The Birch-Barkers

Conservatives, Congressmen, clergymen and Communists were all sounding off last week about the way-way-right John Birch Society (TIME, March 10). Items: P:Said Richard Cardinal Gushing of the society and its founder, Robert Welch: "Everyone must salute the efforts of sincere and dedicated men who engage in anti-Communist efforts. Robert Welch is such a man. On the other hand, we must deplore the exaggeration and excesses which discredit even a good thing. Anyone who suggests that President Eisenhower promoted Communist causes is speaking in absurdities."P:U.S. Communist Chairman Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, 70, solemnly refuted Welch's charge that Ike was a "conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy"' "That's ridiculous, of course." The society, she added, is "so obviously capable of telling all kinds of falsehoods it seems impossible of making any impression on the American people." P:Ohio's Democratic Senator Stephen M. Young declared that "the fascist John Birch Society and others like it are as serious--probably more serious--a threat to our security and way of life as internal Communism." But Young opposed a congressional investigation of the society Said he: "Any mercenary demagogue has a right to express his opinions, though distorted, unfounded and false." P:Said Attorney General Robert Kennedy: "I don't think anybody should really pay too much attention to them. It seems to me the society is an organization in the area of being humorous." Cf P:Arizona's Senator Barry Goldwater said he knew liberal Democrats as well as conservative Republicans who were members of the society, warned that an investigation of the organization would turn up "a lot of embarrassed people" in Congress.

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