Sunday, October 09, 2011 – with Anthony Wile

The editors of The Daily Bell are pleased to present an interview with John F. McManus, President of the John Birch Society and publisher of the NeW American.
Introduction: In 1973, John F. McManus accepted an appointment by Robert Welch, the Society’s Founder, as the organization’s Director of Public Affairs. He later became its president. In this post, he became and remains the Society’s chief media representative throughout the nation. He has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs. Mr. McManus has written and produced numerous audiovisual programs, including the popular DVD Overview of America, which is a moving tribute about America’s US Constitutional roots. He has also written several books including Financial Terrorism (1993), Changing Commands: The Betrayal of America’s Military (1995), William F. Buckley, Jr.: Pied Piper for the Establishment (2002), and The Insiders 5th Edition (2004). In addition to being a regular contributor of articles to The New American magazine, he serves as its publisher. He is also publisher of the Society’s member-only monthly Bulletin. Mr. McManus was named president of The John Birch Society in 1991. Born in 1935 in Brooklyn, he served on active duty as a lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps for three years. For six years before accepting a staff position with the Society, he was employed as an electronics engineer.

Read the interview here: http://www.thedailybell.com/3056/Anthony-Wile-John-McManus-on-the-John-Birch-Society-What-It-Stands-For-and-Why-Its-Been-Falsely-Attacked


We’ve followed JBS and the New American magazine for decades because the Society and its publications helped pioneer the kind of history that seems plausible to us – directed history – in which a handful of wealthy banking families and enablers (“insiders,” in JBS lingo) conspire to create one-world government through a series of false-flag events, wars and political control. As a result, it’s come in for its fair share of abuse from both the Left and Right. It’s been called anti-Semitic, racist, homophobic – and those are just the polite criticisms.
The Birch Society puts a lot more emphasis on communism than we might, bu t that’s been its hallmark since its inception – and in the mid-20th century the Cold War was a big deal. Regardless of its emphasis on communism (which is only one part of directed history in our view) there’s no mistake that the Birch Society and its seminal books have had an impact on several generations of free-market thinkers.
The Society’s initial heyday was in the mid-20th century when it was relentlessly attacked, but it has obviously stood the test of time and many of its predictions and points of view have been validated by current events. It’s been more accurate than Western mainstream media about underlying socio-political and economic trends, that’s for sure.
Nonetheless, perhaps because of its success, the attacks keep coming. And a surprising one came from alternative-journalist Eustace Mullins, a friend of the great poet Ezra Pound, who wrote some of the most scathing and intriguing books about the power elite that you’ll ever read. Mullins, in our view, had a habit of making mind-bending assertions that may be valid but are not very provable.
That’s apparently because he used a lot of information derived from the circles he ran with And the private conversations he had; logically, he may have had some trouble footnoting such perspectives. It did lead to fairly inflammatory allegations.
Anyway, we went looking for the allegation by Mullins and found it in a Rense article entitled, “An Afternoon With Eustace Mullins by James Dyer,” posted at Rense in 2003. Here’s the pertinent text:
JBS was setup by Nelson Rockefeller. I knew two people at the original meeting. They needed a right-wing, anti-communist organization. NR decided that Robert Welch was the man to run JBS, so he arranged for the sale of Welch’s Candy Co. (where Robert Welch had been working for his brother John) to Nabisco (which was a Rockefeller controlled company) at a highly inflated price and Welch was given an income to run the John Birch Society.
Revilo Oliver was a good friend of mine and he was one of the founders of the JBS. He and I were sitting in his living room once and he told me that he knew Nelson Rockefeller ran the Birch Society because he had a revolving fund at Chase Manhattan Bank, and whenever Welch needed a quarter million dollars to meet the payroll, he’d go to CMB and withdraw the money.
We thought at the time the allegation was a little “far out” and thus we’re haPpy to have provided Mr. McManus the opportunity to rebut it. It’s an especially pertinent issue given that as the Internet Reformation continues to expand, the Hegelian divide-and-conquer tactics of the power elite come under more exposure and sustained attack.
We’ve been struggling this past week, for instance, to cover what seems to be an obvious attempt by the power elite to infiltrate and influence the sprawling Occupy Wall Street movement – to turn it into a controlled opposition of sorts. In fact, some allege it was founded with this in mind.
Over the next week, we’ll try to concentrate on the libertarian elements of movement, as it is a great deal more difficult to maintain a controlled opposition in the 21st century than in the 20th. People know a lot more thanks to the Internet, which has thoroughly exposed the plans for a One World Order for those who care to look and read. Of course, JBS was exposing Western elites in the 20th century, long before the Internet. Historically, its membership has fought for freedom and against what can be called Money Power.
Followup: We went looking for other information regarding Eustace Mullins’s statement regarding JBS and Welch. We found this statement from alternative journo Kelliegh Nelson, in anarticle entitled “The Tea Parties, Part 3,” posted August 2011 over at NewsWithViews:
Third and of special importance is a correction that needs to be made from the first article. I don’t know of a journalist or a researcher that doesn’t make mistakes from time to time, but I pride myself on targeting the truth and on correcting errors. This time, I made an error by believing an old and vicious rumor that I should have checked more thoroughly before I linked to it. The link was in regards to the John Birch Society founder, Robert Welch.
The link stated that Welch’s candy company was purchased by a Rockefeller holding at a large sum of money in order that Welch head up the new John Birch Society. Now it is well known that Rockefeller monies have funded other large organizations, but the JBS through Welch’s candy company is not one of them. Robert’s candy company had failed and he went to work for his brother’s candy company until 1956.
I believe it was in 1958 that he started the John Birch Society. It wasn’t until the early 60s that James Welch sold his candy company to Nabisco. Whether Nabisco was owned in part or in whole by any Rockefeller entity is of no importance inasmuch as funds from the sale of James’ candy company were not instrumental in funding Robert’s new Society.