Robert Welch and the John Birch Society

[John Simkin]

Harry Dean has posted on different threads about the links between the John Birch Society and the assassination of JFK. I thought we should have a thread devoted to this issue.

Robert Winborne Welch is an interesting character. A fundamentalist Baptist, Welch attended the United States Naval Academy and Harvard Law School but dropped out of both institutions before graduating.

Welch founded the Oxford Candy Company in Brooklyn, New York. He initialy employed his brother James but in 1925 he left to form his own confectionary company.

The Oxford Candy Company went out of business during the Great Depression. Welch now went to work for his brother's more successful company. Over the years the James Welch Company introduced a wide range of popular products including Sugar Babies, Junior Mints and Pom Poms.

Robert Welch retired as a very wealthy man in 1956. He used some of this money to fund various extreme right-wing causes. This included supporting the work of Joseph McCarthy and other aspects of McCarthyism. In 1958 he established the John Birch Society (JBS). The organization was named after Captain John Birch, a member of the China Air Task Force murdered by Chinese communists on 25th August, 1945.

Welch made it clear he wanted a "secret, monolithic organization" that would "operate under completely autoritative control at all levels". Welch explained that "democracy is merely a deceptive phrase, a weapon of demagoguery, and a perennial fraud".

In 1958 Welch became editor and publisher of the monthly magazine American Opinion. Contributors to this right-wing journal included Martin Dies and Westbrook Pegler.

Welch believed that Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower, were part of a communist conspiracy. Welch sent out a letter claiming that President Eisenhower was a "conscious, dedicated agent of the Communist Conspiracy". In 1956 Welch wrote that other top government officials such as John Foster Dulles and Allan W. Dulles were "communist tools".

The John Birch Society was also opposed to the Civil Rights movement. Welch was one of the first to attack the government of Fidel Castro. In the February 1959 issue of American Opinion, Welch wrote "the fact that Castro was, and all of his adult life had been, a vicious, lying, brutal, murdering Communist."

The John Birch Society called on its members to urge Congress to stop foreign aid. It also campaigned against attempts by those organizations trying to abolish the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA). The JBS was also totally opposed to the United Nations, an organization it claimed was involved in "an insidious scheme to establish a tyrannical world government".

By 1961 Welch claimed that the John Birch Society had nearly 100,000 members. The JBS was very popular in Dallas, Miami, Palm Beach, Los Angeles and Houston. One member was Dan Smoot, the author of The Invisible Government. In the book 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".

Another important supporter of the JBS was William F. Buckley. The two men worked closely in an attempt to persuade the Republican Party to adopt Barry Goldwater as its presidential candidate. In September, 1960, Buckley, Douglas Caddy and Marvin Liebman established the far right group, Young Americans for Freedom (YAF). The first meeting was held at Buckley's home in Sharon, Connecticut. Caddy became YAF's first president. Its first national council included eleven members of the John Birch Society. The main mission of the YAF was to “prepare young people for the struggle ahead with Liberalism, Socialism and Communism”.

In 1961 Welch published The Politician (better known as the Black Book). In the book Welch accused Franklin D. Roosevelt of deliberately encouraging Japan to bomb Pearl Harbor. He described George Marshall as being "a conscious, deliberate, and dedicated agent of the Soviet conspiracy." Harry S. Truman had been used, "with his knowledge and acquiescence" by the communists who "controlled his administration". His most dramatic charge concerned Dwight Eisenhower who was said to have been "knowingly receiving and abiding by Communist orders, and consciously serving the Communist conspiracy, for all his adult life."

In April 1961 Major General Edwin Walker, commander of the 24th Infantry Division in Europe and stationed in Augsburg, Germany was accused of indoctrinating his troops with right-wing literature from the John Birch Society. With the agreement of President John F. Kennedy, Defense Secretary Robert McNarmara relieved Walker of his command an announced an investigation into the affair. Kennedy was accused of trying to suppress the anti-Communist feelings of the military. Walker resigned from the army in protest about the way he had been treated. In September 1961 Walker organized the protests against the enrollment of James Meredith at the University of Mississippi. Attorney General Robert Kennedy responded by issuing a warrant for Walker's arrest on the charges of seditious conspiracy, insurrection, and rebellion.

