John Birch Society

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The John Birch Society (JBS) is an extremist, isolationist, anti-atheist right-wing organization^{[2]:10[3]:5,213} founded by candy manufacturer Robert W. Welch, Jr. in 1958 as a last line of defense against the massively ongoing, clandestine Communist takeover of the United States in his view, but in reality, it is a wingnut red-baiting propaganda machine. Starting in 1954, when Dwight Eisenhower was President, Welch circulated various drafts of a "letter"^{[note 1]} calling Eisenhower (among others) a "conscious, dedicated agent of the Communist Conspiracy".^[4]:266 Welch eventually self-published it in a 1964 in a book titled The Politician.^[5][6] The publication was an early example of how ridiculously batshit the JBS is. Welch and the early Birchers knew how far from the mainstream they were and so they were largely successful in hiding their activities and motivations in their early years. Welch even tried to deny that he had called Eisenhower a communist in print, telling the Boston Herald that Eisenhower "may be too dumb to be a communist."^[3]:62-63

JBS is basically the KKK, but with a thin, stringy veneer of political theory (read: more fears of fluorinated water controlling their brains). In fact, both groups claimed the civil rights movement was a communist plot! By 1965, the opposition to the civil rights movement became more overtly white supremacist in the JBS.^{[3]:99-100,151-152}

Despite being opposed to the civil rights movement and to forced desegregation of public schools, the JBS claimed to have local African American chapters, and did have spokespeople who were African American: Ezola Foster (Pat Buchanan presidential running mate),^[3]:241-242 George Schuyler (former NAACP business manager)^[7] and Veronica A. Wilson (former CPUSA member and FBI informant).^[8]

Origins[edit]

The JBS was founded on December 8-9, 1958 when Welch organized a secret meeting at the home of Marguerite Dice (vice chair of the anti-communist Minute Women) in Indianapolis, Indiana of 11 like-minded, mostly-business executives who saw commie plots everywhere. Welch had developed such contacts from his stint as a board member of the National Association of Manufacturers during the 1950s, and some of the invitees had also been board members.^[3]:18-19 Welch advised them to book room in separate hotels and to and tell no one of their real reasons for traveling.^[3]:17-18 Why, it was not paranoid or conspiratorial at all! Subsequent early meetings were filled with secrecy and paranoia.^[3]:38 The attendees included:^[3]:20-21

The JBS was officially founded the following year in 1959. The founding Board members, Swigert, Grede, Stoddard, Koch, and Robert Gaylord and Cola Parker relied on Austrian school libertarian economists Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises for ideas to sway public opinion.^[3]:27-28

The early years of the JBS were marked by:

• Use of a front group to attract unsuspecting people, the Committee Against Summit Entanglements (CASE), which even garnered endorsements from later critics of the JBS, William F. Buckley and Barry Goldwater^[3]:48-50
• Use of propaganda films to attract middle class and working class membership^[3]:57
• Use of intimidation, bullying, and violence^[3]:59

• 

  Robert Welch pointing to a portrait of John Birch

• 

  T. Coleman Andrews

• 

  Laurence E. Bunker

• 

  Fred C. Koch

• 

  Charles Koch

• 

  Revilo P. Oliver

Who is John Birch?[edit]

Official military portrait of John Birch

The John Birch Society took its name from a missionary named John Morrison Birch (May 28, 1918–August 25, 1945). According to the society, Birch, a missionary in China who joined the United States military during World War II, became the first victim of the Cold War.^[3]:26-27 The start of the Cold War, however, has generally been regarded as starting several months later in February 1946 when diplomat John Keenan wrote the "Long Telegram", which was primarily with regard to hostility by the Soviet Union.^[15][16] The US government kept it quiet (because Birch was just one of millions of deaths during World War II) until one Robert Welch discovered the truth and exploited the poor son-of-a-Birch's name for his own political agenda.

