A year later than his letter to Kaub, Robert Welch wrote and the Birch Society published a tract called "The Neutralizers." In the tract, he said, "Actually there is a strong indication and considerable logic that Lenin himself forged the so-called Protocols 0f The Elders Of Zion, and planted them in the anti-Communist ranks to serve many long-range purposes." The tract goes on to denounce anti-Semitism as a dead end that diverts activists from focusing on the true enemy of Communism. Welch points out that none of the top world Communist leaders at the time were Jewish (although he identifies Charles de Gaulle as a Communist!). He also says that while there are Communists of Jewish background, there are also Communists who had been Methodists or Catholics.
There are some common threads between the Kaub letter and "The Neutralizers": an admonition against overemphasizing Jewish involvement in Communism, the pressure individual Jews endured to not become involved in anti-Communist causes, and the centrality of Communism as the main conspiracy in the world of that time. However, "The Neutralizers" does not mention, and implicitly denies, the existence of a conspiracy to rule the world by the Jews qua Jews. One can only conclude that either Robert Welch had a change of mind between his letter to Kaub in 1962 and the writing of "The Neutralizers" tract in 1963, or he had an "Outer Doctrine" and "Inner Doctrine."
The expulsion of active anti-Semites such as Revilo Oliver, David Gumaer, Jack Mohr, and John Schmitz occured after 1963. Additionally, Welch and his cohorts seemed to abandon their earlier position of "no enemies on the Right," as their publications denounced Willis Carto and Liberty Lobby, the Birchers' main rival on the conspiratorial Right. The changed attitude may have been a post-Goldwater event. Remember that the smashing defeat of Goldwater and the freight train speed of the Great Society legislation greatly demoralized conservatives. In January 1965, National Review dedicated most of an issue to denunciation of the Birchers, with the magazine's "big guns" like Russell Kirk and James Burnham taking shots at the organization.
Robert Welch desired to continue his national influence in an environment where demoralization and attacks from mainstream conservatism were more damaging to the John Birch Society than were those coming from the major media or the Left. The numbers of potential recruits and the money lay with the mainstream conservative movement. It may be that the dropping of the "no enemies on the Right" and the expulsion of vocal anti-Semites after 1963 or 1965 was a strategic move to maintain the Birch Society's viability rather than a change of heart.
However, the question of Welch's relations with anti-Semites and his belief (or lack thereof) in Protocols-based conspiratorialism is yet to be solved.
Once again you have provided provocative and well-reasoned analysis. A few additional thoughts:
Notice that in Welch's letter to Dr. Lacey (February 1961), he says that it is "clear to me today" AND "for at least the past fifteen years" (i.e. 1946-1961) that "the Communist conspiracy (has) outgrown the Zionist conspiracy" and "completely dominates the picture."
However, in his April 1962 letter to Kaub, the time-line changes. Welch states that the "relative importance" of a "Zionist conspiracy...has greatly decreased over the past three decades." (i.e. from the early 1930's).
Do you see any significance to that difference?
Your #148 message surmises that Welch must have become acquainted with "Protocols-derived theories regarding the existence of a Jewish elite devoted to world conquest" given Welch's "associates and allies".
You can rest assured that Welch was intimately familiar with those ideas.
In a letter dated April 24, 1962 to Gerald L.K. Smith, Welch tells Smith that he cannot cooperate with GLKS...
"as we try so hard to do with most other anti-Communist groups or leaders...because of basic disagreement between us as to the main sources of the strength of the conspiracy. I believe that I have probably read everything that you have, on the subject at issue, from the earliest disclosures of the Protocols of Zion, through Henry Ford's 'The International Jew' through the writings of Robert H. Williams and Conde McGinley and a great many more---including some of the leading writers in French and Spanish on the same subject---and I simply come out with a different conclusion. I know that there are plenty of Communists of Jewish origin who use their 'Jewishness' to promote Communist causes; just as, unfortunately, there are today too many Catholics who are using their Catholicism and even too many Protestant ministers who are using their Protestantism for the same purpose. But I simply do not believe that, 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. My conclusions, arrived at from a lot of studying over a long period of time, are not for 'political' reasons, but are entirely sincere. I am willing to concede the same sincerity to yourself in your views...I have never gone out of my way to condemn, or take any 'cracks' at Gerald L.K. Smith and his views, because it simply is not my job or province to do so. I am, as I have said many times, fighting the Communists, and nobody else." ...