Walker now became a leading figure in the fight against what he considered to be the liberal establishment. Based in Dallas, he gave many speeches around the country denouncing communism and liberalism. In February 1962 Walker stood for governor of Texas. Although he gained the support of Barry Goldwater, Walker finished last and John Connally went on to be governor.

On 10th April, 1963, Edwin Walker was victim of an assassination attempt while he sat at a desk in his Dallas home. It was later claimed that Lee Harvey Oswald had taken the shot at Walker. Marina Oswald reported that she "asked him what happened, and he said that he just tried to shoot General Walker. I asked him who General Walker was. I mean how dare you to go and claim somebody's life, and he said "Well, what would you say if somebody got rid of Hitler at the right time? So if you don't know about General Walker, how can you speak up on his behalf?." Because he told me... he was something equal to what he called him a fascist."

Welch continued to work with William F. Buckley to help Barry Goldwater become the Republican Party candidate in the forthcoming presidential election. However, both Buckley and Goldwater grew increasingly concerned about the public image of Welch and the John Birch Society. Buckley was especially concerned about Welch's claims that the much loved Dwight Eisenhower was an agent of the American Communist Party.

Welch continued to claim that the Republican Party had been infiltrated by secret supporters of a communist conspiracy. One member of the JBS, Phyllis Schlafly, published a book, A Choice, Not an Echo, where she claimed that the party was being controlled by elitist intellectuals dominated by members of the Bilderberger group, whose policies were "designed to usher in global communist conquest". "A Choice, Not an Echo" became one of Goldwater's campaign slogans.

The JBS also claimed that John F. Kennedy and other leading members of the Democratic Party were part of this communist conspiracy. After the assassination of Kennedy the JBS turned its attention towards the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1964, another member of the JBS, J. Evetts Haley, published A Texan Looks at Lyndon. In the book Haley attempted to expose Johnson's corrupt political activities. This included a detailed look at the relationship between Johnson and Billy Sol Estes. Haley pointed out that three men who could have provided evidence in court against Estes, George Krutilek, Harold Orr and Howard Pratt, all died of carbon monoxide poisoning from car engines.

Haley also suggested that Johnson might have been responsible for the death of John F. Kennedy: "Johnson wanted power and with all his knowledge of political strategy and his proven control of Congress, he could see wider horizons of power as Vice-President than as Senate Majority Leader. In effect, by presiding over the Senate, he could now conceive himself as virtually filling both high and important positions - and he was not far from wrong. Finally, as Victor Lasky pointed out, Johnson had nursed a lifetime dream to be President. As Majority leader he never could have made it. But as Vice-president fate could always intervene."

It was estimated in 1964 that the John Birch Society was spending $10 million a year on 7,000 weekly television and radio broadcasts. The editor of the Idaho Statesman wrote: "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.”

The JBS continued to grow and by 1964 it had an income of $3,000,000 and employed a staff of 200. Around 100 people were employed at the JBS headquarters in Belmont, a suburb of Boston. In a survey carried out in 1964, the JBS was supported by 11 per cent of Americans. Despite this, Welch believed that the communist conspiracy continued to flourish. In 1970 he wrote in American Opinion that "America is becoming increasingly socialist. It is obvious that socialist government increasingly controls us from the cradle to the crematorium."

Welch regularly published a "Scoreboard" showing the degree to which various countries are supposed to be under communist control. When he started the JBS he claimed that the USA was 20-40 per cent communist-controlled. By 1978 he claimed it had reached 60-80 per cent.

Robert W. Welch died on 6th January, 1965 and Lawrence P. McDonald replaced him as chairman of the John Birch Society. Interestingly, McDonald was on board the Korean Air Flight KAL-007 when it was shot down by Soviet fighters on 1st September, 1983. He therefore became the first and only congressman ever killed by the Soviets during the Cold War. Some people, including Jesse Helms and Jerry Falwell, believe that McDonald was targeted by the Soviets.

[Mark Knight]

John wrote:

Welch regularly published a "Scoreboard" showing the degree to which various countries are supposed to be under communist control. When he started the JBS he claimed that the USA was 20-40 per cent communist-controlled. By 1978 he claimed it had reached 60-80 per cent.

Robert W. Welch died on 6th January, 1965...

