John Birch Society

The John Birch Society (JBS) is an ultra-conservative, Americanist organization that was founded in 1958 to fight what it saw as growing threats to the constitution of the United States, especially a perceived communist infiltration, and to promote the free-enterprise system.

The Society describes itself as "a membership-based organization dedicated to restoring and preserving freedom under the United States Constitution." It states that its members come from all walks of life and are active throughout the 50 states as part of local chapters. The Society's mission is to achieve "Less Government, More Responsibility, and — With God's Help — a Better World." Its current headquarters is in Appleton, Wisconsin. The JBS was formed as an educational organization and does not involve itself in any way in the political system, although some of its members choose to do so outside of their JBS activities.

The Society was named after John Birch, an American intelligence officer and Baptist missionary in World War II who was killed in 1945 by armed supporters of the Chinese Communist Party, and whom the JBS describes as "the first American victim of the Cold War."

The JBS is anti-leftist, particularly anti-socialist and anti-communist. It strenuously defends what it sees as the original intention of the U. S. Constitution, it promotes the idea that America is founded on Judeo-Christian principles, and it supports a strong Judeo-Christian influence in culture and government. The JBS is opposed to what it describes as collectivism, which in the Society's view includes wealth redistribution, economic interventionism, socialism, communism, and fascism. The JBS claims that collectivist conspiracies throughout the world have significantly shaped history, and it seeks to expose and eliminate their claimed control in government in the modern era. This degree of conspiracism has isolated the Society from many other conservative groups.

During the 1960s, the JBS opposed the Civil Rights Movement since, they say, it was backed and supported by the American Communist Party. Nevertheless, the John Birch Society has always described itself as being open to people of all races and religions.

Finally, the JBS is anti-globalization and seeks restrictive immigration reform. The John Birch Society has been a major opponent of the United Nations, NAFTA, FTAA, and other free-trade agreements with other nations, believing them to be destructive to American principles and sovereignty.

History

The John Birch Society was established in Indianapolis on December 9, 1958 by a group of twelve "patriotic and public-spirited" men led by Robert Welch, Jr., a retired candy manufacturer from Belmont, Massachusetts. Another noted founding member was Fred Koch, founder of Koch Industries, currently the largest private corporation in America. A transcript of Welch's two-day presentation at the founding meeting was published as The Blue Book of the John Birch Society and became a cornerstone of its beliefs, with each new JBS member receiving a copy. "According to Welch," writes Political Research Associates in its analysis of the Birchers, "both the US and Soviet governments are controlled by the same furtive conspiratorial cabal of internationalists, greedy bankers, and corrupt politicians. If left unexposed, the traitors inside the US government would betray the country's sovereignty to the United Nations for a collectivist New World Order managed by a 'one-world socialist government.' The Birch Society incorporated many themes from pre-WWII rightist groups opposed to the New Deal, and had its base in the business nationalist sector…"[1]

Welch saw "collectivism" as the main threat to western civilization, and liberals as "secret communist traitors" who provide the cover for the gradual process of collectivism, with the ultimate goal of replacing the nations of western civilization with one-world socialist government. "There are many stages of welfarism, socialism, and collectivism in general," he wrote, "but communism is the ultimate state of them all, and they all lead inevitably in that direction."[2]

The JBS' objective has been to fight communism using some of communism's own techniques — organization of front groups, infiltration of other groups and letter-writing campaigns. They have organized grassroots chapters in every state and are the only Americanist organization to have full-time paid field staff assisting those chapters. Their activities include distribution of literature, pamphlets, magazines, videos and other educational material while sponsoring a Speaker's Bureau and encouraging members to conduct letter-writing campaigns, especially to elected officials. One of the first public activities of the JBS was a "Get US out!" (of membership in the UN) campaign, which exposed in 1959 that the "Real nature of [the] UN is to build a One World Government (New World Order)." In 1960, Welch advised JBS members to "join your local PTA at the beginning of the school year, get your conservative friends to do likewise, and go to work to take it over."

One Man's Opinion, a magazine launched by Welch in 1956, was renamed American Opinion and became the Birch Society's official publication. It has since been replaced by the bi-weekly magazine, The New American.

