Former John Birch Society writer and speaker Alan Stang succumbed to cancer in his home state of Texas on July 19th. Stang was born and raised in New York City. Once a New York City taxicab driver and ballroom dance instructor, he was a graduate of City College of New York and Columbia University. He became a writer/producer for shows featuring television personality Mike Wallace.
Early influenced by the libertarian movement, he found a more appealing ideological friendship and membership with the John Birch Society where he became a close friend of JBS Founder Robert Welch. Best remembered for his many articles in American Opinion magazine, the predecessor of The New American, Stang frequently crisscrossed the nation for the American Opinion Speakers Bureau. His revelations about revolutionaries in New Mexico stopped their plans to take over the state and convert it into a Marxist territory. He also wrote many articles about numerous unconstitutional federal agencies.
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The author of more than a dozen books, his most famous are the Western Islands paperbacks It’s Very Simple: The True Story of Civil Rights (1965) and The Actor: The True Story of John Foster Dulles (1968). In 1974, Western Islands published his first novel, The Highest Virtue.
“Wherever he went, Alan was always a popular speaker,” recalled John Birch Society President John McManus. Branching out into radio in the late 1970s, Alan’s “The Alan Stang Report” brought five minutes of hard-hitting information and commentary to radio stations across the land. “He never pulled his punches,” said McManus “and the radio shows made him even more popular when he was on the speech circuit.” Stang later left the organization and its publications to become a free-lance writer and speaker.
Only recently according to son Jay, Stang had the pleasure of getting to know his first two grandchildren. He leaves a widow, Gail, whom he first met at a John Birch Society summer camp.
This article originally appeared at JBS.org and is reprinted here with permission.
