John Birch Society

The John Birch Society is a political education and action organization founded by Robert W. Welch Jr. in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1958. The society does not endorse specific political candidates, but is frequently associated with traditionally conservative causes such as anti-communism, and support for individual rights and the ownership of private property.cite web |url=http://www.jbs.org/index.php/about/core-principles |title=Core Principles |accessdate=2008-07-18 |publisher=The John Birch Society] It promotes U.S. independence and sovereignty and opposes globalism, especially international regional groups such as the European Union or what the society claims is a proposed North American Union. [cite web |url=http://www.jbs.org/index.php/issues/independence-a-sovereignty |title=National Sovereignty |accessdate=2008-07-18 |publisher=The John Birch Society |quote=The Society has always opposed the surrender of American sovereignty to any international organization, such as the United Nations, or the emerging North American Union.]

The Society is generally considered to be well to the right of the American political spectrum [cite book |last=Berlet |first=Chip |coauthors=Matthew Lyons |title=Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort |publisher=The Guilford Press |location=New York |year=2000 |pages=175–185 |isbn=1-57230-562-2] [cite book |last=Mintz |first=Frank P. |title=The Liberty Lobby and the American right: race, conspiracy, and culture |publisher=Greenwood Press |location=Westport, Conn |year=1985 |isbn=0-313-24393-X] and has been described as "ultraconservative" on its own website, which states "In the United States, however, a conservative is one who seeks to support and retain the traditional institutions of the U.S. government, including the rule of law under the Constitution, and the political doctrines of individual rights and freedom as espoused by the Founding Fathers." [cite web |url=http://www.jbs.org/index.php/jbs-news-feed/7-jbs-news-feed/1717-racism-and-the-john-birch-society |title=Racism and the John Birch Society |accessdate=2008-07-18 |last=Behreandt |first=Dennis |publisher=The John Birch Society |date=2008-05-29 ] However, with major changes in personalities, tactics, and ideologies within the conservative movement, the Society has been marginalized since the 1960s among mainstream conservatives. [cite book |last=Barkun |first=Michael |title=A culture of conspiracy: apocalyptic visions in contemporary America |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley |year=2003 |pages=178–190 |isbn=0-520-23805-2]

The society was named after John Birch, a United States military intelligence officer and Baptist missionary in World War II who was killed in 1945 by armed supporters of the Communist Party of China, and whom the society describes as "a patriotic exemplar." [cite web |url=http://www.jbs.org/index.php/about/john-birch |title=John Birch: A Patriotic Exemplar |accessdate=2008-07-18 |publisher=The John Birch Society] His parents joined the society as life members. [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,874297-2,00.html ]

Based in Appleton, Wisconsin, the society says members come from all walks of life and are active in all 50 states via local chapters. Its mission is to achieve "Less Government, More Responsibility, and — With God's Help — a Better World."

The society's publishing arm, under which it has issued books on numerous topics, is known as American Opinion Publishing, which changed its name from John Birch Publishing on May 5, 1994. There is limited overlap of directors with Western Islands Publishing, a Massachusetts corporation, Mary T. Benoit of Appleton, WI, President. [http://corp.sec.state.ma.us/corp/corpsearch/corpsearchinput.asp]

Core values

The John Birch Society claims to be anti-totalitarian, particularly anti-socialist and anti-communist, and to lean libertarian. It generally seeks to limit the powers of government and defends what it sees as the original intention of the U.S. Constitution, rooted in Judeo-Christian principles. The John Birch Society opposes collectivism, including wealth redistribution, economic interventionism, socialism, communism, and fascism. In a 1983 edition of "Crossfire", Congressman Larry McDonald (D-Georgia), then its newly appointed chairman, characterized the group as most appropriately belonging to the Old Right, rather than the new right.cite web |url=http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=326_1203084840 |title=Larry McDonald on the New World Order |accessdate=2008-07-18 |publisher=Liveleak |date=2008-02-15]

During the 1960s, The John Birch Society opposed aspects of the Civil Rights Movement because of concerns that the movement had a number of communists in important positions. The John Birch Society opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act in the belief that it was in violation of the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and overstepped the rights of individual states to make laws regarding Civil Rights.

