John Birch Society
American right-wing to far-right advocacy group
The John Birch Society (JBS) is an American right-wing political advocacy group. Founded in 1958, it is radical anti-communist, American nationalist, supports social conservatism, and is associated with ultraconservative, radical right, far-right, right-wing populist, and right-wing libertarian ideas. Originally based in Belmont, Massachusetts, the JBS is now headquartered in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, with local chapters throughout the United States. It owns American Opinion Publishing, Inc., which publishes the magazine The New American, and it is affiliated with an online school called FreedomProject Academy.
The society's founder, businessman Robert W. Welch Jr. (1899–1985), developed an organizational infrastructure of nationwide chapters in December 1958. The society rose quickly in membership and influence, and also became known for Welch's conspiracy theories. His allegation that Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower was a communist agent was especially controversial. In the 1960s, the conservative William F. Buckley Jr. and National Review attempted to relegate the JBS to the fringes of the American right.
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This entry incorporates text from “John Birch Society” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.