John Birch Society exposed once and for all! (My title)

Wayback Machine, SamuelBrenner.com ^ | May 2009 | Samuel Lawrence Brenner

[Zionist Conspirator]

Just as Americanists opposed and condemned as communist the Anti-Defamation League and similar organizations (including the American Jewish Congress), many Americanist leaders distrusted and denounced Zionism and the State of Israel. “[There is] more ideological and cultural kinship between Israel and the Soviet Union than between Israel and the United States,” declared Dan Smoot in 1969.97 “Behold, then, this strange situation,” he added: “Israel and the Soviet Union, with harsh words, are pursuing a common objective in the Middle East; to isolate all Arab countries from the United States and drive them into the Soviet orbit . . .” 98 Smoot’s opinion was echoed and amplified by John Birch Society National Council member Tom Anderson, who (perhaps because of his leadership role) was apparently himself one of the few avowed racists allowed to remain in the Society. “On May 15, 1948, international Zionists established a State in Palestine, and with the help of the United Nations, proceeded to drive 1.5 million Arabs from their homes,” wrote Anderson in a 1969 edition of American Opinion. “Thousands of these unfortunate Moslems have been murdered, maimed, and tortured. The great majority of them suffered and starved, sickened and despaired, in filthy desert tent cities at Israel’s borders. Now, twenty years later, most of these people are still in refugee camps –and the Arab world is united in its commitment to revenge them.” 9

More so even than their antipathy to the Anti-Defamation League, Americanists’ dislike of Israel seemed at times to cross the boundary from criticism into anti-Semitism. Even when they were declaring their opposition to anti-Semitism and their rejection of the claim that Jews were behind the Communist conspiracy, some Americanist leaders based their arguments on dangerous and seemingly anti-Semitic assumptions – the same sorts of assumptions made by extremist anti-Semites such as George Lincoln Rockwell. In his revealing April 1962 letter to Verne P. Kaub, for instance, Robert Welch declared his opposition to Israel in no uncertain terms. “For in the first place, Verne, I am probably as anti-Zionist as you are," Welch wrote.

I repeat that you cannot think any less of the whole government of Israel, or of the whole Zionist conspiracy, then I do; except that I think its relative importance in the total importance in the whole picture has greatly decreased over the past three decades . . . [since 1905] I think the Zionist conspiracy – and from then on for perhaps two decades – was practically the father of the International Communist Conspiracy. Today I personally think that the relationship is almost exactly reversed . . . but this does not make Golda Meir or Ben-Gurion or any of their extremist followers in this country any less culpable.10

While this letter was confidential and personal, Welch never hid his opposition to the government of Israel and to Zionism, and even in this letter Welch noted that that he disagreed with Kaub “somewhat in our attitude towards the Jews in general.” “I feel that the ordinary Jewish citizen in America has been under more pressure, and more bamboozled, to go along with the powerful Zionist minority, than [many other peoples],” Welch concluded.10

Still, Welch’s comments about the historical primacy of the “Zionist conspiracy” were no fluke. In three revealing letters (to Dr. Lawrence A. Lacey in February of 1961, to Kaub in April of 1962, and to notorious anti-Semite Gerald L. K. Smith two and a half weeks later) Welch laid out his understanding that the international Communist conspiracy had its genesis in a world Zionist conspiracy. In the letter to Lacey, in which Welch defended himself against attacks that he was too soft on Jews and the role of Zionism in international communism, Welch was bluntly dismissive of Lacey’s arguments. “Frankly, Dr. Lacey,” he wrote, “I think that blaming the whole Communist conspiracy today, or during the past decade, on the Jews is an extremely dangerous over- simplification of our problem, and exactly what the problem, and exactly what the Communists (including those who pose as Jews) want us to do.” 102 With Lacey’s criticisms dismissed in this fashion, Welch explained what he believed about how the international communist conspiracy had developed. “To me it seems likely," he wrote,

that in 1900 or 1905, at the time of the first Russian revolution, which was led by Trotsky, or in 1917, or even up to the middle 1920’s, the Communist conspiracy was largely a child or at least a ward of the Zionist conspiracy. And for that reason Jews were preponderant in the top levels of the Communist hierarchy. But it seems equally clear to me that by 1937 or 1938, when Stalin had finally succeeded in taking into his own hands all of the reins of Communist power stretching out all over the world, the child had quite largely outgrown the parent . . . There followed a period when the Zionist conspiracy and the Communist conspiracy undoubtedly worked closely together, each one hoping and counting on ‘using’ the other, and coming out on top. But it seems equally clear to me that today – and that this has been completely true for at least the past fifteen years – the Communist conspiracy has now absorbed into itself so many other leaders and elements, and has so outgrown the Zionist conspiracy, that it completely dominates the picture and that the Zionist conspiracy has itself become merely one of the tools of the top Communist command. 10

Between the time he wrote to Lacey and the time he corresponded with Kaub and Smith, Welch published “And A Dangerous Weapon” in the April 1961 JBS Bulletin. Welch’s letter to Kaub in fact came in response to a March 1962 letter from Kaub, in which Kaub warned Welch that while Welch had “had more influential supporters but none more ‘faithful’ than I,” Kaub was finding it difficult to reconcile his support for Welch with what he erroneously believed was Welch’s refusal to criticize Zionism. “I just can't endorse the evil manipulations of the Zionists,” wrote the frustrated Kaub.104 Kaub appears to have been writing in response to Welch’s call in 1961 for a rejection of anti-Semitism and for entry into the Birch Society of large numbers of Jews; to Kaub, it seems, the line between pro-Semitism and pro-Zionism was extremely thin, if even present at all. Welch was defensive in reply, stressing again how much he disdained and hated the government of Israel and “the whole Zionist conspiracy.”105

Welch reiterated his views two and a half weeks later in writing to Gerald L. K. Smith, the former co-head of Huey Long’s Share Our Wealth society who had become a spokesman for white supremacy, anti-Semitism, and Holocaust denial.106 Writing to Smith, Welch argued that “the Jews” had lost a great deal of influence in “the total conspiracy” in the 1930s – but that before that time they were extremely important. “I simply do not believe, at least since Stalin gathered into his own hands in about 1937 all the reins of Communist conspiratorial power all over the world, the Jews have played any such vital or preponderant part in the total conspiracy, or its management, as appears to you to be the case,” he concluded.107 In corresponding with Smith, Lacey, and even arguably Kaub, Welch was admittedly attempting to present his views to men already convinced of the perfidy of Zionists and many Jews. By expressing any support for the anti-Semitic canard about the existence of a Zionist world conspiracy, no matter whether it was historical or contemporary, however, Welch and the Birchers appeared to be subscribing to some of the central tenets of classic anti-Semitism.

If nothing else, however, Welch could be counted on to defy both convention and sometimes even comprehension in his views on critical issues like anti-Semitism. Making the Birchers’ attitudes towards Zionism and Jews even more difficult to understand, Welch, who clearly believed that there had once existed a powerful Zionist conspiracy at the beginning of the twentieth century, took a decidedly odd view of The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, one of the first examples of modern conspiracy literature and one of the staple publications and pieces of “evidence” cited by anti- Semites and conspiracy-minded anti-Zionists alike. The Protocols, a notorious forgery dating back to the late 1800s, purported to be the blueprints for a Jewish plan to seize control of the world through market and media manipulation; they were instead probably distributed in Russia after 1897 by the Czar’s secret police in an attempt to show that the Czar’s enemies were part of a united world conspiracy.108 Despite the fact that large sections of the Protocols were clearly plagiarized from much earlier works, anti- Communists and anti-Semites in the United States seized upon the document after World War I (and the 1917 Communist Revolution in Russia) as proof of the existence an international Communist conspiracy.

