THE BELMONT BROTHERHOOD "Does the Brotherhood exist?" "That Winston, you will never know. If we choose to set you free when we have finished with you, and if you live to be ninety years old, still you will never learn whether the answer to that question is yes or no. As long as you live, it will be a riddle in your mind." >From 1984 by George Orwell Ladies and Gentlemen: During the past year many of you have received sensitive material regarding criminal abuses within the high command of The John Birch Society from the following sources: 1. Harry Brandler -- former Illinois Coordinator 2. Tim Weir -- former JBS Staff Fund Raiser and St. Louis Coordinator 3. Donald Prang -- former JBS Comptroller 4. Rex Westerfield -- former JBS Public Relations Director 5. Bruce Taylor -- former JBS Director of Advertising and Sales 6. Dick Weiss -- former South Dakota Coordinator 7. Tim Heinan -- former JBS Ad Hoc Committee Coordinator 8. Nicholas J. Bove, Jr. -- former Research Assistant to Robert Welch 9. John Deckert -- former Coordinator for Central and Southern New Jersey 10. Ted Henrickson -- former Coordinator for Southern New Jersey and Delaware (This is only a partial listing) While our staff has been engaged in research for our forthcoming book (which we shall publish in the very near future), it has discovered some surprising coincidences in the backgrounds of certain members of the Council of the John Birch Society (both past and present) -- coincidences we believe demand the attention of all students of the Master Conspiracy of which we have come to believe THE BELMONT BROTHERHOOD is an integral part. JBS Council Members - Past and present The following biographical sketches were taken, verbatim, from a book, THE KANGAROO COURT VERSUS THE JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY. It was published in 1963 by A.J. MacDonald and Associates and, we should add, written in defense of the John Birch Society. We have reproduced nearby the full title page of this particular volume. Observe - this copy we are using was once available from a St. Paul American Opinion Bookstore. When you finish reading these biographies, which include two thirds of Charter Members present in Indianapolis on Dec. 8 & 9, 1958, we believe you will begin to understand why American Opinion Bookstores no longer sells it. KANGAROO COURT VERSUS THE JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY By A.J. MacDonald 1963 PRICE $1.25 *** Published by A.J. MACDONALD & ASSOCIATES POLITICAL RESEARCH BUREAU 3025 W. 7th Street Los Angeles, California 90005 CHAPTER 10 On the following pages are listed a few of those important people who are backing and supporting the Society as members of the John Birch Council. 1. William J. Grede In the February 1977 John Birch Society Bulletin, Welch describes Grede as a "truly great American (p. 27)." This "great American" was a "director" of none other than the 7th Federal Reserve Bank - an important arm of the infamous Federal Reserve System. As Birch authority Gary Allen states in his Rockefeller File: "For fifty years the Federal Reserve - CFR - Rockefeller Insider crowd (observe how Allen uses all of these terms together and interchangeably) has advocated and carried out policies aimed at increasing the power of their satellite, the Soviet Union (p. 108)." That being the case, what was a founding Council Member of the JBS - a man who is now Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Council - doing as a member of the crowd Allen says increases the power of the Soviet Union? Coincidence?? No more a coincidence than Grede's membership in the quasi-Masonic National Council of the YMCA - which we shall deal with later. Incidentally, Grede is listed by Helen Peters in her treatise, Is the John Birch Society Subversive? as Chairman of National Bible Week put up by the Laymen's National Committee of the National Council of Churches. This we suppose is the "Conservative" Arm of the National Council of Churches. 2. Robert D. Love Although Bob Love is no longer on the Council, he was still a member for a number of years and as such is entitled to some examination. Bob Love is listed here as "a Thirty-second Degree KCCH Mason, a member of the Median Shrine [emphasis ours]." What was a Thirty-second Degree Mason doing on the Council of the John Birch Society? Indeed, he was not the only highly placed Mason on the Council. What is the significance of this? In order to understand how significant it could be, we must consult Masonic authority Albert Pike -- whom Welch himself has identified on numerous occasions as one of the major Master Conspirators of the Nineteenth Century: "To the crowd we must say: we worship a God, but it is the God one adores without superstition. To you Sovereign Grand Inspectors General, we say this, that you may repeat it to the Bretheren of the 32nd [which by the way was Love's level - N.B.], 31st and 30th degrees: all of us initiates of the high degrees should maintain the Masonic religion in the purity of the Luciferian doctrine... Yes, Lucifer is God, and, unfortunately Adonay is also