JOHN BIRCH: BEWARE THE ONE-WORLDERS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000100580002-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 24, 2010
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: March 15, 1982
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/24: CIA-RDP90-00806R000100580002-5
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ON PAGE 17, NE,j'S'::' K
15 March 1932
John Birch: Beware
The One-Worlders
Ever since its founding in 1958, the John
Birch Society has campaigned against big
government, high taxes and-above all-
communism. It's not going to slack off just
because a conservative is in the White
House. President Reagan may be moving in
the right direction, says society member
Gary Allen, but he's taken "a 5-foot leap
across a 9-foot ditch."
The society, named for a Baptist mission-
ary and American spy who was killed in
China in 1945, has widened its focus since
the early days. Still headed by 82-year-old
founder Robert Welch, it considers com-
munism only one arm of a "master conspir-
acy" in which socialist American "insiders"
are plotting to establish one-world govern-
ment. Even the Administration has its share
of insiders, says public-relations director
John F. McManus-among them Secretary
of State Alexander Haig and CIA director
William Casey.
Youth Camps: To spread the word, the
John Birch Society syndicates daily com-
mentaries to 75 radio stations, publishes a
newspaper column and deploys some of its
50,000 members to speak around the coun-
try. It has also set up a network of TRIM
(Tax Reform Immediately) committees to
inform Americans how their congressmen
voted on tax bills and claims some credit for
helping to defeat several liberal congress-
men in the 1980 elections.
The society operates a chain of eleven
summer camps for teen-agers. Along with
sports, the camps offer seminars on topics
such as "The United Nations--Get US
Out" and "What Is Communism?" Birch
officials say that at the end of each session,
when counselors ask the youngsters to join
the society, 75 percent usually do.
Once probably the best-known conserva-
tive organization in America, the society
now shares the stage with such New Right
groups as the Moral Majority. But Birchers
believe that they have a deeper commitment
to traditional American values than any
newcomers, and that they remain a breed
apart. As one member says proudly: "Not
just anyone can be a Bircher."
EILEEN KEERDOJA with KIM FOLTZ
in New York and CHARLES GLASS in Boston
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/24: CIA-RDP90-00806R000100580002-5