The Protocols were made famous in the United States by industrialist Henry Ford, who used his wealth and control of automobile manufacture and distribution to place copies of The Dearborn Independent, a private anti-Communist and anti-Semitic paper, in Ford showrooms and newly sold Ford automobiles around the country.109 The individual editions of the paper were initially bound and sold in four volumes, but were ultimately combined in a single volume and published by the Dearborn Publishing Company as The International Jew.110 The International Jew remained one of the central anti-Semitic texts throughout the 1950s and 1960s, and well into the present day; Gerald L.K. Smith, for instance, produced and distributed an extremely popular abridged copy in the late 1950s.111 The Dearborn Independent continued to run the Protocols even after they had been revealed as forgeries in the London Times in 1921. “The only statement I care to make about the Protocols is that they fit in with what is going on,” Ford announced in a 1921 interview in the New York World after the Times had broken the story. “They are sixteen years old, and they have fitted the world situation up to this time. They fit it now."112

Quite unlike many others on the fringes of American political life who criticized Zionism and key Jewish organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League, Welch used his platform as head of the John Birch Society to declare the Protocols a hoax – and a communist plot – in “The Neutralizers.” Welch’s own view of the provenance of the Protocols was predictably somewhat bizarre. “Actually,” he wrote, “there is a strong indication and considerable logic that Lenin himself forged the so-called Protocols of The Elders of Zion, and planted them in the anti-Communist ranks to serve many long-range purposes.”113 Welch’s argument was that the Protocols represented one of the first attempts by the international communist conspiracy to foster anti-Semitism in anti- Communist ranks, and so hurt the anti-Communist movement. “Belief in the authenticity of the Protocols would in due course neutralize tens of thousands of the most determined anti-Communists, by sidetracking them onto a dead-end road,” he explained.114 Publication of the Protocols and acceptance of the legitimacy of the document in anti- Communist circles would, Welch added, so “anger and blind” Jewish sentiment against anti-Communists as to “solidify it almost unbrokenly against the anti-Communists.”115 By distributing the Protocols, moreover, the Communists would be able to provide their own supporters with an effective blueprint for world domination while still avoiding criticism for creating such an imperialist document. In Welch’s view, the Protocols were thus part of an incredibly subtle communist plot; anti-Communist and Americanist forces, he concluded, had been brilliantly suckered by the nefarious enemy.

As always, Welch, along with his allies in the Birch Society and even his correspondents, helped create whatever consensus there was among Americanist leaders and organizations, but it was not the Birchers alone who shaped Americanist beliefs about Zionism. In the early 1970s, for example, Dan Smoot laid out clearly many of the Americanist objections to Israel – and to the Zionists who had helped create the country. “Traditionally, the people and governments of that area had been friendly toward America and Americans,” Smoot argued in his 1973 book, The Business End of Government.

But the foreign policies of our government have converted friendliness into hostility. The leading role the United States played in setting up the nation of Israel in the heart of the Arab homeland; the rivers of American money pouring in to arm Israel and keep her socialist economy moving; the publicly announced promises of American Presidents of both major political parties to defend Israel with arms and money (and troops if necessary), no matter the circumstances or the consequences these activities and policies of the U.S. Government have driven Arab nations into the Communist camp. 116

604 and organizations, but it was not the Birchers alone who shaped Americanist beliefs about Zionism. In the early 1970s, for example, Dan Smoot laid out clearly many of the Americanist objections to Israel – and to the Zionists who had helped create the country. “Traditionally, the people and governments of that area had been friendly toward America and Americans,” Smoot argued in his 1973 book, The Business End of Government. But the foreign policies of our government have converted friendliness into hostility. The leading role the United States played in setting up the nation of Israel in the heart of the Arab homeland; the rivers of American money pouring in to arm Israel and keep her socialist economy moving; the publicly announced promises of American Presidents of both major political parties to defend Israel with arms and money (and troops if necessary), no matter the circumstances or the consequences these activities and policies of the U.S. Government have driven Arab nations into the Communist camp. 116 Smoot developed his objections to Israel in the November 6, 1973 Dan Smoot Report, which he entitled “A Ring in the Nose.” Nixon’s intervention in the 1973 war had been near-treason, Smoot argued, as the president had acted without the permission of Congress and had spent huge sums of American money “[w]ithout achieving ANYTHING beneficial for the United States,” and that in the process “Nixon's costly intervention . . . endangered our Middle Eastern source of oil.”117 “To put the matter even more bluntly,” Smoot concluded, “if we do not get the Israeli ring out of our nose, 605 the time will come when American blood as well as American wealth will be squandered in the Middle East. A ring in the nose is what it has been since 1948."118

While he was certainly anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist, Smoot was making points about American strategic security that were at least debatably accurate and important. Not all of the arguments he advanced, however, were so pragmatic; many, indeed, seemed to reflect an oddly biased view of the history of the creation of the State of Israel. In Smoot’s view, for example, it had been the Zionists – or even the Jews – who had initially stirred up trouble in British Palestine. “Defeat of the German Army at El Alamein on November 3, 1942, put an end to the German threat,” Smoot wrote. “Almost immediately, a secret Jewish army was formed in Palestine, armed with weapons stolen from the British. Bands of Jewish guerrillas spread death and terror throughout the Arab population. Arabs retaliated.”119 Smoot clearly laid the blame for the Arab-Israeli conflicts squarely on the Jews. In his version of events, the Arabs had been uniformly peaceful bystanders who had been viciously attacked by murderous Jews. Unsurprisingly, Smoot made no mention of Arab support for the Nazis or of Arab pogroms perpetrated against Jews long before the German defeat at El Almein; such events would not have fit in neatly with his overarching argument.

While the fact that he made such an unbalanced historical judgment is not conclusive evidence of anti-Semitism on Smoot’s part, it does seem that Smoot was predisposed to judge harshly the Jews who had helped found Israel. As part of this criticism of Zionism, Smoot wrote forcefully about what he viewed as the overwhelming power of world Jewry in both the United States and Europe. Smoot accordingly blamed the British government’s willingness to issue the Balfour Declaration of 1917, in which the British announced that they would “favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,” on “the enormous wealth, power, and influence of world Jewry, especially in the United States.”120 The truth, Smoot concluded, was that President Truman ultimately supported Jewish claims to Israel because as the underdog in the 1948 presidential election, Truman “desperately needed Jewish support, especially in New York where, in one city, at least two million Jews resided.”12

Of course, not all of the members of Americanist organizations whose leaders were in fact anti-Zionists were completely clear on why they should oppose the State of Israel. “The Israeli-Arab dispute is especially bewildering for many Birchers who believe the Jews have something to do with the Communist conspiracy,” noted former Florida Birch leader “Gerald Schomp” in 1970. “They can’t figure out why the Russians would want to equip the Arabs to attack the Israelis.”122 More importantly, not all Americanist leaders and organizations were in fact arrayed against Zionism and against Israel. The CACC’s Fred Schwarz was particularly known for his support for Israel, and for his rejection of comparisons between the socialism or even the communism of Zionists and the communism of the agents of the world Communist conspiracy. In the CACC’s April 4, 1966 newsletter, Schwarz recounted how when he had been speaking on “Communism and the New Left” at a public meeting at the University of California at Berkeley he had been challenged by a student who charged that the kibbutz movement in Israel was based on communistic principles. “To judge the World Communist Movement by the original meaning of the name ‘communism’ is as foolish as to identify the ‘Boys Club’ with the ‘DuBois Club’ because the names sound alike,” Schwarz reportedly replied. “The essential features of World Communism are materialism, class warfare, dictatorship, monopoly, and class liquidation. A movement which lacks these is not a part of the communism which threatens the world.”12

