WEBVTT - John Birch vs. the PTA 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:22.236 Pushkin. I want to read to you from a very 0:00:22.276 --> 0:00:28.156 important historical document, the April nineteen sixty two edition of 0:00:28.196 --> 0:00:33.156 the wellby Way Elementary School Parent Teacher Association newsletter, The 0:00:33.236 --> 0:00:37.636 well Be Buzzings, written of course, by the PTA of 0:00:37.716 --> 0:00:41.316 the elementary school in the West Hills area of Los Angeles. 0:00:42.796 --> 0:00:46.596 First item, President's message. I would like to say thank 0:00:46.636 --> 0:00:48.716 you to the ladies that work so hard on the 0:00:49.036 --> 0:00:52.516 and this is all in caps double parking safety campaign. 0:00:53.356 --> 0:00:56.956 Second item sing along with progress PTA meeting for April. 0:00:57.156 --> 0:01:00.996 Our hostesses will be the sixth grade mothers. Third item 0:01:01.316 --> 0:01:04.876 a meeting on safety in fire prevention. Fourth item an 0:01:04.916 --> 0:01:08.356 interesting and informative trip to the fire station. Fifth item 0:01:08.476 --> 0:01:11.436 the local count meeting. Key detail. It's going to be 0:01:11.476 --> 0:01:19.116 a luncheon. Are you still there? Still awake? Four announcements 0:01:19.116 --> 0:01:23.756 on school safety, a fifth on participatory democracy. A luncheon. 0:01:24.196 --> 0:01:28.556 I'm guessing you're poored to tears. It's all so very PTA. 0:01:28.996 --> 0:01:32.836 The only things missing are the potluck supper, the newspaper drive, 0:01:33.116 --> 0:01:40.276 the book fair. But that's where you're wrong. This newsletter is, 0:01:40.276 --> 0:01:43.476 in fact the skeleton key to understanding our political moment 0:01:44.076 --> 0:01:47.676 right now. Like this exact moment. If you're listening to 0:01:47.716 --> 0:01:50.916 this episode soon after its release, there are two things 0:01:50.956 --> 0:01:54.196 going on in your world, the US presidential election between 0:01:54.236 --> 0:01:58.436 Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, and more Halloween candy than 0:01:58.476 --> 0:02:01.276 you know what to do with. Well in this episode 0:02:01.996 --> 0:02:07.756 a story that manages to bring both together. It all 0:02:07.796 --> 0:02:11.196 really begins with the Well Being PTA newsletter from April 0:02:11.316 --> 0:02:16.596 nineteen sixty two, and specifically with the sixth and final item, 0:02:17.036 --> 0:02:21.916 the editor's message, which begins the power to seek the 0:02:22.036 --> 0:02:24.596 truth is within all of us. But there are some 0:02:24.716 --> 0:02:28.836 who abuse this freedom and cloud the answers and the issues, 0:02:29.196 --> 0:02:31.836 so that seeking the truth and knowing it is the 0:02:31.876 --> 0:02:35.396 truth becomes a harder task than it was ever meant 0:02:35.436 --> 0:02:40.796 to be. You're listening to Revisionist History, my podcast about 0:02:40.796 --> 0:02:46.436 things overlooked and misunderstood. I'm Malcolm Goldwell. Here's our question, why, 0:02:46.516 --> 0:02:50.076 in this otherwise very dull PTA newsletter does the mother 0:02:50.196 --> 0:02:52.876 who wrote it feel the need to write an urgent 0:02:53.036 --> 0:02:59.156 defense of democracy. She doesn't say, but as my colleague 0:02:59.156 --> 0:03:02.036 BENDADAPF Hafrey discovered, it has to do with a man who, 0:03:02.036 --> 0:03:06.356 perhaps more than almost anyone else, is responsible for creating 0:03:06.356 --> 0:03:11.636 the modern style of far right conspiratorial thinking running rampant today. 0:03:12.476 --> 0:03:15.956 A man who write, at the time that Editor's note 0:03:15.996 --> 0:03:19.636 was published, held in his hands the fate of the 0:03:19.636 --> 0:03:30.356 PTA and American public life. Here's Ben. 0:03:32.796 --> 0:03:35.356 The video is grainy, but you can make out an 0:03:35.356 --> 0:03:39.156 older man, late sixties, standing in a suit and tie 0:03:39.276 --> 0:03:42.836 against a black backdrop, clasping his hands on a lecturn. 0:03:43.836 --> 0:03:45.996 Faithful citizens, wherever. 