Free Republic

At the recent CPAC conference, Birch Society President John McManus and the Senior Editor of the Birch Society magazine, The New American, spoke with Rachel Maddow of MSNBC when she dropped by their CPAC booth. Video of Maddow at JBS-CPAC booth: http://www.libertynewsnetwork.tv/?p=101 Since December 2009, Rachel has devoted three segments of her TV program to the Birch Society. During two of those segments, Rachel discussed the Birch Society position on the fluoridation of water supplies. The Birch Society subsequently dismissed her comments as a typical "left-wing smear" of the JBS. It is totally understandable that JBS President John McManus now...

BACKGROUND INFORMATION ABOUT MY RESEARCH: FBI Data on Extreme Right http://ernie1241.googlepages.com/home

As students of conspiracy arguments know, the Birch Society is quite fond of citing Anatoli Golitsyn's assertions to substantiate JBS arguments about successful Soviet deception operations against the United States and the western world. In fact, the JBS recommends and sells both of Golitsyn's books. There is, however, a major dilemma contained within JBS arguments which accept Golitsyn's assertions. Let's review some background information about what Golitsyn told western intelligence agencies after his defection. The following numbered excerpts come from Edward Jay Epstein's website (link below). Epstein authored the 1989 book, Deception: The Invisible War Between the KGB and the...

http://dan-smoot.blogspot.com/ DAN SMOOT: "Conspiracy Expert" ? It probably is not much of an exaggeration to observe that, eventually, every right-wing conspiracy proponent gets around to quoting Dan Smoot as an expert witness about matters pertaining to the "Master Conspiracy" operating in the United States. Many conspiracy authors cite Dan's 1962 book, The Invisible Government, for its unique insights based upon his "inside knowledge" as a former FBI Special Agent. In late 1993 I read Dan's autobiography entitled People Along The Way. I was curious about Dan's explanation for why he decided to leave the FBI (pages 181-184 of his...

In 1965, Dr. James D. Bales, a professor at Harding College in Searcy Arkansas contacted the FBI to inquire into whether or not J. Edgar Hoover would object to Bales' compiling statements made by Hoover about Communism and publishing them in book form. J. Edgar Hoover rejected the idea. In June of 1967, the idea was resurrected by representatives of the John Birch Society (JBS). Douglas C. Morse, Managing Editor of the JBS publishing arm, Western Island Publishers, contacted the Boston FBI office to again propose the idea. FBI Assistant-Special-Agent-In Charge Troy Coleman met with Mr. Morse and JBS founder...

To inflate their credentials as an organization relying upon carefully documented and factual material, the John Birch Society (JBS) often cites as "experts", persons who have had some connection to the FBI --- either as former Special Agents or as Security Informants. However, the FBI had very negative evaluations about the post-FBI endeavors of former informants or Agents who subsequently attached themselves to the JBS as members, endorsers, speakers, or authors. Examples include: Dan Smoot, W. Cleon Skousen, Julia Brown, David Gumaer, Gerald W. Kirk, Matt Cvetic, and Karl Prussion. Often these folks were mentally unstable. A person seduced by...

FBI vs. John Birch Society on civil rights movement Re: * Alan Stang's It's Very Simple book -and- * Highlander Folk School controversy, Martin Luther King Jr photo Control and domination of the civil rights movement by subversive elements is a constant theme in JBS literature during the 1960's. In the June 1965 JBS Bulletin, Robert Welch observed: "Our task must be simply to make clear that the movement known as 'civil rights' is Communist-plotted, Communist-controlled, and in fact...serves only Communist purposes." In the November 1965 JBS Bulletin, Mr. Welch strongly recommends Alan Stang's book entitled It's Very Simple: The...

In the early 1960's numerous disputes erupted around the country over purported Communist infiltration of our clergy and religious institutions. One of the first triggers for what would become a major controversy was the February 1960 release of the “Air Reserve Training Manual” which was issued by the Continental Air Command at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. Approximately 3300 copies were distributed. The Manual contained a section entitled “Communism in Religion” written by Homer H. Hyde. Mr. Hyde subsequently acknowledged that he used information supplied to him by Billy James Hargis (Christian Crusade), and Myers Lowman (Circuit Riders, Inc)...

The FBI HQ main file on the John Birch Society is 62-104401 and it consists of about 12,000 pages. In addition, almost every FBI Field Office opened a main file on the Birch Society and those field files often were hundreds or thousands of pages. The primary FBI Field Office file is Boston 100-32899. Another major file is the Los Angeles field file (100-59001) which totals approximately 1800 pages. It is almost impossible to specify the total number of pages of FBI documents pertaining to the JBS because there are so many separate JBS-related files totalling many thousands of pages...

Recently, a JBS chapter leader accused me of lying when I pointed out that Robert Welch thought President Dwight D. Eisenhower was "a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy." It amazes me how, even at this late date, many Birch Society members still parrot the Birch party-line with respect to this matter. I obtained my photocopy of the unpublished version of The Politician from G-2 Army Intelligence. The copy in their files was first obtained circa January 1959 and appears to be an edition that was last updated by Welch in June 1958 but printed in August 1958. According...

The John Birch Society has long been our country's premier purveyor of conspiratorial interpretations of past history and current events. This posting is devoted to discussing some details from FBI files which speak to the unreliability and inaccuracy of JBS data and conclusions. In 1964, FBI Director Hoover stated that he "had little respect for Robert Welch" (founder and leader of the the Birch Society) because of Welch's defamatory comments about President Eisenhower, the Dulles brothers, Chief Justice Warren, and others. He referred to Welch and the Birch Society as "extremist" and "irresponsible". Also see Hoover's testimony (copied below) before...

NOTE: On July 27, 2003, The Dallas Morning News announced that Howard Dan Smoot, former FBI agent and conservative activist, had died at a Tyler, Texas, hospital on Thursday, July 24. The following article, taken from The New American, is a review of Smoot's autobiography. The review itself is a mini-biography of this pioneer conservative spokesman. BOOK REVIEW Reprinted with permission from The New American magazine, March 7, 1994People Along the Way: The Autobiography of Dan Smoot, Big Sandy, TX: Tyler Press, 1993, 306 pages, paperback. What is it that marks a man for success? Why is it that only...