By March 1961, the Society had an estimated 60,000 to 100,000 members and, according to Welch, "a staff of 28 people in the Home Office; about 30 Coordinators (or Major Coordinators) in the field, who are fully paid as to salary and expenses; and about 100 Coordinators (or Section Leaders as they are called in some areas), who work on a volunteer basis as to all or part of their salary, or expenses, or both." According to its profile by Political Research Associates, an organization that tracks supposed conspiracies on the Right, JBS "pioneered grassroots lobbying, combining educational meetings, petition drives and letter-writing campaigns. One early campaign against the second summit between the United States and the Soviet Union generated over 600,000 postcards and letters, according to the Society. A June 1964 Birch campaign to oppose Xerox corporate sponsorship of TV programs favorable to the UN produced 51,279 letters from 12,785 individuals."[3] The Birchers' ad-hoc special issues committees have been extremely effective in creating awareness about issues which they believe to be affecting the American way of life.

Much of the Society's early conspiracism, according to Political Research Associates, "reflects an ultraconservative business nationalist critique of business internationalists networked through groups such as the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). The CFR is viewed through a conspiracist lens as puppets of the Rockefeller family in a 1952 book by Joe McCarthy fan Emanuel M. Josephson, Rockefeller, 'Internationalist': The Man Who Misrules the World. In 1962 Dan Smoot's The Invisible Government added several other policy groups to the list of conspirators, including the Committee for Economic Development, the Advertising Council, the Atlantic Council (formerly the Atlantic Union Committee), the Business Advisory Council, and the Trilateral Commission. Smoot had worked at FBI headquarters in Washington, DC before leaving to establish an anticommunist newsletter, the Dan Smoot Report. The shift from countersubversion on behalf of the FBI to countersubversion in the private sector was an easy one. The basic thesis was the same. In Smoot's concluding chapter, he wrote, 'Somewhere at the top of the pyramid in the invisible government are a few sinister people who know exactly what they are doing: They want America to become part of a worldwide socialist dictatorship, under the control of the Kremlin.'" Birchers elaborated on an earlier Illuminati Freemason conspiracy theory, imagining "an unbroken ideologically driven conspiracy linking the Illuminati, the French Revolution, the rise of Marxism and Communism, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the United Nations"[4]. Unlike most advocates of the Illuminati-Freemason conspiracy theory, however, the Birch Society strenuously denies harboring any anti-Semitic ideation, and indeed claims many Jews among its membership.

Republican mainstream unhappiness with the Birch Society intensified after Welch circulated a letter calling President Dwight D. Eisenhower a possible “conscious, dedicated agent of the Communist Conspiracy.” Welch went further in a book titled The Politician, written in 1956 and published by the JBS in 1963, which declared that Eisenhower’s brother Milton was Ike’s superior within the communist apparatus and alleging other top government officials also were communist tools. Included were ex-president Truman, Roosevelt, the last Sec. Of State John Foster Dulles and former CIA Director Allan W. Dulles. Conservative writer William F. Buckley, Jr., an early friend and admirer of Welch, regarded his accusations against Eisenhower as "paranoid and idiotic libels" and attempted unsuccessfully to purge Welch from the JBS. Welch responded by attempting to take over Young Americans for Freedom, a conservative youth organization founded with assistance from Buckley.

In October 1964, the Idaho Statesman newspaper expressed concern about what it called an "ominous" increase in JBS-led "ultra-right" radio and television broadcasts, which it said then numbered 7,000 weekly and cost an estimated $10 million annually. "By virtue of saturation tactics used, radical, reactionary propaganda is producing an impact even on large numbers of people who, themselves, are in no sense extremists or sympathetic to extremist views," declared a Statesman editorial. "When day after day they hear distortions of fact and sinister charges against persons or groups, often emanating from organizations with conspicuously respectable sounding names, it is no wonder that the result is: Confusion on some important public issues; stimulation of latent prejudices; creation of suspicion, fear and mistrust in relation not only to their representatives in government, but even in relation to their neighbors.”

In their early days, the JBS shared a common ideology and some overlapping membership with Fred Schwarz and his California-based Christian Anti-Communism Crusade. John Birch Society influence on US politics hit its high point in the years around the failed 1964 presidential campaign of Republican candidate Barry Goldwater, who lost to incumbent President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Welch had supported Goldwater over Richard Nixon for the Republican nomination, but the membership split, with two-thirds supporting Goldwater and one-third supporting Nixon. A number of Birch members and their allies were Goldwater supporters in 1964 and some were delegates at the 1964 Republican National Convention. The Goldwater campaign in turn brought together the nucleus of what later became known as the New Right, many of whom had been groomed by the Birch Society but whose more pragmatic members realized that the group's conspiracism was an impediment to electoral success.