0:03:45.676 --> 0:03:46.276 You may be. 0:03:47.156 --> 0:03:49.996 He's got big ears, a big nose, and a high 0:03:50.076 --> 0:03:53.756 forehead well suited to an indignant raising of the eyebrows. 0:03:54.276 --> 0:03:56.756 The media coverage of him lately had given him many 0:03:56.796 --> 0:04:01.156 opportunities to do this. As he speaks, the camera pushes in. 0:04:01.756 --> 0:04:02.916 It's a recruitment video. 0:04:03.676 --> 0:04:07.436 It is our deliberate and careful purpose to pull together 0:04:07.516 --> 0:04:11.636 into one group, a body of morally good and truly 0:04:11.676 --> 0:04:15.556 responsible citizens who are proud of each other and of 0:04:15.596 --> 0:04:17.036 the society to which they belong. 0:04:18.156 --> 0:04:21.276 He then proceeds to reassure his viewers that the identities 0:04:21.276 --> 0:04:24.036 of people in this group are never shared with anyone, 0:04:24.276 --> 0:04:26.916 not least of all because their enemies abound. 0:04:27.676 --> 0:04:31.636 The carefully coordinated attacks against us from all points of 0:04:31.676 --> 0:04:35.996 the ideological compass have reached a crescendo stage since the 0:04:36.036 --> 0:04:39.716 rest of this year, with the surprising but visible result 0:04:40.356 --> 0:04:44.956 of solidifying the dedication of our numbers still further, and 0:04:45.116 --> 0:04:47.996 of stimulating their recruiting efforts. 0:04:49.556 --> 0:04:54.396 This is Robert Welch Junior. Consider the facts. He speaks 0:04:54.436 --> 0:04:57.116 a little like a dictator. He seems to run some 0:04:57.156 --> 0:05:01.196 sort of secret society, and consider himself public enemy number one. 0:05:02.076 --> 0:05:07.316 Who is this titan? Well, naturally he's a candy tycoon. 0:05:09.476 --> 0:05:12.916 Robert Welch Junior was born on a former plantation in 0:05:12.956 --> 0:05:16.036 North Carolina just before the turn of the twentieth century. 0:05:16.796 --> 0:05:19.996 As a kid, he was precocious and a daydreamer. Wanted 0:05:20.036 --> 0:05:23.316 to be a writer an intellectual, but he felt that 0:05:23.396 --> 0:05:25.796 before he could do so, he had to get rich. 0:05:26.716 --> 0:05:29.476 So one night, as a young man, he had a brainstorm. 0:05:29.836 --> 0:05:32.356 According to Edward H. Miller, who wrote a biography of 0:05:32.396 --> 0:05:36.356 Welsh called A Conspiratorial Life, Welch stayed up late into 0:05:36.356 --> 0:05:39.676 the evening, writing and writing to answer a single question, 0:05:40.716 --> 0:05:43.476 what specific goods in demand would be best for me 0:05:43.516 --> 0:05:48.156 to start manufacturing without either capital or experience. This is 0:05:48.196 --> 0:05:51.276 a quote Miller found from an associate of Welsh's recalling 0:05:51.396 --> 0:05:55.676 this legendary moment quote. As the sky began to show 0:05:55.756 --> 0:05:59.076 the first streaks of dawn, Robert stared at the notes 0:05:59.076 --> 0:06:02.836 in front of him. One word remained amid the maze 0:06:02.876 --> 0:06:08.276 of dark lines scratched across the pages. That word was candy. 0:06:10.836 --> 0:06:14.196 We've arrived at the Halloween portion of our programming. So 0:06:14.556 --> 0:06:16.996 if in your baskets this year you find the following 0:06:17.076 --> 0:06:21.116 candies Sugar Daddy, Sugar Baby, or the Junior Mint, you're 0:06:21.236 --> 0:06:24.316 encountering a piece of the Welsh legacy, and actually the 0:06:24.396 --> 0:06:27.516 legacy of his brother too, who naturally also worked in 0:06:27.516 --> 0:06:31.556 the candy business. The Welsh nuclear family of Hit candies, 0:06:31.756 --> 0:06:33.996 the patriarch of which the Sugar Daddy, I have to 0:06:33.996 --> 0:06:37.476 say I find totally inedible, has been a mainstay forever. 0:06:38.076 --> 0:06:43.076 Children of the nineteen eighties may remember the jingle for 0:06:43.596 --> 0:06:44.956 Sugar Daddy for. 0:06:47.356 --> 0:06:48.236 Sugar Dirty. 