God... religious philosophy in its purity and truth consists in the belief in Lucifer, the equal of Adonay. (Albert Pike, quoted in A.C. de la Rive: La Femme et l'Enfant dinis la Franc-Maconnerie Universelle, p. 588. Also quoted by Vicomte Leon de Poncins, Freemasonry and the Vatican, p. 6). Similar quotations abound in Pike's book, Morals and Dogma -- which can be found in Welch's library in Belmont, Massachusetts. This writer knows this because, as his former research assistant, he was in charge of organizing Welch's personal book collection. Now, knowing this, what does Welch himself think of one having a self-avowed Thirty-Second Degree KCCH Mason on the Council? -- especially when, as Pike says, Bretheren of the 32nd Degree (Love's level) worship Lucifer. Believe it or not, Welch has given us his answer. It is in the John Birch Society Bulletin of October, 1973. In this bulletin he does not refer directly to Bob Love as a Thirty-Second Degree Mason. Instead he comments on organized Masonry in general. On pages 13-14 he attempts to answer the charge that he himself may be a Mason. And here is his startling response: "So What?" (emphasis ours). Then Welch continues to defend his strange (to put it mildly) defense by adding "At least ninety-five percent of the four million ordinary (observe that Pike told us what a 32nd Degree Mason believes -- a 32nd Degree Mason like Love is no ordinary Mason) American Masons are just as patriotic as you or I." Which kind of makes you wonder about Welch's concept of patriotism. But he doesn't stop there. He goes on to state that he was invited on several occasions to "speak out against Communism at Masonic Lodges (p. 14)." And he assures us he did this with "no punches pulled." So he must have told them about Pike - the occult high philosopher of all organized Masonry. In fact Welch would have had to expose Pike if he was determined not to pull any punches. He would have had to do this because a man who believes "veracity is the very core of morality (p. 14)" would never conceal the truth. Or would he? Andrew Lane, a member of the Belmont Staff, has stated the following in response to a concerned Bircher's inquiry (see reproduction of entire letter nearby): "Mr. Welch had made speeches exposing parts (emphasis ours) of the Communist Conspiracy before Masonic Lodges on several occasions." We wonder why Welch declined to expose the whole operation instead of just the "parts" Lane mentions. Certainly his speeches at some of these Lodges must have been recorded. If Welch has nothing to hide, why doesn't he make public to justifiably concerned members of the JBS the up-to-now secret comments which he himself has admitted making in Masonic Lodges, not just once, but on several occasions? 3. William Benton McMillan McMillan is not listed anywhere, as far as we are concerned, as a 32nd Degree Mason. He was, however, a member of the St. Louis Committee of the Council on Foreign Relations (see reproduced page nearby from Power Behind The Government Today by Helen P. Lasell: Liberty Publications, 520 Fifth Avenue, N.Y., N.Y., 1963). So McMillan, who was by the way present in Indianapolis for the founding of the Society and was the first Life Member of the Society -- see pages 258 and 274 of the LIFE AND WORDS OF ROBERT WELCH by G. Edward Griffin) was a member of what Dan Smoot has called the "Invisible Government." Any informed Bircher knows that the CFR is a subversive clique preparing to merge us into a Communist one-world Government. Read None Dare Call It Conspiracy for the full story. 4. Frederick Chase Koch If it should seem strange that a founding Council member like McMillan was also a CFR member, it shouldn't be. Koch, another founding Council member (JBS* that is) was -- according to the 1964-1965 Who's Who (page 1120), available at your local non-JBS library (we have reproduced the section in question nearby). -- President of The Coleman Company, Inc., "builder oil refineries in England, France, Belgium, Germany, Russia (emphasis ours), Rumania (emphasis ours), Portugal, Italy, Near East..." We wonder if Koch signed that JBS petition to stop aid and trade with our Communist enemies. He probably did. Should you dare to ask Welch about the apparent contradiction here, he will very likely reply with a form letter saying: "So What? -- And thank you for checking with this office." 5. J. Nelson Shepherd Shepherd is a member of the quasi-Masonic Rotary Club, Elks Club, YMCA Board, and last -- but not least of all -- the very elite Newcomen Society. The current president of the Newcomen Society is Charles Penrose, Jr. Mr. Penrose has been its President since at least 1959. Penrose is a member in good standing of such sophisticated subversive one-world outfits as the "Pilgrims of the United States" and the "English-Speaking Union" (see reproductions of page 2456 of the 1976-1977 Who's Who in America (Volume II) and page 545 of Volume I of the Encyclopedia of Associations on a nearby page). 