Join us at noon on Thursday, March 23, for a conversation with George Washington University political scientist Matthew Dallek about his new book, Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right (Basic Books, 2023), Manuscript Division collections, and the arc of American politics since 1950. Dallek will speak with Manuscript Division historian Ryan Reft and senior archives specialist Connie Cartledge.
Founded during the late 1950s and named for the first American killed by Chinese communists — a U.S. soldier and former intelligence officer turned Christian missionary — the John Birch Society (JBS) emerged in a nation that saw itself beset by external and internal threats. By the late 1950s, Americans had witnessed the expansion of communist governments in Asia and Eastern Europe and were fighting a hot war in Korea that pitted the United States against China and the Soviet Union. Domestically, the McCarthyite Red Scare exploited growing worries about communist subversion that left a portion of the American public open to theories of Marxist sabotage and influence.
Under the leadership of retired Massachusetts candy manufacturer Robert Welch, Jr., the JBS cut a bright and controversial path across the political scene of mid-century America, promoting conspiracy theories, opposing civil rights, and denouncing alleged communists and communism in American society. The JBS helped organize a campaign to impeach Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, for what one writer argued were “his pro-criminal and pro-Communist” interpretations of the Constitution.[1]
Critics lambasted the Birchers by deriding them as a “lunatic fringe” and condemning them “as representative of a ‘paranoid style in American politics’ that rebelled against modernity,” as Matthew Dallek notes. Yet more than any political group before them, Birchers understood how to harness negative media for positive gains. According to Dallek, the group discovered the perfect villain in “big city dailies and the big three television networks,” a set of common foes which “united Birch members and steeled their determination to vanquish liberalism and remake American life.”[2] Elements of Bircher rhetoric and direct action remain visible throughout American politics.
In writing Birchers, Dallek utilized numerous Manuscript Division collections, including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Records (NAACP), the papers of prominent anti-communist Herbert A. Philbrick, “Meet the Press” cofounder Lawrence E. Spivak, and Washington Post journalist David S. Broder, and the newly processed papers of Republican pollster Arthur J. Finkelstein, among others. Join us to learn more about Dallek’s research process, the Library’s manuscript collections, and the lasting legacy of the John Birch Society.
The event took place online only on Thursday, March 23, 2023, 12:00pm-1:00pm EDT. Watch the program here:
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[1] Verso of postcard, “Save Our Republic: Impeach Earl Warren,” 1966, Box 389, Hugo LaFayette Black Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.
[2] Matthew Dallek, Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right (New York: Basic Books, 2023), 9, 66.
Comments (4)
As a child living in the NYC suburbs in the 60s, I went to a JBS meeting with my father and a group of his WWII vet friends. They somehow had intel that membership of the JBS included former Nazis. When the meeting opened, the vets all stood up and called out the Nazis and threatened them with physical violence if they didn’t leave. Many of the audience members scuttled away and eventually the JBS panelists left through a backdoor.
I’m 82 now so the date is so long ago it is like a lifetime ago; but probably the late 60’s. A group was trying to start a Public television station in the Indianapolis area which is now channel 20. The woman organizing it was Ardith Burkhart now long dead. I was asked to get people in our area to donate $5 each to help. Which I was doing. But a John Birch Society woman I had met at a church gathering wrote to our local newspaper telling citizens NOT to donate because it was a Communist led idea that would teach our children Communist ideas. And so we both wrote letters to the editor back and forth until finally Ardith Burkhart wrote and the John Birch woman gave up. NOW, all of a sudden they are taping their pamphlets on all our neighbor’s mailboxes and they are full of lies and crazy insane propaganda!!
As the son of a JBS member, this offers extrodinary insight. The intersection of Bircher critics and the organization’s inner turmoil evolving in the Civil Rights movement and its tactics in the Cold War era to its decline brings up memories being a protected asset observing activities inside the group as a child. One of the interests the society absorbed is the responcibility for a explanatory historical narrative. Truth telling never was without crisis, merely asking questions was risky. Good insight and learning opportunities were never lacking in a trade off of a exhaustive experience left to survival. The group sentiment upheld ideas of deadly repercussions going outside thier structure and beliefs which I did often. Fifty years has passed in which high profile media attention once descended onto our private lives that bring percistant presentations and politicking from the intersection of conflict to this day. This provides a helpful tool many can benefit from.
I agree with Byron Johnson as I am also a child of a JBS member. By the time I was growing up they were not as active but the things my father would tell me and teach me have all come to fruition. My family is far from being nazis or KKK members. My father was a foreman with a predominately black crew that was invited to the home for bbqs during a time that was not always accepted. We have a very diverse family in ethnicity. We were never taught to judge by ethnicity or religion. In fact it was never even a discussion. On the other hand, teaching us to always do our research and never trust blindly what is told to us on the media or by politicians has been one lesson that has been very helpful. To always question the motives of what we are being told to find the truth of what is really happening.
Barbara Hensley, I can completely understand the point of view of the person telling people not to donate because at that time, which we have seen come to fruition today, public broadcasting stations were and are used to push agendas in teaching children what they want them to learn, not always what is the truth. The same as our public school system. We now see this as they are slowly changing the history books to reflect what really happened not what our government wants us to know. Calling it communistic… I am not so sure…. But many saw the writing on the wall back then on how they were using television to shape the public’s education and perception rather than actually teaching the whole truth and allowing the public to form their own opinion. This in itself is a very communistic practice, if you will.
I see every side of everything.. education, politics, healthcare …. I am not right or left, up or down (haha) I read all sides of every argument, research all the facts and then try to make the best decisions I can. I don’t listen to political jargon about a bill, I read it. I don’t listen to politicians argue and point fingers…I find the facts and make my own decisions. I honestly lean more left than right but this is an informed opinion using the tools my father taught me being a part of JBS. Although some of the stories may be true that others tell, I personally have never seen anything like that or been taught anything like that and my father sure as heck would not be a part of that. JBS was a huge organization with many leaders so I am not saying it’s not true. I am saying that if it is, it was definitely the minority of the organization as a whole. Everything…and I mean EVERYTHING my father has ever told/taught me growing up has come to fruition which is extremely alarming. I say this as an Agnostic independent scientist which is a stark contrast to the right wing radical narrative pushed by the media.