rentacop1976--This is one of those many rumors folks can find circulating on the Internet, but this one has been around since the late 1980s.  JBS President John McManus wrote a response to this years ago, which I'm posting here for you.  Hope this helps to clear the air.

Thanks,

Bill Hahn
JBS PR Manager

Memo Responding to the Wild Charges of Eustace Mullins

            In 1988, Eustace Mullins issued a book entitled Murder By Injection.  It dealt mainly with his belief that inoculations against diseases were dangerous, hence his title.  He described the book himself as “the story of the medical conspiracy against America.” 

            Readers of this book will find that pages 340-341 contain several sensational charges about Robert Welch, the Founder of The John Birch Society. They are all completely false.  But, because these claims about Robert Welch have been circulated from time to time, we are forced to respond.  All of these claims and appropriate denials of their veracity follow.

1.The Rockefellers were also active on the ‘rightwing’ front through their sponsorship of the John Birch Society.  There has never been any such sponsorship of the Society by any Rockefeller.

2.      Robert Welch, a 32nd degree Mason…. Robert Welch was never a member of any branch of Masonry at any level.

3.      Nelson Rockefeller purchased his family firm, the Welch Candy Company, from him [Robert] at a handsome price.  Robert Welch separated himself from the James O. Welch Candy Company (James was his brother) more than a year before he launched the John Birch Society.  The company was later sold by James not by Robert, to Nabisco, not to Nelson Rockefeller. 

4.      Welch chose the principal officers of the John Birch Society from his acquaintances at the Council on Foreign Relations.  Robert Welch chose for his Advisory Council many of the men he had met during his very active participation in the work in the National Association of Manufacturers, not the Council on Foreign Relations.  These men included Wm. J. Grede, John T. Brown, W.B. McMillan, J. Nelson Shepherd, Robert W. Stoddard, Louis Ruthenburg, A.G. Heinsohn, and N. Floyd McGowin.  None these men had anything to do with the Council on Foreign Relations. Years later, former State Department diplomat Spruille Braden accepted appointment to the JBS Council after discovering that the Council on Foreign Relations which he had joined as a young man, was a fountain of anti-Americanism that he no longer wanted to be associated with.  Mullins never mentioned this. 

            Before the Murder By Injection book had come to the attention of anyone on the staff of the Society, the monthly newsletter “Criminal Politics” had published the above charges as if they were truthful.  A letter was sent to the Cincinnati office of this newsletter setting the record straight.  The newsletter’s editor sent the JBS-issued letter to Mullins who promptly responded with a threatening letter to the JBS official who wrote it insisting that the corrections of the charges he made in Murder By Injection were “prima facie evidence of an intent to injure and defame me.”  And Mullins added: “You are hereby placed on notice that I intend to file suit on your vicious and underhanded smear attack against me and my work.”

            All this for calmly and accurately defending the Society and Robert Welch from completely false charges.  Lawyers for JBS immediately advised that the threat issued by Mullins was merely a scare tactic that would not be carried out and should be ignored. 

            Then, in an interview published in 2003 in a small-circulation newsletter entitled Emerson’s Review, Mullins repeated some of the above absurdities but added that a good friend of mine [who] was one of the founders of the JBS 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.  That is pure and unadulterated nonsense. 

            Mullins has frequently complained that the Society has “blacklisted” him and his books.  He should hardly be surprised that JBS isn’t about to endorse him and his works after he issued such defamatory nonsense about the Society and its Founder.  In truth, Robert Welch who had read some of Mullins’ publications before being attacked by the man had never wanted anything to do with Mullins, including not recommending any of his books.  If others found value in the man’s work, that was their decision. Even before Murder By Injection, JBS had a policy of refusing to review or distribute anything produced by Eustace Mullins. That decision had been made because the man’s works were not considered reliable.  This is still JBS policy.

John F. McManus

President, The John Birch Society

                                                                                    April 8, 2008

(This memo summarizes several responses to the Eustace Mullins’ charges written over many years.  What was stated then is repeated here in capsulated form.)

 Then of course there is the other test:  

How many people did Robert Welch bring into the Freedom fight versus Eustace Mullins?

I can tell you that in the 1960's and 70's, before the Amazon age, when Ron Paul needed a copy of the Law to hand out to friends, he could get one at an American Opinion Book Store run by the JBS.  Mullins on the other hand, probably spent more time fighting patriots than trying to build them up.

Does this excerpt from Welch's founding presentation of The John Birch Society sound like something from a Rockefeller shill?

Regarding a legal challenge to Mullins, at this point such action is probably not worth the expenditure of time and resources.

Sweet William,

I asked John McManus your question and here is his response:

Thanks for asking sir,

Bill

In 1958, Oliver joined Robert Welch in being one of the founding members of the anti-Communist John Birch Society. Oliver even wrote frequently for the Birch Society magazine American Opinion, his most widely-noted piece being a two-part article called "Marxmanship in Dallas" that asserted that Lee Harvey Oswald had carried out the assassination of President John F. Kennedy as part of a Communist conspiracy. In Oliver's opinion, the Communists wished to eliminate Kennedy as a puppet who had outlived his usefulness. Oliver even testified before the Warren Commission on the basis for his assertions, but was laughed off the stage. He was even reprimanded over his remarks by the University of Illinois' Board of Trustees, but they did not try to unseat him.^[4][5][6]

In the 1960s, Oliver supposedly broke with conventional American conservatism and, having become convinced that Welch had either cozened him from the start or sold out later, he even severed his connections with what he called "the Birch hoax." He thus came to openly embrace an essentially far-right worldview, and eventually to assist William Luther Pierce in forming the National Alliance, a White Nationalist organization, a significant portion of whose supporters and members would re-form under the name National Vanguard.

He has been described as "one of America's most notorious fascists"^[who?] and, according to B'nai Brith Canada, was "a long time proponent of antisemitism."^[7]

Revilo was an editorial adviser for a Holocaust denial organization, the Institute for Historical Review, and a regular contributor to the notorious anti-Semitic periodical, Liberty Bell.^[8] His writings have even been promoted by Kevin Alfred Strom of National Vanguard.^[9]

I was not able to confirm that Nabisco was controlled by any member of the Rockefeller family or Chase Manhattan Bank back in 1958 or thereafter.  It appears to me that if someone is claiming that Robert Welch benefited from the largesse of Chase Manahattan Bank, it is up to him to present evidence for the claim.  So far, all I have seen is the unsubstantiated claim. 

I never met Mr. Welch, but after reading his _Blue Book_ I became impressed with him as a person of great intelligence, strong dedication and earnest patriotism.  Obviously, he is not around now to defend himself.  It would take a lot to convince me that Mr. Welch ever did anything intended to harm his country or betray the organization that he founded.  I agree with capo, who said in an earlier post that Robert Welch's record speaks for itself.

John Lyon

Very informative thread. I have run into this kind of information from time to time and it sounds credible enough to cause one to wonder. However, it since it does not square with every experience I have had with JBS I generally passed over it. It's nice to know the facts behind these smear stories and how bogus they really are. Thanks for the information.