The John Birch Society is against a unified "one world government", and has an illegal immigration reduction view on immigration reform. It has opposed the United Nations, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), and other free trade agreements with other nations, believing them to be destructive to American principles, the economy, freedom and national sovereignty. It also opposes the teaching of evolution as Birch considered it to be "heresy". [cite news |title=Who was John Birch? |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,872243,00.html |work=Time |date=1961-04-14 |accessdate=2008-08-06]

The Society claims there is a devaluing of the US Constitution in favor of international government, and that this is not an accident. It cites David Rockefeller's 2002 autobiography "Memoirs" in which Rockefeller writes " Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as "internationalists" and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure—one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it." [cite book |last=Rockefeller |first=David |authorlink=David Rockefeller |title=Memoirs |publisher=Random House |location=New York |year=2002 |pages=405 |isbn=0-679-40588-7] [cite web |url=http://thenewamerican.com/node/5524 |title=The North American Union: Conspiracy Theory or Conspiracy Fact? |accessdate=2008-07-18 |first=Brian |last=Farmer |publisher=The John Birch Society |date=2007-09-17]

Origins

The John Birch Society was established in Indianapolis, Indiana on December 9, 1958 by a group of twelve "patriotic and public-spirited" men led by Robert Welch, Jr., a retired candy manufacturer from Belmont, Massachusetts. A noted founding member was Fred Koch, founder of Koch Industries, one of the largest private corporations in America. Another was Revilo Pendleton Oliver, a University of Illinois professor who later co-founded the racist National Alliance. A transcript of Welch's two-day presentation at the founding meeting was published as "The Blue Book of the John Birch Society" and became a cornerstone of its beliefs, with each new member receiving a copy.

According to Welch, "both the U.S. and Soviet governments are controlled by the same furtive conspiratorial cabal of internationalists, greedy bankers, and corrupt politicians. If left unexposed, the traitors inside the U.S. government would betray the country's sovereignty to the United Nations for a collectivist New World Order managed by a 'one-world socialist government.'" [cite book |last=Welch |first=Robert E. |title=Blue Book of the John Birch Society |publisher=American Opinion Books |year=1961 |isbn=0-88279-215-6] cite web |url=http://www.publiceye.org/tooclose/jbs.html |title=John Birch Society |accessdate=2008-07-18 |publisher=Political Research Associates]

Welch saw "collectivism" as the main threat to Western Civilization, and far-left liberals as "secret communist traitors" who provide cover for the gradual process of collectivism, with the ultimate goal of replacing the nations of western civilization with one-world socialist government. "There are many stages of welfarism, socialism, and collectivism in general," he wrote, "but Communism is the ultimate state of them all, and they all lead inevitably in that direction."

The society's objective has been to fight Communism and totalitarianism using some of Communism's own techniques—organization of front groups, infiltration of other groups, and letter-writing campaigns. It has organized grassroots chapters in every state and is the only Americanist organization to have full-time paid field staff assisting those chapters. Its activities include distribution of literature, pamphlets, magazines, videos and other educational material while sponsoring a Speaker's Bureau [ http://www.jbs.org/index.php/action/speakers-bureau ]

One of the first public activities of the JBS was a "Get US Out!" (of membership in the UN) campaign, which claimed in 1959 that the "Real nature of [the] UN is to build a One World Government." [cite book |author=Matthew Lyons; Berlet, Chip |title=Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort |publisher=The Guilford Press |location=New York |year=2000 |pages=179 |isbn=1-57230-562-2] In 1960, Welch advised JBS members to: "Join your local P.T.A. at the beginning of the school year, get your conservative friends to do likewise, and go to work to take it over." [cite book |last=French |first=William Marshall |title=American Secondary Education |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=180bAAAAMAAJ |accessdate=2008-07-20 |year=1967 |publisher=Odyssey Press |pages=477]

