Origin: The John Birch Society, per the late anti-fascist journalist George Seldes, is a spin-off of the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), an influential right-wing corporate lobbying and propaganda front. SourceWatch: “The John Birch Society (JBS) is a conservative U.S. organization that was founded in 1958 to fight the threat of Communism. It represents itself as “a membership-based organization dedicated to restoring and preserving freedom under the United States Constitution. JBS advocates the abolition of income tax, and the repeal of civil rights legislation, which it sees as being Communist in inspiration. For this reason, its opponents characterize it as a white citizens’ society dedicated to preventing minorities from gaining political power. At one time, the John Birch Society was very powerful and members included prominent residents of California including the Knott family. In their early days, Birchers shared a common ideology and some overlapping membership with Fred Schwarz and his California-based Christian Anti-communism Crusade. …
“By March of 1961, Welch claimed between 60,000 and 100,000 members–but a more realistic estimate is closer to 10,000. … According to its profile by Political Research Associates, JBS “pioneered grassroots lobbying, combining educational meetings, petition drives, and letter writing campaigns. One early campaign against the second Summit Conference between the US and the Soviet Union generated over 600,000 postcards and letters..”
“The JBS was viewed by mainstream journalists and politicians as an extremist, wing-nut organization of conspiracy theorists. Much of its 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 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.'”
John Birch
Religion
28-May-1918
25-Aug-1945
Missionary to China killed during WW2
Willis Carto
Activist
17-Jul-1926
Founder of Liberty Lobby, IHR
Joseph Coors, Sr.
Business
12-Nov-1917
15-Mar-2003
Ultraconservative beer baron
Kent H. Courtney
Activist
23-Oct-1918
12-Aug-1997
Ultraconservative activist
William J. Grede
Business
24-Feb-1897
5-Jun-1989
Grede Foundries, Inc.
Edgar W. Hiestand
Politician
3-Dec-1888
19-Aug-1970
Congressman from California, 1953-63
H. L. Hunt
Business
17-Feb-1889
29-Nov-1974
Founder of Hunt Oil
Nelson Bunker Hunt
Business
22-Feb-1926
Tried to corner the silver market
Fred C. Koch
Business
23-Sep-1900
Nov-1967
Founder, Koch Industries
Alfred Kohlberg
Business
27-Jan-1887
7-Apr-1960
The China Lobby Man
Tim LaHaye
Religion
27-Apr-1926
Left Behind series
Pat Manion
Radio Personality
1896
1979
Manion Forum
Robert Mathews
Criminal
16-Jan-1953
8-Dec-1984
White supremacist died in shootout with FBI
Larry McDonald
Politician
1-Apr-1935
1-Sep-1983
Congressman from Georgia, 1975-83
John F. McManus
Activist
1935
President, John Birch Society
Evan Mecham
Politician
12-May-1924
22-Feb-2008
Governor of Arizona, 1987-88
Tom Metzger
Activist
9-Apr-1938
White supremacist
Revilo P. Oliver
Activist
7-Jul-1908
10-Aug-1994
Founding member, John Birch Society
Westbrook Pegler
Columnist
2-Aug-1894
24-Jun-1969
Ultraconservative newspaper columnist
William Pierce
Author
11-Sep-1933
23-Jul-2002
The Turner Diaries
Archie Roosevelt
Relative
9-Apr-1894
13-Oct-1979
Conservative leader against New Deal
John H. Rousselot
Politician
1-Nov-1927
11-May-2003
Congressman from California, 1961-63 & 1970-83
John G. Schmitz
Politician
12-Aug-1930
10-Jan-2001
Congressman from California, 1970-73
Eric Show
Baseball
19-May-1956
16-Mar-1994
MLB pitcher
Cleon Skousen
Activist
20-Jan-1913
9-Jan-2006
The Naked Communist
Kevin Strom
Activist
1956
Founder, National Vanguard
Arthur R. Thompson
Activist
1938
CEO, John Birch Society
Edwin A. Walker
Military
10-Nov-1909
31-Oct-1993
Ultraconservative activist
Robert Welch
Activist
1-Dec-1899
6-Jan-1985
Founder, John Birch Society
http://www.nndb.com/org/835/000041712/
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