Now, John...while I may not be qualified to question your facts...if Robert Welch died in 1965, I think it highly unlikely that he claimed anything except perhaps a cemetary plot by 1978...although sometimes I wonder if Welch may have been reincarnated as Rush Limbaugh [just substitute the word "liberal" for "communist," and "moderate" for the phrase "communist sympathizer"].

[John Simkin]

John wrote:

Welch regularly published a "Scoreboard" showing the degree to which various countries are supposed to be under communist control. When he started the JBS he claimed that the USA was 20-40 per cent communist-controlled. By 1978 he claimed it had reached 60-80 per cent.

Robert W. Welch died on 6th January, 1965...

Now, John...while I may not be qualified to question your facts...if Robert Welch died in 1965, I think it highly unlikely that he claimed anything except perhaps a cemetary plot by 1978...although sometimes I wonder if Welch may have been reincarnated as Rush Limbaugh [just substitute the word "liberal" for "communist," and "moderate" for the phrase "communist sympathizer"].

Sorry, it was a typo. It should read 1985.

[William Kelly]

Is the John Birch Society Responsible for Spreading Most of the JFK Assassination Conspiracy Theories?

30th October 2010

" … It's no wonder that the Kennedy assassination has become associated with crackpots and nutcases as most of the stories and misleading information were spread by right-wing whack-jobs like the Birchers. … "

month after President Kennedy was assassinated, one of the founders of the John Birch Society came out with an article entitled, "Marksmanship in Dallas". Revilo Pendleton Oliver, the man whom JBS figurehead Robert Welch described as, "quite possibly the world's greatest living scholar," outlines some of the great conspiracy theories that would dominate the JFK assassination debate over the next forty years.

Revilo's article is extremely disturbing and demonstrates how much the far-right hated JFK and how much contempt they had for liberals, blacks and Jews at the time. Revilo asserts that Oswald was a communist and had help communists everywhere, including with the U.S. government. This article would unleash a flood of far-right literature designed to obfuscate the facts of the assassination.

It's no wonder that the Kennedy assassination has become associated with crackpots and nutcases as most of the stories and misleading information were spread by right-wing whack-jobs like the Birchers. Their message always seems to be, don't trust the government or the political left ,while implicating the usual suspects; it's all part of a communist plot, or maybe LBJ was involved with help from the CIA, possibly the Illuminati, and you can bet that the one-worlders in the Council of Foreign Relations were behind it. In all the noise, an American President's murder becomes a joke and any possible conspirators walk cleanly away.

A careful reading of the record reveals that the major conspiracy authors have a lot in common with the John Birch Society perspective; don't trust the government, the government's out to get you, and the government will lie to you if they can get away with it. In 1969 this was Jim Garrison's case in a nutshell. …

Many of the JFK conspiracy propagators share something else; connections with extremist organizations and groups. Mark Lane, author of "Rush to Judgement," ended up working for the ultra-racist Liberty Lobby and defended people like James Earl Ray and holocaust denier Willis Carto. Revilo P. Oliver went on to develop the National Alliance with William Pierce, and then went to work for the Institute for Historical Review in trying to discredit the Holocaust. Victor Marchetti and Fletcher Prouty were others who used the Orange County-based Holocaust denial network to spread their stories.

Oliver Stone's 1991 movie, JFK, seems to have brought the John Birch Society story to the big screen. While clearing Lee Harvey Oswald, the Yale-trained filmmaker managed to blame the CIA, Naval Intelligence, the Secret Service, the FBI, and Lyndon Johnson! It is odd that a perceived liberal like Stone would saddle up to the same positions as extremists on the far right. It demonstrates, however, how much influence the John Birch Society has had on the death of a Democratic president.

