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!
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.
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.