6. Robert Waring Stoddard Stoddard is Mr. Big on the Council. He too was a director and president of the YMCA. Even more interesting is that he is Chairman of the Board of the Worcester Telegram and Gazette (this according to the 1976-1977 Who's Who In America, page 3030 -- see reproduction nearby) --influential papers whose editors belong to the local Committee of the Council on Foreign Relations. When John F. McManus -- during a speech he gave in Worcester, Massachusetts in the summer of 1973 -- was asked by a reporter from the Gazette about the patent contradiction of Birch Council Member Stoddard allowing CFR members to determine editorial policy for his paper, Birch Society Public Relations Director McManus replied, "Why don't you ask Bob Stoddard?" The next day McManus was severely chewed out by Welch himself for "embarrassing" Stoddard. Jack was so upset over the incident that he told the whole story to his research assistant who just happened to be this writer during that particular summer. Stoddard is Mr. Establishment Massachusetts. After all, a Director of the First National Bank of Boston, the Wyman-Gordon Company, and the Raytheon Company (a good size defense contractor) is the Establishment. We wonder about his dedication to the "cause" which so many less fortunate Birchers have given their all for. Or perhaps Stoddard knows better? And like Welch would simply say, "So What?" 7. T. Coleman Andrews Andrews was a founding member of the Society, present at its creation in Indianapolis -- and like Robert Love -- a 32nd degree Mason (see 1960-61 Who's Who in America reproduced Pg. 12). But we already know that being a 32nd degree Mason does not disqualify one from being on the Council. For Welch's position on Masonry is expressed in two words "So What?" Oswald Wirth would not agree at all with those two words. Wirth speaks with some authority, being a 33rd Degree Mason and an author of many books on Freemasonry, he held an eminent position with fellow Masons as an initiate of he Grand Lodge of France. In Wirth's L'deal Iniatique, he explains the great significance of an initiation into a Masonic Order: "It is a serious matter to ask for Initiation, for one has to sign a pact...it demands that the man's soul be truly committed in the act." (op.cit., de Poncins, p. 48) Wirth cites The Book of Genesis to arrive at the cardinal tenet of all Freemasonry: "The beguiling serpent, who incites us to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, symbolizes one particular instinct. He breaks away from the conservative instinct and represents both a nobler and subtler instinct, whose purpose is to make man aware of his need to rise in the scale of beings". "This secret spur is the promoter of all progress, and of all the conquests which enlarge the sphere of action both of individuals and of groups" "That explains why the Serpent, inspiring disobedience, in subordination and revolt, was held accursed by the ancient theocracies, while at the same time he was honoured among the initiated." (op.cit., de Poncins, pp. 87-88) Welch puts it a little differently. But the more it changes, the more it stays the same. For Welch calls man's need to rise to a higher scale of beings his "upward reach." As he wrote in The Blue Book: "I want to convince you as I am convinced, that even under such leadership (his, that is -- N.B) we have no chance (emphasis ours) unless the specific battles are fought as part of a larger and more lasting movement (like Wirth's or Pike's Grand Orient Masonry perhaps? -- N.B.) to restore once again an upward reach in the heart of man." (The Blue Book, p. 115) Andrews, in addition to being a Mason, was also the Commissioner of the U.S. Internal Revenue from 1953-1955. 8. Spruille Braden Braden had quite an impressive record with the U.S. State Department. He was a resident member of the Council on Foreign Relations -- check the index in The Invisible Government by Dan Smoot. But even more interesting, according to Volume 26, page 295 of Who's Who in America 1976-1977 (reproduced nearby), Braden was a director of the W. Averell Harriman Securities Corporation. For those of you who have not heard of Averell Harriman, we refer you to page 217 of the wirebound paperback edition of The Politician by Robert Welch: "So we'll skip all of the documentation and most of the comment in listing just a few more of the Communists, Communist Sympathizers, or extreme left wingers with whom Eisenhower has been on very friendly terms. Such a list would include: John G. Winant, Harry Dexter White, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Anna M. Rosenberg, Sidney Hillman, Perl Mesta, Jacob Javits, W. Averell Harriman (emphasis ours), Milton Katz, and Harry Hopkins." Braden authored a book in 1971 -- "Diplomats and Demagogues" the Memoirs of Spruille Braden, published by Arlington House. On page 89 we find the following interesting admission: "The banking house in which I had agreed to become a partner never passed the planning stage. I arranged with Averell Harriman to become an associate of W. A. Harriman & Company, and to make my offices with them, occupying a desk in the partners' room with Averell and Roland Harriman and other partners