The JBS has a history of misrepresenting what Birch actually did:

In the post-WWII world[edit]

The JBS was founded in 1958, after Welch had already established his conspiracist mindset.^[4] JBS has claimed that then President Eisenhower was an "agent of the Communist conspiracy" (simply for talking to the Soviet Union as opposed to starting World War III). Welch expounded on this bullshit at book length in The Politician.^[6] "Birchers", as they were known, wrote a lot of letters during their early years on various scare issues, such as opposition to summits between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, and keeping fluoride out of the water supply, from which it could enter our precious bodily fluids and corrupt our purity of essence. The Birchers were frequent promoters of moral panics on everything from the Panama Canal treaties to the nuclear weapons disarmament movement. All of these were claimed by Birchers to be part of the communist movement to undermine American security. Birchers shared cross-membership and tactics with early Religious Right groups like Billy James Hargis's "Christian Crusade."^{[3]:100,144,157}

The JBS was not only anti-Communist, but critical of government in general as well, and claimed that America was the greatest in 1900:

Their tactics quickly alienated the mainstream American conservatives; years later, William F. Buckley wrote an article on how he, Barry Goldwater, Russell Kirk, and a bunch of PR people did some very delicate maneuvering so that the Goldwater campaign could denounce the John Birch Society without losing the votes of the society's members, with Goldwater eventually stating, "We cannot allow the emblem of irresponsibility to attach to the conservative banner."^[19] Behind the scenes at National Review, Buckley did not want to alienate the substantial JBS readership and debated how to criticize JBS without doing so. The National Review even had JBS contributors at that time (Clarence Manion). In the end, Buckley and Goldwater met and decided to denounce Welch as an extremist but to absurdly claim that Birchers were "nice people".^{[3]:112-113[note 4]}

Nevertheless, they were out campaigning on Goldwater's behalf; during the 1964 campaign, Birchers mastered the tactic of mass distribution of cheap paperbacks, and three in particular: None Dare Call It Treason by John Stormer, A Texan Looks At Lyndon by J. Evetts Haley, and A Choice, Not An Echo by Phyllis Schlafly (who was a member^[21]). One can find multiple copies of all three at your local thrift store, most of them still unread.

They did the same thing in 1972 with a little book called None Dare Call It Conspiracy by Gary Allen, which posited the conspiracy theory that the environmental movement, the peace movement, women's libbers, the mainstream media, international Soviet Communism, the United Nations, and the Book of the Month Club (no mention of water fluoridation though, surprisingly) were all in cahoots with the Rockefellers^{[note 5]} who sought to control the world through the Council on Foreign Relations. Somewhere around this point, the Birchers morphed from being mostly concerned with militant anti-communism into a group more concerned with exposing The Conspiracy.

The JBS has been repeatedly dogged by charges of antisemitism, being compelled to deny it in 1964^[22] and again in 2009.^[23][24] Why, some of their members are even Jews.^[24] Yet their publication, The New American, returns again and again to the evil Jew stereotype with the Rothschild family conspiracy theory, including smearing George Soros, e.g. 2011,^[25] 2016,^[26] and 2018.^[27] All these charges of anti-semitism are no doubt insidious lies spread by the Joos.

The Birchers' favored term for the "conspiracy" was the New World Order (which included the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and the Illuminati^[3]:233). Not surprisingly, their rapidly falling membership in the 1970s and 1980s turned around after 1990 when George H.W. Bush in an act of ill-advised stupidity used that very phrase in a speech.^[28] This gave the Birchers a new lease on life during the 1990s. During that time, New World Order conspiracy theories took outlandish and bizarre directions, ranging from tales of black helicopters to shape-shifting reptilians, the Birchers staked out a position of relative moderation among the lunatic fringe and warned against acceptance of these more outlandish theories while promoting the New World Order theory as laid out in Gary Allen's 1972 book as being a liberal-secularist conspiracy led by the Rockefellers and other high financiers to bring about a socialist world government… again.

