How an ADL spy operation helped bring down the far-right John Birch Society

[icymist]

JTA — A historian leafing through files in an archive discovered how a Jewish organization helped bring down an influential far-right extremist movement in the United States in the 1960s and ’70s by going undercover and acting as self-appointed spies.

The discovery of the Anti-Defamation League’s covert operation targeting the John Birch Society is the basis of a chapter in a new book by political historian Matthew Dallek of George Washington University.

Published in March, “Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right” is Dallek’s fourth book. It examines the roots of today’s emboldened conservative movement in the United States.

In its heyday, the group had about 60,000 to 100,000 members, organized into small chapters. They sent out literature trying to give members roadmaps or ideas for what they could do. They believed a mass education of the public was needed because traditional two-party politics was not going to be very effective at exposing the communist threat. They would form front groups such as Impeach Earl Warren [the Supreme Court’s chief justice] or Support Your Local Police. They tried to ban certain books that they viewed as socialistic from being used in schools. Some Birchers ran for school board seats and protested at libraries.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/how-an-adl-spy-operation-helped-bring-down-the-far-right-john-birch-society/?utm_source=The+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=daily-edition-2023-05-21&utm_medium=email

[underpants]

1. 👀 Looks like quite a read.

Thanks. Checking out later.

[NNadir]

2. Once again we hear the word "conservative" applied to radical...

...revolutionaries who wish to rear down our institutions and substitute a violent reactionary oligarchy.

That's not "conservative." That's violent revolution.

[elleng]

4. Right. Thanks.

[OhNo-Really]

3. 1994 I was invited to join John Birch Society

By an acquaintance when I moved to a red state.

So it did not die prior to 1994.

It was by invitation only at that time.

I was shocked! And never forgot that moment.

[ChazInAz]

5. The ADL! Bravo!

Detested the Birchers.
I remember a gag by Red Skelton, who was an ethical conservative. (Today's "conservatives" would blacklist him as a radical leftist!)
It went something like this: "Hey, have you heard about this new organization for remodeling bathrooms in Danish Modern style? They call themselves the Birch John Society!"
Thank you. I'll be here all week. Tip the bartender.

[Mopar151]

6. I remember that line from childhood!

Red torched (LA mayor):Sam Yorty regularly in his monologue.

"Two seagulld, Gertrude and Heathcliffe! " ...