Posted on 01/11/2020 9:32:32 AM PST by searching123
Neocon Tobin Dupes NY Post & Haaretz Readers on Birch Society
In a column calling for conservatives and Republicans to distance themselves from racists and anti-Semites, neoconservative columnist Jonathan Tobin deceived readers of the New York Post and the fringe left-wing Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
(Excerpt) Read more at thenewamerican.com ...
I served as a Whitefoot at the BMA Camp in Cleveland GA in the summers of 1972 and 1973 while George Birch was there, and I helped him with wrangling the horses. My Daddy had gotten out of the JBS by that time, so I told him about it. Mr. Birch wanted me to understand that his murdered son John was no part of the society and that their family had no recourse to any means which might stop Robert Welch from using the name.
Welch thought that if he named the society after John Birch, then you might be curious about who he was and what happened to him. This would cause you to discover what the Chinese Communists were really like. That Welch thought this would actually happen seems naive. That he thought he had a right to take Birch’s name seems arrogant.
Actually, VR, Oliver was not “kicked out”. He resigned. Robert Welch traveled to Oliver’s home in Urbana IL and asked him to reconsider. I have copies of Oliver’s correspondence with JBS National Council members as well as Robert Welch’s memo to all National Council members concerning the Oliver controversy.
After Oliver left the JBS he started writing articles for the neo-nazi magazine, Liberty Bell, published by George P. Dietz. Dietz was also a former JBS member.
Well, CGBG, as is this case will all large organizations, one doesn’t want to unfairly characterize an entire organization because of incidents involving a few members.
However, the problem with the Birch Society is that its senior leadership (in particular, JBS founder Robert Welch) INVITED many racial and religious bigots to become JBS members, JBS endorsers, and employees of the JBS (as writers and speakers).
Chapter 3 of my Report entitled “Racism and the John Birch Society” includes an exhaustive Chronology which lists scores of examples to document my assertion.
Briefly, for example:
(1) At least 4 (and probably 5) members of the JBS National Council (its governing body) were life-long segregationists. That includes:
(1) T. Coleman Andrews Sr. who ran for President in 1956 on the States Rights Party ticket—and their official platform was pro-segregation. Andrews also created his own segregationist organization in Richmond VA.
(2) A.G. Heinsohn Jr. who had previously associated himself with several white supremacy organizations in Tennessee.
(3) Thomas J. Anderson who wrote articles defending slavery and who belonged to a whites-only church.
(4) Dr. Thomas Parker who was President of his local White Citizens Council chapter in Greenville SC and who signed a declaration in 1956 associating himself with the pro-segregation independent electors movement for the forthcoming Presidential election.
One of the most famous members of the JBS was Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker of Dallas TX.
He frequently was the featured speaker at white supremacist meetings including Ku Klux Klan and White Citizens Council meetings. [Note: since 1947, the KKK was listed on the U.S. Attorney General’s List of Subversive Organizations!]
This never bothered the JBS and, in fact, the Public Relations Director of the JBS (John Rousselot) presented Edwin Walker with a plaque in 1963 which described Walker as our “greatest living American”. [Los Angeles Times, 4/4/63, page 36].
This is the same Edwin Walker who declared during a June 1965 speech to the American Conservative Club in Harrisburg PA that:
“I think I can match three good Americans in the KKK for every one in the Americans For Democratic Action or the Anti-Defamation League.” [Harrisburg PA Patriot, 6/21/65, page 1, “Liberals Lashed By General Walker” by Robert J. Hayes; FBI-Philadelphia file 157-1549, serial #6, 6/21/65]
Historical footnote:
In October 1965, Walker met with United Klans of America Imperial Wizard Robert Shelton in Shreveport LA at which time Shelton “offered General Walker the position of Grand Dragon of the UKA for the State of Texas.” [FBI-HQ file 157-370-2, serial #345; also see: FBI-HQ file 157-370-4, serials #328, 340X, 341, 377, 383]. “Later General Walker mentioned to someone that he was interested in the Klan position…” [FBI-HQ file 157-370-4, serial #341, 11/1/65 SAC Birmingham to J. Edgar Hoover re: United Klans of America, Inc., Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, page 1.]
Rev. Ferrell Griswold was a featured speaker under the auspices of the JBS. He also spoke at KKK meetings and he described the KKK as a “patriotic” and “conservative” organization!
