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Subject: (SM) The Communist Attack on the JBS, (c) Skousen, 1963

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+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Communist Attack on the John Birch Society
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
By W. Cleon Skousen
(c) 1963 by W. Cleon Skousen 

I am not a member of the John Birch Society.

I have simply observed an avalanche of blistering propaganda which 
has totally confused millions of Americans.

Even a personal check among neighbors and friends will reveal that a 
vast quantity of well-educated, rational, religious people count it 
a shining virtue to hate the John Birch Society. Yet they admit 
knowing practically nothing about it.   The strange thing about the 
John Birch Society is that practically nobody paid any attention to 
it until the Communist Party officially ordered its annihilation.
Immediately the withering blast of scathing denunciation began pouring  
down upon this organization. And it came from all directions. For one 
solid year the press, radio and TV saturated the American mind with a 
continuous attack on the "terrible Birchers."

It seems to me the history of this attack contains a terribly sobering 
lesson for the American people.

How It All Began

I first heard of the John Birch Society in 1958.
Several prominent businessmen in Los Angeles told me they were 
organizing a study group program to see if they could work more 
closely with the members of Congress through both political parties. 
They said they believed Americans should study legislation while it 
was up before Congress and not wait until it had been passed into 
law before they began complaining about it.

They told me these study groups were going to be set up all over 
the country and that each would be called a "chapter" of the John 
Birch Society. These friends were doctors, lawyers, businessmen, 
dentists and very substantial people in their community.

I began paying attention to the literature and personalities of this 
organization to see what kind of group it might turn out to be.
It was not difficult to find out about the John Birch Society.
The organization published a "Blue Book" which described its purposes 
and the identity of its leadership. Members of the Council included 
many nationally prominent people, some of whom I knew personally.
The Blue Book was written by the founder and head of the John Birch
Society, Robert Welch. Until his retirement in 1957, Mr. Welch was 
vice president in charge of sales and advertising for a large candy 
manufacturing firm. He had served on the board of directors of the 
National Association of Manufacturers, had traveled around the world 
extensively and had spent several years specializing in a study of 
Communism and Socialism. He had attended the Naval Academy and two 
universities -- University of North Carolina and Harvard. He had 
published three books and served as editor and publisher of American 
Opinion, a monthly magazine designed to evaluate current events in 
terms of the world-wide struggle for power by the Communist-Socialist 
coalition.

I was told by officials of the John Birch Society that Mr. Welch was 
paid no salary by them even though he worked an 18-hour day.

 A Secret Society

I found that chapters of the John Birch Society were being built 
in each city around people who had already been studying Communism. 
These individuals then invited into the chapter the people who were 
interested in staying informed.

They pledged themselves to work through their respective 
political parties to stop the advance of Communism and Socialism 
in the United States.

They seemed neither secret nor exclusive. In fact, I noted they 
were scouring the country for workers. One of their coordinators 
told me, "We are looking for all the people who are ready to do 
something besides just talk." By the summer of 1960, the Society 
had attracted the attention of other conservative groups. A few 
were critical because they said the Birch people had rallied 
together most of the best informed and hardest working patriots 
in many cities. I observed, however, that members of the Society 
did not restrict their support to John Birch groups but seemed 
anxious to help other conservative movements succeed.

The First trickle of open publicity came from an article by Jack 
Mabley with the Chicago American. He wrote a column on July 26, 
1960, in which he attacked Robert Welch and the John Birch 
movement. However, I did not see any further public criticism of 
the group until the Communist Party ordered the annihilation of 
the John Birchers six months later. 

The John Birchers Take On The Communist Party

It is my personal opinion that the real cause of the wrath 
against the John Birch Society originated with a series of 
events in the Fall of 1960.

The Birchers learned that the Communist Party was working 
for the passage of a certain bill which was to be introduced 
as soon as Congress convened in January, 1961. This bill was 
designed to take away the funds of the House Committee on Un-
American Activities so that it could not investigate the 
Communist Party. For many years the destruction of this 
particular committee had been a major project of Communists 
in this country. But since they had always failed in the past 
they thought this compromise measure of taking most of the funds 
away from the committee would be a good stop-gap measure. And
for awhile it looked as though they might succeed. 

