John Birch: American Patriot
“Often in these days, I feel that those barren years are my apprenticeship, God-given, and that a message is being formed, by Him, within me, that will one day burn its way out and across man’s barriers, into the souls of many men.”
This quotation, from a letter to his sister from China in 1944, is a concise summary of the life of Captain John Birch, a Baptist missionary to China who became an American intelligence officer during WWII. Birch was murdered by Chinese communists a few days after the Japanese had surrendered in 1945, and is believed to be the first American soldier killed by communists in the Cold War. This murder was covered up by the U.S. government for years.
Upon hearing Birch’s story, an American candy manufacturer and patriotic anti-communist, Robert Welch, believed the tragedy of Birch’s killing needed to be told. Thus, in 1954, his book The Life of John Birch was published by Regnery, and later by Western Islands. Welch went on to found the constitutionalist and anti-communist John Birch Society in 1958, named after Captain Birch.
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