Good evening. I am tony clark. I am really glad you are all here. I think this will be a fascinating evening because it kind ofpo tells why we are in politics the way we are right now. When i was growing up, folk music was a really big deal. There was a group called the chad mitchell trio that had a song called the dont John Birch Society with lyrics like if mommy is a connie, youve got to turn her in. Just really a funny, funny song. They would sing things Like Fighting for the right to fight the right fight for the right. Should google the trio and the John Birch Society. The billboards at the time along the highways would say things like Impeach Supreme CourtJustice Earl Warren or get the u. S. Out of the un. They were very well known back in the 60s. By the end of the vietnam war you did not really hear much about them. Their influence carried much further. Their influence did not disappear. Fe a professor at the graduate school of political management at George Washington university. He is ati political historian. Li he looks at social crisis, political transformation, liberalism and its critics and tonights topic the evolution of modern conservative movement. He has authored or coauthored four books. He is a frequent commentator on the news media. About politics and history and public affairs. He is also a former speech driver for former House Minority leader richard gephardt. And so we wanted somebody to talk with matthew about his book and we could not have had anybody better than joe. He is the jimmy carter professor of history at emory university. He is an expert in political and cultural history of the 20th century and joe has written probably three books including one that he was here to speak about Atticus Finch the biography. The making of american icon. Please, join me in welcoming joe and matthew. [applause] thank you. Thank you. It is always so much fun to be at the Carter Library. Thank you for coming out to ask questions about this really exciting and timely and deeply researched and wonderful book. Matt, welcome to georgia. It iss great to have you this week and its so appropriate to have you here this week. I was reading your book this week in preparation of tonight. I was also reading an oped in the New York Times this week. I dont know some of you saw it but it talked about the hotness of the Georgia Republican party. It talked about, it was amazing to read this article because it was all about how the Trump Supporters are in such conflict with the governor and there is this real tension between the conservatives and the ultraconservatives. Lo andth behold, your book begis with a story and the California Republican party around 1961 or 62 and there is a longtime Republican Party activist who is decrying the rise of these crazy that were ruining the Republican Party and turning it into a hot mess. So tell us who the John Birch Society was and it seems to be so similar what was going on in the 1960s. What are this a limited area these similarities . I want to thank you for doing this with me. Its wonderful to be here with you. Thank you for having me. It is really an honor to be here yes, joe was referring to patricia who was a loyalist to Richard Nixon who was not exactlys liberal. Running for a local seat. This gives you a flavor. A local seat on the Republican Party county committee in Southern California and the birchers did not, members of the so society did not see her basically as being conservative enough. She was not a true believer. They basically ran against her and they defeated her. She described in this amazing oral history what it was like to go up against them. They started calling up everybody in our district. Just describing her as a socialist, connie andin a pinko. She said that, she called them destructive force. She said they were haters beyond anything i had ever seen in my life. She really had kind of a visceral loathing for this group that kind of made me more intrigued. What was she reacting to . The society, just to back up, named after evangelists turned Army Intelligence officer that was murderedll or killed after mmworld war ii by now communist forces. The book is from macon georgia. And his parents were very supportive at least initially of lending his name to this organization. The founder wrote a book, a short biography of john in the 1950s. Alleging that theov u. S. Government, the crime was not necessarily that communist forces had killed him, it was at the u. S. Government had conspired to conceal the murder as part of this communist plot. Sond, he was kind of seen as a martyr in the first victim of world war iii. You know, the brief background as they started december 58. A group of 12 mostly wealthy industrialist meeting at a very hushhush meeting in indianapolis. They decided to form a group. The purpose was to operate outside of the twoparty system and to try to educate the country about the internal communist threat. Because, in a way, they looked at the Republican Party that wat probably their natural home and hothey thought that it was partf the communist movement, essentially. It was a bit hopeless. The conspiracy was to teach people about the nature of the threat so the grassroots mobilization and education kind of shocked people into a realization. Anyways, they started to form chapters. They had a home chapter based in belmont massachusetts. They operated in 20 person chapters. Once you hit that cap you had to form a new chapter. They were pretty secretive. They had kind of nondescript, they had numbers or letters. Xqyz. They were not supposed to communicate with one another. They were supposed to be somewhat distinct entities that would communicate with the home office, but not with each other. A former candy maker in founder, he wrote a ton of stuff including monthly bulletins and American Opinion mattered magazine. Now, you know, the chapters did not necessarily