Attacked: Before Trump, There Was The John Birch Society
Bill Hahn
Article audio sponsored by The John Birch Society

After a would-be assassin failed in his attempt to snuff out President Trump, some in the media are calling him out for his instinctive rhetoric of telling his supports to fight. Rhetoric that has won him millions of fans and also caused him to be the ire of some of the political Left.

We’ll look into this and show you another time in American history when a president was shot and the wrong people were targeted in retribution, all in today’s Analysis Behind the News, bringing you perspective and solutions you won’t get anywhere else.

If you’re concerned about American independence and freedom, then please watch and take the recommended actions. Also, be sure to like, subscribe, and share, so we can break through Big Tech censorship and reach many others.

In Dallas, November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was shot multiple times and killed in a convertible as he, his wife, and other dignitaries made their way through the city. In the hours thereafter, many politicians and major segments of the media began to say that “Birchers,” as in members of The John Birch Society, were to blame. Later, overwhelming evidence proved this to be false.

However, leftist extremists were quick to lash out and vandalized the JBS headquarters building in Belmont, Massachusetts. Carloads of young people were continuously driving around the JBS buildings and eventually threw a rock through the window, not far from where JBS Founder Robert Welch was working. In Phoenix, Arizona, some miscreant fired several bullets into a JBS office, lodging in the reception desk and back wall. The secretary had already been sent home early due to the overwhelming inappropriate phone calls that the office received following the president’s murder. Had she been at her desk, she probably would not have survived.

The switchboard at JBS HQ in Belmont was just as overloaded. But what had caused the eye of suspicion to turn to “Birchers” when President Kennedy was killed?

In short, it was a propaganda campaign ordered by Communists that had been sweeping the country since 1961. Here’s what happened.

In late 1959, leader of the Soviet Union Nikita Khruschev visited the United States and did not receive the reception he had been hoping. Perhaps it had to do with a little something Mr. Welch had done. The first chapters of JBS were formed in earl 1959 and the first major project of the growing organization was to oppose Khruschev’s visit. Mr. Welch wrote a letter with 10 reasons stating why it was a bad idea to let a staunch enemy visit the U.S. It was run as an ad in 47 major daily newspapers and more than 50 weekly and smaller daily newspapers. Then, Mr. Welch sent a version of it as a telegram to every U.S. Senator, urging them to cancel the trip. The trip occurred, but when Khruschev arrived back in Moscow, he said in a speech, “There are forces in the United States working against us…. They must be publicly whipped, subjected to the torments of Hell!” (The Life and Words of Robert Welch, pg. 282)

A year later, 81 communist parties from around the world met in Moscow and issued a manifesto directing their American comrades to smash the rising anti-communist movement. A 1963 California Senate report proved this by writing this “implementation of orders from the highest source of the world Communist movement” was “to do everything in its power to render the Birch Society, the anti-Communist schools, and all of the other rising anti-Communist organizations ineffective.” (pg. 283)

And just how did they go about doing this? The strategy had been laid out by Soviet Leader Vladimir Lenin, who wrote, “The working [of our press campaign against our political foes] is calculated to provoke in the reader hatred, disgust, contempt. The phrasing must be calculated not to convince but to destroy, not to correct the adversary’s mistake, but to annihilate his organization and wipe it off the face of the earth. This working must really be of such a kind as to provoke the worst notions, the worst suspicions about the adversary; it must sow discord and confusion in the ranks and be the opposite of phrasing which would convince and correct.” (pp. 283-284)

Does that sound like a familiar tactic used today against all things America First?

The opening salvo of the Communist smear campaign came from The People’s World on February 25, 1961, with an article titled, “Enter (from stage right) The John Birch Society.”

A mere two weeks later, Time magazine delivered a smear in its March 10, 1961, issue that included the very same errors as the People’s World article, as well as plenty of other errors. As the book The Life and Words of Robert Welch described, “Within a week, every major channel of news had picked up the line — some from People’s World and some from Time — and every literate person in the United States had been programmed to view Robert Welch and his followers as the lunatic fringe, despicable in character, and dangerous to freedom.” (pg. 289)

By April, Mr. Welch and JBS members were being labelled as Neo-Nazis and fascists. Time’s April 14, 1961, issue included this quote from U.S. Senator Stephen Young: “The fascist John Birch Society and others like it are as serious — probably more serious — a threat to our security and way of life as internal Communism.” (pg. 294)

Even presidential candidate Lyndon Johnson got into the act and suggested during a campaign speech that the Birch Society was an extremist group that has infected the country while preaching hate.

By February 7, 1962, Pravda published an article falsely accusing JBS members in California of bombing ministers and other acts of terrorism. Yet a few years later, the home of a JBS field employee was targeted when “bottles of flaming liquid were thrown through a … window of a rural Baptist church and against a second floor window” of this employee’s house. This is a classic example of how the other side accuses their enemies of crimes that they themselves are actually doing.