in the firm. Although I was a partner not in but of the firm, I bought about $25,000 worth of stock and about the same amount in the W. A. Harriman Securities Corporation, a very closely held investment trust." We have called your attention to one Federal Reserve Bank connections thus far on the John Birch Society Council. Therefore, the following quote from page 94 of Braden's 1971 book we believe merits your attention: "I was appointed an advisor particularly to help one of the delegates, Paul Warburg, distinguished (sic) as a principal architect of the Federal Reserve System deal with the Chilean delegation. I knew Samuel Claro Lastarria, its chief, and his colleagues on the delegation. I was one of a dozen or so American advisors. We would all sit around the table with delegates, who were supposed to be discussing inter-American financial problems following World War I." "But if there was little real activity on the financial side, the social side was lively enough and Maria and I had a fine time. We became very friendly with Paul Warburg; (emphasis added) also with John J. Raskob (one of my fellow advisors on the Chilean Committee), the Dupont official who later became national chairman of the Democratic Party. It was at a reception during the conference that I first met and briefly chatted with Franklin D. Roosevelt, then Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He was a magnificent looking man, still of course in full possession of his physical powers." So Braden as on a first name basis with Averell Harriman, Paul Warburg and John Raskob. Much is available on Paul Warburg. As an example Gary Allen wrote an article in the March 1970 "American Opinion" entitled "The Bankers" - Conspiratorial Origins of the Federal Reserve. We quote from pages 27 and 28 of that article: "Among other international bankers financing the Russian Revolution were Olaf Aschberg of the Nye Banken of Stockholm, the Rhine Westphalian Syndicate, and a wealthy banker named Jivotovsky whose daughter later married Leon Trotsky. However, the chief European funding came from Max Warburg of Hamburg, Germany, who was the brother of Jacob Schiff's son-in-law, Felix Warburg, as well as Schiff's partner, Paul Warburg. Curiously, the latter was the man most instrumental in the establishment of the Federal Reserve System." Reproduced nearby are two photographs of Spruille Braden in the act of making awards to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and President Dwight David Eisenhower. Apparently Braden wasn't aware of things like Operation Keelhaul or maybe that's why he is smiling, and if asked about Eisenhower's participation in the murder of millions of innocent people in World War II and after, he would simply reply, "So What?" It is hardly necessary to reproduce here the "position" of the Belmont Brotherhood on Roosevelt or Eisenhower. Although it is worth noting that these two photographs are at least 20 years apart, indicating a certain constancy on the part of Mr. Braden. About the time of Braden's appointment as "our" Ambassador to Cuba, he reports on page 264 of his book Diplomats and Demogogues the following conversation between he (Braden) and Nelson Rockefeller: "Now," Nelson asked, "what would you like us to do in regard to Cuba?" "Nelson," I answered, "there's just one thing I insist on, and that is that I am the Ambassador. I want your solemn promise that nothing - and I mean nothing - will be done there by your office without my (emphasis added) prior approval. I'll be coordinating committee there and I'll cooperate with you. (emphasis added) But absolutely nothing is to be done - no one is to be employed, no contract is to be signed without my knowledge and approval. If that is understood I think we can work together very well. (emphasis added) "Nelson agreed with alacrity." "Obviously I had averted a great peril by obtaining Nelson's agreement to keep hands off in Cuba. And he kept his word scrupulously, even to the point of asking my approval (emphasis added) before sending down representatives to carry out an order from the President himself." So Braden was on a first name basis with Nelson Rockefeller. Please note Braden's promise to cooperate and work with Rockefeller. This even went to the point of having Rockefeller ask Braden's approval "before sending down representatives to carry out an order from the President himself." Braden devotes fourteen pages of his book to a description of a pleasant relationship between himself and Nelson Rockefeller. What, may we be so bold as to ask, was a "conservative" and future JBS Council member doing in such a relationship? 9. Louis Ruthenberg The late Ruthenberg, like the living Bill Grede, was a Director of a Federal Reserve Bank -- this one in St. Louis. Thus we have another man who was once on the Council associated in a major way with the infamous Federal Reserve System. 