You seem to entirely miss the point, Smokin Joe. ALL political extremist groups exploit targets of opportunity and they seek the protective coloration which comes from sanitizing their basic predicates.
I am certain that if you and I were to read publications authored by Hitler, Stalin, Fidel Castro, white supremacists, and even Al Qaeda adherents — we could find individual isolated statements or conclusions which we might agree with — but neither of us would be interested in associating ourselves with the larger narrative which those individuals or groups promote.
Ditto for the JBS.
Since the founding of the JBS in 1958, the Birch Society (and its founder Robert Welch) effusively praised the FBI during J. Edgar Hoover’s tenure as our nation’s most indisputably knowledgeable, authoritative, and reliable source of factual information about the communist movement and about internal security matters generally.
Significantly, the FBI falsified every major predicate of JBS ideology. And senior FBI officials explicitly described the Birch Society in internal memos as extremist and irresponsible because it was circulating FALSE information and causing unfounded alarm among the American people.
It is interesting that you want to dismiss or de-value the historical record of the JBS. One wonders if you feel the same way about left-of-center individuals and organizations, i.e. we can just ignore whatever they wrote or said 40-50 years ago?
The past is prologue. If you begin your analysis with FALSE predicates and you continue to disseminate those falsehoods for DECADES — then, obviously, your contemporary statements and conclusions will be DEFECTIVE.
The JBS declared that our country was 60-80% “under Communist influence and control”.
BY CONTRAST, J. Edgar Hoover observed:
“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]
The Birch Society declared that:
“Our task must be simply to make clear that the movement known as ‘civil rights’ is Communist-plotted, Communist-controlled, and in fact...serves only Communist purposes.” (JBS Bulletin, June 1965).
—AND—
“We have said many times, and we repeat now, that if you can fully expose the civil rights fraud, you will break the back of the Communist conspiracy. But the word ‘fully’ is important in that sentence. It calls for bringing a preponderant majority of our fellow citizens really to grasp the fact that the ‘civil rights’ program has been designed by Communists, is controlled by Communists, and will be used by the Communists as a vital part of their total strategy for taking over our country.”
BY CONTRAST, J. Edgar Hoover declared:
“Let me emphasize that the American civil rights movement is not, and has never been dominated by the communists–because the overwhelming majority of civil rights leaders in this country, both Negro and white, have recognized and rejected communism as a menace to the freedoms of all.”
[J. Edgar Hoover speech, 12/12/64, Our Heritage of Greatness, pg 7 - Hoover speech before Pennsylvania Society and the Society of Pennsylvania Women; bold emphasis on “not” and “never” appears in original document].
The JBS position on the 1958 book by Harry Overstreet entitled, “What We Must Know About Communism”, was (according to JBS founder Robert Welch) that Overstreet’s book was nothing more than “pro-Communist doubletalk”.
BY CONTRAST:
What Welch did not know is that the FBI’s Chief Inspector at that time (their expert on the communist movement inside the U.S. — and he later became Assistant Director of the FBI’s Domestic Intelligence Division) personally assisted Overstreet with writing his book. The Chief Inspector spent hours every week reviewing first drafts of what Overstreet proposed to write and he made suggestions for revising the text. The Inspector also provided Overstreet with public source materials from FBI files. After the book was published, Overstreet sent a copy to J. Edgar Hoover and he asked Hoover if he would like to visit Overstreet’s home some evening for dinner.
Hoover declined the dinner invitation, but he wrote to Overstreet:
“I do hope that your fine book ‘What We Must Know About Communism’ will enjoy excellent sales and wide reading throughout 1959. We need more and more people like yourselves who will devote their nationally recognized academic talents to the exposure and ultimate defeat of the menace of world communism.” [HQ 100-114575-95, January 21, 1959, J. Edgar Hoover to Harry Overstreet].
Then the FBI asked the American Legion to add Overstreet’s book to their recommended reading list — which the Legion did.
AND, the American Bar Association’s Special Committee on Communist Tactics, Strategy and Objectives ALSO recommended Overstreet’s book.
These few examples give you an idea of how gravely mistaken the JBS has been in the past. MORE IMPORTANTLY, the JBS still circulates these false assertions and conclusions.
But, since then, MLK jr's ties to Communism have been exposed, as well as the New Left, which eventually hijacked the Democrat Party.
Of course, the people who were 'rejecting' communism were publicly rejecting communism. They'd have been run off otherwise.
But, by their fruits ye shall know them.
After all, "Communism is dead", was a later mantra, but it has never been so alive, nor allowed (encouraged?) to proceed at such a pace as it has once it was declared no longer a threat.
Pray tell, why does the Communist mass murderer Che still adorn the T-shirts, posters, and banners of the Left?
The sanitized version of the Civil Rights battle was that it was over Civil Rights. While that was a legitimate cause, the eventuality was widespread civil unrest in times of war, not just at home, but among some of our troops as well. The effect was the disruption, not of old ways which needed to change, but the social fabric of Black culture in America, which coupled with concessions like LBJ's "great society" doomed the black family to decay (not all, but statistically speaking). That was one of the Communist goals from 1963, to disrupt the family as the basic social unit and by doing so disrupt continuity of culture in America. It worked marvelously well, as did the later KGB seed money to some environmental organizations for the (ulterior) purpose of disrupting Western Industry. That worked well, also, and turned out to be a tremendous investment--one which has paid dividends in Asia.
Every Communist act of subterfuge has a bright and shiny face in front, a prima facie cause all can rally for, be it clean air, clean water, safer streets, better food, whatever, but the means of achieving those alleged goals, the things which bring in the 'true believers' as a front, often end up being totalitarian or overly statist in nature.
Safer highways have been touted, and now we have laws to require you under threat of penalty to wear a seat belt, we have DUI checkpoints which search and seize at random, and the excuse for maintaining those onerous programs is that despite the continued slaughter, 'it would have been so much worse...'.
Hoover wasn't beyond taking extraConstitutional actions to retain his grip on power, either, so I am not enthusiastic about using him as an authoritative source.
Consider someone quoting the DOJ or DHS comments of today in reference to the TEA Party or the Christian right of today in 50 years, and you will have my perspective on J Edgar as a source.