Berkeley he had been challenged by a student who charged that the kibbutz movement in Israel was based on communistic principles. “To judge the World Communist Movement by the original meaning of the name ‘communism’ is as foolish as to identify the ‘Boys Club’ with the ‘DuBois Club’ because the names sound alike,” Schwarz reportedly replied. “The essential features of World Communism are materialism, class warfare, dictatorship, monopoly, and class liquidation. A movement which lacks these is not a part of the communism which threatens the world.”123

Racist Backlash Against Americanist Anti-Anti-Semitism

One of the more remarkable aspects of the Americanists’ ambiguous approach to Jews and anti-Semitism is the angry reaction of some hardcore anti-Semites, who joined groups such as the John Birch Society believing that Americanists were in agreement that the problems of the world could be laid at the feet of the Jews. These anti-Semites, who included such men as Revilo P. Oliver, Willis Carto, the founder of the Liberty Lobby, and William L. Pierce, the founder of the white-supremacist National Alliance and author of The Turner Diaries, were startled to find that the Americanist Right wing largely believed what its leaders preached about tolerance of the Jews.124 Some, such as American Nazi George Lincoln Rockwell, kept trying to make inroads into the Americanist ranks. As previously noted in chapter 7, at the 1967 New England Rally for God, Family, and Country in Boston (one of the key annual events of the Americanist calendar), participants were electrified by rumors of American Nazi Party participation. “Mineographed [sic] sheets bearing the rally’s insignia had [mys]tery speaker’ [sic] to be American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell, and announced his subject as ‘Yellow Niggers and Red Jews,’” reported The Boston Globe in 1967.125 Rally Chairman Colonel Laurence Bunker, a former wartime aide to General Douglas MacArthur and a member of the JBS National Council, responded quickly and decisively to the rumors. “Mr. Rockwell’s presence is not expected,” declared the aging officer. “He was not invited, and he is not welcome if he gets here."126

The disgust and anger felt towards the John Birch Society and its Americanist allies by many of the leaders for whom racism and anti-Semitism were foundation values is perhaps best demonstrated by the reaction of Ben Klassen. Klassen, who in 1966 (with heavy Birch support) was elected the Florida State Representative from Broward Country, held a leadership position in the local Florida Society hierarchy, served for two years as the chairman of the John Birch Society’s Facts Finders Forum, recruited numerous members, and ran an American Opinion book store. After leaving the Society in 1969, Klassen went on in 1973 to found the violently racist and anti-Semitic Church of the Creator (COTC), which later became first the World Church of the Creator (WCOTC) and then “Creativity.” In his 1991 autobiography, Against the Evil Tide, written two years before his death by suicide, Klassen recalled his decision to resign from the Society127 After thinking for several months, Klassen wrote to Welch on November 5, 1969 and demanded the return of his $1000 life membership fee. “I am convinced,” he wrote in a letter which became famous in radical anti-Semitic and racist circles, and which mirrored an earlier letter from William Pierce, the author of The Turner Diaries,

609 Society127 After thinking for several months, Klassen wrote to Welch on November 5, 1969 and demanded the return of his $1000 life membership fee. “I am convinced,” he wrote in a letter which became famous in radical anti-Semitic and racist circles, and which mirrored an earlier letter from William Pierce, the author of The Turner Diaries, that this [JBS] program is one of utter failure . . . The fact of the matter, is, Mr. Welch, I am sure that you are aware that you are not telling your members the whole truth. In turn the John Birch Society members are confusing the American People as to who our enemy is, thereby granting immunity and respectability to the real culprit. You know as well as anybody that we are not threatened by a “Communist” conspiracy, but in the clutches of a Jewish conspiracy, that such nebulous fronts as socialism, communism, Fabianism, CORE, N.A.A.C.P., Black Panthers, S.D.S., and a thousand others are Jewish creations, instruments for the destruction and enslavement of the Gentiles in America and elsewhere.128

Responses to Americanist Ambiguity Towards Anti-Semitism

While the Americanist Right was fully capable of responding to open anti- Semitism or hate by issuing blistering critiques or canceling memberships (the John Birch Society in particular made it clear that it could cancel a membership at will, after which it carefully refunded a pro-rated amount of the relatively low yearly membership fee), the truth is that at least some of the time Americanists condoned the presence of open anti- Semites in their ranks. In April of 1964, for instance, John Baker, Jr., a JBS member from California, wrote Welch to complain about Welch’s statements in “The Neutralizers.” “Perhaps you should expel me from the John Birch Society," Baker wrote. 610 “I keep wondering whether the John Birch Society is merely to keep people like me harmlessly occupied, while things go on as usual. I am sure that you are wrong in your evaluation of the Jews . . . New York and Hollywood control thought in America. Who controls those cities? . . . We are witnessing something that dates back to the time of the Crucifixion, and the motives involved are the same.”129 Confronted with clear anti- Semitism and a belief that the Jews were behind the international Communist conspiracy, the Society did not revoke Baker’s membership, but instead repeated Welch’s personal analysis of the situation. “At the present time, the ‘Jewish’ aspect of this diabolical force we are up against is only one part of the entire picture, rather than the whole of it as some falsely advocate,” explained one of Welch’s assistants. “Mr. Welch objects to many who take this ‘Jewish’ slant and think it’s the whole picture of Communism. While he believes that the State of Israel is, for all practical purposes, run by Communists, the same can be said for Egypt too!”130

The Society clearly (and understandably) cared about maintaining its membership; this interest ultimately led Society leaders to conclude that they could ask members to keep anti-Semitic feelings and prejudices separate from Birch work. In 1974 John Fall, the John Birch Society’s Home Office Coordinator, wrote to David Keller, one of his regional leaders, regarding a member who was suspected of being anti-Semitic. Fall suggested that Keller speak with the member, and that if he found that she was “hell- bent on a Jewish Conspiracy point of view” that he explain that it would be in both the Society’s and the member’s best interests that she not renew her membership. With the issue of the individual member out of the way, Fall took the opportunity to instruct Keller on the proper way to handle similar cases in the future. “On this matter of anti-Semitism, Dave, there is a further distinction to be made," Fall wrote.

There is a fine line between personal prejudices, which everyone has the right to form, and open advocacy which would in effect neutralize other members and create a false impression of where the Society stands. We would not necessarily bar a person from membership merely because that person disliked a particular group of people . . . On the other hand an individual who goes around identifying himself as a Bircher and then launches into an anti-Semitic tirade creates a false impression of the Society and undoes much of the understanding other good members have worked so hard to create. And in such cases, again, we would prefer that these people go their own way.131

Clearly getting the message, Keller wrote back to Fall to report that he had spoken with the member and that he had decided to allow her to remain in the Society. “I’ve just recently had a chance to talk with her and observe her work in John Birch Society,” wrote Keller. “I think she is somewhat anti-Semitic but doesn’t seem to propagate this around her Birch work . . . So far she is an asset to her chapter as far as I can tell.”132 Again, while the Society’s interest in maintaining its membership and encouraging active members is understandable, the resistance of the Society’s leaders to ejecting members who were known anti-Semites tarnished the reputation of the Society as a whole and opened it to continued accusations of institutional Anti-Semitism.

