Secret Societies and Political Action

Archive Report

Secrecy Aspects of John Birch Society

Many Americans were shocked recently to learn of the existence of a secret or semi-secret organization of extensive proportions known as the John Birch Society—an extreme anti-Communist group dedicated to promoting radical changes in public policy. The society is little more than two years old. To date its political activity on a national scale seems to have been limited for the most part to a letter-writing campaign to generate pressure for impeachment of Chief Justice Earl Warren.1 Under ordinary circumstances, an organization holding views as fanatical as those attributed to the John Birch Society or its leader would attract no more than casual attention. Yet stories about this group have taken up columns of newspaper space all over the ...

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