go out and file every word of his prescription, but he suggested things like taking over your local pta. Take over your school board. See what kind of books are being offered in the library. If they are kind of socialistic tracks, you need to pressure the library, essentially to put in this text. Set up a billboard as tony alluded to earlier. Supporting the impeach campaign. I am not even sure if i have his name. He funded, i believe it is in georgia. Twenty billboards out of his own pocket. So, you know, really, the insights, one of the beauties was this was a group that allowed empowered members and enabled them to actually do something to take the fight to this alleged communist Conspiracy Theory in their communities. They can kind of filter this conspiratorial brand of anti communism through the perceived needs. Now as i argue a real insight that they had. As a quote one person in here saying the so society is the answer to every anticommunist prayer. He meant by that is it allows us to act. We are not just talking about how bad things are in the country. We can do something about it. That was a longish explanation. That gives you an overview of what is. They helped to forge an alternative political tradition. On the far right. Aa subsequent generation but alo ideas like isolationism, conspiracy theories. A more violent mode of politics. And that, you know, the ideas picked up by subsequent generations. It is not like a perfect kind of line, but one to the other. This challenged a lot of the sort of mainstream conservative often republicans, not always, people like patricia who i talk about here or we could argue in a contemporary context at the Current Governor secretary of state georgia and see them as much as the enemy as our ally. We can see the kind of tensions, the divisions within this broad conservative coalition whereas, you know, these mainstream conservatives are electorally successful, much more pragmatic. Back in the day, 1960s or 70s , preeffective. Pretty effective about pushing them and their supporters to the edges. Not allowing them to engulf their party and to leave the. Arty some of the reasons the party was stronger, you know, they had more carrots and sticks back in the day. It wasni a different country. The cold war was constraining in some ways. The biggest difference i would say today is a lot of reasons in which we can get into, i think the successors sort of this far right tradition is if not mainstream, pretty close to the mainstream ofth conservatism. The ideas, one of the arguments is they have made, i think a lot of people see it as a steady comeback. You mentionedt designated because of these incredible tensions that actually feel familiar albeit with different setting in different circumstances. One of those interesting moments. Your first book was about conservative politics, conservative history. A gubernatorial governorship of Ronald Reagan. Kind of this critical movement. I think one of the things that you recognize if you do this work professionally is always shaping our understanding. For you and i, we been working on this history for 20 years. A lot of the stuff that was written 20 years ago was kind of trying to take conservative ideas seriously to try to understand how it came to power in the 1960s through the 1990 s. It was about kind of the major establishment figures. These figures were seen, you know, but now, its like the present changes our understanding of things look differently. Is it right to say the present moment american politics since 2016 essentially makes you think differently about the history of conservatism. Absolutely. We are sort of human and being influenced by what is happening around us. I think a lot of people have been trying to understand what they see as may be a transformation in the conservative movement. The trumpetet right and the ides and where they come from. One thing i wanted to do in this book is take what i describe as is far right ideas and take them seriously. Take this Mass Mobilization and take that seriously. Because not just in recent years , but also at the time, what is really interesting is you go back where characterizing respects, either mocked or they were described basically as neofascists. They were described as people who were going to start a civil war because they said the enemy was within. It is an invitation to engage in civil war. They attacked, they were seen as , you know, little old ladies and tennis shoes as well as one of the famous phrases had appeared you know, they were kind of nuts. Right. You know, the other song that was popular in the 1960s was the bob dylan song. John birch paranoid lose. Paranoia became this shorthand for the birchers. Seen in the film, doctor and the general raving about bodily fluids in o the communist conspiracy, that is a spoof on the water supply. So what was the theme before . Well, look. With all of these conspiracy theories, i have a chart which i showed. You cannot see it here. You can see the conspiracy on this chart. It is a birch document from thea mid 60s. They are verypp hard to pin down the conspiracies, but, the water supply basically, it was a wedge for socialized medicine. And, sometimes they said that this was basically a government step two, you know, control us. To tell us what to put in our body. Other times, there were hints that it was a communist plot to poison people which is doctor strange. But, i i mean, basically, of a piece withde this federal the heavy hand of a federal bureaucracy. Basically doing the communist work for it. And, so, it was seen as part of the communist conspiracy. Im going to talk more about in spiritual political movement. You may have some questions about that. One of the things i think is important for people to realize, a secret organization. Maybe explain why they were so intent on may be kind of maintaining secrecy. Also, how were youlo able