0:06:51.316 --> 0:06:53.076 Welsh was part of what I've come to think of 0:06:53.316 --> 0:06:57.596 as the American sweets aristocracy. I'm talking about a special 0:06:57.636 --> 0:07:00.316 class of confectioners and bakers who turned out to have 0:07:00.356 --> 0:07:02.956 a surprising number of ideas about how society ought to 0:07:02.996 --> 0:07:06.916 be run. In the Pantheon, we have Milton's Navely Hershey, 0:07:07.076 --> 0:07:09.876 whose chocolates were so delectable he was able to put 0:07:09.876 --> 0:07:14.436 his social ideas to the test, building utopian town called Hershey, Pennsylvania. 0:07:14.996 --> 0:07:18.596 Then there's Sylvester Graham, the clergyman who invented the Graham 0:07:18.636 --> 0:07:22.676 Cracker to combat youth masturbation. John Harvey Kellogg, the Seventh 0:07:22.756 --> 0:07:26.396 day Adventist, who invented cornflakes to do the same. The 0:07:26.476 --> 0:07:30.276 candy makers, in particular tended to be extremely paranoid because 0:07:30.276 --> 0:07:32.916 there was actually quite a bit of spying in their industry. 0:07:33.556 --> 0:07:36.876 They had to guard their secrets, their recipes, their fortunes. 0:07:37.516 --> 0:07:40.716 Some would even blindfold the people who repaired their machines. 0:07:41.756 --> 0:07:46.476 But I digress. After establishing himself in the candy business 0:07:46.596 --> 0:07:49.996 and drinking deeply at the trough of its paranoia, Welch 0:07:50.116 --> 0:07:52.916 set out to elbow his way into the intellectual class, 0:07:53.636 --> 0:07:58.236 specifically the anti communist class. Over the years, he wrote 0:07:58.276 --> 0:08:02.156 a number of articles in books about the rise of communism, including, 0:08:02.276 --> 0:08:05.796 per his biographer, a novel about in ant society oppressed 0:08:05.836 --> 0:08:09.396 by a monolithic state, which somehow went unpublished. But it 0:08:09.436 --> 0:08:12.316 was in nineteen fifty four that one of his ideas 0:08:12.716 --> 0:08:13.836 finally broke through. 0:08:14.516 --> 0:08:18.036 He was very secretive about these because Welch was always 0:08:19.036 --> 0:08:24.116 worried about the Communists as he saw getting a hold 0:08:24.236 --> 0:08:25.196 of what he was saying. 0:08:26.116 --> 0:08:30.676 Historian Matthew Dallak, author of the book Bircher's, talking about 0:08:30.676 --> 0:08:34.756 Welch's penchant for sending secret letters because. 0:08:34.596 --> 0:08:38.556 They exposed him and they damaged you know, the true 0:08:39.236 --> 0:08:45.556 this patriotic movement to destroy communism. It would be it 0:08:45.596 --> 0:08:48.916 would basically be like killing his movement in the crypt. 0:08:49.796 --> 0:08:53.716 Now, the letter he sent in nineteen fifty four, in particular, 0:08:53.836 --> 0:08:58.396 merited sensitivity. It was a roughly nine thousand word attempt 0:08:58.556 --> 0:09:02.796 to explain why he disliked Dwight Eisenhower so much, the 0:09:02.836 --> 0:09:07.596 first Republican president in multiple decades. The letter built to 0:09:07.636 --> 0:09:11.996 the irrefutable conclusion that Dwight Eisenhower was not really a Republican. 0:09:12.556 --> 0:09:18.116 He was quote a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy, 0:09:18.756 --> 0:09:22.396 operating under the direction of his brother, the affable Milton. 0:09:23.276 --> 0:09:28.676 They're really divorced from any semblance of the truth. The 0:09:28.756 --> 0:09:33.516 other thing, though, is that the argument against Eisenhower I 0:09:33.556 --> 0:09:40.996 think fits into the Joe McCarthy argument that clearly the 0:09:41.196 --> 0:09:44.476 setbacks in the world for the United States and the 0:09:44.516 --> 0:09:49.756 fight against communism is a result of communists in the government, 0:09:49.836 --> 0:09:53.476 including Eisenhower, allowing the communists to win. 0:09:54.636 --> 0:09:57.836 Where the ant book had failed, the letter succeeded wildly. 