ROBERT WELCH JR. DEAD AT 85; LEADER OF JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000100580001-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 6, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: January 8, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/06: CIA-RDP90-00806R000100580001-6
-{s NF1' YORK TIr"FS
8 January 1985
Robert Welch Jr. Dead at 85;
Le~der of John Birch Society
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN
Robert H. W. Welch Jr., the founder
and patriarch of the John Birch Soci-
ety~died Sunday at the Winchester
Nu ing Home in Winchester, Mass. He
was 85 health sece sutold fand had been in poor
suffering a stroke in 1983.
Mr. Welch, who spent most of his
adult We in the candy business, led the
ultraconservative anti-Communist
John Birch Society for 25 years, from
its inception in 1958 until March 1983,
when he stepped down as president and
became chairman emeritus.
A voluble, gregarious man with rest-
less blue eyes and a fringe of white
hair, Mr. Welch was, for thousands of
Americans in the 1960's and 1980's, a
prophet with a vision of mortal danger
in what he said was a Communist con-
spiracy to infiltrate Government,
schools, business, the area and other
facets of national life.
It Waned After 194N's
Many Americana, however, re-
garded Welch and his followers as
misguided extremists who themselves
{^epresented a threat to American free-
doms. After the 1960's the size and in.
fluence of the society began to wane. as Mr. v lv ~tdecl~ined' . the society~m in.
ain-
tained a low profile - some members
say it did so deliberately - and found
itself at odds with many conservatives,
including President Reagan, whom
Sr. Welch once called a "lackey" of
Communist conspirators.
-Robert Henry Winborne Welch Jr.
was born an Dec. 1, 1899, on a farm in
Chowan County, N.C. He learned to
read at the age of 3, finished high
school at 12 and graduated from the
University. of North Carolina at 17.
...Be later studied for two years at the
United States Naval Academy at An-
napolis, and spent two years in law
school at Harvard. Disillusioned with
academia, he quit Harvard in 1921 and
ffounded co company that made fudge in
a )oft ridge, Mass.
Tbe. company prospered and in 1932
he joined the staff of E.J. Brach &
Sons, at that time the nation's largest
caadymaker. Two years later he be-
came sales manager for the James O.
Welch Company, his younger brother's
laaesachusetts-based candy manufac-
to tng concern. Under Mr. Welch's di-
on, the business grew from
$200,000 in sales in 1935 to $20 million in
1956.
He ran for political office only once,
campaigning unsuccessfully for the
Republican nomination for lieutenant
governor of Massachusetts in 1960. In
the 1950's, Mr. Welch founded a conser-
vative magazine, One Man's Opinion,
and traveled widely, acquiring a grow-
ing belief in the existence of an interns-
tional Communist conspiracy.
To combat the dangers be perceived,
Mr. Welch retired after more than 30
years in the candy business. At a two.
day meeting in Indianapolis with 11
other men in December 1959, be
founded the John Birch Society, which
he dedicated to the goals of "lees gov-
ernment, more individual responsibil-
ity and a better world."
The society was named after an
American intelligence officer killed by
the Chinese Communists 10 days after
World War II, a man described
Welch as the "first casualty" by the
cold war. The society quickly attracted
national attention and a limited but de-
voted following.
On the strength of what he called "an
accumulation of evidence," Mr. Welch
called President Eisenhower "a dedi-
cated, conscious agent" of the Commu-
nist conspiracy. Secretary of State
John Foster. Dulles. Allen W_ Dulles,
the Director of Central ladligence,
bars
Mr. Welch meat of Chief Justice Karl Warren, rem
peal of the become tax, withdrawal of
the United States from the United Na-
tions, abolition of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization, cesessation of
cultural and other contacts with the
Soviet Union and restrictions on collerr
tive He bargaining.
called for an end of all civil
rights programs, which he called a
cover for Communism,
The size and influence of the society
peaked in the mid-1980's, when it had
nearly 100,000 members in clubs
around the nation; a budget of $8 mil-
lion a year and 270 paid employees,
many of, them working out of a head-
quarters in Belmont, Mass.; a book
publishing house; two monthly publica-
tions; a speakers' bureau; a radio pro-
gram and 400 Birch-owned bookstores.
Tb" Ya t 1w., un
Robert Welch
Clamor over the socithe ety's influence
reached a crescendo at time of the
1964 Republican National Convention,
when Senator Goldwater, ac.
ceptiag the Presidential
proclaimed "extremism in the defense
of liberty is no vice" and "moderation
in the pursuit of justice is novirtue." .
As the society's fortunes began to
fade, its leaders became divided over
tactics, strategy and goals; members
were accused of disrupting school
boards, harassing city councils and li-
brarlans and otherwise using unfair
tactics against opponents, and Mr.
Welch was ac cuused of. smears and
character assassination.
Mr. Welch, a courtly man who de-
lighted in intellectual discussioni, in-
sisted that he never fndiscrimipately
called people Communists or Comma.
nist sympathizers.
His assertions about President
Eisenhower, memorandum originally issued in a
and expanded into an
80,000-word biographical document
published in 1958 as "The Politician,"
later became a persistent problem for
society spokesmen. ?
In 1961, in a clarification for the
press, Mr. Welch denied having aF
wised Mr. Eisenhower and others of being
used by Communists," ~ ? he ssaaid. "II
never said they were Communists and
Idon't say it now."
Mr. Welch is survived by his wife, the
former Marian Lucille Probert, whom
he married in 1922; two sons, Hillard
Walmer and Robert 3d, and six grand.
children.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/06: CIA-RDP90-00806R000100580001-6