For many years, the smear campaign continued, until it stopped, seemingly, overnight. It was probably because all of the negative publicity had led to a large membership growth for the Society.

As was concluded in The Life and Words of Robert Welch, “If the widespread attacks against The John Birch Society proved nothing else, they graphically demonstrated that a relatively small group of writers, newsmen, professors and politicians can lead the American public to believe just about any absurdity under the sun.… Not only did [the organization] survive this test of fire, … but it emerged from the furnace … many times stronger than before.” (pg. 302)

Fast forward to July 13, 2024, when a would-be assassin’s bullets stung President Trump and robbed the life of one of his supporters and critically injured two more supporters. Hours after the heinous act, some of the Big News Media once again dusted off their formula of smear to make it appear that Trump and his supporters were somehow in the wrong; that they had helped to contribute to the violence with their rhetoric.

A tone-deaf CNN anchor criticized Trump for saying, “Fight, fight, fight,” as he was fist-pumping to let the crowd know he was ok after being wounded. She suggested his rhetoric should have been tamped down. It was the fist-pump seen round the world, and the crowd was elated.

The New York Times published an op-ed the next morning with the full-page headline, “He failed the tests of leadership and betrayed America. Voters must reject him in November.”

We doubt they would have been so callous if this had happened to President Biden.

Let’s compare this aftermath with what JBS went through in 1963. In the hours and days after President Trump being shot, how many news reports did we see of shots being fired into the offices of political opponents? How many buildings were vandalized by carloads of people? And drawing upon recent memory, how many cities did you see looted and burned to the ground?

None, to all of these questions, which demonstrates the great restraint of a majority of law-abiding Americans.

Yet, Big Media is treating President Trump and the MAGA movement just as it treated Mr. Welch and The John Birch Society many years ago, equating them to Nazis and fascists. Big Media spews its own culture of hate toward those that get in its way. But seeing this parroted across Big Media demonstrates an organized effort. Just as world Communists saw a threat in American anti-communists, especially JBS, look at the organizations that are aggressively working against American sovereignty and freedom. Those that are in the Council on Foreign Relations, the World Economic Forum, the NGOs doing the heavy lifting for the United Nations agenda of installing world government through the Great Reset that will yield a New World Order.

Thanks to God that President Trump survived and the vast majority of the people at the rally were spared. Unfortunately, the Communists did manage to take out one of our most endeared, loved, and brilliant leaders in the John Birch Society. An assassin’s bullet didn’t find him, nor was his car blown up. Rather, they shot down the Boeing 747 he was aboard, along with 268 others. That was September 1, 1983, and he was Congressman Larry McDonald, a Democrat from Georgia. Official reports claim the plane broke up in mid-air, killing everyone.

President Trump is not the first to be attacked. The Chinese Communists killed Captain John Birch 10 days after World War II. Russian Communists killed Congressman Larry McDonald, and Communists throughout the world attacked Robert Welch and The John Birch Society as a whole. What we documented through the media propaganda demonstrated that organization is behind the movement to smash those that work toward freedom and protection of our God-given rights, of those that expose the conspiracy of those working to install world government under a New World Order. And, as has been demonstrated, the smash includes taking people out. Congressman McDonald was taken out due to his potential and how effective he was at organizing and exposing the enemies of freedom.

President Trump was nearly taken out due to his potential. His first term cost the globalists and internationalists dearly. However, the ground they lost was largely gained back through Covid. But it has opened the eyes of many Americans. And hopefully, this includes President Trump. This latest attempt on his life must impress upon him the depths to which these people will stoop.

While we do not know all the details, enough questions have been raised by the video footage of the shootings to call into serious question something much more than incompetence. How does law enforcement not do something when they had been told 30 minutes prior to the first shots that someone armed was lying on the roof of a building that had a clear line of sight? It was either gross incompetence or it was planned that way.

Nevertheless, this gun-free zone took away a husband and father from one family and nearly cost Trump his life. A good guy with a gun was the only thing to take out a bad guy with a gun. The government monopoly of violence is a bad idea no matter where it is.

We at The John Birch Society are prayerfully thankful he’s ok. As it now stands, the presidential election is now the Republicans’ to lose.

Organized grassroots action based on education is the only way to overcome those that want to see the American experiment of self-government to fail. This is what The John Birch Society offers. Join us today at JBS.org.

Also, learn about the role of JBS in helping to prepare America for just such a candidate as Donald Trump in TrumpWorld, a special bookazine from our media arm, The New American. Links are in the video description or comments.

I’m Bill Hahn for The John Birch Society, and until next time, learn more, and take action!

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