Then the John Birch Society and other conservative groups 
began an all-out campaign to work through both parties to kill 
this bill. All through the Christmas vacation they continued the 
campaign. The success of these efforts became apparent when the 
bill came up for vote. Democrats and Republicans combined and 
beat the bill by a vote of 112 to 6. It was an overwhelming 
defeat for a favorite project of the Communist Party, USA.

Whether the John Birchers deserved all the credit for what 
happened is not important but the Communist Party gave them 
all the blame. I heard from friends who were close to the inner 
workings of the Communist Party that the Party bosses had sent 
out the word: "The John Birchers have got to go! "

Moscow Orders an Attack on All Anti-Communists

Right at the time the John Birchers were trying to defeat this 
Communist-supported bill, a manifesto came out of Moscow from 
the conference of the 81 Communist parties of the world ,ordering 
a "resolute struggle against anti-Communism." Edward Hunter 
analogized this new directive for Congress and testified as 
follows:

"For the first time, the world Communist network, in a basic 
policy and operational document, specifically referred to the 
anti-Communist movement in the United States, recognizing that 
it had reached proportions large enough to constitute a main -- 
if not the main -- danger to Communist progress in our country ..." 
(The New Drive Against the anti-Communist Program. Senate Judiciary 
Committee Report, July II, 1961, p.10)

The Moscow manifesto against anti-Communism came out in December,               

1960, and one month later Nikita Khrushchev gave an important policy 
speech officially ordering all Communists to "resolutely unmask 
this anti-scientific and purely false ideology" of anti-Communism. 

He said:

"Bourgeois propaganda is assuming an increasingly cunning nature. 
Its main weapon in the struggle against the Socialist camp and the 
Communist Parties is anti-communism." (Analysis of the Khrushchev 
Speech of January 6, 1961, Senate Judiciary Committee Report, June 
16, 1961, p. 74)

A short time later the opening blast against all anti-Communists in 
the United States was initiated by a concentrated attack on the John 
Birch Society.

Attack on the John Birch Society Begins

Because the Birch Society was practically unknown to the general 
American public I wondered how the Communist Party would launch its 
campaign. I had no idea that the legitimate American press would 
fall for the line which the Communists were about to broadcast.

On February 25, 1961, the official Communist newspaper on the West 
Coast rallied the Daily People's World, fired the opening broadside. 
The article was entitled. "Enter (from Stage Right) THE JOHN BIRCH 
SOCIETY."

The article depicted the John Birchers as a secret, Fascist society 
and said that it was setting up "cells" all across the country. Of 
course, the People's World has a very limited distribution which would 
do little damage, but the thing which astonished me was the rapidity 
with which the transmission belt began to function so that this story 
was planted in one major news medium after another until finally even 
some of the more conservative papers had taken up the hue and cry.
In fact, the very next week Time magazine came out with a long article
similar in many ways to the one in the People's World. As soon as I 
read the first paragraph I knew the John Birch Society was in for a 
real professional tar-brush treatment:

"Among the U.S. brotherhoods dedicated to the fight against Communism, 
nothing is quite like the John Birch Society. Except for an elite corps 
of leaders, it's members shun personal publicity and their names are 
held by the society in strictest secrecy. Its cells, of 20 to 30 
members apiece, take orders from society headquarters, promote 
Communist-style front organizations that do not use the John Birch 
name. Carefully avoiding normal channels of political action, the 
society accepts the hard-boiled, dictatorial direction of one man who 
sees democracy as a "perennial fraud" and estimates that the U.S. 
is 40-60% Communist controlled. In other times, other places, the 
John Birch 'Americanists' -- as they call themselves - might seem 
a tiresome, comic opera joke. But already the society admits to 
cells in 35 states, and its partisans have made their anonymous and
unsettling presence felt in scores of  U.S. communities. " (Time 
magazine, postdated March 10, 1961, pp. 21-22)

