Las Vegas Weekly

Mr. Miller - I believe your article about the John Birch Society was well written . Thank you for giving the JBS some publicity and educating others about the Society. Floyd Fitzgibbons, LV Chapter Leader.

All interested individuals should study why J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI described Robert Welch and/or the JBS in FBI memos as "extremist", "irrational", "irresponsible", "fanatics" and "lunatic fringe" .

If the JBS merely was offering alternative public policy proposals, even if unorthodox, there would be no problem. But my experience has been that 99% of readers are not familiar with the underlying premises of JBS ideology. For more than 50 years, the JBS has defamed and attacked the patriotism, character, integrity, and loyalty of virtually our entire national leadership -- and it refers to our national political leaders as "a conspiracy of gangsters".

The following report is based primarily upon first-time-released FBI files and documents on the JBS and its assertions.

Since the Birch Society has always effusively praised Hoover and the FBI as our nation's most knowledgeable, authoritative and reliable source of factual information on the communist movement as well as on what constitutes legitimate and effective anti-communist activities --- Birchers now have the opportunity to compare their assertions and conclusions to the statements and evaluations made by the person (Hoover) and the institution (FBI) they have recommended for 5 decades.

FBI FILES ON BIRCH SOCIETY:
http://ernie1241.googlepages.com/jbs-1

FBI FILES on W. CLEON SKOUSEN (former FBI Special Agent who endorsed the JBS)
http://ernie1241.googlepages.com/skousen...

FBI FILES on DAN SMOOT (former FBI Special Agent who endorsed the JBS)
http://ernie1241.googlepages.com/smoot

In order to avoid slurs and smears of the John Birch Society that cast a dishonest light on it, the reader is urged go to the official website of The John Birch Society.

It is at www,jbs.org.

Moreover, the reader is encouraged to read the web-pages at www.thenewamerican.org, and to go to http://www.shopjbs.org/magento/ to join the JBS on line and to purchase its books and DVDs.

Simply put, The John Birch Society stands for:

Less Government, More Responsibility, and, with God's Help, a Better World.

The only "ism" it supports is "Americanism."

People who are dissatisfied with the runaway march toward World Socialism, and who feel helpless about stemming its progress, can find the John Birch Society a viable organization to join in its law-abiding battle at the policy level to reverse this trend.

Those who wish to contact the local chapter of the JBS can call 702-951-7242. Floyd Fitzgibbons, LV Chapter Leader, JBS

Correction: The webpage for the John Birch Society was misspelled in the rprevious comment. It should not have been www,jbs.org, as that will never get the reader to an error notice.

The correct webpage is:

www.jbs.org

In reply to SCHNORCHEL (part 1 of 2):

You can no more ascertain the true character or objectives of the JBS by perusing its website than you can ascertain the true character or objectives of the Communist Party USA by going to its website.

The JBS subscribes to the Soviet-method of history-telling. Only data favorable to itself is acknowledged as truthful; all adverse or inconvenient factual data is either ignored, dismissed, or de-valued or characterized as an "attack", "smear" or "slur".

Conveniently ignored is the FACT that the JBS has attacked and defamed virtually every prominent American politician during the past 8 decades and the JBS does NOT recognize ANY legitimate alternative points of view to its own if they originate with what the JBS considers "liberals" or "leftists".

Are you a fan of Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, or Harry Truman, or Dwight D. Eisenhower, or John F. Kennedy, or Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon or Jimmy Carter or Gerald Ford or Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton, George Bush (either one)?

Well, the JBS despises ALL of them and, in fact, the JBS explicitly characterized several of them as Communists, Communist sympathizers, or Communist agents. The JBS thinks most of them should have been impeached for TREASON!

Oddly, the JBS was chartered in Massachusetts as an "educational organization".

By definition, "educational" groups are SEARCHING for truth which means they are always interested in discovering new data (available for the first time) so that they may better inform their judgments and conclusions. Not so with respect to the JBS.