This article was originally published on Saturday, December 22, 2007

Aaron Dahl

1. Mary Chrisitne says: October 30, 2010 at 4:40 pm so what's the point? Granted these people might put a commie or goofy spin on it, but the evidence points in precisely the combo cia mafia lbj oni etc. direction
   that the extremeists mention.
   That they say don't trust the government, is merely a start for trust them instead, not a proof that the JFK conspiracy theories are wrong.
   One way to defang a dangerous upsurge in seeing through you is to get on the bandwagon, with some twists thrown in.
3. admin says: October 30, 2010 at 5:15 pm "so what's the point? Granted these people might put a commie or goofy spin on it, but the evidence points in precisely the combo cia mafia lbj oni etc. direction"
   You've been drinking the Kool-Aid, put LBJ and Mafia in the middle of it, and fail to even mention "Minutemen" (Birchers), Nazis, at the core. Your formula isn't Posnerized, so you're step up – it's "Birched." The widely-publicized Mafia template is a contrived distraction. Same with the LBJ books.
   You are apparently confused about the assassination because you fell for the misinformation, and it is MEANT to confuse you.
   "… they say don't trust the government … "
   They MEAN don't trust liberal, Democratic government that serves the interests of the people. This is why Birchers demonize "big government," health care, any expenditure that serves the common good. They serve the same military-industrial corporations that financed Germany's Nazi Party. Do you trust THEM? Birchers are the ultimate corporatists, and the conspiracy theory is a programming tool. Eisenhower was called a "communist" to drive the proles drinking their Kool-Aid even further to the right during the Cold War. The MO is the same today. It's a transparent psychological manipulation once you realize that Birchers are in the business of mental programming via the usual fascist methods of scapegoating, ultra-nationalism, red-baiting, ersatz propaganda and conspiracism, etc.
   - AC
4. John Judge says: October 30, 2010 at 9:47 pm Mae Brussell pointed out long ago that there were John Birch society ties to the JFK assassination. In fact, the first complete set of early critical books and the Warren Commission volumes I ever saw was on a visit with my family to the home of the head of the JBS in Texas. Of course they spread disinformation, as did the planted critics like Mark Lane. The intelligence and government agencies have to cover both ends, and do damage control by appearing to be the critics themselves. James Earl Ray was not a racist, as this article implies. I recommend the new book Memoir of Injustice by T Carter due in January from Trine Day, written with Ray's brother Jerry for more insight into this patsy. The whole point of the Birch society anti-Communist analysis was to cover the tracks of the fascists and the rise of the Military Industrial Intelligence Complex Eisenhower saw coming, and the power shift to the Southern Rim economy that followed WWII. Birchers point only to the eastern establishment, never to the oil, aerospace, munitions and other money that paid for the Kennedy assassination. Mark Lane has been a lawyer for John Hinckley, E. Howard Hunt, Jim Jones of Jonestown infamy, Grace Walden Stevens, and most recently for the hack plagiarist Gerald Posner who defends the lone nut thesis on JFK and MLK, in direct opposition to Lane's supposed beliefs. While the Birchers and their assets blew smoke to cover the tracks of ONI, the Pentagon and the Nazis that Garrison and Mae pointed to (not some fuzzy dishonest government as implied here, but specific people in the Joint Chiefs and down the chain) involved in killing JFK, the real JFK researchers went unpublished, scorned and ignored but they won their case with the public anyway. The earliest ones were mostly women, save for Oliver who had his own reasons to cover the killers' tracks. You can read about them in John Kelin's excellent In Praise of An Earlier Generation. Field appointed Brigadier General Penn Jones, Jr. in Texas, investigator and writer Josiah Thompson, Sylvia Meagher who deconstructed the Accessories After the Fact early on, Richard Popkin who noticed The Second Oswald, academician Peter Dale Scott who is still dissecting the hidden state and deep politics and connections forward, courageous forensic scientist and coroner Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, political analyst Carl Oglesby who discerned a Yankee Cowboy War, and the indefatigueable Mae Brussell, housewife and daughter of Rabbi I. Magnin in Los Angeles who took apart the Commission volumes and then clipped and read the news making weekly connections on her radio shows that not only shone light on the past but predicted the horrid future we now live in. Nowadays, all conspiracies are lumped together. But the hard evidence only leads in one direction, to the Pentagon. Marchetti and Prouty have to be seen in their context as lifelong intelligence agents who may have represented factions within the agencies that wanted to get out the truth, but linking up with the Holocaust deniers was clearly not the way to do it. On the other hand, the left press never wanted to touch the real stories behind the news or seem to believe in conspiracies, which by then was seen as your writer sees them, a purview only of the right wing. Chip Berlet, Michael Albert of Z magazine and the Chomsky acolytes love to lump all conspiracy research into either irrelevance or right wing fantasy. I study historical conspiracies that arise from the class structure itself and its divisions, and the rise of global fascism that we live under. I indict the right wing for their part in all this. I am a progressive activist. I have nothing to do with John Birch or the Holocaust deniers and none of the real JFK researchers mentioned above did either. This convoluted little smear on our work fails to recognize the role disinformation plays in any covert operation. It is like the cute ploy of our critics who say we name so many groups as responsible that it would be impossible to keep secret or coordinate. Part of the right wing smoke is to obfuscate the reason for the murder, so the Birchers love to point to a small run of silver certificates JFK approved to claim the Federal Reserve must have had him killed. Hardly, but it avoids, as always talking about the war in Vietnam, the Cold War, the Joint Chiefs, the MIC, the military intelligence apparatus that consumes 85% of its budget since it started (out of $80 billion now admitted) and makes the CIA and FBI into the think tank toys they are, the oil tax depletion allowance the Kennedy brothers wanted to kill, the Castro assassination plots they tried to stop, the moves toward ending the nuclear arms race and detente with the USSR which the same plotters had foiled with the U-2 incident when Eisenhower met Kruschev, the civil rights movement, the JFK plan to withdraw from Vietnam in 1964, the push to end organized crime which was closely linked to both ONI and CIA, the international drug traffic connection that was being discovered, the wish to scatter the CIA to "the four winds", the abandonment of General Landsdale's failed approach to use covert operations in place of overt wars, the wish for real peace, and the sense of hope for social justice against the old order that JFK and RFK began to create and support. It was these same factors that led to the same forces killing Dr. King and Robert Kennedy in 1968, as well as their fear that the JFK case would be reopened. Read Talbot's book Brothers to understand. Jim Douglass gets it in JFK and the Unspeakable, who killed JFK and why. The why is everything and that is what the right wing and the DIA want to hide the most. The people who broke open the Kennedy case and exposed the Warren Commission were progressives not right wingers. It was their hard work over the years that convinced nearly 90% of the public that there was a conspiracy. Oliver Stone did not do a John Birch society movie, he wrote from the work of the real critics in the case. Mae Brussell assisted Jim Garrison's case, not the right wing. Just because someone tells you the government is lying to you does not mean they are telling the truth. But just because someone says the government is lying does not make them a right wing nut. The Coalition on Political Assassinations holds annual meetings in Dallas each year near November 22 and presents the best real evidence in these political murders then and now. See http://www.politicalassassinations.com and realize that not all conspiracies are created equal. John Judge