0:09:58.436 --> 0:10:01.276 It ballooned into a book that is over four hundred 0:10:01.316 --> 0:10:05.876 pages long, complete with an extremely tedious footnote section explaining 0:10:05.916 --> 0:10:09.796 the sourcing for his atlandish claims. As wels Us wrote, 0:10:10.076 --> 0:10:13.916 explanations are like government. Nobody loves them, but a minimum 0:10:13.916 --> 0:10:18.436 amount of both is a necessary evil. But anyway, Welch 0:10:18.596 --> 0:10:20.716 was not content to mail secret letters the rest of 0:10:20.756 --> 0:10:26.196 his life. He wanted to build a movement. So four 0:10:26.276 --> 0:10:30.316 years after that letter, in October nineteen fifty eight, Welch 0:10:30.396 --> 0:10:34.156 brought together eleven of his most powerful friends to a 0:10:34.196 --> 0:10:39.076 secret meeting in Indianapolis. He didn't say what for, but 0:10:39.196 --> 0:10:41.316 he did tell them each to book their own hotel 0:10:41.396 --> 0:10:44.676 rooms so people wouldn't see them together. Then he promised 0:10:44.676 --> 0:10:47.556 them that there was nothing conspiratorial about what they were 0:10:47.596 --> 0:10:50.196 about to do, which was to gather in a secret 0:10:50.236 --> 0:10:52.996 location for two days and conspire. 0:10:54.076 --> 0:10:56.716 My undertaking today is to try to tell you all 0:10:56.756 --> 0:10:59.876 about the background, methods, and purposes of the John Birg Society. 0:11:00.796 --> 0:11:03.556 This tape is from a recruitment video he made later on. 0:11:04.116 --> 0:11:06.116 We don't have a recording of what he said that 0:11:06.196 --> 0:11:08.796 day in Indianapolis. I mean, it was a secret meeting, 0:11:09.236 --> 0:11:12.716 but I think it's safe to assume he was on message. 0:11:12.796 --> 0:11:16.076 Welch was there to start a new anti communist organization. 0:11:16.596 --> 0:11:19.396 After all, with the Communists already in control of the 0:11:19.476 --> 0:11:22.556 US presidency, the situation was getting a little out of hand. 0:11:23.596 --> 0:11:27.196 As we have said many times before, the fundamentally decent 0:11:27.236 --> 0:11:31.516 American mind simply refuses to recognize the nature of the 0:11:31.556 --> 0:11:36.716 cunning beasts who constitute our enemies today. This is especially 0:11:36.796 --> 0:11:41.276 true when these criminal gangsters assume all of the suavity 0:11:41.676 --> 0:11:44.596 and regalia of high office. 0:11:44.836 --> 0:11:48.156 Eleven men walked into that room in Indianapolis, and the 0:11:48.236 --> 0:11:51.716 John Birch Society walked out, named by the way for 0:11:51.756 --> 0:11:55.196 an American missionary who'd been killed by Chinese communists and 0:11:55.236 --> 0:11:57.796 then became a kind of patron saint for people like 0:11:57.876 --> 0:12:01.916 Robert Welch Junior. These were important men with money and 0:12:01.996 --> 0:12:04.756 time to burn and an acts to grind. They had 0:12:04.796 --> 0:12:09.716 Eisenhower's former IRS Commissioner, presidents of major companies, a former 0:12:09.756 --> 0:12:13.756 aid to Douglas MacArthur, and Fred Koch, oil man and 0:12:13.876 --> 0:12:16.156 father to the Koch brothers, was there too. 0:12:17.236 --> 0:12:20.356 I'll wake my friends and our rise now I'll be 0:12:20.516 --> 0:12:23.996 forever fallen. We mean business and we can still win, 0:12:24.516 --> 0:12:27.076 but we are in our race against time, with the 0:12:27.236 --> 0:12:28.836 enemy advancing every day. 0:12:30.036 --> 0:12:32.676 Welch knew what he was doing. He took his show 0:12:32.716 --> 0:12:35.876 on the road, giving versions of that speech across the country, 0:12:36.276 --> 0:12:39.476 and a lot of the listeners, bored Americans rattled by 0:12:39.516 --> 0:12:43.676 war and freaked out by integration, thought hey, this guy's 0:12:43.676 --> 0:12:46.716 got a point. He started with just his friends who 0:12:46.716 --> 0:12:49.396 thought like he did, then his friend's friends, and then 0:12:49.436 --> 0:12:54.596 his friend's friends friends. But Welch's dreams were always much grander. 0:12:56.316 --> 0:13:00.196 By any realistic appraisal of our size against our need, 0:13:00.516 --> 0:13:03.916 we are still very small, but we certainly expect our 0:13:03.956 --> 0:13:07.596 present growth to continue until we have the million members 0:13:07.836 --> 0:13:12.396 of Ferva page and unassailable character, which is our goal. 0:13:13.636 --> 0:13:16.716 Despite Welsh's vision for one million patriots to join the 0:13:16.756 --> 0:13:20.276 John Birch Society, estimates show that the membership was likely 0:13:20.316 --> 0:13:22.636 at an all time high when it hit thirty thousand 0:13:22.716 --> 0:13:23.996 members in the sixties. 