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 ...
REPORT ON JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY—Based Upon Data in FBI Files (614 pages):
https://archive.org/details/john-birch-society-report-october-2020-614pp/mode/2up
John Birch Society 6-Decade Attack Upon Our Civil Rights Movement
https://archive.org/details/jbs-6-decade-attack-upon-our-civil-rights-movement-and-its-leaders/mode/2up
Racism and the JBS (283 pages)
https://archive.org/details/0906-combined-pdf-racism-and-the-john-birch-society-283-pages/mode/2up
The last link (Racism and the JBS) includes a massive Chronology which shows HUNDREDS of links between the JBS and racial and religious bigots -— and also shows how the JBS promoted racist arguments and stereotypes.
For such a great debater, how did he let Gore Vidal cause him to crumble.
The people you are describing are wildly different than the ones I encountered.
I have no explanation of it.
My mom (1937-1990) used to rail against the “birchers”
I never understood why and wasn’t curious enough to look into it. She was a faithful follower of the main stream news.
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