Menace from the Right: The John Birch Society – Part 2

JBS Attacks on Religious Leaders, Churches and Synagogues

The Birchers led a vigorous campaign against the nation’s religious leaders to stir up dissension between clergy and their congregations. During this time period, and even now, members of the JBS were fundamentalists who opposed preaching a social gospel that made a relation between Biblical teachings and social justice. Thus, they were vehemently critical of the favored liberal social legislation of the National Council of Churches. (6)

In 1961 Amarillo, Texas, JBS area coordinator William L. Lee charged a local clergyman with being sympathetic to the Communist cause and accused the National Council of Churches of being infiltrated by Communists. A leading clergyman demanded that Lee keep quiet or hand over his evidence to the FBI. Not surprisingly, Lee had no proof but this did not stop Church members from demanding that their pastors sever ties with the Council or risk losing contributions to the collection baskets. (7)

This was just the beginning of a campaign of hate and fear that would reach every sector of Amarillo society, turning neighbor against neighbor and almost causing a mini-civil war. The Birchers used this same operating method in towns across the country. First, local religious leaders were attacked for belonging to the National Council of Churches and then the Council was accused of being a pawn of the Communist Party. Finally the whole ugly mess would spill over into other local institutions such as schools, local governments and politics.

Officially, Welch tried to keep his organization free from charges of anti-Semitism but he really didn’t put a whole lot of effort into it so his success was negligible at best.

He did warn members, “Communist plants and agents provocateurs would try to divert good Birchers into a misguided campaign against Jews in order to neutralize the work of the Society and its fight against the Communist conspiracy.” (8)

But the presence of anti-Semites within the organization was evident everywhere the Birchers had a chapter. The Society’s American Opinion Library offered books and pamphlets written by several people who were hostile toward Jews. One such book was Nesta Webster’s World Revolution – the Plot against Civilization which was her “attempt to portray a conspiratorial Jewish power lurking behind Communism.” (9)

National and Local Politics

Robert Welch and other leaders of the John Birch Society adamantly denied that their organization was politically motivated. But in 1964, they claimed they had at least a hundred delegates and alternates at the Republican National Convention in San Francisco.

After Barry Goldwater was nominated, the Birchers elbowed their way in and used the campaign as a means for advocating their own ideology. Society members joined the GOP and Republicans joined the JSB. This cozy relationship gave the Birchers considerable influence within the Republican Party but the honeymoon wouldn’t last. (10)

While local Republican groups had defended the JBS, national GOP leaders began to bitterly denounce it. William F. Buckley wrote a 5000 word article in his National Review denouncing Welch:

How can the John Birch Society be an effective political instrument while it is led by a man whose views on current affairs are, at so many critical points . . . so far removed from common sense?

Goldwater, risking his own political career, followed up with a letter to the magazine:

Mr. Welch is only one man, and I do not believe his views, far removed from reality and common sense as they are, represent the feelings of most members of the John Birch Society. . . . Because of this, I believe the best thing Mr. Welch could do to serve the cause of anti-Communism in the United States would be to resign. . . . We cannot allow the emblem of irresponsibility to attach to the conservative banner.

These attacks may have diminished the impact of the Society but the JBS was not ready to roll over and die just yet.

The Society’s most successful campaigns really were not on the national level but on the soft underbelly of American where a minimum amount of pressure could often produce a maximum level of alarm. Some of this was described in Part 1 in the sections on churches and schools. But one of the most intriguing operations involved organizing boycotts through the use of cards, variously called Card Capers or Card Parties.

In 1962, a Miami chiropractor by the name of Jerome Harold organized The Committee to Warn of the Arrival of Communist Merchandise on the Local Business Scene. When Welch heard about it, he urged his members to get in touch with Harold.

A huge boycott spread from one city to another as JBS members organized local card parties of their own. Using postcards with a hammer and sickle printed on them, and the legend, “Always Buy Your Communist Products At ______.” The names of local retail stores which sold “red” merchandise would be filled in on the dotted line. (11)

Members took the cards and unobtrusively entered the marked stores – dropping them on counters and tucking them under merchandise. If a Bircher was caught red-handed, he would apologize, say it was all an accident and quietly leave the. But they always had another card with them – with the name of a lawyer just in case.

Society members urged local and state representatives and agencies to pass laws imposing prohibitive taxes on stores carrying merchandise from Eastern Europe. Some of the biggest names in America’s retail industry yielded under the pressure and Sears, Woolworth, Kresge, the Walgreen Company, and others, stopped carrying “red” goods.

In the end, the Birchers had to retreat as stores began refusing to give in to this well organized pressure. The climax came when a Los Angeles department store obtained a court injunction against further card distribution and sued the card committee and two of its leaders for four million dollars. The Birchers beat a hasty retreat and the card party ended. (12)

The American Opinion Library in Houston, identical to other Birch libraries across the country, served as an index to many of the Society’s activities at that time. One was able to purchase pamphlets which defended the JBS from its critics and analyzed the cause of the Los Angeles riots and the Civil Rights movement.

The Communists know that a divided people are easily conquered. They realize that if they can manipulate one American into fighting another American, their battle is won. One of the most important steps in creating a race war is to break down respect for law and order and portray the policeman as the enemy of the Negro. (13)

In one pamphlet was a picture of Martin Luther King at the Highlander Folk School, now The Highlander Research and Education Center) which was located in Monteagle, Tennessee at the time. Billboards with this picture were scattered along America’s highways from East to West.