10. Ralph E. Davis Davis is another Mason on the Council. We are not told what degree he it. Not that it matters all that much however, for the lower degrees supply the pool for the higher degrees. So for all we know Davis may be a 34th Degree Mason. That would even make him higher than Albert Lantoine -- a Mason who aroused a great deal of controversy with his Lettre au Souverain Pontife in 1937. Masons of any degree should, if they are truly consistent - concur with his following observation. "There is a higher sphere where knowledge and Faith, though they cannot meet, can at least tolerate one another. To those seeking the one, to those who possess the other, they give the same delights and the same anguish. There is much purity and grandeur in the words of the philosophers in the Word of the Redeemer. So much the better, I say. Possessing critical and inquiring minds, we are the servants of Satan. You the guardians of truth, are the servants of God. These two complement one another. Each needs the other." Albert Lantaine, as quoted in Freemasonry and the Vatican, p. 111. 11. Frank E. Masland, Jr. Masland is not in THE KANGAROO COURT VERSUS THE JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY. But he was listed by Welch as a member of the Council in the JBS Bulletin for February 1960 (p. 4) which can be found in the wirebound White Book of the John Birch Society for 1960. Welch forgets to tell you here that Masland was a Mason. Who's Who for 1964-65 mentions this conveniently omitted fact (see reproduction nearby of page 1297 of 1964-65 of Who's Who]. 12. Cola Godden Parker Parker was also mentioned in the February, 1960 Bulletin (p. 4) by Welch. Although Welch forgot to mention that he was both a Mason and a member of the mysterious Newcomen Society (whose president, Charles Penrose, Jr. is directly tied in with the subversive Pilgrims and English-Speaking Union). Observe page 2106 of the 1950-51 Who's Who reproduced nearby. 13. Joseph Bracken Lee Lee was an early JBS Council member. He is described in the 1976-77 Who's Who in America page 1856 as a 33rd degree Mason, Knight Commander Court of Honor. This puts Mr. Lee at the same level as Albert Lantoine and Oswald Wirth who, as you may recall from the above, say Masons as high as Lee honor and serve Satan! Incidentally, we find in Who's Who in America a whole raft of extreme left wingers who are either 32nd or 33rd degree Masons. Such a list would include George McGovern (1972 Democratic Presidential Candidate) and Earl Warren (former Supreme Court Justice) who we understand the Belmont Brotherhood was trying to "impeach". II. Other Council Members For the most part, the remaining Council members constitute a form of window dressing to impress the average Bircher (potential, that is) with the "distinguished" leadership of the Society. We have some doctors to impress other doctors (e.g. Grady, Adamson, and McDonald); Stillwell J. Conner - a relative of Robert J. Koenig, former Major Coordinator for the Midwest currently hiding in Belmont as a Home Office Coordinator after having instructed at least one Coordinator to commit loan and stock fraud in the State of Illinois; a couple of military men (Bunker and Stone), and a variety of directors of publicly held corporations. III. Other Birch Figures -- Inner and Outer Circles 1. Martin J. Condon, III Condon is a non-Council member whose name appears on the Editorial Advisory Committee of American Opinion magazine. It appeared on the flyleaf of a recent 1976 issue (see page nearby.) He is a director of Schering-Plough Corporation, one of the many publicly-held corporations represented by members of the JBS Council. Condon, according to Who's Who in America, 1976-77 (see reproduction nearby of page 634), is also a member of the mysterious Newcomen Society. 2. George Schuyler - Contributing Editor to American Opinion Schuyler is reputed to be a "conservative" journalist. Yet in 1934-35 he was -- according to volume 2 page 2795 of Who's Who in America 1976-77 (reproduced nearby) -- a special assistant in publicity for no less a notorious organization for the NAACP. From 1937 to 1944 he was business manager of the NAACP publication: The Crisis. For those of you who are unaware of the Communist connections of the NAACP, check it out in Volume One of the Biographical Dictionary of the Left by Francis X. Gannon -- available at the nearest bookstore. We are in the process of completing a study of the other current connections of Mr. Schuyler listed at the bottom of the attached Who's Who and we intend to publish these disturbing facts in an upcoming book. 3. E. Merrill Root - Former Associate Editor of American Opinion Root, prior to his death a number of years ago, had numerous articles published in American Opinion -- not to mention those which appeared in Review of the News. Western Island (the JBS publishing affiliate) published the book, America's Steadfast Dream. He was also a close confidant and personal friend of Robert Welch. Imagine our surprise when his name appeared in the index of a New York State Investigating Committee (see the title page of the Investigation and the article in question) which was charged with exposing the Communist Conspiracy in America in the early 1920's under the leadership of the Hon. Clayton R. Lusk.
