John Birch Society
The John Birch Society, an anticommunist organization, was founded in 1958 by candy manufacturer Robert Welch (1899–1980). Welch was a North Carolinian raised as a fundamentalist Baptist. A child prodigy, he graduated from the University of North Carolina at age sixteen and entered the business world, eventually founding his own candy company (inventing the Sugar Daddy), and after its failure during the Great Depression, becoming the director of sales at his brother's candy firm. He was a passionate anticommunist, growing more so in the early years of the Cold War. In 1954 he published The Life of John Birch, the story of a Baptist missionary killed by Chinese communists in 1945 (ostensibly the first American victim of the Cold War).
Welch served on the board of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), a business organization critical of governmental intervention in the economy. In December 1958, using his ties to business and industrial leaders in NAM, Welch called for a weekend-long retreat where he formed the John Birch Society, an organization dedicated to the exposure of communism in America and the advocacy of vigilance at home and abroad against the communist threat. The Birch Society grew rapidly—many of Welch's colleagues in NAM became council members—publishing a newsletter and monthly magazine, American Opinion. The organization, however, was run by Welch; his pronouncements on the communist threat determined the activities and program for the organization.
The public awareness of the John Birch Society exploded in 1960 with the revelation that Welch had labeled President Eisenhower, in a privately printed and distributed book, The Politician, as "a dedicated, conscious agent of the communist conspiracy." Welch was criticized for his statements, and he defended them by stating that they were never for public consumption, but the perception lingered that the Birch Society was a threat to democracy. Nevertheless, the Society grew tremendously (claiming close to 100,000 members by 1964), with some of its more important chapters in California (Orange County, California, had the most chapters in the country). Members often discussed the threat of communism at suburban coffee klatches (in many cases members were women) and supported politicians such as Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, who addressed their concerns. Goldwater was not a member, but spoke well of the people who were and relied on them for political support in his 1964 presidential campaign.
Anti-Communism
The public exposure of Welch's views led to newspaper and magazine investigations into the Birch Society and some of its more extreme anticommunist theories. The publication by the Anti-Defamation League of Arnold Forster's and Benjamin Epstein's Danger on the Right (1964) highlighted (and overstated) connections between the Birch Society and mainstream conservative figures. Still, such exposés gave pause to conservatives who feared the ruin of their movement by being branded with the broad brush of extremism. National Review editor William F. Buckley, Jr., attacked Robert Welch in 1961, and "excommunicated" him from the conservative movement in 1963. Buckley made a distinction between Welch and the activism of most Birch members, urging the latter to separate themselves from Welch's radical pronouncements. If conservatives were to win political influence, Welch's influence had to be tempered.
The Kennedy administration was also concerned about the John Birch Society, leading to an Internal Revenue Service investigation of the organization in the early 1960s. The assassination of President Kennedy brought an end to such efforts, but the concern of liberals in Washington about the threat of a right-wing coup was magnified by the success of grass-roots organizations like the Birch Society in their recruitment of members and their political activism.
After the 1964 election, the Birch Society faded from public concern and experienced a decline in membership. While the John Birch Society continues to exist in the early twenty-first century (headquartered in Appleton, Wisconsin), serving as the focal point for anticommunist, antiworld government, and anti-immigrant conspiracy theories on the far right, the death of its founder in 1980 proved the end point of the most active phase of the Birch Society. Nevertheless, in the early 1960s the Birch Society's influence on the shaping of anticommunist politics was profound. Dedicated to the cause of exposing treason at home, the Birch Society continued in a legacy of what historian Richard Gid Powers in his book Not Without Honor: The History of American Anticommunism has called "conspiratorial anticommunism," a viewpoint deeply rooted in the history of anticommunist organizations during the twentieth century.
Americanism Vs. Godless Communism; Communism and Anticommunism; Goldwater, Barry.
Bibliography
Andrew, John A. Power to Destroy: The Political Use of the IRS from the Kennedy to Nixon Administrations. Chicago, IL: I.R. Dee, 2002.
McGirr, Lisa. Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001.
Powers, Richard Gid. Not Without Honor: The History of American Anticommunism. New York: Free Press, 1995.
Schoenwald, Jonathon M. A Time for Choosing: The Rise of Modern American Conservatism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Welch, Robert. The Politician. Belmont, MA: Belmont Publishing Company, 1963.
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