John Birch Society (redirected from The John Birch Society)

John Birch Society, ultraconservative, anti-Communist organization in the United States. It was founded in Dec., 1958, by manufacturer Robert Welch and named after John Birch, an American intelligence officer killed by Communists in China (Aug., 1945). The most prominent of the extreme right-wing groups active in the United States, the society was founded to fight subversive Communism within the United States. Its other objectives have included the abolition of the graduated income tax, the repeal of social security legislation, the impeachment of various high government officials, the end to busing for the purpose of school integration, the end to U.S. membership in the United Nations, and the nullification of the treaty that turned over the Panama Canal to Panama. In his book, The Politician, Welch charged to the effect that Dwight D. Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles had actively aided the so-called Communist conspiracy. The society has also contended that an elite international cabal—the U.S. branch of which supposedly includes the Council on Foreign Relations, for many years led by David Rockefeller—is seeking to establish a world tyranny.

Bibliography

See R. Welch, The Blue Book of the John Birch Society (repr. 1995); R. Vahan, The Truth about the John Birch Society (1962); J. A. Broyles, The John Birch Society (1964); B. R. Epstein and A. Foster, Radical Right (1967).

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John Birch Society

Organization founded in 1958 by Robert H. Welch, Jr. (1899–1985), a retired American candymaker, to combat communism and promote ultraconservative causes. It was named for an American missionary and army intelligence officer killed by Chinese communists in 1945, considered by the society the first hero of the Cold War. Its membership reached more than 70,000 in the 1960s. Its many publications warned of communist infiltration of the U.S. government and called for the impeachment of officials such as Earl Warren. The New American is the organization's biweekly magazine.

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John Birch Society

ultra-conservative, anti-Communist U.S. organization founded in 1958. [Am. Hist.: NCE, 1421]

See : Bigotry

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John Birch Society

ultraconservative, anti-Communist organization. [Am. Hist.: NCE, 1421]

See : Conservatism

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John Birch Society

rabid right-wing group ideologically similar to the Ku Klux Klan. [Am. Hist.: Van Doren, 576]

See : Extremism