Arguably the Society's greatest claim to fame came in 1983, when Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was shot down by a Soviet interceptor after straying into Soviet airspace. The flight was carrying Georgia Congressional Representative Larry McDonald,^{[note 6]} who also happened to be the Society's second president. It being one of several incidents that nearly started WWIII, the fact that it didn't was taken by JBS's New American magazine as proof of the extent of Communist power over the US government. This really said more for Ronald Reagan keeping a cool head, and now that Reagan has been anointed a saint by the American Right for single-handedly destroying the Soviet Union, the whole affair never gets mentioned any more.

Assassination of John F. Kennedy[edit]

The handbill in question

A day before John F. Kennedy's assassination, a handbill was circulated by Robert A. Surrey. Surrey was a close associate of General Edwin A. Walker,^[30] a JBS member.^[3]:73 Kennedy had been a target of character assassination by the JBS from the time that he entered politics. After the assassination on November 22, 1963, members of the JBS feared that it was one of their members who had committed the murder and they feared that it would be the end of their organization. The JBS's forthcoming December issue of American Opinion was highly critical of JFK, and hence the JBS delayed its publication. When it was revealed that the assassin was Lee Harvey Oswald, an admitted Marxist, the JBS was relieved if not overjoyed, subsequently exploiting Oswald-as-Marxist for a fundraising and recruitment, and by devising conspiracy theories about the assassination.^[3]:105-108

Radicalization[edit]

Welch tried to keep the JBS tightly controlled, keeping out members who espoused overt racism or antisemitism, but as the organization grew during the 1960s, that became increasingly difficult. With chapter sizes always being capped at a 20-member maximum, many chapters began to exercise more independence. Another problem was that Welch himself was never particularly reality-based, having a conspiracist worldview. By 1966, substantial disputes existed between JBS headquarters and individual chapters, resulting in Welch traveling across the country, trying to resolve disputes at individual chapters.^[3]:178-179 Every chapter head was then required to force new recruits to listen to almost 9 hours of Welch's recording of his conspiracies ("One Dozen Trumpets") over two consecutive days.^[3]:179 In 1971, JBS had a known Klansman (Roger Mellinger) and his wife as members; the JBS feared that they were too dangerous to confront or expel.^[3]:182

Violence became more common within membership, and some members either used the JBS as a stepping stone into more extremist organizations or they formed their own.^[3]:180-182 Some examples:^[3]:181

• Donald Lobsinger for the group Breakthrough in Detroit, which worked alongside the JBS. Breakthrough offered a $1000 reward for a citizens arrest of Michigan Republican Governor George Romney and threatened to lynch African Americans
• Louis Byers formed the National Youth Alliance, which was funded by Willis Carto who had also been a Bircher.^[3]:201 NYA called for 'smashing the state' and 'death to the establishment'.

Alt-med[edit]

Staring in the 1970s, the JBS expanded its alt-med promotion from opposing water fluoridation to opposing vaccination and supporting laetrile as a cancer treatment.^[31] Urologist Larry McDonald and Ron Paul were the only medical doctors in Congress, and also the only two members who voted against funding for an influenza vaccine.^[3]:254 McDonald even introduced legislation to try to legitimize laetrile,^[32]

Today[edit]

)}, and overshadowed by Ron Paulism

Their current whereabouts, alas, are unknown.^{[note 7]} File them in the "where are they now" pile next to This Is Spinal Tap and The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo.

The John Birch Society does still exist. Today, they are most worried about threats to US sovereignty, most particularly the (never actually proposed) union between the US, Canada, and Mexico. They are also adamantly opposed to free trade, immigration, and the United Nations.

The society has been linked to 1988’s failed California Proposition 102, which required anyone who tested positive for HIV to be reported to the government and their sexual contacts investigated. It also would have erased laws against compulsory testing.^[34] Conservatives sure do treat HIV differently than they do Covid-19, don't they?