It was immediately apparent even to an outsider that this article 
was no ordinary piece of reporting. Why did it call the chapters of 
the John Birch Society "cells" just like the article in the People's 
World?  Why did it charge that the Birchers avoided "normal channels 
of political action" when their greatest success had been achieved 
by working with Congressmen in both parties? Why the non-specific 
charge that the Birchers promote "Communist-style front organizations"? 
What front organizations? I had heard of none. Why jerk a statement 
of Robert Welch completely out of context to make it look like he was 
against "democracy" when he was simply explaining that mass action 
without direction was never effective? And why the charge of "secrecy"? 
I knew that chapter meetings were neither secret nor closed. In fact, 
to disprove this charge 197 chapters in Southern California published 
their addresses in a Los Angeles newspaper. And finally, why should 
the activities of the John Birch societies be described as "unsettling" 
when their only objective was to resist Communism and educate the 
public in preserving constitutional principles?

No organization is above criticism on some scores, but why would one 
of the foremost American news magazines resort to fictions and 
distortions within a week after similar fictions and distortions 
appeared in an official Communist periodical?

Feeding the Flame

The Time magazine article was further dignified on March 8, 1961, 
when Senator Milton Young of North Dakota had it appear in the 
Congressional Record. As other periodicals aimed their printer's ink 
at the John Birchers, Senator Young included their contributions in 
the Congressional Record also. This soon added up to a total of 17 
full pages.

I noticed that a whole roster of favorite Communist smear terms began 
to find expression in the legitimate American press. These included: 
Fascists, Extremists, Super-Patriots, Super-nationalists, Rightists, 
Extreme Rightists, Self-appointed Guardians of Freedom, Lunatic Fringe, 
Ultra-rightists, Patriotic Fanatics, etc.

In spite of these colorful epithets, however, some Americans began 
demanding concrete facts to back up these charges. They began asking 
what it was specifically that was so terrible about the John Birchers, 
Were they advocating force and violence like the Communists? Were they 
training a secret militia? Did they resort to bomb-plots or other kinds 
of terrorism? It was always a little disconcerting to the anti-Birchers 
when people did a little checking as I had done and discovered that the 
Society was primarily a study group program with a strong bias in favor 
of traditional American Constitutionalism.

Then the attack shifted its aim away from the Society itself and 
concentrated almost entirely on Robert Welch. The critics went back 
to some statements Welch had made around the time the Eisenhower 
Administration was backing Castro as "the George Washington of Cuba." 
Welch predicted that since Castro had been a member of the Soviet 
apparatus for many years he would undoubtedly betray the Cuban people 
into the clutches of the Soviet Union. Welch also insisted that since 
Castro's record was so notorious, the President and Secretary of State 
were playing into the trap of world Communism by supporting Castro.

Welch was equally critical of other decisions by President Eisenhower 
and his aides which had allowed unnecessary Communist gains. In a 
private communication to several of his friends he expressed the opinion 
that some of the national leaders were involved in outright Communist 
duplicity.

All of this occurred prior to the time the John Birch Society was 
organized and such opinions were therefore never part of the Society's 
policies or principles. Never the less, the critics of the John Birch 
Society continued to quote them as though they were typical of all 
John Birch members.

Welch Requests and Gets an Official Investigation

In the midst of the debate, Robert Weleh suggested that a good way 
to settle the matter would be through an official Congressional 
investigation. Let people make their charges under oath. Welch said 
he would welcome an investigation and would answer under oath any 
question the members of Congress wished to ask him. However it was 
not the U.S. Congress, but the California State Legislature which 
finally decided to do the job.

Trained investigators were sent out by the Senate Fact finding 
Subcommittee on Un-American activities. Their report came as a great 
shock to those people who had proclaimed that the attack on the John 
Birch Society could be factually proven. They even had predicted that 
this California report would undoubtedly destroy the Birchers.

Hugh M. Burns (Democrat), chairman of the California Senate Fact 
finding Committee, used 61 pages of fine print to tell what his 
committee investigators had found. This report attracted national 
attention in press, radio and TV during June, 1963.

Is the Birch Society Secret or Fascist?

Chairman Burns stated: "We have not found the Society to be either 
a secret or a fascist organization, nor have we found the great 
majority of its members in California to be mentally unstable, 
crackpots, or hysterical about the threat of Communist subversion." 
(Page 61)

Is the Society Anti-Semitic or Racist?

