Posted on 08/24/2021 6:52:08 PM PDT by CheshireTheCat
On this date in 1945, according to a fringe faction of American conservatism, the first victim of the Cold War was shot by Chinese Communists at Suchow, China, near Xi’an.
John Birch, a military chaplain proselytizing in China and an agent of the CIA’s precursor entity Office of Strategic Services, had the kind of portfolio sure to rub Mao’s boys the wrong way.
Apparently it was his personality that got him into trouble.
On recon duty days after the end of World War II, he bumped into a patrol of Red Chinese. According to Time, he failed his diplomacy check.
As the scene has been reconstructed, Birch argued violently with the Communist officer who wanted to disarm him. Birch was seized and shot after his hands had been tied. The Communists then bayoneted him at least 15 times and tossed his body on a heap of junk and garbage.
“In the confusing situation,” said [Birch’s commanding officer Major Gustav] Krause last week, “my instructions were to act with diplomacy. Birch made the Communist lieutenant lose face before his own men. Militarily, John Birch brought about his own death.”
Days after World War II — how does that square with your international Communist conspiracy? The incident was not especially notable at the time, but some elements later conceived John Birch the first American casualty of Communism during the Cold War, and in this guise he became the namesake of the John Birch Society...
(Excerpt) Read more at executedtoday.com ...
Well, China might not have had an international communist conspiracy going in 1945, but they do now.
Perhaps some sort of new society is needed, with a more contemporary front man. Wish that would have happened with the tank guy.
In my younger days I had the opportunity to meet many of the leaders of the John Birch Society as well as many of their prominent critics.
In almost every case the JBS folks were intelligent, well read, careful with their research, articulate, polite, thoughtful and wise.
Their critics—not so much—seemed to excel most at name-calling and finger pointing.
My older brother took me to one of their meetings when I was a teenager- very informative.
History repeats.
The John Birch Society was one of the first victims of National Review's gatekeeping operations. I don't know why they were cancelled, but it was probably because Buckley either thought they were conspiracy nuts or anti-Semitic.
The JBS were “conspiracy nuts”—and virtually every conspiracy they warned about has come to pass...
The National Review types were playing checkers while the JBS guys were playing chess.
Yeah, but I always choked when they kept on insisting that Eisenhower was a Communist party cardholder.
I never knew that John Birch was a military chaplain.
Or that he was killed in China.
...also know as The Birch John Society.
Birchers were the ones saying that the commies were infiltrating American education.... And indoctrinating children with errant curriculum.
Totally wrong on that one!
As with anything said about JBS, you have to read the original source material, not what their enemies said about the original source material.
Their issue with Eisenhower was that he failed to monitor Communist subversives in the State Department and other government agencies.
The Verona files from the collapsed Soviet Union showed that JBS got it right—these agencies were crawling with Soviet spies—and only some of them were caught at the time.
Had a father who was very involved and most of us kids went to their summer camp. Great foundation.
For a few months after Vietnam, I łived in the house built by his grandfather.
I also dated his niece for a while. Nice, very smart girl.
Buckley was ALWAYS a neocon and founding member of the Swamp Class.
Waiting for the rag he founded to be dead also.
Virtually the entire conservative movement in the United States denounced and rejected the JBS as an example of a “right wing extremist” organization that was “irrational” and “irresponsible”.
JBS critics include such prominent conservative Americans as:
Sen. Barry Goldwater, Cong. Walter Judd, Cong. Gordon H. Scherer, Gen. Albert C. Wedemeyer, Russell Kirk, Ronald Reagan, Eugene Lyons, Willmoore Kendall, James Burnham, Robert Bork, Richard Nixon, J. Edgar Hoover, Herbert Philbrick, Frank S. Meyer, William F. Buckley Jr., Patrick Buchanan, Fred Schwarz, Lee Edwards, the editors of the conservative newspaper, Human Events, David Lawrence, Holmes Alexander, William Loeb, George Sokolsky, Roy M. Cohn, Anthony Bouscaren, plus even many former Birchers such as: Alan Stang, Gary Allen, Fred Koch, Milorad Draskovich, Don Fotheringham, John Rees, Wayne Rickert, former JBS Research Director Tom Eddlem, William Norman Grigg (senior editor of JBS magazine) and many more.
Even Mrs. Robert Welch withdrew her support from the JBS after her husband died because of the hostile articles about President Ronald Reagan published by the JBS.
The former Research Director of the JBS from 1991-2000 (Tom Eddlem) announced that he terminated his lifetime JBS membership in December 2019 because of what HE described as “nazi racial propaganda” published in the JBS magazine (The New American).
See Eddlem’s resignation here: https://teddlem.blogspot.com/2019/12/resignation-letter-to-john-birch-society.html
Some of the Birch Society’s most famous and prolific writers (like Gary Allen and Alan Stang and William Norman Grigg) also denounced the new JBS leadership after Robert Welch passed away.