"One Man's Opinion", a magazine launched by Welch in 1956, was renamed "American Opinion" and became the John Birch Society's official publication. The society's current publication is called "The New American". [http://www.thenewamerican.com/]

1960s

By March 1961, the Society had an estimated 60,000 to 100,000 members and, according to Welch, "a staff of 28 people in the Home Office; about 30 Coordinators (or Major Coordinators) in the field, who are fully paid as to salary and expenses; and about 100 Coordinators (or Section Leaders as they are called in some areas), who work on a volunteer basis as to all or part of their salary, or expenses, or both." According to the "progressive" Political Research Associates, an organization "Researching the Right for Progressive Changemakers" [http://www.publiceye.org/ ] , the society "pioneered grassroots lobbying, combining educational meetings, petition drives and letter-writing campaigns. One early campaign against the second summit between the United States and the Soviet Union generated over 600,000 postcards and letters, according to the Society. A June 1964 Birch campaign to oppose Xerox corporate sponsorship of TV programs favorable to the UN produced 51,279 letters from 12,785 individuals." The Birchers' ad-hoc special issues committees have been effective in creating awareness about issues which they believe to be affecting the American way of life.

Much of the Society's early views, according to Political Research Associates, "reflects an ultra-conservative business nationalist critique of business internationalists networked through groups such as the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)." Birchers elaborated on an earlier Illuminati/Freemason conspiracy theory, imagining "an unbroken ideologically driven conspiracy linking the Illuminati, the French Revolution, the rise of Marxism and Communism, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the United Nations". Unlike some advocates of the Illuminati-Freemason conspiracy theory, however, the Birch Society strenuously denies harboring any anti-Semitic or anti-masonic ideas, and indeed claims many Jews among its membership.

Anti-Jewish, racist, anti-Mormon, anti-Masonic, and religious groups criticized the group's acceptance of Jews, nonwhites, Masons, the large number of Mormons in the Society (Ezra Taft Benson, a leader in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, encouraged people to join it), and Welch's alleged feminist, ecumenical, and evolutionary ideas. [cite web |url=http://www.thebirdman.org/Index/NetLoss/NetLoss-Oliver.html |title=The John Birch Society -- Exposed! |accessdate=2008-07-18 |first=John |last=Bryant] [cite web |url=http://www.mormoninquiry.typepad.com/mormon_inquiry/2006/06/a_spectre_was_h.html |title=A Spectre Haunting Mormonism |accessdate=2008-07-18] [cite web |url=http://www.watch.pair.com/belmont.html |title=The Belmont Brotherhood |accessdate=2008-07-18 |first=Nicholas J., Jr. |last=Bove]

Ayn Rand said in a "Playboy" interview that "What is wrong with them is that they don't seem to have any specific, clearly defined political philosophy. ... I consider the Birch Society futile, because they are not for Capitalism but merely against Communism." [cite web |url=http://www.ellensplace.net/ar_pboy.html |title=who was Ayn Rand? - a biography, Playboy interview, 1964 |accessdate=2008-07-18] [ http://www.objectivistcenter.org/cth--836-The_Lost_Parts_Ayn_Rands_Playboy_Interview.aspx ]

In October 1964, the "Idaho Statesman" newspaper expressed concern about what it called an "ominous" increase in "ultra-right" radio and television broadcasts, which it said then numbered 7,000 weekly and cost an estimated $10 million annually. "By virtue of saturation tactics used, radical, reactionary propaganda is producing an impact even on large numbers of people who, themselves, are in no sense extremists or sympathetic to extremist views," declared a "Statesman" editorial. "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."