0:13:25.196 --> 0:13:29.796 The mission was not explicitly to take over a political party. 0:13:30.836 --> 0:13:36.116 It was not to even take over in nessilly American institutions. 0:13:36.236 --> 0:13:42.036 It was to wage a mass education campaign to allure Americans, 0:13:42.196 --> 0:13:46.796 to educate them about the dire nature of the communist 0:13:46.836 --> 0:13:49.116 conspiracy inside the United States. 0:13:50.396 --> 0:13:53.236 And so a small but influential group of right wingers 0:13:53.356 --> 0:13:56.476 became convinced that there was a war going on at home. 0:13:57.796 --> 0:14:02.636 A continuous, undeclared war in which our enemiests observed no 0:14:02.796 --> 0:14:07.156 rules of international law, of civilization, or of human decency. 0:14:08.636 --> 0:14:12.636 But where was the front in this war? Exactly two 0:14:12.676 --> 0:14:16.396 years after its founding, the Birch Society had part of 0:14:16.436 --> 0:14:24.516 the answer the Parent Teacher Association. Of course, we'll be 0:14:24.596 --> 0:14:41.236 right back. The bitter Root Valley lies in the southwest 0:14:41.236 --> 0:14:45.316 of Montana, between the Sapphire and Bitterroot Mountains. It's the 0:14:45.316 --> 0:14:48.716 place they filmed Yellowstone Today. It's gorgeous. 0:14:49.236 --> 0:14:51.276 Okay, so small town. 0:14:52.116 --> 0:14:54.796 Gail Laro Munson was a little girl growing up in 0:14:54.796 --> 0:14:57.836 the valley in the nineteen sixties in a town called Darby. 0:14:58.396 --> 0:15:01.636 Back then, its population was three hundred and ninety eight. 0:15:02.196 --> 0:15:05.756 Close snit neighbors looked out for each other. Kids could 0:15:05.796 --> 0:15:11.476 be out till dark and back home they would be safe. 0:15:11.636 --> 0:15:15.476 If you were caught doing something wrong, the neighbors would 0:15:15.596 --> 0:15:17.676 let your parents know and they'd be ready when you 0:15:17.716 --> 0:15:18.236 got home. 0:15:19.076 --> 0:15:21.596 Darby was the kind of place where you knew everyone, 0:15:22.076 --> 0:15:24.916 especially if you were in Gale's family. Her dad, or 0:15:24.996 --> 0:15:28.956 Villa Rowe, was the superintendent of the school district, but 0:15:29.036 --> 0:15:32.476 in the early nineteen sixties, strangers began to show up 0:15:32.516 --> 0:15:35.996 in the valley. Orville was busy right around then getting 0:15:36.036 --> 0:15:38.276 new Bibles for a local school because there as we're 0:15:38.276 --> 0:15:41.356 all beaten up. He asked a local clergyman how to 0:15:41.396 --> 0:15:43.356 get rid of the old ones in a respectful way, 0:15:43.756 --> 0:15:46.156 and he was told to burn them. So he gathered 0:15:46.236 --> 0:15:49.356 up the bibles and set them on fire, and all 0:15:49.356 --> 0:15:53.836 of a sudden, those strangers leapt into action. It turned 0:15:53.876 --> 0:15:57.756 out they were part of a club, the John Birch Society. 0:15:59.516 --> 0:16:02.236 Merch members appeared at the regular school board meeting with 0:16:02.276 --> 0:16:06.756 a petition demanding that Larree not be offered a new contract. 0:16:06.876 --> 0:16:08.436 It was all over the local radio. 0:16:09.116 --> 0:16:12.596 Majority of the board rejected that demand. This action of 0:16:12.636 --> 0:16:17.476 the board intensified an already steady program of intimidation against 0:16:17.516 --> 0:16:18.516 the role in his family. 0:16:19.676 --> 0:16:22.916 The Butchers. Returning Orville's quiet life in Derby with his 0:16:22.996 --> 0:16:26.876 three kids and his wife completely upside down. Here's Orville. 0:16:27.756 --> 0:16:32.076 There are individuals, of course the community who will drive 0:16:32.156 --> 0:16:37.876 by and make obscene signs. There have been an incidents 0:16:37.956 --> 0:16:41.276 where people have called the house my wife had answered 0:16:41.316 --> 0:16:45.116 and have used obscene language on the telephone. Basically, it's 0:16:46.516 --> 0:16:49.556 a joy, simple constant harassment. 