[Douglas Caddy]

Harry Dean has posted on different threads about the links between the John Birch Society and the assassination of JFK. I thought we should have a thread devoted to this issue.

Robert Winborne Welch is an interesting character. A fundamentalist Baptist, Welch attended the United States Naval Academy and Harvard Law School but dropped out of both institutions before graduating.

Welch founded the Oxford Candy Company in Brooklyn, New York. He initialy employed his brother James but in 1925 he left to form his own confectionary company.

The Oxford Candy Company went out of business during the Great Depression. Welch now went to work for his brother's more successful company. Over the years the James Welch Company introduced a wide range of popular products including Sugar Babies, Junior Mints and Pom Poms.

Robert Welch retired as a very wealthy man in 1956. He used some of this money to fund various extreme right-wing causes. This included supporting the work of Joseph McCarthy and other aspects of McCarthyism. In 1958 he established the John Birch Society (JBS). The organization was named after Captain John Birch, a member of the China Air Task Force murdered by Chinese communists on 25th August, 1945.

Welch made it clear he wanted a "secret, monolithic organization" that would "operate under completely autoritative control at all levels". Welch explained that "democracy is merely a deceptive phrase, a weapon of demagoguery, and a perennial fraud".

In 1958 Welch became editor and publisher of the monthly magazine American Opinion. Contributors to this right-wing journal included Martin Dies and Westbrook Pegler.

Welch believed that Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower, were part of a communist conspiracy. Welch sent out a letter claiming that President Eisenhower was a "conscious, dedicated agent of the Communist Conspiracy". In 1956 Welch wrote that other top government officials such as John Foster Dulles and Allan W. Dulles were "communist tools".

The John Birch Society was also opposed to the Civil Rights movement. Welch was one of the first to attack the government of Fidel Castro. In the February 1959 issue of American Opinion, Welch wrote "the fact that Castro was, and all of his adult life had been, a vicious, lying, brutal, murdering Communist."