@BDParrish
Both George Birch and his wife were JBS members and they both praised the JBS so I’m not sure why he would have expressed any concerns to you — unless in later years the Birch family was concerned about some of Robert Welch’s more lunatic assertions——as happened with Fred and Charles Koch—both of whom resigned from the JBS.
Thanks for the clarification...I was going on recollections of things I had been told or had read a long time ago.
Incidentally, the former Research Director of the JBS (Thomas Eddlem) recently resigned from his lifetime membership in the JBS because (he wrote), of “nazi racial propaganda” published in the JBS magazine (The New American).
Eddlem’s resignation letter may be seen here:
http://teddlem.blogspot.com/2019/12/resignation-letter-to-john-birch-society.html
Eddlem (like the late William Norman Grigg—who was a Senior Editor for the JBS magazine) is a principled and honorable person who had the guts to reveal bigotry within the JBS.
Someone published a biography of John Birch a few years ago, very thoroughly researched. I don’t recall the author’s name.
I have heard Revilo P. Oliver called “the Grand Palindrome.”
BTW, when the FBI opened a preliminary inquiry into the JBS (in 1959-1960), it contacted former FBI informant Herbert Philbrick (of “I Led Three Lives” fame) to inquire about Robert Welch and the JBS because Philbrick knew Welch and, in fact, at that time, Philbrick was a Home Chapter member of the JBS.
The FBI also asked Philbrick whether or not he had given Revilo Oliver information about Communists in the Dept of Health, Education, and Welfare (as Oliver claimed he did).
Philbrick told the FBI that Oliver was lying and, furthermore, based upon his personal contacts with Oliver in 1959 (!) he (Philbrick) considered Oliver to be “an extremist in anticommunist feelings and violently anti-Semitic.” [FBI-HQ file 65-45027, serial #29, 2/1/61 memo from F.J. Baumgardner to FBI Assistant Director Alan H. Belmont, page 2, which is in the FBI HQ file on Revilo P. Oliver; also in FBI-HQ file 62-104401 on JBS, serial #unrecorded, but just after serial #621].
So...that begs the question: How could Robert Welch NOT know about Oliver’s bigotry (anti-Semitism and racism) until 1966 when Oliver resigned?
Terry Lautz. I sent him some info which he used in his book.
There is also another new book which contains a lot of information about John Birch.
“Double Crossed: The Missionaries Who Spied for the United States During the Second World War” by Matthew Avery Sutton
One of those writers was Michel Sturdza, a Romanian fascist whose memoir The Suicide of Europe (Boston: Western Islands, 1968) was published by the JBS. Under the pseudonym Zad Rust (an anagram of Sturdza), he also wrote Teddy Bare: The Last of the Kennedy Clan (Boston: Western Islands, 1971), a book on the Chappaquiddick affair.
Correct. In my Chronology re: “Racism and the JBS”, one of the entries is about Sturdza (as follows):
~~~~~~~~~
The JBS publishing house (Western Islands) published a book by Prince Michael R Sturdza aka Mihail Sturdza aka Zad Rust, entitled “The Suicide of Europe: Memoirs of Prince Michael Sturdza”.
During the 1930’s-1940’s Sturdza was a member of the Romanian Iron Guard movement aka Legion of Michael the Archangel. Before World War II, Romania had a population of several hundred thousand Jews. More than 400,000 were deported to death camps under the regime of the Romanian Iron Guard. In fact, Romania was directly responsible for the murder of more Jews than any country other than Germany.
This movement believed that the problem of poverty in Romania was due to Jews having “colonized” Romania, and thereby prevented Christian Romanians from getting ahead economically. Their solution to this perceived problem was to drive the Jews out of Romania, which the Iron Guard claimed would finally allow Eastern Orthodox Romanians to rise up to the middle class.
From a Charlie Daniels tune...
“You may not know it but this man is a spy.
He’s a undercover agent for the FBI
And he’s been sent down here to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan!”
(snip)
“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!”
Yes, that is the 1963 California Senate Report which the JBS claims “exonerated” the JBS. However, the JBS ignores the criticisms and never mentions what the Chairman of the Subcommittee repeatedly said about that year’s Report on the JBS. Also, the JBS never mentions what the Subcommittee concluded in its 1965 Report which updated its findings on the JBS.
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