Windrip...
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