Clearly getting the message, Keller wrote back to Fall to report that he had spoken with the member and that he had decided to allow her to remain in the Society. “I’ve just recently had a chance to talk with her and observe her work in John Birch Society,” wrote Keller. “I think she is somewhat anti-Semitic but doesn’t seem to propagate this around her Birch work . . . So far she is an asset to her chapter as far as I can tell.”132 Again, while the Society’s interest in maintaining its membership and encouraging active members is understandable, the resistance of the Society’s leaders to ejecting members who were known anti-Semites tarnished the reputation of the Society as a whole and opened it to continued accusations of institutional anti-Semitism.

The Americanist right, and the Birch Society in particular, also demonstrated its ambiguous feelings about Judaism and anti-Semitism through unequal treatment of key Americanist writers who harbored anti-Semitic feelings. Most notable among these were Revilo P. Oliver and Westbrook Pegler. Oliver, the professor of Classics at the University of Illinois, had been an important and even vital member of the Birch Society from the beginning, adding some much-needed intellectual and academic credibility. In Welch’s view, Oliver was “an authentic genius of the first water and quite possibly the world's greatest living scholar.”133 The Society made Oliver, a national COUNCIL member, responsible for reviewing books in American Opinion and for creating the popular “Scoreboard” editions describing the precise level of communist control in each country of the world.134 After the Kennedy assassination, Oliver came out with two articles, which were celebrated by the Birchers, in which he charged that the president had been killed because Kennedy had recently decided to turn against communism.135 Oliver even testified to the assistant counsel of the Warren Commission about his theories, though his ideas were essentially mocked when he could provide no proof.136

In 1966, however, Oliver crossed the line. Speaking at the annual Rally for God, Family, and Country in Boston, Oliver reportedly announced that “vaporizing” the Jews was a “beatific vision.”137 According to a 1966 article in the American Examiner, Oliver supposedly announced that the Jewish conspiracy had produced such evils as “degenerates, scum, dregs, savages, debased squealing enemies, dear little cockroaches, 613 howling mobs, parasites, and the lazy illegitimates.”138 In fact, the reports about what Oliver had said were not quite accurate. Rather than offering his own prescription for ending world conspiracy, Oliver was in his speech criticizing as simpleminded those who blamed the conspiracy entirely on the Communists, the Illuminati, or even the Jews, and was mocking the idea that the world would become a better place if only a group of people could be removed from existence. “Now most of the authors who offer us one or another of those three identifications expound their view in a manner that is less than cogent,” Oliver announced.

howling mobs, parasites, and the lazy illegitimates.”138 In fact, the reports about what Oliver had said were not quite accurate. Rather than offering his own prescription for ending world conspiracy, Oliver was in his speech criticizing as simpleminded those who blamed the conspiracy entirely on the Communists, the Illuminati, or even the Jews, and was mocking the idea that the world would become a better place if only a group of people could be removed from existence. “Now most of the authors who offer us one or another of those three identifications expound their view in a manner that is less than cogent,” Oliver announced. Most of them either overstate or oversimplify their case, and some of them, I am sorry to say, give the impression that they are no more intelligent than 'Liberal intellectuals.' Most of the writers on this subject are either so fascinated by their own discoveries or so anxious to convince a maximum number of readers that they imply that the conspiracy they identify is the root of all evil -- that if it were abolished, mankind -- all mankind, mind you -- would enter, instantly, on a Golden Age of peace and domestic tranquility and happiness. If only by some miracle all the Bolsheviks or all of the Illuminati or all the Jews were vaporized at dawn tomorrow, we should have nothing more to worry about. The trouble with that beatific vision, of course, is that every educated man knows that it just can't be so.”139

Ostensibly as a result of the speech, Oliver was removed from the Birch Society.140 Given that, as Oliver himself observed, he said in his speech exactly the opposite of what he was blamed for saying, it seems that there may have been other reasons in addition to his anti-Semitism for Oliver’s banishment from the Society.141 As William Turner suggested in Power on the Right, for instance, “[t]he exit of Oliver seems to have marked an attempt by the society to tone up its image, which had been severely damaged by the effects of earlier verbal haymakers thrown by Welch himself.”142 It is clear, however, that with his expulsion of Oliver from the Society, Welch was making a very public point that Nazi-like anti-Semitism would not officially be tolerated in the Americanist camp.

Welch faced a more difficult question about what to do with Westbrook Pegler. Between 1941, when he won the Pulitzer Prize for his exposé of union corruption in New York, and the late 1960s, Pegler experienced what the historian David Witwer has referred to as a “long slide into decline.”143 Pegler was, by the mid-1960s, an unabashed anti-Semite willing to express hideous ideas without hesitation.144 Writing in the ADL Bulletin in 1964, Oliver Pilat noted that the fortunate thing was that as Pegler made “the final descent” into anti-Semitism, only a few people were listening, and Pegler could not do the great damage that he once could have.145 Still, Pegler’s anti-Semitism was both shocking and increasingly unhinged.

While Pegler criticized some Jews during the mid-1940s for becoming Zionists, adopting Anglo-Saxon names, and controlling the garment and film industries, his most serious anti-Semitism seemingly had its foundations in the civil trial that resulted when the journalist and war correspondent Quentin Reynolds brought a claim against Pegler for libel.146 Reynolds, a longtime associate editor for Colliers, had incurred Pegler’s wrath by positively reviewing, in the New York Herald Tribune, a book about Heywood Broun, an old newspaper enemy of Pegler’s and friend of Reynolds’, in the New York Herald Tribune.147 In response, Pegler wrote in his column that Reynolds was “sloppy,” “and that his protuberant belly was filled with something else than guts.” “Reynolds was an absentee war correspondent,” Pegler added, “with the yellow streak glaring for the world to see.” Pegler also reported that Reynolds practiced nudism and had proposed marriage to Broun's wife on the way to Broun's grave.148 During the trial, Pegler looked petty and foolish when questioned by Reynolds’ attorney, Louis Nizer. At one point, for instance, Nizer read a sentence, and asked Pegler whether the sentence sounded like pro- communist propaganda. After Pegler answered that it certainly did sound like propaganda, Nizer revealed that Pegler himself had written the sentence back in 1937.149 616 At the end of the case, which inspired a book, a Broadway show, and two made-for- television movies, the jury awarded Reynolds one dollar for actual damages and $175,000 for punitive damages – the largest libel judgment that had ever been awarded in an American court.15 As Pegler’s correspondence makes clear, he never really recovered from the shame of losing the trial, and for some reason he blamed Jews for his loss. “In one interview about ‘A Case of Libel,’” wrote Oliver Pilat, Pegler “lumped the New York Federal courts as ‘the Southern district of Tel-Aviv.’”151 Pegler was convinced that he had been intentionally targeted by a Jewish conspiracy, and specifically by the ADL. In a somewhat cryptic 1956 letter to George Pattullo, a long-time friend, Pegler explained his feelings about Jews. Jews, Pegler explained, with some exceptions are “incapable of loyalty.” “The time came,” Pegler wrote, “when Bnai Brith [sic] began to stink to the US public so they organized the Anti-Defamation League as a front for BB. This is a terroristic, blackmailing, censorship outfit.”152 Pegler went on to describe what he saw as Jewish attempts to control both Russia and Germany and as the Jewish plot to discredit 617 and kill former Secretary of the Navy and Secretary of Defense James Forrestal. Pegler then embarked on an Anti-Semitic rant:

They control radio – Sarnoff and Paley both hebes. They control the big advertising agencies. They run the amusement business . . . They are behind the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and they run absolutely the so-called National Conference of Christians and Jews . . . at Christmas they choke out all mention of Christ and the Nativity in exercises on public property. They run propaganda in the schools explaining that Christmas really means brotherhood.153

Pegler’s disabling grief over the death of his wife is apparent even through his anti- Semitism. “The bastards tortured my Julie for her last five years, and I will have my revenge if I can live long enough," he declared.