"Our investigations have disclosed no evidence of anti-Semitism 
on the part of anyone connected with the John Birch Society in 
California, and much evidence to the effect that it opposes racism 
in all forms." (Page 39)

What Kind of an Organization Is It?

"We find the John Birch Society to be a Right, anti-Communist, 
fundamentalist-organization. It was conceived, organized, and is 
dominated by Mr. Robert Welch, who runs the society with the aid 
of a National Council and Advisory Committee, whose advice he is 
not, however, bound to follow." (Page 61)

What About Robert Welch?

"We have studied Welch's life, his business career, educational 
background, and have read almost everything he wrote -- all his 
writings in connection with the society. We do not agree with much 
of what he wrote or what he has said, but we did not find him 
embittered, either through reading his writings or through 
personally interrogating him.

"There is no question, as National Review (which criticized 
Mr. Welch*) points out, that he has stirred the slumbering spirit 
of patriotism in thousands of Americans, roused them from lethargy 
and exchanged their apathy into a deep desire to first learn the 
facts about communism and then implement that knowledge with 
effective and responsible action." (Page 37)

Interviews with John Birch Members

"We have found the average member to have been concerned about the
advances of the world Communist movement and the advances of 
Communist subversion in this country. The John Birch Society has 
provided the only organization with a militant program of study and 
action through which the frustrations of these people can be 
released."

The report says members do not accept everything Mr. Welch has 
said, "but their position is that despite this disagreement, he 
did conceive the movement, organize it, instill it with life, 
provide a national medium through which people can actually do 
something about the menace of Communism. The average member is 
firmly convinced that the real threat is not essentially abroad, 
but that since our foreign policies are evolved here, and as they 
are influenced here, and since our retreat from one European crisis 
after another has been engineered in Washington, then the problem 
must be faced in this country." (Pages 42and 43)

Are Members Centrally Controlled or Disciplined?

"Communists are trained to obey a directive or a party assignment, 
whether they agree with it or not. Members of the (John Birch*) 
society are constantly told NOT to follow any program or directive 
unless they agree with it, as may be seen in many of the monthly 
bulletins sent to the members. When the policies and actions of the 
society are no longer supported by a member, he may resign and get 
a proportional rebate of his annual dues." (Page 18)

Why have So Many People Joined?

"We believe that the reason the John Birch Society has attracted 
so many members is that it simply appeared to them to be the most 
effective, indeed the only organization through which they would 
join in as a national movement to learn the truth about the Communist 
menace and then take some positive concerted action to prevent 
its spread." (Page 61 and 62)  

Who Launched the Smear Campaign Against the Society?

The report points out that the all-out attack against the John 
Birch Society was launched by the Communist Party in 1961.

"The attack against the John Birch Society commenced with an 
article in the People's World, California Communist paper, in 
February, 1961...." (Pages 25 and 26)

Conclusion

Everything I have personally observed about the John Birch Society 
would confirm the conclusions reached by this California Senate 
report.

My final thought would be this:

I certainly would have no quarrel with anyone who wished to disagree 
with some idea promulgated by the John Birch Society. In a Republic 
this should be expected. However, no American should stand by and see a 
legitimate group of American citizens dishonestly ridiculed and smeared 
at the instigation of the international Communist conspiracy.

And even more important, no American should allow himself to become
involved in debasing and ridiculing a group of fellow citizens when 
he honestly doesn't know anything about them. In the case of the 
John Birch Society, those who editorialized or otherwise propagandized 
against "the terrible Birchers" usually did so without realizing they 
were promoting the official Communist Party line. And, as usual, this 
line turned out to be a carefully  calculated deception designed to 
confuse the American people.

The Communist Party is manifestly frightened by the possibility of 
the people of the United States becoming awakened. Communist success 
has always been achieved in an atmosphere of secrecy, deceit and 
confusion. The John Birch Society was therefore one of the groups 
marked for annihilation because it was becoming highly successful 
in awakening the American people.

A former member of the Communist Party National Committee told me:

"The Communist leaders look upon the stamping out of the John Birch 
Society as a matter of life and death for the Party."

Only two other groups have generated this much hate and fury from
Communist leaders. One is the FBI, the other is the House Committee 
on Un-American Activities.

W. Cleon Skousen