0:16:50.636 --> 0:16:53.956 An archivist in Montana named Kristen Gates wrote an essay 0:16:53.996 --> 0:16:57.036 about all this. She found letters from the principle of 0:16:57.076 --> 0:17:01.356 the local school who said the butchers were quote using 0:17:01.516 --> 0:17:09.556 the local PTA as a springboard to infiltrate the schools. 0:17:10.796 --> 0:17:13.676 Here I'm telling you about what unfolded for the LaRose 0:17:13.756 --> 0:17:16.836 in a tiny town in Montana. But they weren't the 0:17:16.836 --> 0:17:20.756 only people involved in local ptas or schools who became targets. 0:17:21.276 --> 0:17:24.316 This is not the case now, but in the nineteen sixties, 0:17:24.356 --> 0:17:27.476 according to one study, almost half of all families in 0:17:27.516 --> 0:17:32.316 America were represented in the PTA fifty percent. The PTA 0:17:32.436 --> 0:17:35.116 became such a well known part of public life that 0:17:35.396 --> 0:17:38.036 it was even the subject of a number one song 0:17:38.116 --> 0:17:41.596 in the nineteen sixties, Harper Valley PTA. 0:17:42.196 --> 0:17:46.676 And it was signed by the secretary Harper Valetta. 0:17:51.276 --> 0:17:54.756 The PTA played a huge role in modernizing American education. 0:17:55.436 --> 0:17:58.676 Every local PTA was part of the National PTA, which 0:17:58.756 --> 0:18:01.396 was run out of Washington, and they worked together to 0:18:01.436 --> 0:18:05.276 petition schools to adapt and modernize, like a miniature version 0:18:05.316 --> 0:18:08.276 of the federal government. It was actually originally called the 0:18:08.276 --> 0:18:12.796 Congress of Mother Anyways, all this paid dividends. If you've 0:18:12.876 --> 0:18:16.996 drunk fluoridated water, which you have gotten vaccinated in schools, 0:18:17.116 --> 0:18:19.476 gone to a public kindergarten, or just been at a 0:18:19.476 --> 0:18:23.156 school that received federal funds, you can thank the PTA 0:18:23.996 --> 0:18:28.636 next bakesale, maybe by a cookie. As a sociologist, Robert 0:18:28.716 --> 0:18:32.956 Putnam writes, the PTA in its day was quote one 0:18:32.996 --> 0:18:38.236 of the most impressive organizational success stories in American history 0:18:38.996 --> 0:18:44.196 end quote. And who at that exact moment wanted to 0:18:44.196 --> 0:18:47.716 pull off another of the most impressive organizational success stories 0:18:47.716 --> 0:18:52.916 in American history Dark Willy Wonka Robert Welch Junior, whose 0:18:52.956 --> 0:18:55.836 recruiting methods were slightly more apocalyptic. 0:18:56.916 --> 0:18:59.316 The Wise and the Brave, do not hold back, gonna 0:18:59.356 --> 0:19:00.236 kill it is too late. 0:19:01.396 --> 0:19:04.756 In its newsletter, the John Birch Society told its members 0:19:04.756 --> 0:19:07.916 to quote join your local PTA at the beginning of 0:19:07.956 --> 0:19:11.436 the school year. Get your conservative friends to do likewise 0:19:11.836 --> 0:19:14.596 and go to work to take it over, you will 0:19:14.676 --> 0:19:17.956 run into real battles against determined leftists who have had 0:19:18.036 --> 0:19:20.596 everything their way. But it is time we went on 0:19:20.636 --> 0:19:24.356 the offensive to make such groups the instrument of conservative 0:19:24.356 --> 0:19:28.156 purpose with the same vigor and determination that the liberals 0:19:28.196 --> 0:19:33.156 have used to the opposite aims. With encouragement from the 0:19:33.236 --> 0:19:37.316 John Birch Society, extremists of all stripes started showing up 0:19:37.356 --> 0:19:40.956 to local ptas across the country trying to take them over. 0:19:41.516 --> 0:19:44.156 You know, all kinds of methods were being used. 0:19:44.636 --> 0:19:47.996 Sarah Heath, a historian at Indiana University Kocomo. 0:19:48.436 --> 0:19:51.516 So, the Birch Society might pack cars full of people, 0:19:52.196 --> 0:19:55.476 so if I bring thirty people to a local meeting 0:19:55.516 --> 0:19:56.396 of a PTA. 0:19:57.156 --> 0:19:58.036 But basically what they. 0:19:57.956 --> 0:20:00.076 Would try to do is, if I can get thirty 0:20:00.076 --> 0:20:03.156 people to go to this one local meeting, we can 0:20:03.196 --> 0:20:05.556 try to take over the proceedings of that meeting. 