By the early-to-mid-1960s, Pegler’s anti-Semitism was completely out of control. On Thanksgiving Day in 1962, as Oliver Pilat recounted in the ADL Bulletin, Pegler became so drunk and so unpleasant that he was physically ejected from the Stork Club. When the New York Post columnist Leonard Lyons emerged from the club with a group of friends, Pegler called Lyons a “kike-son-of-a-bitch” and “that Jew-Communist Lyons.” “When a group of bystanders finally poured him into a cab,” added Pilat, “he was weeping and calling aloud for his late wife Julie.”154 Even in his private communications, Pegler was beginning to ramble. In October of 1964, Pegler wrote a letter to William F. Buckley Jr., seemingly in response to a letter the Buckley had sent Pegler saying that Pegler had hurt the feelings of Eugene Lyons, one of the Jewish writers for the National Review.155 In response, Pegler sent a confused letter that oscillated between unrestrained anger and solicitous reassurances. “These ugly enemies of our liberty and decency have made Americans hesitant or afraid to attack them as a group enemy,” wrote Pegler. “They rely on us to treat them as though they deserved honor and respect, knowing that they are vicious and contemptible and when we are brave enough to show that they are unspeakably evil they invoke that fact as proof that we hate them as of course we should."156

Pegler made it clear that he blamed the Jews for the fact that he was no longer nationally syndicated, and cautioned Buckley against falling into the same trap. Pegler wrote that he hoped Buckley would not find himself throttled by “the Jews,” by which term, he explained, he meant the “dirty kikes,” “the organized but shapeless mass of animalistic objects who qualify for membership in Bnai Brith and citizenship in Israel . . . the leeches spawned by Russian needleworkers on the East side.”157 As Pegler’s letter demonstrated, by this time he had largely accepted all of the most cherished arguments of anti-Semites like George Lincoln Rockwell’s American Nazis – including the argument that the Germans had acted correctly before World War II in trying to remove Jewish influence from Germany. “They know that most of my attacks on Hitler . . . were based on their own whining lies about the just causes for the Nazis’ determination to throw them out,” Pegler exclaimed. “I realize that I even refrained from publishing some of the truth of their treachery toward the people of the German nation which, in common with other courageous and honest nations in Europe, refused to regard Jews as citizens.” “I think the Jews in this country must be licked,” Pegler concluded. "Otherwise we must have a Hitler.”158 With Pegler’s anti-Semitism pervading his published work as well as his private correspondence, it was obvious to all by the mid-1960s that Pegler had become a full-blown anti-Semite.

Oddly enough, even in the midst of this virulent anti-Semitism, Pegler seemed to manifest the Americanist Right’s willingness to focus on ideas rather than race; in 1965, for instance, Pegler wrote to the Jewish anti-Zionist Alfred Lilienthal to praise Lilienthal’s powerful attacks on Israel. Pegler added a back-handed compliment by commenting to Lilienthal that he had “to say that I encountered few Jews of your honor and integrity.” 159 By the late 1960s, however, even a willingness to accept a few anti- Zionist Jews like Lilienthal was not enough to save Pegler, whose overt anti-Semitism was becoming more and more noxiously objectionable, from being dropped from the Birch Society.160 That he had not been dropped before, however, suggests some of the difficulty that Welch and his allies had in deciding how to treat people they saw as great Americanists, who also happened to be racist and anti-Semitic.

Individual Responses to Anti-Semitism

While the statements and responses of key leaders, speakers, and writers reveal a great deal about Americanist attitudes towards Jews and anti-Semitism, the statements and responses of typical Americanists suggest what Americanists were really thinking and saying. The responses of various Americanists to the John Birch Society’s or the Christian Anti-Communism Crusade’s anti-anti-Semitism ranged widely from support for and from anti-Communist Jews to denunciations of Judaism as evil or anti-Christian to unbalanced rants against individuals or institutions supposedly affiliated with world Jewry. Some of the members’ messages conveyed the concerns of Society members about the existence or prevalence of anti-Semitic beliefs within local chapters of the Society. In October of 1961, for instance, Mary T. Johnson of Arcadia, California reported that “there seems to be an anti-Jewish movement going around, which could cause a split in the ranks.” “It might be wise to remind the members of our true aims as there should be unity in what we are fighting," she concluded.161

Of course, not all Americanists were as eager to abolish anti-Semitism or to welcome Jews into the Americanist ranks as were Welch or Schwarz. Some JBS members, including one female Bircher from Detroit, Michigan, found their religious beliefs in conflict with Welch’s assertion that peoples of all faiths could be anti- Communists. ““I am resigning from your society today after having read The Neutralizer [sic],” this Bircher wrote in her December 1963 message. “I honestly feel that the pamphlet is a distortion of the truth and hence is anti-Christian . . . since I am 100% Christian and completely believe that the way of Christ is the only why – there are no other religions, I cannot compromise. There is no middle of the road. You and your Council have chosen to follow the anti-Christ. I cannot follow.” 162 Other members went further in expressing true hatred for or suspicion of American Jews. “I think it would be a good idea if our RIGHT WING ARMED FORCES LEADERS took control of our Government out of the hands of the Bolshevik-Jew Communist and ran it with a hand of iron until every Communist in the State Department, the White House, and every branch of the Government is thoroughly cleaned of Bolsheviks, Jews and Communists and their brothers,” declared Martha L. McKinney of West Palm Beach, Florida in a September 1961 message.163

Not all messages seemingly discussing Jews, Judaism, or anti-Semitism were clear or even rational. In one rant, for instance, Louise Goddard, a Society member from Lakeland, Florida seemingly suggested in 1961 that the Communists were seeking to subvert American culture by forcing Americans to listen to Soviet or Jewish composers. “There are one million federated music clubs members in the United States. They are DEDICATED to Dmitri Shostakovich (poet) Laureate of Soviet Russia and Leonard Bernstein,” Goddard declared. “Last year members were advised from above (not meaning Heaven) to vote Bernstein’s program . . . This is ridiculous. Soviet composers whose works are a far cry from the old Russian school have dominated our concerts for years. There is not a white man on the list."164

Jewish Americanists

In 1961, Robert Welch had, as previously noted, responded to allegations that he was anti-Semitic by writing in “And A Dangerous Weapon" that he was about as anti-Semitic as such Jewish Americanists as Willi Schlamm, one of the leading writers for American Opinion, the late Alfred Kohlberg, a former JBS COUNCIL member, and Rabbi Max Merritt, the Executive Director of the Jewish Council Against Communism. 165 Americanists such as Welch and Schwarz, along with many members of their organizations, gleefully welcomed Jewish Americanists. “On the national scene, the society was more active than ever,” wrote Fred J. Cook in the Nation in 1967. “The Jewish Society of Americanists, composed entirely of Jewish members of the John Birch Society – the Birch ghetto, you might say – was organized and started a newsletter.”166 “The idea that the [Birch] Society is anti-Semitic by intention was countered by the formation of the Jewish Society of Americanists,” added “Gerald Schomp" in 1970.167

