Robert Welch, head of the John Birch Society, speaks at a gathering in Dallas - "In some towns his audience could be taken for a typical group of Sunday-night worshipers." Close-Up of the Birchers' 'Founder' Robert Welch and his John Birch Society have made many headlines, but he is an elusive man. Here is a report on him and on his organization. By GEORGE BARRETT HE visitor, a pallid, 61-year-old "Americanists" dedicated to fighting paign conducted by Welch's society preacher, gets into a waiting car and T retired business man from the Communists by deliberately adopting might cost him his Senate seat because takes off for a private home that is Boston suburb of Belmont, who some of communism's own clandestine he opposes the society's demand that seldom identified. And somewhere in a little earlier had slipped quietly into and ruthless tactics and, simultaneous- the Government abandon the Federal town-again an unidentified place-he town, linked hands piously with his ly, intent on working-again deliber- Reserve System, the Commodity Credit meets with his chapter leaders and hosts around the dinner table to offer ately-to destroy government by de- Corporation, and veterans' hospitals; members, talking softly through puffs family grace. The sound of crickets, mocracy, which Mr. Welch describes a two-star general has been relieved of of cigar smoke. relayed across Louisiana bayous and contemptuously as government by his command pending studies of charges neat, clipped lawns, broke the night's "mobocracy." that he fostered some of Welch's ex- E ACH chapter numbers between ten stillness outside. One of those at the dinner table ad- tremist teachings among his troops; and twenty members. At these sessions, Robert Henry Winborne Welch Jr., dressed Mr. Welch by the wrong name. the United States Attorney General there is talk about policy, which has head of the Right-Wing superpatriotic But he was in good spirits, laughed has called the John Birch Society "ridic- been already laid down in the regular John Birch Society, engaged in pleasant over the mistake, and launched into ulous," and President Kennedy has monthly bulletin each member gets chit-chat that night, not long ago, with a detailed discourse on the etymology taken occasion at a press conference to from headquarters at Belmont. There his Southern hosts in their home in a of his name. He concluded by explain- rebuke the society for being too fast is also a routine that Mr. Welch checks: well-to-do section of Shreveport. ing, quietly, that the root word for on the draw in its search for Commu- each month after the bulletin arrives Welch means "stranger." nists. the chapter "Leader" (appointed, not His hosts, however, were nervous. Though followers of Mr. Welch, they The "Stranger" has just completed a elected) gathers his group, calls on each felt the strain of entertaining the man THE "Stranger" from Massachusetts number of quick visits to towns around member in turn to report point by point who has suddenly and dramatically is even now something of a shadowy the country. He travels alone, and is what he has done to carry out the so- emerged as one of the country's most figure, although he has been generating so ose-mouthed about his schedule ciety's program for the previous month, controversial figures, a former fudge- some intense reactions throughout the that even his chapter chiefs are not and then spells out the specific local action each member must next take and-candy manufacturer who a little country with his wild - swinging blows sure of his precise arrival time until more than two years ago organized the against the "Communist conspiracy" shortly before he comes to town, When to put through Mr. Welch's newest John Birch Society. This was to be- and has inspired, in some communities, he alights from his plane (usually a campaign. and is - a semi-secret network of the deadly game of look-again-and- commercial liner but occasionally a The major target for the Birchers more-closely at your neighbor. private plane placed at his disposal by right now is Chief Justice Earl War- GEORGE BARRETT, a reporter for The Times, Within recent weeks, North Dakota's one of his wealthy sponsors) Mr Welch, ren, whom Mr. Welch wants to have followed Mr. Welch on a trip through the South, Republican Senator Milton R. Young carrying his briefcase and suggesting impeached in order, as he puts it, to talking to Birchers and others on the way. expressed fears that a reprisal cam- in his appearance a worn Southern give a dra- (Continued on Page 89) 13 MAY 14, 1961