John Birch Society influence on U.S. politics hit its high point in the years around the failed 1964 presidential campaign of Republican candidate Barry Goldwater, who lost to incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson. Welch had supported Goldwater over Richard Nixon for the Republican nomination, but the membership split, with two-thirds supporting Goldwater and one-third supporting Nixon. A number of Birch members and their allies were Goldwater supporters in 1964Fact|date=September 2007 and some were delegates at the 1964 Republican National Convention. The Goldwater campaign in turn brought together the nucleus of what later became known as the New Right, many of whom had been groomed by the Birch Society but whose more pragmatic members realized that the group's views were an impediment to electoral success.Fact|date=September 2007

In April 1966, a "New York Times" article on New Jersey and the John Birch Society stated in part a concern for "the increasing tempo of radical right attacks on local government, libraries, school boards, parent-teacher associations, mental health programs, the Republican Party and, most recently, the ecumenical movement." [Ronald Sullivan, Foes of Rising Birch Society Organize in Jersey, New York Times, April 20, 1966, page 1 ] It then characterized the Society as, "by far the most successful and 'respectable' radical right organization in the country. It operates alone or in support of other extremist organizations whose major preoccupation, like that of the Birchers, is the internal Communist conspiracy in the United States." By then, a committee called the Movement to Restore Decency (MOTOREDE) was established to promote opinions about child-rearing; in particular, MOTOREDE pushed for a ban on sex education. [cite news |title=Sex in the Classroom |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,901130-1,00.html |work=Time |date=1969-07-25 |accessdate=2008-07-18]

Robert Welch and "The Politician"

Republican mainstreamWho|date=July 2008 unhappiness with the Birch Society intensified after Welch circulated a letter calling President Dwight D. Eisenhower a possible "conscious, dedicated agent of the Communist Conspiracy." [Cite news| last = Buckley, Jr
first = William F. | title = Goldwater, the John Birch Society, and Me| work = Commentary| accessdate = 2008-10-07| date = 2008-03| url = http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/goldwater%E2%80%94the-john-birch-society%E2%80%94and-me-11248] The controversial paragraph was removed before final publication of "The Politician". [cite book |last=Welch |first=Robert |title=The Politician |publisher=Western Islands |location=Boston |year=1975 |isbn=99908-64-98-5 |pages=cxxxviii–cxxxix |quote=At this point in the original manuscript, there was one paragraph in which I expressed my own personal belief as to the most likely explanation of the events and actions with this document had tried to bring into focus. In a confidential letter, neither published nor offered for sale and restricted to friends who were expected to respect the confidence but offer me in exchange their own points of view, this seemed entirely permissible and proper. It does not seem so for an edition of the letter that is now to be published and given, probably, fairly wide distribution. So that paragraph, and two explanatory paragraphs, connected with it, have been omitted here. And the reader is left entirely free to draw his own conclusions.] Welch also wrote that President Franklin D. Roosevelt knew about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in advance, but said nothing because he wanted to get his country in the war.Fact|date=July 2008

The book spawned much debateWho|date=July 2008 in the 1960s over whether the author really intended to call Eisenhower a Communist.Fact|date=July 2008 G. Edward Griffin, one of his friends, thinks that he meant collectivist.Fact|date=July 2008 The charge's sensationalism led many conservatives and RepublicansWho|date=July 2008 to shy away from the group.Fact|date=July 2008 The book was slightly toned down in the published version compared to the unpublished version.Fact|date=July 2008 Welch later tried to distance himself from the work by saying that it was not originally meant to be published because it was just a confidential letter among friends.Fact|date=September 2007

Conservative writer William F. Buckley, Jr., 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.Fact|date=July 2008 Welch responded by attempting to take over Young Americans for Freedom, a conservative youth organization founded with assistance from Buckley.Fact|date=July 2008 The JBS now maintains summer camps which operate across the country and teach youth the ideas of its members.Fact|date=July 2008

1970s

The Society wound up at the center of an important free-speech law case in the 1970s, after "American Opinion" accused a Chicago lawyer representing the family of a young man killed by a police officer of being part of a Communist conspiracy to merge all police agencies in the country into one large force. The resulting libel suit, "Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc.", reached the United States Supreme Court, which held that a state may allow a private figure such as Gertz to recover actual damages from a media defendant without proving malice, but that a private figure does have to prove malice, according to the standard laid out in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, in order to recover presumed damages or punitive damages. [cite book |author=Haiman, Franklyn Saul; Tedford, Thomas L.; Herbeck, Dale |title=Freedom Of Speech In The United States |publisher=Strata Publishing |year=2005 |isbn=1-891136-10-0 |chapter=Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc |chapterurl=http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/comm/free_speech/gertz.html] . The court ordered a retrial in which Gertz prevailed.