0:20:06.676 --> 0:20:11.196 Suddenly, amid the conversations about fire safety and participatory democracy, 0:20:11.716 --> 0:20:14.276 parents had to consider things like whether skipping the pledge 0:20:14.276 --> 0:20:16.116 of allegiance at the start of a meeting made you 0:20:16.196 --> 0:20:20.356 a Stalin level communist or an Eisenhower level one. Such 0:20:20.396 --> 0:20:23.956 considerations it turned out demand quite a bit of everyone's. 0:20:23.556 --> 0:20:28.676 Time, because what they wanted to do was first get 0:20:28.716 --> 0:20:31.076 some people to get so tired that they would just say, 0:20:31.116 --> 0:20:33.916 I've got to go home, right. PTA meetings are usually 0:20:33.996 --> 0:20:37.316 in the early evening, so some people would leave. Then 0:20:37.356 --> 0:20:39.836 they call the vote, and then they have a majority. 0:20:41.196 --> 0:20:43.956 The virtuers wanted to use the ptas to reach school 0:20:43.996 --> 0:20:46.236 boards so they could change the textbooks and root out 0:20:46.276 --> 0:20:49.276 all the commune and sex education stuff. But a lot 0:20:49.276 --> 0:20:51.516 of what they did was actual harassment. 0:20:52.236 --> 0:20:55.676 You know. There are examples of people throwing trash on 0:20:55.716 --> 0:21:00.316 the lawns of PTA members, or threatening people by the phone, 0:21:00.796 --> 0:21:03.396 calling them at all hours of the night, you know, 0:21:03.516 --> 0:21:04.436 just to keep them awake. 0:21:05.516 --> 0:21:08.996 The PTA fought back in classic PTA form, with pamphlet 0:21:09.236 --> 0:21:12.116 and lists of meeting best practices, but this was a 0:21:12.196 --> 0:21:15.276 little like bringing knives to a gunfight. At this point, 0:21:15.436 --> 0:21:17.596 there'd even been a report of a bombing at a 0:21:17.636 --> 0:21:20.356 restaurant where a PTA meeting was going to be held. 0:21:20.516 --> 0:21:23.316 This is what happens when you talk about national politics, 0:21:23.356 --> 0:21:26.516 like Robert Welsch Junior, like you're in a shadowy. 0:21:26.036 --> 0:21:32.236 War, a continuous, undeclared war in which our enemies observed 0:21:32.356 --> 0:21:36.956 no rules of international law of civilization are of human decency. 0:21:38.676 --> 0:21:41.076 The PTA kept pushing back in their own way against 0:21:41.076 --> 0:21:44.156 the virtures. There's even a quote from the PTA president 0:21:44.196 --> 0:21:48.556 in the congressional record saying, these extremists are not really 0:21:48.636 --> 0:21:52.716 after the PTA, but are attempting to gain control of 0:21:52.756 --> 0:21:57.236 it to get at their real objective, the educational system. 0:21:57.676 --> 0:22:02.396 But for Orville Row, the superintendent in Darby, Montana, these 0:22:02.436 --> 0:22:06.276 extremists weren't some faraway thing. They were at his doorstep. 0:22:07.556 --> 0:22:09.956 And I walked home in the evening. At times I've 0:22:10.036 --> 0:22:14.396 had a car follow me. Ordinarily, they apparently are cowards 0:22:14.396 --> 0:22:18.556 because when I stopped and gone over to take their 0:22:18.596 --> 0:22:22.436 license them But there was how the picture. 0:22:23.796 --> 0:22:28.476 But the aggression wasn't just limited to Orville. Orville's eldest 0:22:28.476 --> 0:22:31.316 son was a fifth grader in the local school. One day, 0:22:31.356 --> 0:22:33.676 there was a basketball game. He was sitting in the 0:22:33.716 --> 0:22:37.996 stands watching. He was not an unpopular kid, but midway 0:22:37.996 --> 0:22:40.996 through the game, a couple of classmates walked up to him. 0:22:41.596 --> 0:22:44.196 They pulled him out of his seat and they began 0:22:44.276 --> 0:22:48.236 to beat him mercilessly. This is Gail again, his. 0:22:48.276 --> 0:22:51.916 Sister, and when they were beating him up. He was 0:22:51.956 --> 0:22:56.236 at a basketball game in the gym and other kids 0:22:56.236 --> 0:22:57.436 were sturing it on. 0:22:58.476 --> 0:23:02.636 The kids weren't Birchers all they knew he was Orville, 0:23:02.676 --> 0:23:03.796 the Bible Burner's son. 0:23:04.476 --> 0:23:06.876 Then he's coming into the house and ask pissed why 0:23:07.436 --> 0:23:09.996 they are calling him names? 