John Birch was the pure American patriot; a man willing to give up his life fighting Communists.
Shortly after the Indianapolis meeting, my father accepted Welch’s invitation to join eighteen other men in Chicago for the second Birch Society recruiting meeting. As at the Indianapolis meeting, the men met for two days, and Welch did all the talking. My father joined the brand-new John Birch Society that weekend. He paid for a life membership for himself and for my mother, agreed to be the Chicago point man for the organization, and dedicated the rest of his life to saving the country.
“If the country doesn’t wake up,” Dad said, “we’ll be slaves ruled from Moscow.” For many years, in speech after speech, I heard him declare, “I will die before I let the Commies take my country.” I never doubted that my father meant every word.
My father was the first John Birch Society member in Chicago; my mother was the second. Working together, they built the entire Birch structure in the city and the suburbs. Recruiting meetings were scheduled for three to four times a week. The other nights were devoted to special meetings with Birch leaders who stopped by or with folks who wouldn’t become members but could help the cause in other ways—folks like our parish priests, Catholic clergy from around the city, or leaders of local civic organizations. It was not unusual for six nights in a week to be Birch nights.
While the younger kids were banished to the second floor with strict orders to play quietly, without fighting, and go to bed on time, my brother and I were drafted into service. We dragged folding chairs from the front-hall closet for the guests, emptied ashtrays, served coffee and cookies, handed out pamphlets, and collected donations. Night after night, new John Birch Society recruits were full of questions, and my parents answered every single one. The meetings might to stretch way past ten and sometimes past midnight.
Sometimes I’d nod off while the talking droned on and on. My mother, if she noticed at all, would shake my shoulder and send me to bed. “You canstraighten up in the morning.”
In those early days, my parents were totally engaged with the new Birch Society. Their efforts produced new members, and those new members brought in more recruits. “It was wild,” Mother liked to say.
My parents never doubted their decision to join with Welch. “We chose freedom over slavery,” Mother said. “It was good or evil, life or death, God or Satan.”
“Your mother and I will never stop, and we’ll never surrender. This is what we do. This is who we are,” my father said.
As one of the older children, I was drafted into this new army and saving the country became my job too.
It was a shock when I discovered that the task was much bigger than stopping the Commies. According to my dad, the Communist enemy was only one tentacle of a two-hundred-year-old conspiracy to take over the entire planet. I couldn’t imagine what a thirteen-year-old like me could possibly do against an enemy like that.
Enter the Illuminati.
I’d never heard of the Illuminati and, according to my parents, neither had anyone else. Until Robert Welch uncovered old writings and unmasked a plot to take over the world, the super-secret conspiracy group had existed in the shadows. Welch discovered the writings of an obscure eighteenth-century Bavarian canon-law professor, Adam Weishaupt, who nourished a hatred for authority. Weishaupt gathered a group of like-minded men—the Illuminati—who set out to destroy the monarchies of northern Europe. Once the kings were out of the way, the thinking went, the Illuminati planned to crown themselves the all-powerful leaders of a New World Order. 11
The conspirators knew this plan would not be popular with the targeted governments, so they disguised themselves inside another secret organization, the Masons. Powerful princes in Europe discovered the Illuminati and tried to destroy
Shortly after the Indianapolis meeting, my father accepted Welch’s invitation to join eighteen other men in Chicago for the second Birch Society recruiting meeting. As at the Indianapolis meeting, the men met for two days, and Welch did all the talking. My father joined the brand-new John Birch Society that weekend. He paid for a life membership for himself and for my mother, agreed to be the Chicago point man for the organization, and dedicated the rest of his life to saving the country.
“If the country doesn’t wake up,” Dad said, “we’ll be slaves ruled from Moscow.” For many years, in speech after speech, I heard him declare, “I will die before I let the Commies take my country.” I never doubted that my father meant every word.
My father was the first John Birch Society member in Chicago; my mother was the second. Working together, they built the entire Birch structure in the city and the suburbs. Recruiting meetings were scheduled for three to four times a week. The other nights were devoted to special meetings with Birch leaders who stopped by or with folks who wouldn’t become members but could help the cause in other ways—folks like our parish priests, Catholic clergy from around the city, or leaders of local civic organizations. It was not unusual for six nights in a week to be Birch nights.
While the younger kids were banished to the second floor with strict orders to play quietly, without fighting, and go to bed on time, my brother and I were drafted into service. We dragged folding chairs from the front-hall closet for the guests, emptied ashtrays, served coffee and cookies, handed out pamphlets, and collected donations. Night after night, new John Birch Society recruits were full of questions, and my parents answered every single one. The meetings might to stretch way past ten and sometimes past midnight.
Sometimes I’d nod off while the talking droned on and on. My mother, if she noticed at all, would shake my shoulder and send me to bed. “You canstraighten up in the morning.”
In those early days, my parents were totally engaged with the new Birch Society. Their efforts produced new members, and those new members brought in more recruits. “It was wild,” Mother liked to say.
My parents never doubted their decision to join with Welch. “We chose freedom over slavery,” Mother said. “It was good or evil, life or death, God or Satan.”
“Your mother and I will never stop, and we’ll never surrender. This is what we do. This is who we are,” my father said.
As one of the older children, I was drafted into this new army and saving the country became my job too.
It was a shock when I discovered that the task was much bigger than stopping the Commies. According to my dad, the Communist enemy was only one tentacle of a two-hundred-year-old conspiracy to take over the entire planet. I couldn’t imagine what a thirteen-year-old like me could possibly do against an enemy like that.
Enter the Illuminati.
I’d never heard of the Illuminati and, according to my parents, neither had anyone else. Until Robert Welch uncovered old writings and unmasked a plot to take over the world, the super-secret conspiracy group had existed in the shadows. Welch discovered the writings of an obscure eighteenth-century Bavarian canon-law professor, Adam Weishaupt, who nourished a hatred for authority. Weishaupt gathered a group of like-minded men—the Illuminati—who set out to destroy the monarchies of northern Europe. Once the kings were out of the way, the thinking went, the Illuminati planned to crown themselves the all-powerful leaders of a New World Order. 11
The conspirators knew this plan would not be popular with the targeted governments, so they disguised themselves inside another secret organization, the Masons. Powerful princes in Europe discovered the Illuminati and tried to destroy
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