Key Birch Society causes of the 1970s included opposition to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and to the establishment of diplomatic ties with the People's Republic of China. The organization claimed in 1973 that the regime of Mao Zedong had murdered 64 million Chinese as of that year and that it was the primary supplier of illicit heroin into the United States. This led to bumper stickers showing a pair of scissors cutting a hypodermic needle in half accompanied by the slogan "Cut The Red China Connection." According to the Voice of America, the society also was opposed to transferring control of the Panama Canal from American to Panamanian sovereignty. [cite news |first=Andrew |last=Guthrie |title=Is Panama Canal Falling Under Chinese Control? |url=http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/china/1999/991124-prc1.htm |work=Voice of America |date=1999-11-24 |accessdate=2008-07-25]

The John Birch Society was organized into local chapters. Ernest Brosang, a New Jersey regional coordinator, contended that it was virtually impossible for opponents of the society to penetrate its policy-making levels, thereby protecting it from anti-Americanist takeover attempts. Its activities included distribution of literature critical of civil rights legislation, warning of the influence of the United Nations, and distributing petitions to impeach U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren. To spread their message, members held showings of documentary films and operated initiatives such as "Let Freedom Ring", a nation-wide network of recorded telephone messages. Some members also helped organize the "Minutemen", a paramilitary group training to lead guerrilla warfare in case of a Communist takeover.

After Welch

By the time of Welch's death in 1985, the Birch Society's membership and influence had dramatically declined, but the UN's role in the Gulf War and President George H. W. Bush's call for a 'New World Order' appeared to many JBS members to validate their claims about a "One World Government" conspiracy. Growing right-wing populism in the United States helped The John Birch Society position itself for a comeback, and by 1995, its membership had grown somewhat to more than 55,000, Who|date=August 2007 though that number is unofficial as the Society does not disclose its membership statistics.Fact|date=September 2007

In the late 1990s, the John Birch Society started a campaign to impeach President Bill Clinton for alleged connections with Chinese interests and on charges of treason and bribery.Fact|date=July 2008 Within months of the Society's call for impeachment, news of the Monica Lewinsky affair broke, and the Society's charges were overshadowed by media coverage of Lewinsky and Clinton. The President was eventually indicted on impeachment charges, but the charges were different from those the Society had hoped to bring. Nevertheless, the impeachment campaign's relative success bolstered the Society and its public knowledge, membership, publication circulation, and finances.Fact|date=December 2007

In recent years, The John Birch Society has been just as critical of President George W. Bush as it had been of Democratic presidents, accusing the Bush administration of advocating and carrying out acts of torture against suspected terrorist leaders during the War on Terror. In a 2005 online poll, the organization's membership voted for President Bush's impeachment,Fact|date=July 2008 citing issues such as the USA PATRIOT Act, the proposed sellout of U.S. Seaports to Dubai Ports World,Fact|date=July 2008 and recent allegations against the Bush administration concerning domestic telephone surveillance of suspected terrorists operating within the United States. These were cited as evidence of Bush's lack of regard for the Constitution.Fact|date=September 2007

The JBS continues to press for an end to U.S. membership in the United Nations. As evidence of the effectiveness of JBS efforts, the Society points to the Utah State Legislature's resolution calling for U.S. withdrawal, as well as the actions of several other states where the Society's membership has been active. The Birch Society repeatedly opposed overseas war-making, although it is strongly supportive of the American military. It has issued calls to "Bring Our Troops Home" in every conflict since its founding, including Vietnam (it wanted a quick win and exit after the conflict had already started rather than a simple losing pullout).Fact|date=November 2007 The Society also has a national speakers' committee called American Opinion Speakers Bureau (AOSB) and an anti-tax committee called TRIM (Tax Reform IMmediately).Fact|date=July 2008