0:23:10.036 --> 0:23:11.436 Is I didn't do anything? 0:23:12.556 --> 0:23:14.636 And of course it's rather had to explain, very youngster 0:23:14.716 --> 0:23:15.556 in that age. 0:23:15.996 --> 0:23:20.316 He came home bloodied, he was We were all confused, 0:23:20.316 --> 0:23:23.436 why you know, what did I do? Why did this happen? 0:23:24.916 --> 0:23:28.036 The tipping point came when Orville le Rowe was driving 0:23:28.036 --> 0:23:30.756 his whole family along one of the roads around Derby. 0:23:31.676 --> 0:23:35.516 Suddenly another car appeared and tried to run them off 0:23:35.556 --> 0:23:39.236 the road. They all could have died, and that was 0:23:39.276 --> 0:23:44.436 the last straw. After years of harassment, he decided it 0:23:44.476 --> 0:23:45.996 was time to leave Derby. 0:23:47.076 --> 0:23:50.916 He sacrificed for the family. And I know that was 0:23:50.956 --> 0:23:54.156 a really difficult thing to not stay in fight, because 0:23:54.236 --> 0:23:58.556 my dad has so much integrity and he's a tough guy, 0:23:59.476 --> 0:24:05.156 and if he hadn't had a family, I firmly believe 0:24:05.276 --> 0:24:07.596 my brothers and I believe he would have stayed and 0:24:07.636 --> 0:24:09.716 he would have fought this situation. 0:24:11.476 --> 0:24:13.676 The people of Derby had a picnic for the LaRose 0:24:13.716 --> 0:24:17.396 before they packed up and left. Montana had been Orville's 0:24:17.396 --> 0:24:20.156 home since he was a kid, the place he'd loved 0:24:20.196 --> 0:24:23.156 to fish and hunt, taught school, and raised a family. 0:24:23.996 --> 0:24:27.356 When the LaRose left, the school system didn't just lose 0:24:27.396 --> 0:24:32.036 its superintendent, It fell apart. There were twenty three teachers 0:24:32.076 --> 0:24:36.596 in the Derby Consolidated School that fall, only seven went 0:24:36.636 --> 0:24:40.236 back to work. Things were never the same for the 0:24:40.276 --> 0:24:43.716 Lereaux family either. When I called the kids up, none 0:24:43.756 --> 0:24:46.716 of them really wanted to talk about this. Then they 0:24:46.796 --> 0:24:49.396 changed their mind, I think, if I had to guess, 0:24:49.996 --> 0:24:52.556 because they wanted to stand up against the people who 0:24:52.596 --> 0:24:56.796 did this to their family, to their father and also 0:24:57.076 --> 0:24:57.676 to their mother. 0:24:57.796 --> 0:25:03.516 Dorothy, mydad said before this happened, she was such a 0:25:03.516 --> 0:25:07.396 fun person, great sense of humor. I'd love to hear 0:25:07.436 --> 0:25:11.796 my dead stories of because I didn't, I didn't witness 0:25:12.956 --> 0:25:16.436 a lot of this, and so you know, we were 0:25:16.476 --> 0:25:25.956 all cheated out of an amazing person. And just I 0:25:26.116 --> 0:25:30.676 just I just can picture her kind of don't don't 0:25:30.676 --> 0:25:35.396 tell you know, the neighbors this, don't tell the neighbors that, 0:25:36.236 --> 0:25:39.236 don't tell anybody this, don't tell anybody this. 0:25:41.476 --> 0:25:44.996 They moved from one small town to another, but Dorothy 0:25:45.236 --> 0:25:49.476 never could quite trust her neighbors again. What came of 0:25:49.556 --> 0:26:06.876 the Birch Society and the PTA after the break? A 0:26:06.916 --> 0:26:09.956 little while ago I stopped by a house in Los Angeles. 0:26:10.236 --> 0:26:12.356 It was shaded by a sycamore tree, and there was 0:26:12.396 --> 0:26:15.156 a root sixty six sign leaning in the front windowsill, 0:26:15.276 --> 0:26:18.236 facing the quiet street. I was there to talk to 0:26:18.276 --> 0:26:22.716 a woman named Marva Felchlin. Marva grew up in California 0:26:22.796 --> 0:26:25.996 and was a student at welby Way Elementary School. She 0:26:26.116 --> 0:26:29.116 was a baby boomer in the classical sense, a house 0:26:29.196 --> 0:26:31.796