John McManus
Sunday, October 09, 2011 – with Anthony Wile
The editors of The Daily Bell are pleased to present an interview with John F. McManus, President of the John Birch Society and publisher of the New American.Introduction: In 1973, John F. McManus accepted an appointment by Robert Welch, the Society's Founder, as the organization's Director of Public Affairs. He later became its president. In this post, he became and remains the Society's chief media representative throughout the nation. He has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs. Mr. McManus has written and produced numerous audiovisual programs, including the popular DVD Overview of America, which is a moving tribute about America's US Constitutional roots. He has also written several books including Financial Terrorism (1993), Changing Commands: The Betrayal of America's Military (1995), William F. Buckley, Jr.: Pied Piper for the Establishment (2002), and The Insiders 5th Edition (2004). In addition to being a regular contributor of articles to The New American magazine, he serves as its publisher. He is also publisher of the Society's member-only monthly Bulletin. Mr. McManus was named president of The John Birch Society in 1991. Born in 1935 in Brooklyn, he served on active duty as a lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps for three years. For six years before accepting a staff position with the Society, he was employed as an electronics engineer.
Daily Bell: Thanks for your time. Explain what the John Birch Society is. What is its goal? Where did it get its name?
John McManus: The John Birch Educational organization was formed to preserve the American system, limited government under the US Constitution and independence. It got its name from Captain John Birch, a WWII hero who went to China in 1940 as missionary for his faith, and volunteered for service with the American forces when the war broke out. He actually led Colonel Jimmy Doolittle out of China after Doolittle's famous raid over Tokyo early in 1942, and that's when the American forces discovered him.
General Claire Chennault, the head of the famous "Flying Tiger" organization in China, asked him to join their forces and to serve as an intelligence officer out of Chaplin. So he did that and for three years he performed excellent work for them. He should have been given the Congressional Medal of Honor, but he didn't get it.
He was murdered ten days after the war ended by Chinese Communists. Robert Welch, the man who founded the John Birch Society, found out about John Birch long before the society was formed, and he wrote a book in 1954 about the life of John Birch, a real American hero. So when the time came Robert Welch formed the educational organization that we are here, he asked the parents if he could use their son's name and they happily said yes and became members right away, right from the beginning. So that's how we became the John Birch Society.
Daily Bell: Why is the society disliked by the mainstream press?
John McManus: Actually, there are two reasons why they don't like us, and the first one is they don't like to be shown as deficient and second is they want to be the leaders of those who are informing the American people. John Birch Society is actually a new medium of information in competition with all of these others.
What we say is different than what they say about almost every issue and consequently that's why they don't like us. They'll do whatever they can to make us seem like fools or extreme, or whatever nasty adjective they choose to throw around like candy to children, and that's why we are not liked by the mainstream media. We are, however, quite frequently liked by the local media, newspapers, small town newspapers where our members are busy, and gain a lot of influence but I don't expect to be treated fairly by the New York Times or Time Magazine for a good long while.
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