The Early Days of the John Birch Society: Fascist Templars of the Corporate State: By Alex Constantine Part 8: The Welch/Buckley War William F. Buckley passed himself off to the world as an independent thinker, journalist and publisher. But documents declassified by the Assassination Records Review Board dismissed any such notion. In Watergate "Plumber" Howard Hunt�s Office of Security file, Dan Hardway of the House Select Committee found a number of documents on Bonesman William F. Buckley. He was not merely a CIA agent � he was a ranking officer formerly stationed in Mexico City to direct the action. Buckley attempted to conceal his CIA rank with Hunt's assistance. Documents subpeoned by Congress mention that some articles published by the National Review were actually written by the CIA's E. Howard Hunt, including a review of The Invisible Government, by David Wise, a book highly critical of the Agency. When Buckley "resigned" his commission at CIA with a compulsion to publish the National Review, he maintained a subdued relationship with Howard Hunt. (Jim DiEugenio, "Dodd and Dulles vs. Kennedy in Africa," Probe, January-February 1999, Vol. 6, No. 2). Buckley also distanced himself publicly from Robert Welch in the April 21, 1961 issue of the Review. There was growing interest in the Birch Society, Buckley claimed, because "the Liberals, and to the extent their programs coincide, the Communists, feel threatened by the revived opposition. Accordingly they have taken hold of a vulnerable organization and labored to transform it into a national menace." It could be argued that the Society itself had something to do with this reputation, that the "Communists" out there did not have to "labor" too strenuously to create the impression that the Birchers were political pariahs. Buckley himself admitted in his next breath that the Birch Society was "an organization of men and women devoted to militant political activity." "I myself have known Robert Welch since 1952," he admitted. "I have read all his books, and most of his articles and editorials. He bought stock and debentures in National Review in its early years (less than one percent of our original capital). We have exchanged over a dozen letters, and spoken from the same platform on two occasions. I have always admired his personal courage and devotion to the cause." But, Buckley wrote, he had to part with Welch's conclusion that Dwight D. Eisenhower was a willing agent of the Soviet Union, though Buckley believed "most definitely" that the "Communist conspiracy" was a "deadly serious matter." In the future, he hoped that the Birch Society "thrives," so long as "it resists such false assumptions as that a man's subjective motives can automatically be deduced from the objective consequences of his acts." (Well, perhaps he didn't put much distance between himself and the Birch Society, after all.) Buckley hoped to salvage the organization's political usefulness to the "conservative" cause by plotting to separate his "old friend" Welch from the society he founded. George Seldes notes that Welch's "paranoid and idiotic libels" of President Eisenhower caused a stir in the Republican Party: "It resulted in an attempt to separate Welch from Birch and set Welch adrift. Barry Goldwater, Editor William Buckley of the National Review, and the favorite Birch radio orator, Fulton Lewis, Jr. (who outdid all the Birchites by favoring lynching, not merely indicting, the chief justice), joined in a suggestion that Welch resign and thus purge the John Birch Society, which would then continue in their favor. They did not succeed" (Seldes, Never Tire of Protesting, p. 220). Welch was not one to forget a little slight like a coup attempt. He'd been betrayed by Bill Buckley, the Skull-and-Bones CIA Yalie. His affairs were tangled up with Buckley's, though, and the connection went far beyond a minor stock holding in the National Review. Welch had influence at YAF, founded in September 1960. Young Americans was a group replete with Birchers, and served as a front for incoming spies from Munich, Germany (Mae Brussell & Dick Russell). And it's leadership was loyal to William F. Buckley. In the summer of 1961, Robert Welch enlisted the aid of Nelson Rockefeller (in Birch lore, the country's most powerful closet "Communist") and launched a takeover of the student organization. Together, William Rusher recalls, an unlikely alliance, "Welch and Rockefeller, in league, through their youthful agents, [attempted] to wrest control of the national board of YAF from the friends of National Review!" In the end, the fanatical Birch faction was outvoted and the Buckley crowd remained in control of the radical right student union (Rusher, pp 115-116). End of Part 8