In popular culture

The JBS has sometimes been made a target of political satire. For example:
*In 1964, notable jazz trumpet player Dizzy Gillespie made a semi-satirical run for President, and formed chapters of the "John Birks Society" (his real name was John Birks Gillespie) in 25 states. Gillespie's politics, such as they were, were incompatible with the views of the John Birch Society: among his campaign pledges were to provide free universal health care and appoint Malcolm X as Attorney General.
*In his novel, "The Crying of Lot 49", Thomas Pynchon satirized the famously conservative society with his "Peter Pinguid Society", an organization that opposed Capitalism, in part because it led inevitably to Communism.
*The Bob Dylan song, "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues", from "The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991", is a fictitious satire about a man joining the society.
*The Chad Mitchell Trio's 'break-out' song hit was their comic parody, "The John Birch Society," which contained the lyrics, "If Mommy is a commie then you've got to turn her in."
*Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea's novel, "Illuminatus!", contains several references to the John Birch Society in a subplot. it is satirized with the tag "john birch died for you"
*Steve Jackson Games included a mythical "Fred Birch Society" as one of hundreds of groups in the collectible card game, "". The F.B.S. is also mentioned in their "GURPS Supers — International Super Teams" universe.
*In "Girl, Interrupted", Susanna Kaysen describes the John Birch Society building as a sort of counterpart to the mental asylum she lived in for two years, saying, "The John Birch Society lay as far to the east of Belmont as the hospital lay to the west. We saw the two institutes as variations on each other. Doubtless, the Birchers did not see it this way, but between us, we had Belmont surrounded."
*Walt Kelly used his comic strip Pogo to produce a notable satire that appeared in book form as "The Jack Acid Society Black Book."
* Charlie Daniels, in the song "Uneasy Rider", has one of the song characters claiming he's a faithful follower of "Brother John Birch." The song focuses on the cultural issues of the 60s and 70s and links John Burch with the Ku Klux Klan and George Wallace juxtaposed with pinkos, commies, McGovern, and the FBI.

Leaders and notable members

Presidents

* Robert W. Welch Jr. (1958–1983)
* Larry McDonald (1983) - a U.S. Representative was killed in the 1983 KAL-007 shootdown incident.
* Charles R. Armour
* John F. McManus (1991–2004, 2005–present)
* G. Vance Smith (2004–2005)

CEOs

* G. Allen Bubolz (1988–1991)
* G. Vance Smith (1991–2005)
* Arthur R. Thompson (2005-present)

ee also

* Anti-Communism
* United States isolationism
* Paleoconservatism
* Christian Patriot movement
* Chad Mitchell Trio
* Withdrawal from the United Nations
* William P. Hoar
* Wise Use Movement
* Separation of church and state
* William Norman Grigg

References

Footnotes

Further reading

*cite book |last=Lipset |first=Seymour Martin |authorlink=Seymour Martin Lipset |title=The Politics of Unreason: Right-Wing Extremism America |publisher=Anti Defamation League of Bnai |year=1990 |isbn=0-686-95046-1

