Friday, December 9, 2022

Everything Old is New Again: The Founding of the John Birch Society


 December 9, 1958, Retired candy manufacturer Robert Welch saw communists. He saw them in the White House. He thought the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court had to be one. So on this day in Indianapolis he and a few other men founded the John Birch Society to stop the spread of “Collectivism” and agitation for civil rights by Blacks.

The political advocacy society was named by Welch after one John Birch, who was an American Baptist who went to China as a missionary in 1940 but became an intelligence officer during World War Two and then was killed by Chinese Communists in 1945, in Welch’s mind he was a fervent anti-communist and the first causality of the cold war.

Welch brought in the founding members of the JBS including Harry Lynde Bradley, co-founder of the Allen Bradley Company and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and Fred C. Koch, founder of Koch Industries. Koch's sons, David, and Charles Koch, were also members of the JBS. However, both left it before the 1970s.

Welch was a conspiratorial thinker who coined the now ubiquitous term, “New World Order” and the belief their objective was a “'one-world socialist government.” He was against integration and believed that the Brown vs Board of Education decision was a hallmark of communist thinking and was an avowed enemy of Chief Justice Earl Warren.

Welch wrote in a widely circulated 1954 statement, The Politician, "Could Eisenhower really be simply a smart politician, entirely without principles and hungry for glory, who is only the tool of the Communists? The answer is yes." He went on. "With regard to ... Eisenhower, it is difficult to avoid raising the question of deliberate treason

Welch was also against the Civil Rights Movement.  According to the JBS, it constituted a communist plot to build a “Negro Soviet Republic” in the United States.  The “average American Negro,” according to the JBS in 1965, “has complete freedom of religion, freedom of movement, and freedom to run his own life as he pleases.” 

The radical and extremist ideas of the JBC were a rallying cry for many conservatives through the 50s and 60s but they also caused much dissension in the Republican party. Goldwater didn’t want their support, Reagan did not fully distance himself and William F. Buckley believed Welch was a dangerous nut.

During the civil disruptions of the 60s the JBS grew and grew but by 1968 the popularity was weakening and today, while still existent, it is behind groups like the Oathkeepers.


Sources:

https://politicalresearch.org/2014/01/21/john-birch-societys-anti-civil-rights-campaign-1960s-and-its-relevance-today

https://www.ncdcr.gov/blog/2016/12/09/roots-john-birch-society

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/01/11/a-view-from-the-fringe

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