John Birch Society members and allies also authored several widely distributed books that promoted conspiracy theories and mobilized support for the Goldwater campaign:

• A Choice, Not an Echo by Phyllis Schlafly, which suggested that the Republican Party was secretly controlled by elitist intellectuals dominated by members of the Bilderberger banking conference, and whose policies were designed to usher in global communist conquest. "A Choice, Not an Echo" became one of Goldwater's campaign slogans.
• The Gravediggers, co-authored by Schlafly and retired Rear Admiral Chester Ward of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, claimed that U.S. military strategy and tactics were actually designed to pave the way for global communist conquest.
• None Dare Call It Treason, by John A. Stormer, sold over 7 million copies, making it one of the largest-selling paperback books of the day. It decried "the concurrent decay in America's schools, churches, and press which has conditioned the American people to accept 20 years of retreat in the face of the communist enemy." Mr. Stormer also added, in his 1998 preface to the paperback edition: "Communism, which some believe (or hope) died in the Soviet Union, is alive and on the march in Asia, the Middle East, Central and Southern Africa and through guerrilla groups in Central and South America."
• A Texan Looks at Lyndon by J. Evetts Haley, a book containing a number of allegations of political corruption throughout the career of Lyndon Johnson.

In April 1966, the New York Times reported on "the increasing tempo of radical right attacks on local government, libraries, school boards, parent-teacher associations, mental health programs, the Republican Party and, most recently, the ecumenical movement […] The Birch Society is by far the most successful and 'respectable' radical right organization in the country. It operates alone or in support of other extremist organizations whose major preoccupation, like that of the Birchers, is the internal Communist conspiracy in the United States." By then, a committee called the Movement to Restore Decency (MOTOREDE) was established to promote opinions about child-rearing; in particular, MOTOREDE pushed for a ban on sex education.

The Society wound up at the center of an important free-speech law case in the 1970s, after one of its magazines, American Opinion, accused a Chicago lawyer representing the family of a young man killed by a police officer of being part of a Communist conspiracy to merge all police agencies in the country into one large force. The resulting libel suit, Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., reached the United States Supreme Court, which said opinions cannot be false under the First Amendment (while nevertheless finding for the plaintiff, who prevailed upon retrial).

Key Birch Society causes of the 1970s included opposition to OSHA and the establishment of diplomatic ties with the People's Republic of China. The organization claimed in 1973 that the regime of Mao Zedong had murdered 64 million Chinese as of that year, and further accused the country of being the primary supplier of illicit heroin into the United States, leading to its designing bumper stickers showing a pair of scissors cutting a hypodermic needle in half, accompanied by the slogan "Cut The Red China Connection". The society also was vehemently opposed to transferring control of the Panama Canal from American to Panamanian sovereignty, resulting in another slogan: "Don't Give Panama Our Canal — Give Them Kissinger Instead."

The John Birch Society was organized into local chapters, imitating Welch's understanding of Communist organizing techniques. Ernest Brosang, a New Jersey regional coordinator, contended it is virtually impossible for opponents of the society to penetrate its policy-making levels, thereby protecting it from anti-Americanist takeover attempts. Its activities included distribution of literature attacking proposed civil rights legislation, warning of the influence of the United Nations, and distributing petitions to impeach liberal U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren. To spread their message, members held Sunday showings of documentary films and operated initiatives such as "Let Freedom Ring", a nationwide network of recorded telephone messages. Some Birch Society members also helped organize the "Minutemen," a paramilitary group training to lead guerrilla warfare in case of a Communist take over.

The second John Birch Society chairman, US Representative Dr. Larry McDonald, was killed in the 1983 KAL-007 shootdown incident. Society members suggested that McDonald had been the principal target of the Soviets in the attack upon the airplane.

By the time of Welch's death in 1985, the Birch Society's membership and influence had dramatically declined, but the UN's role in the Gulf War and President George H. W. Bush's call for a 'New World Order' appeared to many JBS members to validate their claims about a "One World Government" conspiracy. Growing right-wing populism in the United States helped the JBS position itself for a comeback, and by 1995 its membership had grown somewhat to more than 55,000, though that number is unofficial as the Society does not disclose its membership statistics.

After that time period, the John Birch Society started a campaign to impeach President Bill Clinton for alleged connections with Chinese interests and on charges of treason and bribery. Within months of the Society's call for impeachment, news of the Monica Lewinsky affair broke, and the Society's charges were overshadowed by media coverage of Lewinsky and Clinton. The President was eventually impeached but on charges other than the Society had hoped to bring. Nevertheless, the impeachment campaign's relative success bolstered the Society and its membership, publication circulation and finances.

