'Traitors within': How one group tried to radicalize the American right in the '60s

On a cloudy, frigid day in December 1958, a small group of wealthy businessmen met in Indianapolis and formed a new organization. They called it the John Birch Society. Their mission was to educate the American people about the communist conspiracy that they believed was infiltrating the United States.

“The founder, Robert Welch, conveyed a deep sense of grievance and anger,” says Matthew Dallek, professor of political management at George Washington University and author of Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right. “The message was very powerful: you're losing your country to traitors, and they're not just any traitors, they're actually traitors within.”

G. Edward Griffin was 29 years old when he first heard about the John Birch Society. “I came across a booklet that they were distributing, The Deception of the United Nations, or something like that,” he told Radio Diaries. Griffin was skeptical at first, but after more reading, he grew convinced that the United Nations was a threat to U.S. sovereignty and in 1960, he joined the John Birch Society.

The society grew as a grassroots organization, encouraging individual members to recruit in their neighborhoods. American Opinion bookstores started popping up in towns and cities around the country, selling films, pamphlets and books, including None Dare Call it Treason by John A. Stormer and Griffin’s The Fearful Master: A Second Look at the United Nations.

Family meetings in the basement

Catherine Siegel and Charlotte Meehan remember society meetings hosted in the finished basement of their family home. Their father, James Edward Meehan, was a local chapter leader first in Bridgeport, Conn. and later in Long Island, N.Y. Their mother was also an active member.

“It was the ‘60s, right at a time when there were a lot of funky things going on in society and it completely freaked them out,” Siegel remembers.

The sisters were taught that both Martin Luther King Jr. and Fred Rogers were communists. “Our father had a kind of paranoia,” Meehan said. “He had this feeling that there are a lot of enemies out there.”

Society meetings covered a wide range of topics. They argued that fluoridation of water was ushering in socialized medicine; that the Civil Rights Movement was a plot directed by the Kremlin; and that Chief Justice Earl Warren should be impeached.

The society lambasted many of the Warren court’s decisions: protecting First Amendment rights for communists; banning school prayer in public schools; and paving the way for desegregation with its ruling in Brown v. Board of Education.

As the society grew more visible, so did their political influence. Members started running for office, from local school boards all the way to the U.S. House of Representatives.

The John Birch Society was becoming a household name.

The 1964 Republican National Convention

“1964 was a moment of hope for the Birch Society,” writes Dallek in his book, Birchers. Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater was running for president and Republicans from all over the country met at the Cow Palace in California for the GOP National Convention.

Goldwater was a businessman who despised federal income tax, big government and foreign aid. His campaign focused on lawlessness in big cities and spoke of the importance of “moral” leadership.

Although his values aligned with the Birch Society’s, Goldwater had a tricky relationship with them. He wanted the support of society members (many of whom campaigned for him), but he didn’t want to endorse Welch’s more incendiary attacks on prominent Republicans. Welch, for example, had accused President Dwight D. Eisenhower of being an agent of the communist conspiracy. Not all society members agreed with his assessment, nor did prominent conservative voices, including William Buckley of National Review.

“The convention was a pretty raucous, tense atmosphere,” says Dallek. “There was a major ideological clash of extremism and moderation in the Republican party.” Nelson Rockefeller, governor of New York, called on the delegates to reject extremism in the GOP. He named three examples: communism, the Ku Klux Klan and the John Birch Society. The crowd was furious and interrupted with boos, jeers and chants of “we want Barry.”

In contrast, Barry Goldwater delivered a full-throated defense of extremism when he declared “extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.” After uproarious applause, he added “moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.”

Former Birch member, G. Edward Griffin remembers Goldwater’s speech fondly. “That was a very strong statement, probably earned more votes than anything else in the whole campaign,” he said. Goldwater won the Republican nomination, but lost the presidency in one of the greatest landslides in American history. Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson won with 61% of the popular vote. “Many commentators at the time thought this was the death knell of extremism,” says Dallek.

The modern messaging

G. Edward Griffin is no longer a member of the John Birch Society. Instead, he started his own organizations: Freedom Force International, opposed to the forces of globalization and collectivisation, and Red Pill University. Reflecting back, Griffin remembers a time when he was considered “wacko.” But he’s seen a change in public opinion about conspiracy theories.

“People recognize that, wait a minute, conspiracies are common,” he told Radio Diaries. “I think they're becoming aware that many of the most important things we really believe in, many of them are lies. They're illusions.”

By the late 1960s and early ‘70s, the John Birch Society was running into all kinds of issues, according to Dallek. The organization was struggling financially and investigations were launched both by the FBI and the New York based Anti-Defamation League. But the society survived and today is headquartered in Appleton, Wis.

Dallek says that theories about the “deep state” or the “new world order” — as referred to by Alex Jones or Steve Bannon — echo Birch conspiracy theories.

“As an organization they have shriveled,” says Dallek. “But their ideas, I think, have become mainstream.”

This story was produced by Nellie Gilles of Radio Diaries, and edited by Deborah George, Ben Shapiro and Joe Richman. You can find more stories on the Radio Diaries Podcast.