In 1958, a group of prominent business leaders founded the John Birch Society. Led by Robert Welch, inheritor of a vast candy fortune, these titans of wealth believed a vast communist conspiracy had penetrated the U.S. government.

In “The Blue Book of the John Birch Society,” Welch presented an apocalyptic vision where politics was no longer a staid battle between the two political parties but a conflict “between light and darkness; between freedom and slavery; between the spirit of Christianity and the spirit of the anti-Christ for the souls and bodies of men.”

Welch claimed these non-Christians sought to replace Christianity with a “pragmatic opportunism” governed by “hedonistic aims.” He dubbed his followers “God’s Angry Men.”

What energized the Birchers was their belief that the U.S. government was engaged in a plot to strip Americans of their individual rights and impose a collectivist regime on an unsuspecting public. To them, the evidence was conclusive:

• the “gradual surrender of American sovereignty to various international organizations,” of which the United Nations is the outstanding example;
• the centralization of power in Washington, D.C., which resulted in the “practical elimination of our state lines";
• the “steady advance of federal aid to and control over our educational system, leading to complete federalization of our public education;”
• liberal news media through which “gullible Americans more readily swallow as true” that communism is a “glorious system;”
• using the term “civil rights” to ignite the “flames of disorder;”
• and the

  © The Hill