Instead, the JBS thinks it already possesses an Ultimate Final Truth and the rest of us are simple-minded dullards who are easily manipulated and brainwashed by a "conspiracy of gangsters" who control everything of importance in our society.

Even Marian Welch, the widow of JBS founder Robert Welch, withdrew her support from the JBS, as have many other prominent JBS members, writers, and officials as well as virtually the entire conservative community in our country.

The JBS has never retracted even one adverse or pejorative statement or assertion it has made about any person, organization, publication, or issue in its 50+ years of existence.

Some JBS admirers claim that the JBS is "not the same organization it was back during the Cold War" -- but, nevertheless, it still recommends and/or sells publications which it and others published during that time and it still promotes the themes and conclusions which the JBS first circulated 50 years ago!

Reply to SCHNORCHEL (#2)

In 2002, the JBS published a new edition of Robert Welch's so-called "private letter" entitled "The Politician".

The JBS describes the 2002 edition on the back cover as "perhaps the most devestating expose of the last century" because it "tells the bitter, but little known, truth" about our postwar history.

Among the "truths" which the JBS wants everyone to read and believe from that book is that President Eisenhower and most other prominent American politicians and government officials during the past 8 decades have been traitors.

And to bring this message into contemporary history, the back cover states:

"But most importantly The Politician exposes that 'conspiracy of gangsters' which even now is setting America's foreign and domestic policy."

The type of "Americanism" which the JBS promotes might best be summarized by comments which Robert Welch made to the first meeting of his National Council (quoted in reply #3 below).

The TRUE face of the JBS which its shills never want you to know about:

WELCH COMMENTS TO JBS NATIONAL COUNCIL:
[From: minutes of 1/9/60 meeting held at Union League Club in Chicago IL]

"From a careful and realistic study of the mountainous pile of evidence that is there for all to see, certain terrifying conclusions are objectively inescapable.

Among them are:
(1) The Communists are winning their large victories, as they always have, through the cumulative effect of small gains;
(2) They make these gains chiefly through the conniving assistance of many of the very diplomats and officials who are supposed to be opposing them;
(3) Communist influences are now in almost complete working control of our government;
(4) And hence, the United States Government is today, as it has been for many years, the most important and powerful single force promoting the world-wide Communist advance."

Furthermore, Welch continued:

"Today, gentlemen, I can assure you, without the slightest 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." [p2]

"In our two states with the largest population, New York and California...already the two present Governors are almost certainly actual Communists...Our Congress now contains a number of men like Adam Clayton Powell of New York and Charles Porter of Oregon, who are certainly actual Communists, and plenty more who are sympathetic to Communist purposes for either ideological or opportunistic reasons." [p7]

[Note: the reference to Governors refers to Edmund Brown of CA and Nelson Rockefeller of NY]

"In the Senate, there are men like Stephen Young of Ohio, and Wayne Morse of Oregon, McNamara of Michigan, and Clifford Case of New Jersey and Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota and Estes Kefauver of Tennessee and John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, whom it is utter folly to think of as just liberals. Every one of those men is either an actual Communist or so completely a Communist sympathizer or agent that it makes no practical difference..." [p8]

Continuation of Welch comments to the first meeting of his National Council:

"Our Supreme Court, dominated by Earl Warren and Felix Frankfurter and Hugo Black, is so visibly pro-Communist that no argument is even needed"And our federal courts below that level"are in many cases just as bad." [p8]

"Our State Department is loaded with Communists from top to bottom, to the extent that our roll call of Ambassadors almost sounds like a list somebody has put together to start a Communist front." ... [p8]

"It is estimated from many reliable sources that from 70% to 90% of the responsible personnel in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare are Communists. Our Central Intelligence Agency under Allen Dulles is nothing more or less than an agency to promote Communism throughout the world...Almost all the other Departments are loaded with Communists and Communist sympathizers. And this generalization most specifically does include our whole Defense Department." [p8]