Also found in the library were bumper stickers urging the United States to withdraw from the United Nations and declaring that “Disarmament is Surrender.” The inevitable pieces of jewelry were sold which had similar messages inscribed on them. And copies of Welch’s speeches were also available.

I didn’t write about the fluoridation issue in the original paper, but I can remember my family questioning Welch’s mental faculties every time there was a news report about his dire warnings that it was a Communist plot to poison the minds of Americans. Besides Rachel Maddow’s now famous video, there is this very good report here which quotes from the March 1960 JBS Bulletin.

6. Janson, The Far Right, p. 41.
7. Forster and Epstein, Danger on the Right, p. 3-4.
8. Ibid., p. 27.
9. Forster and Epstein, The John Birch Society, p. 33.
10. Ibid., p. 70.
11. Forster and Epstein, Danger on the Right, p. 24.
12. Ibid., p. 24-26.
13. Constructive Action Committee, Civil Riots U.S.A. (1965).

Menace from the Right: The John Birch Society - Part 1

This series of articles is based on a research paper I wrote in 1964 during the heyday of the John Birch Society (JBS). I dug it up and dusted it off to see what, if any, resemblances there might be between it and the modern day Tea Party (TP).

Enough similarities exist to make the two organizations appear to be mirror images of one another but sometimes one reflection is a little distorted or a little off. Much depends on the silver backing – or the foundation.

The JBS was founded at the end of 1958 when candy manufacturer Robert Welch secretly gathered together 11 unidentified men in Indianapolis.* For two days they listened to Welch explain his deep-seated belief that the Communists were infiltrating all segments of the United States, threatening to destroy our schools, our churches, our government, and virtually, our entire way of life.

In time, most Americans would come to believe that such threats did not come from the Communists but from the very organization that was supposed to be championing the cause of freedom.

JBS Attacks on the Government

Robert Welch was firmly convinced that the U. S. government had been corrupted and infiltrated by Communist agents. He argued that they dominated the presidency, the legislative branches and the U. S. Supreme Court.

He began writting a letter in 1954 which nine years and 305 pages later was turned into a book called The Politician. Welch claimed the Communists captured the presidency in three stages beginning with Franklin Roosevelt and continuing on through the Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower administrations.

R. B. Cooney, in his article, “John Birchers On the March – the Politics of Fear,” quoted the following passages which had been recorded in the Congressional Record :

In my opinion, the chances are very strong that Milton Eisenhower is actually Dwight Eisenhower’s superior and boss within the Communist Party . . . .

I personally believe (John Foster) Dulles to be a Communist agent who has had one clearly defined role to play: namely, always to say the right things and to always do the wrong ones. (1)

Welch wrote in another private letter that quickly became public, “the Communists have one of their own actually in the Presidency - Eisenhower. That word is ‘treason.” He went on to accuse the president of being "a dedicated conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy."

Conservative writer William F. Buckley, 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.

At Houston’s American Opinion Library, the JBS store and reading room, I purchased a postcard inscribed, “Save Our Republic – Impeach Earl Warren.” On the back it read:

Chief Justice Warren has taken the lead in both the decisions and the attitudes of the Supreme Court, aimed at doing away with those safeguards of law which maintain this nation as a constitutional republic, and at converting it into a democracy – in which all individual rights would be completely subject to the whims and views of demagogues temporarily in power. The logical and traditional redress in our governmental system for such violations of the oath of office is impeachment.

JBS Attacks on Schools
Education was the field in which the JBS was most active and where they had the greatest impact. Welch continuously urged members to join PTA groups and school boards. If they could subvert the educational system, they would win a major battle against their war on Communism.

In  Amarillo, Texas – a town known for its far right groups – the JBS began a campaign to rid the school libraries of reading materials they deemed unfit. Such books as John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Oliver La Farge’s Laughing Boy, Mackinley Kantor’s Andersonville, and A. B. Guthrie’s The Way West were forced from the shelves.

George Orwell’s 1984 was also purged – rather ironical since it is generally regarded as a critique of life under Communism. (2) Even more interesting was the fact that the Houston American Opinion Library carried copies of Orwell’s Animal Farm.

Even high school students were encouraged to rat on their teachers. Instructors who had been idolized for years were suddenly disloyal and treasonous. It wasn’t long before paranoid parents jumped on the bandwagon. Neighbors who used to be bridge partners began playingWar. (3)

At a Wichita, Kansas high school, JBS members tried, but failed, to have courses altered and  the teachers fired. Again students were urged to report anything their teachers said that, in their opinions, smacked of Communist propaganda. (4)

Some University of Wichita faculty members were accused of being traitors and attempts were made to have them fired. According to an assistant economics professor at the time, the charges of treason made the faculty insecure enough that they were afraid to teach anything that dealt with Communist theory in politics and economics. (5)

By obtaining control of local PTA and school board groups, Welch believed the Society would be able to influence the choice of courses, teachers and textbooks. If they succeeded, social science courses would be altered to such an extent that history and government as most of the country knows it would be unrecognizable.

* Since this paper was written,the names of the founding members have become known.
1. R. B. Cooney, “John Birchers On the March – the Politics of Fear,” American Federalist, v. 68, (June, 1961), p. 13.
2. Arnold Forster and Benjamin Epstein, Danger on the Right, 1966, p.4.
3. Ibid.
4. Donald Janson, The Far Right, 1963, p. 169.
5. Ibid. p. 169-170.