"We pointed our fingers at all the powerful people in the United States," he says. "There was a deliberate attempt to make the John Birch Society look lousy. How can you make us more lousy than calling us racist, anti-Semitic, pro Nazi, pro-KKK and other junk like that?

"And believe me, the people who are most upset by this are our Jewish and Black members."

McManus acknowledges, however, that the Society has very few Jewish or Black members.

Such criticisms were, however, no doubt warranted two decades ago. In Bulletin, published by the John Birch Society in 1965. Robert Welch wrote that"...there comes a period of some 40 years when an abnormal percentage of the Communist Conspiracy was of Jewish ancestry. And these traitors to their race--as well as to mankind--worked and schemed and plotted to have themselves hated, not as Communists, but as Jews."

Even McManus concedes that at "one time" anti-Semitism pervaded the John Birch Society. But he adds that anyone who accuses the JBS today as being anti-Semitic is a downright liar. The ADL, wouldn't say that any longer."

And the Society does appear to have cleaned up its act regarding anti-Semitism and racism Spokesmen for both the ADL and the NAACP attest to that.

Maybe that's all in vain.

One Belmont citizen says. "About 20 years ago, there were a lot of Birchies here. They stirred a lot of interest, then, but now no one even thinks of them."

But the members still persist, convinced that if they lose, havoc will reign. "Our strategy is to inform society so they choose better leaders. If we're successful, then the trend towards bigger government will stop." McManus says, "If we're not successful then there will be a communist style government in the United States."