Book Review
Saluting the Society

Saluting the Society

Longtime John Birch Society president John F. McManus’ book about the Society explains why and how the Society came into being, as well as the campaigns by it and against it. ...
William F. Jasper

The John Birch Society: Its History Recounted By Someone Who Was There, by John F. McManus, Wakefield, Massachusetts: Overview Productions, 2018, 472 pages, hardcover.

For more than half a century, John F. “Jack” McManus has been a central figure in The John Birch Society, and in America’s fight to preserve morality, national sovereignty, and limited, constitutional government. Following his honorable discharge as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1960, he worked as an electronics engineer before accepting a position on the Birch Society’s staff in 1966 as a field Coordinator for five New England states. In 1968, Jack was transferred to the Society’s headquarters office, which was then located in Belmont, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. Thus began his close working relationship and long friendship with Society founder Robert Welch.

As the Society’s national director of public relations (and president from 1991-2016), McManus served for decades as the public face of the organization, appearing on numerous radio and television programs, as well as in speaking engagements throughout the country. His weekly newspaper column The Birch Log, together with his six books and countless pamphlets and articles, established his reputation as an authoritative spokesman on a wide array of topics. His famous presentation An Overview of Our World, which debuted in 1972 as a two-hour filmstrip and was later released in an updated video format, has introduced several generations of Americans to a proper understanding of the political spectrum, the basic principles of American government, and the subterranean subversive forces that are striving to undermine our civilization and our freedom. His similar Overview of America, a 28-minute DVD released in 2006, has joined the original Overview as a hugely popular civics lesson on many Internet sites.

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