The John Birch Society called on its members to urge Congress to stop foreign aid. It also campaigned against attempts by those organizations trying to abolish the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA). The JBS was also totally opposed to the United Nations, an organization it claimed was involved in "an insidious scheme to establish a tyrannical world government".

By 1961 Welch claimed that the John Birch Society had nearly 100,000 members. The JBS was very popular in Dallas, Miami, Palm Beach, Los Angeles and Houston. One member was Dan Smoot, the author of The Invisible Government. In the book 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".

Another important supporter of the JBS was William F. Buckley. The two men worked closely in an attempt to persuade the Republican Party to adopt Barry Goldwater as its presidential candidate. In September, 1960, Buckley, Douglas Caddy and Marvin Liebman established the far right group, Young Americans for Freedom (YAF). The first meeting was held at Buckley's home in Sharon, Connecticut. Caddy became YAF's first president. Its first national council included eleven members of the John Birch Society. The main mission of the YAF was to “prepare young people for the struggle ahead with Liberalism, Socialism and Communism”.

In 1961 Welch published The Politician (better known as the Black Book). In the book Welch accused Franklin D. Roosevelt of deliberately encouraging Japan to bomb Pearl Harbor. He described George Marshall as being "a conscious, deliberate, and dedicated agent of the Soviet conspiracy." Harry S. Truman had been used, "with his knowledge and acquiescence" by the communists who "controlled his administration". His most dramatic charge concerned Dwight Eisenhower who was said to have been "knowingly receiving and abiding by Communist orders, and consciously serving the Communist conspiracy, for all his adult life."

In April 1961 Major General Edwin Walker, commander of the 24th Infantry Division in Europe and stationed in Augsburg, Germany was accused of indoctrinating his troops with right-wing literature from the John Birch Society. With the agreement of President John F. Kennedy, Defense Secretary Robert McNarmara relieved Walker of his command an announced an investigation into the affair. Kennedy was accused of trying to suppress the anti-Communist feelings of the military. Walker resigned from the army in protest about the way he had been treated. In September 1961 Walker organized the protests against the enrollment of James Meredith at the University of Mississippi. Attorney General Robert Kennedy responded by issuing a warrant for Walker's arrest on the charges of seditious conspiracy, insurrection, and rebellion.

Walker now became a leading figure in the fight against what he considered to be the liberal establishment. Based in Dallas, he gave many speeches around the country denouncing communism and liberalism. In February 1962 Walker stood for governor of Texas. Although he gained the support of Barry Goldwater, Walker finished last and John Connally went on to be governor.

On 10th April, 1963, Edwin Walker was victim of an assassination attempt while he sat at a desk in his Dallas home. It was later claimed that Lee Harvey Oswald had taken the shot at Walker. Marina Oswald reported that she "asked him what happened, and he said that he just tried to shoot General Walker. I asked him who General Walker was. I mean how dare you to go and claim somebody's life, and he said "Well, what would you say if somebody got rid of Hitler at the right time? So if you don't know about General Walker, how can you speak up on his behalf?." Because he told me... he was something equal to what he called him a fascist."

Welch continued to work with William F. Buckley to help Barry Goldwater become the Republican Party candidate in the forthcoming presidential election. However, both Buckley and Goldwater grew increasingly concerned about the public image of Welch and the John Birch Society. Buckley was especially concerned about Welch's claims that the much loved Dwight Eisenhower was an agent of the American Communist Party.

Welch continued to claim that the Republican Party had been infiltrated by secret supporters of a communist conspiracy. One member of the JBS, Phyllis Schlafly, published a book, A Choice, Not an Echo, where she claimed that the party was being controlled by elitist intellectuals dominated by members of the Bilderberger group, whose policies were "designed to usher in global communist conquest". "A Choice, Not an Echo" became one of Goldwater's campaign slogans.

The JBS also claimed that John F. Kennedy and other leading members of the Democratic Party were part of this communist conspiracy. After the assassination of Kennedy the JBS turned its attention towards the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1964, another member of the JBS, J. Evetts Haley, published A Texan Looks at Lyndon. In the book Haley attempted to expose Johnson's corrupt political activities. This included a detailed look at the relationship between Johnson and Billy Sol Estes. Haley pointed out that three men who could have provided evidence in court against Estes, George Krutilek, Harold Orr and Howard Pratt, all died of carbon monoxide poisoning from car engines.