During J. Edgar Hoover’s tenure as FBI Director, the FBI falsified every major predicate of JBS ideology. In November 1964 Hoover responded to numerous inquiries about Robert Welch and the JBS as follows:
“Personally, I have little respect for the head of the John Birch Society since he linked the names of former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the late John Foster Dulles, and former CIA Director Allen Dulles with communism.” [J. Edgar Hoover comment during November 1964 press conference; also appears in FBI-HQ file 62-104401, serial #2381, 11/20/64 and HQ 100-114578-152, October 22, 1965 and 62-104401, #3865, 3/24/72.]
FBI POSITION ON JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY
“The supporters of this organization and those influenced by the vicious propaganda it has been putting out are typical of the fanatics who have been attempting lately to disparage and discredit Bureau speakers who have been giving audiences a true, factual picture concerning the nature of the threat which communist activities in this country represent.” [FBI-HQ 62-104401, serial #791, March 9, 1961, Chief Inspector W.C. Sullivan to A.H. Belmont].
“The John Birch Society is an extremist organization which was founded by Robert Welch in Indianapolis, Indiana in December 1958…We certainly should not allow ourselves to be placed in a position where an organization of the character of the JBS can use statements attributed to the Bureau or to the Director to support its position in this or any other matter. This organization would not hesitate to twist any statement by the Bureau to confirm with its extremist position.” J. Edgar Hoover wrote “OK” on memo as did Associate Director Clyde Tolson. [FBI HQ file 62-7582, #4729; 2/8/61 memo from A.J. Decker to A.H. Belmont re: JBS member phone call; also, in HQ file 62-104401, #unrecorded]
The Birch Society has the “distinction” of being the only national conservative “educational” organization to have lost an historic precedent-setting defamation lawsuit (which changed American libel law) after the JBS falsely described Chicago lawyer Elmer Gertz in an article it published in its monthly magazine as “a Communist fronter” and a “Leninist” who was engaged in a “conspiracy” (a criminal act) against the Chicago police.
After 14 years of litigation, including two different jury trials, numerous appeals, and review by the U.S. Supreme Court, the JBS paid Gertz $100,000 in compensatory damages and $300,000 in punitive damages for malice. Because the JBS appealed the initial decision, their final payment (including accrued interest) was almost $500,000 (which is about $2 million in 2021 dollars). Punitive damages are only allowed in libel actions when “malice” can be shown. Malice, in legalese, refers to “reckless disregard for truth” arising from evil intent and a desire to inflict injury, harm, or suffering.
As one Appeals Court observed about the JBS article on Gertz:
“There was more than enough evidence for the jury to conclude that this article was published with utter disregard for the truth or falsity of the statements contained in the article about Gertz.” [U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, No. 81-2483, Elmer Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 6/16/82, page 20.
JBS 6-DECADE ATTACK UPON OUR CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
https://archive.org/details/0906-combined-pdf-racism-and-the-john-birch-society-283-pages/mode/2up
Your comment is seriously misinformed. The following Report shows the numerous falsehoods and misrepresentations which the JBS has always presented about Robert Welch’s so-called “private letter” (The Politician).
See:
https://archive.org/details/jbs-13-the-politician-by-robert-welch/mode/2up [Click on PDF link on right side of webpage for copy of this Report]
The Venona files DO NOT confirm JBS assertions. Serious historians and political scientists have written extensively about this. Also, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover refuted JBS arguments. Hoover’s comment in reply to JBS arguments re: extent of Communist movement success:
“The Communist Party in this country has attempted to infiltrate and subvert every segment of our society, but its continuing efforts have not achieved success of any substance. Too many self-styled experts on communism, without valid credentials and without any access whatsoever to classified factual data regarding the inner workings of the conspiracy, have engaged in rumor-mongering and hurling false and wholly unsubstantiated allegations against persons whose views differ from their own. This is dangerous business. It is divisive and unintelligent and makes more difficult the task of the professional investigator.” [Hoover statement in February 5, 1962 letter to Mrs. W.R. Brown of Bountiful Utah; also published as letter-to-editor in Tri-Cities Daily newspaper of Sheffield, Alabama on Sunday March 31, 1963. Copy of Hoover letter in FBI HQ file 94-1-369, serial #1676]
All I can speak to is my personal experience.
I found the JBS individuals (in Belmont MA) some of the most impressive people I ever met in my long life—and the courtesy they showed me as a young man was a great example of how to treat others.
The point is that “nice people” can still be gravely mistaken in their viewpoints and assertions.
BTW, the JBS and its surrogates (whom you describe as “impressive people”) lost numerous libel lawsuits because once they were put into a courtroom environment and were required to present factual evidence, their lunatic assertions crumbled into absurdity.
Significantly, Hoover’s FBI falsified EVERY major predicate of JBS ideology. In many instances, the JBS (in conjunction with the Communist Party!) attacked and defamed ANTI-Communist Americans which made the JBS the functional equivalent of a PRO-Communist organization.
At the time when JBS founder Robert Welch claimed that there were 300,000 to 500,000 Communist Party members in the U.S., the FBI concluded that the actual number was 5262. That, in a nutshell, tells you everything you need to know about the quality of JBS “reasoning”.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.