About The John Birch Society
Ever since its founding in 1958 by Robert Welch, The John Birch Society has been dedicated to restoring and preserving freedom under the United States Constitution.
As Robert Welch himself explained, members of The John Birch Society come from all walks of life and are active throughout the 50 states on local, regional and national levels.
United by a strong belief in personal freedom and limited government, plus a sense of duty, members of The John Birch Society have educated millions of Americans on the appropriate role of government. Using educational and concerted action tools of a wide variety — including local lobbying, distribution of literature, email campaigns, news conferences, petitions, and more — members have played a continuous, pivotal role in halting legislation and federal policies that threaten the independence of our country and our people.
For more than 50 years, the Society has educated and informed its members and others, who have worked together to bring about major changes in national policy. Direction of our volunteer leaders — and our paid field staff — in pursuing the action agenda campaigns of The John Birch Society is provided from our headquarters based in Appleton, Wisconsin.
A national network of local chapters initiates communications projects and implements the programs outlined in the monthly JBS Bulletin, the member newsletter. Activity at the local and regional levels is guided by professional Field Coordinators who provide the benefit of their knowledge and experience.
Explore our website, learn more about The John Birch Society, consider joining, and then work with us to help fulfill our mission:
To bring about less government, more responsibility, and — with God’s help — a better world by providing leadership, education, and organized volunteer action in accordance with moral and Constitutional principles.
Who is John Birch?
Put simply, John Birch was a devoted Christian missionary who heroically served in World War II and was killed by Chinese Communists 10 days after the end of the war, when he was only 27. Communists that were supposedly WWII allies with the U.S.
Birch’s parents had been told that he was killed by a stray bullet, but only after accidently seeing details of his death due to the carelessness of a young military officer. George and Ethel Birch knew that something had gone terribly wrong, and they didn’t even know that there had been an official investigation. For five years, Ethel traveled the country grilling those men who served with John, from fellow soldiers to commanding officers.
Finally, she wrote to California Senator William Knowland who finally was given access to John Birch’s file that was marked “Top Secret.” He was so moved by what he saw that he gave a speech on the floor of the Senate on September 5, 1950, berating the government for its cover-up, as the result of bringing John Birch’s death to light could have led to different relations with China and North Korea.
Nearly ten years after Birch’s death, JBS Founder Robert Welch discovered that the death of Captain John Birch had been covered up after reading Knowland’s speech. Welch wrote and had published “The Life of John Birch” in 1954.
John Birch was a simple, but highly intelligent man, who worked hard to serve God, spread God’s word, and fought for the freedom to do so. During his service in the war, he longed for the day when he could once again work the land, raise a family and dutifully serve God, as seen in the prose he wrote four months before his death called “The War Weary Farmer.”
I should like to find the existence of what my father called “Plain living and high thinking.”
I want some fields and hills, woodlands and streams I can call my own. I want to spend my strength in making fields green, and the cattle fat, so that I may give sustenance to my loved ones, and aid to those neighbors who suffer misfortune; I do not want a life of monotonous paper-shuffling or of trafficking with money-mad traders.
I only want enough of science to enable fruitful husbandry of the land with simple tools, a time for leisure, and the guarding of my family’s health. I do not care to be absorbed in the endless examining of force and space and matter, which I believe can only slowly lead to God.
I do not want a hectic hurrying from place to place on whizzing machines or busy streets. I do not want an elbowing through crowds of impatient strangers who have time neither to think their own thoughts nor to know real friendship. I want to live slowly, to relax with my family before a glowing fireplace, to welcome the visits of my neighbors, to worship God, to enjoy a book, to lie on a shaded grassy bank and watch the clouds sail across the blue.
I want to love a wife who prefers rural peace to urban excitement, one who would rather climb a hilltop to watch a sunset with me than to take a taxi to any Broadway play. I want a woman who is not afraid of bearing children, and who is able to rear them with a love for home and the soil, and the fear of God.
I want of government only protection against the violence and injustices of evil or selfish men.
I want to reach the sunset of life sound in body and mind, flanked by strong sons and grandsons, enjoying the friendship and respect of neighbors, surrounded by fertile fields and sleek cattle, and retaining my boyhood faith in Him who promised a life to come.
Where can I find this world? Would its anachronism doom it to ridicule or loneliness? Is there yet a place for such simple ways in my own America or must I seek a vale in [Chinese] Turkestan where peaceful flocks still graze the quiet hills?
Robert Welch explained at the founding meeting of The John Birch Society why he had chosen John as the namesake for the organization. He said, ” …the young man I admire most of all those America has produced was a fundamentalist Baptist missionary named John Birch. My own obsession with this fight against the increasing forces of evil in the world, which … has caused me to give up business career and income and any prospect of ever having any peace or leisure again during my lifetime, is due in large part to my admiration for John Birch; to my feeling that I simply had to pick up and carry, to the utmost of my ability and energy, the torch of a humane righteousness which he was carrying so well and so faithfully when the Communists struck him down.”
Robert Welch discussed the idea with John’s parents, and they agreed to grant permission. They became Life Members of the Society.
To learn more of John Birch, read “The Secret File on John Birch” by James & Marti Hefley and “The Life of John Birch” by Robert Welch. Members can download “The Life of John Birch” for free.
FBI FILES ON BIRCH SOCIETY:
This report explains why J. Edgar Hoover and senior FBI officials within the Bureau’s Domestic Intelligence Division concluded in FBI memos that the JBS was “extremist”, “irrational” and “irresponsible”
http://ernie1241.googlepages.com/jbs-1
CONSERVATIVE CRITICS OF ROBERT WELCH and BIRCH SOCIETY:
Contrary to claims made by the Birch Society about the alleged “left-wing” origins of JBS criticism, the most potent adverse comments about the JBS have always originated from the right-side of the political spectrum. This report presents a representative sample of such comments.
http://ernie1241.googlepages.com/jbs-4
PERSONS DESCRIBED BY BIRCH SOCIETY AS “EXPERTS” ON COMMUNISM:
Two former FBI Special Agents who endorsed the Birch Society after they retired from the FBI are often cited by Birch Society members and supporters as knowledgeable, reliable, and authoritative sources of information on the communist movement.
However, their FBI personnel files reveal that senior FBI officials did not have a very high regard for their post-FBI endeavors.
In the case of Dan Smoot, just prior to his retirement from the FBI he was censured, placed on probation, and transferred to a small, insignificant field office as a disciplinary measure.
Both reports include detailed critiques of statements and assertions made by these former FBI Special Agents.
DAN SMOOT:
http://ernie1241.googlepages.com/smoot
W. CLEON SKOUSEN
http://ernie1241.googlepages.com/skousen