Recently, they have aligned themselves with the Tea Party movement, and they are even co-sponsoring the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC),^[35] the largest conservative conference in the US (this probably says more about modern conservatism in the US than it does about the JBS). They have a web site where they push every right-wing conspiracy theory you can think of while trying to pass themselves off as small government conservatives, though they quickly give themselves away as fairly authoritarian.^[36] The JBS has long been considered authoritarian.^[3]:101

Their website includes links to their major projects" "Stop a Con-Con" (opposition to a constitutional convention), leaving NAFTA, leaving United Nations, and to stopping the chimeric North American Union.^[37] Their magazine, The New American, continues and they are also affiliated with FreedomProject, which pursues a similar agenda while opposing abortion and selling mugs.^[38] As well as the idea that global warming is a liberal media conspiracy,^[39] they also promote more esoteric conspiracy theories, such as that Karl Marx was only a front for a secret organisation, The League of the Just.^{[40][note 8]} Some things never change…

Cultish aspects[edit]

Several aspects of the JBS indicate that it is a cult: the insistence on "a tough dictatorial boss" (himself) for leadership (according to Welch), secrecy, paranoia, conspiracy theories, closed 1- to 2-day meetings of like-minded individuals, the barring of anyone who offered any disagreement during meetings, front groups, and the notion that only they can offer salvation from communism.^{[3]:38,41,44,48-50,57,197,216-217}

Other people and things they hate[edit]

As an organization founded by rich and powerful white men, it is unsurprising that anything that does not maintain the US caste system is basically fair game:^{[3]:67-68,70-72,74,84,90-92,167,197,203-204,213-217}

Legacy[edit]

While the JBS has faded as an organization, the ideas that it has promoted within the fringes of the Republican Party have not, inspiring:^{[3]:16,213,223-224,231-234,249-250,253-256,258-262,266,271-282}

The JBS fostered a fundraising network that continues to this day, as Hillary Clinton later coined it, the "vast right-wing conspiracy", which in her case was only in reference to Whitewater. In 1963, before John F. Kennedy was assassinated, his White House aide Myer "Mike" Feldman wrote in an internal report that the likely winning tactic in winning the 1964 election was attacking far-right groups such as the JBS. Regarding far-right funding, Feldman wrote that the groups raised between $15-25 million annually ($146-243 million inflation adjusted to 2023) from 70 foundations, 250 individuals and more than 100 corporations. Feldman also wrote, "The Conservative Right and the Radical Right, in short, often make common cause, and if the conservatives are not card-carrying Birchers and do not — for instance — advocate the impeachment of the Chief Justice [Warren], they deplore the same Supreme Court decisions as those who do."^[3]:101-103

The election of Trump in 2016, along with the dark money political donations fueled by the 2010 Supreme Court's Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision enabled the takeover of the GOP by JBS- and Tea Party-inspired members of the radical right.^[3]:283-284

Pop culture references[edit]

• In 1961, the Chad Mitchell Trio, one of many folk groups of the era, recorded the novelty track The John Birch Society Song which lampooned the organization.
• In 1962, Bob Dylan did likewise with Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues.
• Cartoonist Walt Kelly created "The Jack Acid Society" in several story arcs in his comic strip Pogo. The strips were collected, along with some original pieces, and published in 1962 as The Jack Acid Society Black Book.^[43]
• The 1971 film Cold Turkey has a scene where members of the "Christopher Mott Society" are listening to a phonographic record of a speech by a right-wing pundit.
• Paul Simon's solo version of "A Simple Desultory Philippic" includes the line "I've been John Birched, been stopped and searched."

Other members of note[edit]

See also[edit]

External links[edit]

• At Wikipedia:
  • John Birch Society category page at Wikipedia: Links to WP articles about several people with ties to the John Birch Society, plus other related articles;
  • Another category page with links to biographical articles about card-carrying Birchers
• Their homepage
• Their YouTube channel, with copious amounts of red scare propaganda!
• The New American, their magazine
• Robert Welch "predicts" the coming commie takeover.
• Right Wing Watch's category for the JBS
• Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues by Bob Dylan
• "What's Wrong With Civil Rights", newspaper article alleging that the civil rights movement was created by the commies in order to create a Negro Soviet Republic.^[45] See also "Anarchy USA", a similar 1hr15mins+ Cold War propaganda film produced by the Society against Civil Rights.
• FBI Files on John Birch Society

Notes[edit]

References[edit]