During the 1990s (with a brief pause to work on the Clinton impeachment campaign), and in the first decade of the 21st century, the Society has opposed free-trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), and the newly proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). CAFTA won a two-vote victory in the House (217-215), but the Society predicts the FTAA will have an even more difficult time.

The JBS continues to press for an end to U.S. membership in the United Nations, an idea that has seen more support in recent years. As evidence of the effectiveness of JBS efforts, the Society points to the Utah legislature's recent resolution calling for U.S. withdrawal, as well as the actions of several other states where the Society's membership has been active. The Birch Society generally opposes overseas warmaking, although it is staunchly in favor of supporting the American military. It has issued calls to "Bring Our Troops Home" in every conflict since, including Vietnam. The Society also has a national speakers' committee, called American Opinion Speakers Bureau (AOSB), and an anti-tax committee called TRIM (Tax Reform IMmediately).

In recent years, the JBS has been just as critical of President George W. Bush as it has been of Democratic presidents, accusing the Bush administration of advocating and carrying out acts of torture against suspected terrorist leaders during the War on Terror. In a 2005 online poll, the organization's membership voted for President Bush's impeachment, [5] citing issues such as the USA PATRIOT Act and recent allegations against the Bush administration concerning domestic telephone surveillance of suspected terrorists operating within the United States. These were cited as evidence of Bush's lack of regard for the Constitution. Such attitudes on the Society's part tend to surprise individuals who stereotypically write off the Society and its members as unwavering supporters of the Republican Party.

Literary references

In his novel The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon satirized the famously conservative society with his "Peter Pinguid Society," an organization so anti-communist that they opposed capitalism because it led inevitably to communism.

The Bob Dylan song "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues" is a fictitious, satirical story about a man joining the society. The Chad Mitchell Trio's 'break-out' song hit was their comic parody "The John Birch Society."

The Charlie Daniels song "Uneasy Rider" satirizes the southern conservative movements with the line "I'm a faithful follower of Brother John Birch And I belong to the Antioch Baptist Church."

The Beat Farmers' song, "Gun Sale at the Church" contains the line, "My two favorite men are Jesus and ol' John Birch. So, I'm going on down to the gun sale at the church."

President

• Robert W. Welch Jr. (1958-1983)
• Larry McDonald (1983)
• Charles R. Armour
• John F. McManus (1991-Present)

CEOs

• G. Allen Bubolz (1988-1991)
• G. Vance Smith (1991-2005)
• Arthur R. Thompson (2005-Present)

Other notable members in history

• Edwin Walker
• Former Congressman John Rarick
• Congressman Ron Paul
• John Rousselot
• Late Congressman John G. Schmitz
• Edgar W. Hiestand
• Eric Show, pitcher for the San Diego Padres
• Former Senator Steve Symms
• Late Congressman Lawrence Patton McDonald
• Former Congresswoman Helen Chenoweth Hage
• John Wayne
• Walter Brennan ("Grandpa" on the "Real McCoys")
• Meldrin Thompson (Governor of New Hampshire)
• Robert Welch- President of Welch's Candy company
• Robert Stoddard
• William J. Grede
• Floyd Paxton
• Nelson Bunker Hunt
• Tom Anderson (syndicated Journalist)
• Talyor Caldwell (author)
• G. Edward Griffin (author)
• Dr. Medford Evans, author of The Secret War for the A-Bomb,
• General Andrew Gatsis
• General Edwin Shull
• General Robert Lee Scott (author of "God is my Co-pilot")
• Professor E. Merrill Root, poet and essayist

See also

• Anti-communism
• Conspiracy theory
• Reactionary
• Separation of church and state
• United States isolationism
• Paleoconservatism
• Withdrawal from the United Nations

External links

• John Birch Society website
• The New American, JBS bi-weekly publication
• "John Birch Society," Political Research Associates
• Wikinfo:Cultural imprinting on politics
• Report of the California Senate Factfinding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities on the John Birch Society
• A 60-page report on the JBS based primarily upon FBI files and documents.

Sources

• "Birch Society Investigated," Idaho Statesman, October 9, 1964.
• Ronald Sullivan, “Foes of Rising Birch Society Organize in Jersey,” New York Times, April 20, 1966, pp. 1, 34.