John Birch Society, Hard-Line Anti-Communist Group, Founded
The John Birch Society, founded on this day, became one of the most strident anti-Communist and anti-civil liberties organizations in the late 1950s and 1960s.
The group was named after John Birch, who the organization’s founders believed was the first American to die in the Cold War, on August 25, 1945, in China.
The founder and for many years director of the organization was Robert Welch.
Read: J. Allen Broyles, The John Birch Society: Anatomy of a Protest (1964)
Read about the organization: Benjamin R. Epstein and Arnold Forster, Report on the John Birch Society, 1966 (1966)
Visit their web site: http://www.jbs.org/
Read Robert Welch’s official statement about the group: Robert Welch, The Blue Book of the John Birch Society (1961)
Hear Bob Dylan Sing Talking John Birch Society Paranoid Blues: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCxi5VOYKOY
Learn more about the ACLU in the Cold War and other Times of National Crisis: https://www.aclu.org/aclu-history-rooting-out-subversives-paranoia-and-patriotism-mccarthy-era