Comments such as Welch’s were undeniably effective responses to some claims that Americanists were anti-Semites – in large part because these comments were based in truth. Kohlberg, while he lived, had been an important member of the COUNCIL who had helped to create the Birch Society’s 1959 Committee Against Summit Entanglements (CASE). CASE held a petition drive, and in the end reportedly gathered over one million signatures urging Eisenhower not to meet with Khrushchev.168 Rabbi Merritt was important enough to the Americanist cause (and not just the JBS) that the CACC’s September 1963 newsletter announced his death, noting that "a great friend of the Christian Anti-Communism Crusade” had passed away suddenly. 169 Even with the passing away of such key figures as Kohlberg and Rabbi Merritt, organizations like the Birch Society and the CACC sought to ally themselves with Jewish Americanist leaders and organizations. In October of 1970, for instance, the CACC told its members about an organization called The Jewish Right, which was based in Los Angeles. “The Christian Anti-Communism Crusade is always encouraged to find other groups active in the fight to preserve a society which allows freedom of choice from the onslaught of the totalitarian barbarians such as the communists,” the CACC noted. 170 The chairman of The Jewish Right was Rabbi Chaim I. Etner, the president Barney Finkel, M.D., and the executive director Georgia M. Gabor. Etner, an Orthodox rabbi, had in 1964 been found liable by a California court for entering into a conspiracy to cause one of Los Angeles’ largest distributors of Kosher chickens to violate the laws of Kosher food processing.171 Finkel and Gabor were less controversial: Finkel was the 1969 president of the Missouri Academy of Family Physicians, and Gabor, a Hungarian Jewish immigrant to the United States, was the author of a Holocaust memoir entitled My Destiny: Survivor of the Holocaust.172 Finkel was the man to whom Gary Allen and Larry Abraham came in 1971 in order to get a dust jacket quote for None Dare Call It Conspiracy. Finkel obliged, as previously noted, writing that as “people of the Jewish faith have been the number one historical victims of the Communist Conspiracy,” he hoped that every Jew would read the book carefully, “so they will become aware of the forces which often attempt to manipulate them.” 173

It seems clear (in part from the marginal reputations of men such as Rabbi Etner) that Jews, while welcomed in the Birch Society and in Americanist ranks, were never as a group all that powerful a force on the Americanist right. “The group [the Jewish Society of Americanists] was organized by the few Jews who found a home in the Society,” observed Schomp. “It didn’t really accomplish much, except to throw the Jewish Anti- Defamation League into fits of temper which brought a lot of sadistic joy to Birchville in Belmont.” 174 Jewish Americanists in a sense served as figureheads, as did the few African American Americanists Welch and his allies managed to bring to their side. While men such as Kohlberg, Schlamm, and Finkel clearly believed in Americanist ideology, they were viewed with caution and even disdain by the mainstream Jewish community. One Jewish leader, for instance, Dr. Murray Friedman of the Institute of Human Relations of the American Jewish Committee, wrote in 1966 that “there are even Jewish Birch Society members, but these in the main are a fringe who think that by association they can prove how patriotic they are."175

Even though they may have represented a “fringe,” however, some of these Jewish Americanists (especially the authors) were both important and influential in American society as a whole. One of the most important Jewish Americanists was William “Willi” S. Schlamm, an Austrian-born communist-turned-conservative who 625 wrote for a number of Americanist publications in the late 1950s and 1960s and who – more importantly – helped to found the National Review and create the foundations of modern American Conservatism.176 Schlamm, the former editor of both the Austrian Communist Party’s periodical Die Rote Fahne (Red Flag) and Henry Luce’s Fortune magazine, was the author of numerous articles, in addition to books on American foreign policy, and also wrote the introduction to William F. Buckley Jr.’s and L. Brent Bozell’s 1954 McCarthy and His Enemies.177 After turning from Communism in disgust during the Stalin era, Schlamm became increasingly anti-Communist, and even befriended Time editor Whittaker Chambers, who went on to play the central role in the trial of accused communist spy Alger Hiss. By the end of World War II, Schlamm was Henry Luce’s senior assistant and foreign policy advisor (Luce was the founder and editor-in-chief of several magazines, including Time and Fortune.)178

Over the next fifteen years, Schlamm continued to move to the right, becoming first an unabashed McCarthyite and then a dedicated Americanist. In February of 1958, Schlamm in fact wrote the lead article for the Birch Society’s new American Opinion magazine.179 Over the next five years, until December of 1962, Schlamm served as one 626 of American Opinion’s associate editors, and was responsible for writing a column on the situation in Europe. 180 As the conservative writer George Nash noted in a 1999 article in American Jewish History entitled “Forgotten Godfathers: Premature Jewish Conservatives and the Rise of National Review,” Schlamm even revolted against his friend Buckley when Buckley in the early 1960s sought to distance the National Review from the Birch Society and Robert Welch. “Even after Buckley informed him in 1962 that Welch was now ‘greatly damaging the anti-Communist cause,’ Schlamm (now living in Europe) counseled against public criticism of him,” noted Nash.181 When Buckley proceeded to do so anyway, Schlamm replied that Buckley had made a fatal mistake. The right thing to do, Schlamm argued, was to work with Welch and to try to direct Welch’s interests away from radical claims, and so to retain the power of the Birch Society’s membership. In many ways, Willi Schlamm echoed (or helped to define) the feelings that Robert Welch himself had about Jews, Israel, and Jewish organizations. In 1964, for instance, Schlamm attacked “New York Jews” in Wer ist Jude? (Who is a Jew?) for “casting suspicion on every man of the American Right for rabid anti-Semitism.”182 Both in Wer ist Jude and in interactions with fellow conservatives, moreover, Schlamm evinced total disregard and even disdain for Israel.183

Schlamm was not the only Jewish Americanist who was willing to criticize Jewish organizations and the State of Israel for communist and anti-conservative leanings. The anti-Zionist opinions of Americanist leaders such as Dan Smoot and Westbrook Pegler were well represented throughout the 1960s and 1970s in the materials that Birch members and other Americanists could order from the Birch Society’s publishing label or could buy through Birch-affiliated bookstores. As they did with many other subjects, Americanists identified reputable or formerly reputable scholars who agreed with their opinions, and then publicized the works of those scholars (usually far divorced from mainstream scholarship) to support their views. Obviously, anti-Zionist opinions were most powerful and persuasive when they came from Jews, just as anti- desegregation opinions were most powerful when they came from African Americans. On Zionism and middle-east affairs, many Americanists (including Welch and Smoot) seized upon the books of Alfred M. Lilienthal, a Jewish writer and virulent anti-Zionist whose work was sufficiently mainstream that his books were reviewed in Foreign Affairs, International Affairs, and the Journal of Near East Studies.184 Lilienthal’s controversial works, which included What Price Israel (1953), There Goes the Middle East (1957), The Other Side of the Coin: An American Perspective of the Arab-Israeli Conflict (1965), and The Zionist Connection: What Price Peace? (1978), were heavily publicized and touted in the Birchers’ American Opinion and in American Opinion bookstores.185 Other avenues for distribution of Lilienthal’s works and the works of like- minded analysts and authors included Birch-inspired events such as the New England Rally for God, Family, and Country. “The American Education Association distributed material against the policy of its national rival the NEA, and gave out copies of Alfred Lilienthal's anti-Zionist newsletter, ‘Middle East Perspectives,’” wrote Pilot reporter Ivan Kerers, speaking of the 1973 Rally.186