to research if they were so jealous about guarding information . Well, the founder and some of the others argued early on that they wanted to keep a low profile because if they said it, they did not want the communist to know they existed. Because the conception of themselves was at the best strongest and most aggressive anticommunist group in the United States. They are thinking let the communists learn about us. They willit go to town and try o destroy us. It gives an insight into the gamentality the us against them. And,le so, actually, welch, when he had this first meeting, he told his friends, he said, look, i dont want you all staying at the same hotel. If anyone asks you you tell them you are here on business in indianapolis. We do not want people to get wind of what we are up to. They were actually pretty successful for the first i would say two years at keeping it under wraps. There were a series of news articles in them 1950. In and they exploded in early 61 and became a theme frenzy. They were everywhere. They had basically come onto us. There trying to take us out. It was part of that attack. The Civil Society has some papers at Brown University that apparently, were used to being in belmont massachusetts and when the society, they picked up and moved to appleton wisconsin and dumped all of their papers in a dumpster. I think near their headquarters. Someone found these papers and then donated them to brown. They are now organized. Finding aid. They are not like the papers in the Carter Library of course. There are big holes in it. These are just taken out of a dumpster. You know, you dont really know what you will get. There are some a lot of like messages from members who are writing into headquarters and those are the best because you are getting antidotal. Members from all around the country and what they are thinking and what is kind of moving them. It is like a window. But, what is amazing is that there are so many collections. The Antidefamation League have a chapter and they have waged a quite effective spike campaign against the so society infiltrating the far right. They have about 20 boxes that the Historical Society in new york city, those are great. Winot just looking at how libers are treating them and how they are trying to undermine them, but how they are trying to do it themselves. You have these detailed memos about these meetings. These are about individual birchers. Library of congress has a ton of stuff surprisingly related to the society. You can find letters from the patriarch who was one of the original founders. About how great the society is. You know, you can go around the country. One of the righthand people. They boths came out of the National Association of manufacturers. He has some great papers in wisconsin. He was a wisconsin industrialist you just kind of keep going. You have more archives then you can actually go through. One of the things you talk about inn the book, one of the things you traces the division between mainstream conservatives and ultraconservatives. These ultraconservatives. The story traditionally is that at this. In conservative history you have mainstream Like National review by way of William Buckley junior that starts in 1955. Buckley who represents that kind of more intellectual playing at the party is able to kind of, certain people in the Establishment Conservative Movement able to police the boundaries of the movement. And they are able to kind of say , no, we will draw a line here. And wahlberg walch and Barry Goldwater does this as well to a certain degree. I wonder, you know, how do they do that . One of the things that i argue, buckley, mostly, no one person had the ability to keep the gatekeeper. The berkshires were 16 a lot of them were very wealthy. Buckley, just an example, he had a lot of ties to first leaders. Some of his readers were either in the society, they were not members, but they were supportive of it. It was very hard to kind of disentangle. So he wrote a couple of editorials in the 60s denouncing welchs conspiracy theories. Welch had argued and buckley said, youou know, too far. And then later in 65 especially as they were more radical on the vietnam war he did a bigger thing. When buckley ran for mayor of new york city in 1965, even though a lot were angry at him, he still had some so society, some that supported his mirror run. It was very hard, what i was interested in, though, the main stream, they bothan kind of wood and they tried to bring them into the fold at times but then they did not want they wanted the money, both in energy, but, you know, i think they understood that electorally especially after goldwater boston 64 and the landslide where he famously declared extremism in defense of liberties no vice which was seen as other radical groups. I think of aligned in the 1964 acceptance. San francisco. A famous line. Moderation in defense of virtue. Moderation in pursuit of justice in the devices of virtue. The pursuit of justice. Something along those lines. Yeah. Something like that. Summarizing it. So, you know, coldwater who did have a lot of liking, there were efforts that he made in late 64 and afterwards to try to distance himself from the birchers and he actually madeom some of them mad. Some actually accused him of telling the communist line. What i was interested in was the intentions of these ultras and these more mainstream types. I dont think anyone ever pushed out the ultras, per se. They were part of the conservative coalition, but i also argue that they were not really on top. They weren not dominant, for te most part. The so society as an organization, they kind of fade in the late 60s, early 70s. People are not talking that much about them. They fade organizationally. So, appointed in 71 or 72 to the supreme court, there is a story, actually, a rumor that he was a john bircher in arizona. He actually has to issue a