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I understand your anger about what I wrote (because you think you are incapable of substantive error in your long-held beliefs) -- but please remember that, IN REALITY, your anger should be directed toward the FBI since I am just a messenger reporting what is contained in their files (as well as from other sources that Birchers normally find acceptable).

One of the most intriguing aspects of my research has been the fact that the JBS has NEVER, to my knowledge, ever acknowledged to its membership that it has made a major mistake in a conclusion about an individual or organization that it described as Communist, pro-Communist, or a Communist dupe. Amazing (for an "educational" organization), don't you think? Never once seen any new information to cause re-consideration of premises and/or conclusions? !!

One more point: The last Scoreboard issue of American Opinion estimated Communist influence and control within the U.S. at a staggering 60-80%. According to the minutes of the first JBS National Council meeting held in Chicago on January 1, 1960, Mr. Welch said:
"Today, gentlemen, I can assure you, without the slighest doubt in my own mind, that the takeover at the top is, for all practical purposes, virtually complete. Whether you like it or not, or whether you believe it or not, our Federal government is already literally in the hands of the Communists."

Since the people that the JBS considers as noxious and subversive maintained their "control" of our country over the past 43 years -- how is it that we still live in a country that permits Free Republic website and John Birch Society and numerous other right-wing organizations to exist?? Why do right wing politicians continue to be elected to office? Why do you and your neighbors worship, without fear, in our churches and synagogues? And why can you join any group, subscribe to any publication, purchase any book, and say out loud anything you want?

At some point one has to ask -- what, exactly, did Mr. Welch and the JBS mean when they kept referring to "Communist control and influence" -- if such control and influence never produced gulags and firing squads for all their critics and perceived enemies---as has been the case in every other Communist-controlled nation?

Obviously, Welch was full of himself and totally wrong in many of his judgments.

Anyone who wants to read a 9-page detailed summary of FBI material on the Birch Society is invited to peruse my Yahoo group at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FBIvsExtremeRight/

Ernie aka Ernieinps@aol.com