Welch, Smoot, and other anti-Zionist Americanists were effectively echoing the opinions and sentiments expressed by Lilienthal in viewing the State of Israel with distaste, distrust, and even loathing.187 Lilienthal himself argued that the creation of the State of Israel had been an international crime and miscarriage of justice, and that – more importantly – American support for Israel had been bad for the United States in a strategic sense.188 According to Richard Gott, who reviewed Lilienthal’s 1965 The Other Side of the Coin for International Affairs, Lilienthal’s argument was that “United States support of Israel is pernicious, misguided, and against the national interest . . .”189 “The more the United States supported its ward, Israel,” Lilienthal himself wrote, "the more 629 the Arabs turned to the Soviet Union.”190 The fact that Lilienthal was Jewish was vitally important to Americanist organizatons, which invariably mentioned his religion when publicizing his books. (Interestingly, according to the conservative publisher Henry Regnery, Willi Schlamm was heavily involved in making “extensive editorial revisions involving matters of style” to Lilienthal’s book What Price Israel.191

Not all Jewish Americanists were activists like Merritt or Kohlberg or authors like Schlamm and Lilienthal; some were ordinary members of the JBS or were ordinary Americans who found themselves attracted to and interested in programs run by organizations like the Christian Anti-Communism Crusade. Some of these ordinary Jewish Birch Society members used their Member’s Monthly Messages to discuss how they as Jews had been accepted by the Society. In October of 1964, for instance, a Bircher from the Bronx wrote to Belmont that before he joined the Society he had heard that Society members were “nothing but a bunch of anti-Semites.” “Being Jewish this worried me,” the Bircher noted. “I decided to look and see for myself. After being a member for about six months, and a chapter leader for 3, I have come to the conclusions that the JBS is the greatest organization ever . . . anti-Semitism doesn’t exist in the JBS.” 192 The CACC too received letters from interested and thankful prospective Jewish members. In one letter, reprinted in the CACC’s November 1962 newsletter, a Jewish boy who attended the Greater New York School of Anti-Communism wrote Schwarz to thank Schwarz for the program and for providing a scholarship scholarship so the boy could attend the program. “I am a Jew,” wrote the boy, “and as a Jew, an orthodox one, I am against Communism and atheism. I feel it my duty to organize and found an Anti-Communist organization based on a Jewish theme for my Jewish brethren. I feel that we should, Jew and Christian, join hand in hand to combat this menace to our utmost. I would like your opinion regarding my intentions of found [sic] the ‘Jewish Teens for America’ at our school."193

The existence of Jewish Americanists was particularly repugnant to some of the hardcore racists who initially believed that they had found a spiritual home in the Birch Society or allies among the members of the Americanist right. In his autobiography, Ben Klassen used the existence of Jewish Americanists as proof that the Birch Society and its allies were part of the greater communist conspiracy. “There was no lack of issues to belabor,” he wrote, “but never would they ever mention the Jewish involvement behind the communist conspiracy . . . In fact, some of the speakers the JBS had on their roster were themselves niggers or Jews.”194 Klassen was particularly irritated by the existence of the Jewish Society of Americanists. Klassen recounted how, at one JBS meeting he attended, “a swarthy Jew,” the head of the Jewish branch of the Society, sat off to one side of the room “observing all and busily taking notes,” but not participating in the meeting. “Why the Jews should have a special ‘branch’ when no one else did was never explained to me,” Klassen added, “but we were oh, so happy that this powerful group was on ‘our’ side! How lucky can you get?"195

Some racists and anti-Semites, including both Gerald L. K. Smith and William L. Pierce, were convinced that the presence and acceptance of Jews in Americanist organizations was not welcomed by the majority of members of groups such as the Birch Society. Like Klassen, Smith and Pierce were offended by Welch’s anti-anti-Semitism, and several times tried to convince Americanists of the dangers of a Jewish conspiracy and the perfidy of Jews in general. Writing to Welch in April of 1962, Smith mocked Welch’s threat to send out a letter to Birch Society members denouncing Smith’s anti- Semitic ideas. “I am of the opinion that anything put out by you against me to your people might boomerang,” Smith wrote. “I have no statistics to establish my theory, but I have a rather convincing hunch that if the people who agree with me on the Jewish question were thrown out of the John Birch Society, you might be surprised at how much meat would be taken off the bone.”196 Smith’s anti-Semitism was ostensibly a response to what he saw as Jewish attempts to harm the Americanist cause. Accordingly, in his letter to Welch, Smith smugly announced that he of course hoped that Welch was right to trust the Jews. “The day that a single Rabbi or a single Jewish organization meets and approves the work of the John Birch Society will be a red letter day on my calendar,” Smith wrote. “God bless you, Robert Welch. There is nothing you have that I want."197

Pierce was less willing than Smith to even hint that he could accept the existence of Jewish Americanists. In an article he wrote for National Vanguard Magazine in 1996, Pierce recounted how by his third meeting with the Birch Society he had already read enough on his own to address what he believed to be the true source of the communist 632 conspiracy. “In all innocence,” Pierce wrote, “I blurted out: ‘You know, it's clear that the reason the Reds are getting such sympathetic press coverage is because so many of the media are owned or controlled by Jews. I think we ought to emphasize the connection between the Jewish founders of Communism and today's Jewish media bosses in our publications.’”198 Pierce wrote that he was surprised at the response: one or two of the members present nodded in agreement, but the chapter coordinator announced that the members couldn’t discuss whether Jews played any role in the conspiracy. After reading The Neutralizers, which was given to him by the chapter coordinator, Pierce wrote a letter to Welch explaining his theory of the connection between Communism and Jews. “In fact,” remembered Pierce, “I told him, I was convinced that the real enemy of our people was the Jew, and that Communism was merely one of the weapons that the Jew was using against us at this time. Welch was not impressed by my evidence or my arguments, and the John Birch Society and I parted company.” 199 Such was the fate of a number of racists, including Pierce, Klassen, and Revilo Oliver, who had initially believed that they had found in the Americanist right a home for their racist and anti- Semitic views.

While there were likely never all that many Jewish Americanists, the existence of any Jewish Americanists, and especially the acceptance by Americanist organizations and individuals of Jewish Americanist leaders and writers, demonstrates the difference between the Americanists and such straight racists and anti-Semitic organizations as the Ku Klux Klan or George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party. While it is almost impossible to imagine the American Nazi Party welcoming Jewish members, the Americanists clearly did – and found Jews who identified with Americanist ideas and goals. Even the anti-Semitic Americanist Westbrook Pegler was willing to welcome Jews into the Americanist fold – provided that those Jews, like Alfred Lilienthal, rejected Israel, the ADL, and Zionism whole-heartedly.200 For many Americanists, then, whether or not they harbored some prejudices, ideology was far more important than were race and religion. It did not matter at all whether a man or woman was white, black, Jewish, Protestant, or Catholic; what mattered was what people believed.

Conclusion

“Always a refuge for suspicious minds, the John Birch Society has been plagued by the problem of religious bigotry,” wrote Benjamin R. Epstein and Arnold Forster for the Anti-Defamation League in 1964. “It is not startling, however, that these hatreds have been a chronic problem for the Birch Society. Organizations of the Far Right, past and present, have always been magnets for anti-Semites and have frequently been tainted by anti-Semitism.”201 Such a conclusion, while accurate so far as it goes, misses the central paradox of the Americanist Right’s feelings about Jews and anti-Semitism – which in many ways mirrored the central paradox of the Americanist Right’s feelings about African Americans and racism: while they held many of the same positions as did dedicated anti-Semites, such as hatred of the ADL, distrust of Israel, and dislike of Zionism, Americanists were truly and actually interested in opposing what they believed was an international communist conspiracy, and perhaps its foundations in a Zionist conspiracy, and did not on the whole believe in the continued existence of an international Jewish conspiracy. This position proved confusing both to the public, which persisted in believing that the John Birch Society and its Americanist allies were very much like the American Nazi Party or the Ku Klux Klan, and also to the United States’ committed anti-Semites, many of whom joined the Society believing that they had found a spiritual home, only to find themselves ostracized or officially cast out as a result of their anti-Semitic beliefs.