upporting the John Birch Society

*cite book |first=Robert |last=Welch |authorlink=Robert W. Welch Jr. |title=The blue book of the John Birch Society |publisher=Western Islands |location=Boston |year=1961 |isbn=0-88279-105-2 |oclc=16903114
*cite book |first=Robert |last=Welch |authorlink=Robert W. Welch Jr. |title=The Politician |year=1964 |publisher=Belmont Publishing |location=Belmont, Massachusetts |oclc=376165
*cite book |first=Robert |last=Welch |authorlink=Robert W. Welch Jr. |coauthors=John Birch Society |title=The White Book of the John Birch Society for 1964 |year=1964 |publisher=John Birch Society |location=Belmont, Massachusetts |oclc=21571870
*cite book |first=Robert |last=Welch |authorlink=Robert W. Welch Jr. |title=The New Americanism and Other Speeches |publisher=Western Islands |location=Boston |year=1966 |isbn=0-88279-211-3
*cite book |last=Allen |first=Gary |authorlink=Gary Allen |title=None Dare Call It Conspiracy |publisher=G S G & Associates, Incorporated |year=1971 isbn=0-945001-29-0
*cite book |first=G. Edward |last=Griffin |authorlink=G. Edward Griffin |year=1975 |title=The Life and Words of Robert Welch, Founder of the John Birch Society |isbn=0-912986-07-7 |publisher=American Media |location=Thousand Oaks, California |oclc=1530499
*cite book |first=John F. |last=McManus |title=The Insiders |publisher=John Birch Society |location=Belmont, Massachusetts |year=1983 |oclc=16912302
*cite news |first=John F. |last=McManus |title=Taking on the Giant: How Dare Pat Buchanan Defy the Establishment! |work=The New American |date=1992-04-20 |page=5

Criticizing the John Birch Society

* "Birch Society Investigated," "Idaho Statesman", October 9, 1964.
* Berlet, Chip. (1989). "Trashing the Birchers: Secrets of the Paranoid Right." "Boston Phoenix", July 20, pp. 10, 23.
* Broyles, J. Allen. (1964). "The John Birch Society: Anatomy of a Protest". Boston: Beacon Press.
* De Koster, Lester. (1967). "The Citizen and the John Birch Society". A Reformed Journal monograph. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans.
* Epstein, Benjamin R., and Arnold Forster. (1966). "The Radical Right: Report on the John Birch Society and Its Allies". New York: Vintage Books.
* Grove, Gene. (1961). "Inside the John Birch Society". Greenwich, CT: Fawcett.
* Grupp, Fred W., Jr. (1969). "The Political Perspectives of Birch Society Members." In Robert A. Schoenberger (Ed.), "The American Right"
* Hardisty, Jean V. (1999). "Mobilizing Resentment: Conservative Resurgence from the John Birch Society to the Promise Keepers". Boston: Beacon.
*Janson, Donald & Eismann, Bernard. (1963). "The John Birch Society" pages 25–54 from "The Far Right", New York: McGraw-Hill.
* Johnson, George. (1983). "Architects of Fear: Conspiracy Theories and Paranoia in American Politics". Los Angeles: Tarcher/Houghton Mifflin.
* Kraft, Charles Jeffrey. (1992). "A Preliminary Socio-Economic and State Demographic Profile of the John Birch Society". Cambridge, MA: Political Research Associates.
* Moore, William V. (1981). "The John Birch Society: A Southern Profile". Paper, annual meeting, Southern Political Science Association, Memphis, TN.
* Ronald Sullivan, "Foes of Rising Birch Society Organize in Jersey," New York Times", April 20, 1966, pp. 1, 34.
* FBI files and documents pertaining to Birch Society: ^ http://ernie1241.googlepages.com/jbs-1

Regarding heroin trade in Southeast Asia

* McCoy, Alfred W. (2003). "The politics of heroin : CIA complicity in the global drug trade : Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, Central America, Colombia", Chicago : Lawrence Hill Books.

External links

* [http://www.jbs.org John Birch Society website]
* [http://www.thenewamerican.com The New American] , JBS biweekly publication
* " [http://www.publiceye.org/tooclose/jbs.html John Birch Society] ," Political Research Associates
* [http://www.jbs.org/artman/uploads/careport.pdf Report of the California Senate Factfinding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities on the John Birch Society]
* Short excerpt of a film, circa 1965, of Robert W. Welch Jr., entitled " [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg6ixwmcMcc What is the John Birch Society?] " explaining why he founded the John Birch Society and its aims