Haley also suggested that Johnson might have been responsible for the death of John F. Kennedy: "Johnson wanted power and with all his knowledge of political strategy and his proven control of Congress, he could see wider horizons of power as Vice-President than as Senate Majority Leader. In effect, by presiding over the Senate, he could now conceive himself as virtually filling both high and important positions - and he was not far from wrong. Finally, as Victor Lasky pointed out, Johnson had nursed a lifetime dream to be President. As Majority leader he never could have made it. But as Vice-president fate could always intervene."

It was estimated in 1964 that the John Birch Society was spending $10 million a year on 7,000 weekly television and radio broadcasts. The editor of the Idaho Statesman wrote: "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.”

The JBS continued to grow and by 1964 it had an income of $3,000,000 and employed a staff of 200. Around 100 people were employed at the JBS headquarters in Belmont, a suburb of Boston. In a survey carried out in 1964, the JBS was supported by 11 per cent of Americans. Despite this, Welch believed that the communist conspiracy continued to flourish. In 1970 he wrote in American Opinion that "America is becoming increasingly socialist. It is obvious that socialist government increasingly controls us from the cradle to the crematorium."

Welch regularly published a "Scoreboard" showing the degree to which various countries are supposed to be under communist control. When he started the JBS he claimed that the USA was 20-40 per cent communist-controlled. By 1978 he claimed it had reached 60-80 per cent.

Robert W. Welch died on 6th January, 1965 and Lawrence P. McDonald replaced him as chairman of the John Birch Society. Interestingly, McDonald was on board the Korean Air Flight KAL-007 when it was shot down by Soviet fighters on 1st September, 1983. He therefore became the first and only congressman ever killed by the Soviets during the Cold War. Some people, including Jesse Helms and Jerry Falwell, believe that McDonald was targeted by the Soviets.

Of the founding board of directors of Young Americans for Freedom, organized at the Buckley Family estate in Sharon,Connecticut in 1960, only one director to my knowledge was a member of the John Birch Society. This was Scott Stanley, who became editor of the Society's magazine. Scott was always temperate and moderate in expressing his opinions at board meetings. I would be interested to learn who the other 10 were as mentioned above. Our board president was Robert Schuchman, a brilliant Jewish student enrolled at Yale Law School. Another director was Howard Phillips, another brilliant Jewish student enrolled at Harvard Univesity, where he was President of the Harvard Student Council. David Franke, another director, worked at Buckley's magazine, National Review, which was critical of the Society in its editorials.

[Thomas H. Purvis]

Lest one either neglect to research or merely forget:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5068&st=30

1. David Judson Dobbs & Martha Josephine Prothro

2. Son: James Monroe Dobbs (brother to Herbert Clifton Dobbs & Uncle to Annie Hahr Dobbs Pawley)

3. Daughter of James Monroe Dobbs: Emma Hahr Dobbs, first cousin of Annie Hahr Dobbs Pawley

4. Emma Hahr Dobbs: Marries Walter Herbert Smith

5. Eugene Hamilton Smith:-------Father to Walter Herbert Smith

6. Father of Eugene Hamilton Smith:-----Dr. Charles Moody Smith

7. Mother of Eugene Hamilton Smith:------Eliza Green Birch

8. Father of Eliza Green Birch:-------John Neville Birch (Sr)

9. Brother of Eliza Green Birch:-----John Neville Birch (II)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

John Neville Birch (II)

1. Son:---George Snider Birch (Sr,), marries Elizabeth Mae Morrison

2. George Snider Birch (II), son of George Snider Birch (Sr.) & Elizabeth Mae Morrison

Marries: Ethel Mae Ellis

3. John Morrison Birch:

Born: 28 May, 1918 in Landaur India

Death: 25 August, 1945 in China

====================================================================================================================

Emma Hahr Dobbs was first cousin to Annie Hahr Dobbs (wife of William Pawley)

Therefore, the children of William Pawley & Annie Hahr Dobbs were in fact distant cousins to John Birch.

John Birch was born in India where his father was reportedly a minister.

It should therefore come as no great surprise that William Pawley helped establish an aircraft manufacturing company in India as well.

"In 1944 Pawley became president of the Industan Aircraft Manufacturing Company in Bangalore, India. Pawley was responsible for building India's first ammonium-sulfate plant in Trannvancore."