634 dedicated anti-Semites, such as hatred of the ADL, distrust of Israel, and dislike of Zionism, Americanists were truly and actually interested in opposing what they believed was an international communist conspiracy, and perhaps its foundations in a Zionist conspiracy, and did not on the whole believe in the continued existence of an international Jewish conspiracy. This position proved confusing both to the public, which persisted in believing that the John Birch Society and its Americanist allies were very much like the American Nazi Party or the Ku Klux Klan, and also to the United States’ committed anti-Semites, many of whom joined the Society believing that they had found a spiritual home, only to find themselves ostracized or officially cast out as a result of their anti-Semitic beliefs. American Jews were not ambivalent, but were instead largely convinced that Americanists were expressing anti-Semitic beliefs through criticism of Israel and discussion of the international communist conspiracy. The American Jewish community had a jaundiced view of those claiming to be anti-Zionist but not anti-Semitic; American Jews had heard such protestations before from individuals seeking to camouflage true hatred of Jews. Still, many Americanists believed that their ideas about Zionism, the ADL, and even international bankers were not anti-Semitic; what they could not grasp was that the American public would never distinguish between the complex views of Americanists and the simplistic beliefs of dedicated anti-Semites – and would never accept that Americanists actually believed anti-Semitism to be a communist plot. Continually hopeful that their fellow Americans would come to realize the “truth,” convinced that the means of countering charges of anti-Semitism was simply increased publicity, and dedicated to their own bizarre theories about communism and conspiracy, Americanists continued to shout their support for Jews, hatred of Israel and the ADL, and rejection of anti-Semitism to an American public that – because it thought it already knew what was going to be said - saw little point in paying attention.

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TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: antisemitism; antizionism; birchers; hamas; hezbollah; houthis; iran; lox; lunatics

[Zionist Conspirator]

The above is an excerpt of the linked document, a dissertation. I began on page 596 (dealing explicitly with Israel and Zionism), but the section dealing with anti-Semitism as a whole begins on page 556.

It took me literally hours to copy and post this. I am sure the reader will find numerous mistakes in the formatting, though I tried to at least fix some of the more blatant errors. I confess that this was so hard and took so long that simply gave up on transcribing the italics used throughout the text. Most numbers are footnotes (available in the link) while some are page numbers. Mea culpa, but this has been draining enough.

This exposes the Birch Society as Anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic from day one (the belief in a "Zionist conspiracy" is inherently anti-Semitic and especially the charge that Zionism "spawned" Communism).

All FReepers who support Israel and are members of the Birch Society should get out. Their current position is rabidly anti-Israel and this shows how deep the sickness goes.

Please note that the Society's founder Welch, while believing in a "Zionist conspiracy" that "spawned" the Communist conspiracy, was not a Fundamentalist chrstian but a theologically ultra-liberal Unitarian who believed in evolution. Why would such a person be so convinced that every Jewish organized movement was a "conspiracy?"

[DesertRhino]

Almost everything the John birch society said has been born out to be factual.

[newfreep]

They all started looking real suspicious at him
And he jumped up and said, “Now just wait a minute Jim!
You know he’s lying, I been living here all of my life!”
“I’m a faithful follower of Brother John Birch
And I belong to the Antioch Baptist Church
And I ain’t even got a garage, you can call home and ask my wife!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJrRwTTqm0o

[Right Brother]

Since your screen name is Zionist Conspirator, could you please explain to me exactly what a Zionist is?

[wardaddy]

Dispys don’t care

[Governor Dinwiddie]

The remaining John Birchers all live in nursing homes and assisted living now.

The J.B.S. were right about so much. They used to put out a magazine about the size of the TV guide, and I used to read it. I can't say that I ever encountered any antisemitism in it.

That said, Israel has one tiny little spot of land in the middle of a desert. It is the homeland for the Jewish people. People can disagree on financial support. But Israel certainly has the right to exist in their ancient homeland.

[cgbg]

The John Birch Society had the correct enemies.

[rrrod]

JBS has always been pure scum...

[Fledermaus]

I gave up after the 1,004th paragraph

[JadeEmperor]

Just go to the source and thump those Protocols some more /s

[cgbg]

At least you didn’t accuse me of writing the Protocols.

Lol.

[cgbg]

I am making the same offer to AIPAC as I have made to Big Pharma.

Pay me a million bucks and I will gladly shill for my new masters.

[Leaning Right]

> The J.B.S. were right about so much. They used to put out a magazine about the size of the TV guide, and I used to read it. <

They also had a toll-free phone number you could call for a short daily commentary. This was well before Al Gore invented the Internet.

Like with your experience, I never encountered any antisemitism there.

[cgbg]

In the old days I visited their HQ in Belmont, MA.

They were class acts—even when I did not agree with some of their views I admired their courage and determination.

The odds were heavily stacked against them.

[silent majority rising]

I agree with you, sir or madam.

[silent majority rising]

Give him a break Fledermaus. As he said, it takes a lot of effort to overcome formatting, and he put a lot of effort into it, whether anyone agrees with it or not.

[Fiji Hill]

It took me literally hours to copy and post this...

You wasted your time. I didn't take the time to read all of this screed, tut I quickly determined that it's BS. Robert Welch was most certainly not anti-Semitic, did not believe in a "Zionist conspiracy," and never said that Communism was "spawned" by such a conspiracy.

And the JBS was never anti-Semitic and never referred to Communism as a "Zionist conspiracy." Judeophobes who show up in the JBS are quickly zotted.

[Leaning Right]

As you probably know, the John Birchers were extremely anti-communist. And that led them to take some rather unpopular views. For example, they mistrusted Eisenhower.

That was kinda goofy. But overall, the Birchers were on the right track. Communism was a huge threat back in those days. And it still is today, under the guise of “democratic socialism”.

[cgbg]

The Welch book about Eisenhower was called “The Politician”.

I found it unpersuasive.

Their best work included the first book that exposed the phony baloney Forrestal “suicide”.

Since then David Martin (aka DC Dave—former post here) has written an updated work with additional detail.

No Bircher I knew never made any comments (pro or con) relating to Jews or Israel at all.

[Torahman]

Interesting minutia, and mostly irrelevant. The JBS were anti-communists, and Welch was right about where the UN was heading. He hated it, and rightly so. The UN is The apogee of Jew Hatred in the West today. Welch did not understand how the 2000 years of exile and pograms had hollowed out the biblical faith dynamic of authentic Judaism. The Jews of Eastern Europe saw in atheistic Communism and its concomitant hatred of Christianity a safe haven from persecution. They thought they could keep their cultural affectations and get by. They were wrong. So they wrapped everything up in a bandana and took off; and brought a quasi-religious Marxism to the barren sands of the Negev. There, these young, energetic Zionists established the Kibbutzim on a heady mixture of Borscht, and Blshevism and Bagels. There is a symbiotic resonance between Mark and Allen Ginsburg that goes beyond their grizzly appearance, and it is found in a robust, arrogant antagonism toward the God of their Fathers.