The Reader's Companion to American History by

Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2014-01-13T16:00:00+00:00

JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY

The John Birch Society, an organization of the radical Right, was established in Indianapolis in 1958 to combat what was perceived to be the infiltration of communism into American life. Its founder, Robert H. W. Welch, a Massachusetts businessman, named the society after a Baptist missionary who had been killed by Chinese Communists in 1945. Starting with only eleven members, the John Birch Society grew rapidly, drawing considerable support from rich conservatives; by the early 1960s it had an estimated annual income of $5 million and a membership of 60,000 to 100,000. John Birchers placed their principal emphasis on the extent to which communism had established control over the U.S. government; among those they accused of being “dedicated, conscious agents of the Communist conspiracy” were President Dwight D. Eisenhower, CIA director Allen Dulles, and Chief Justice Earl Warren. The society has produced an extensive list of publications, offered cash prizes for college essays on topics like the impeachment of Warren, and maintained that the United States must become as conspiratorial as the communists in order to combat their subversion of American society.

See also Anticommunism.

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