Welch's the World of the John Birch Society

Welch's first public mention of the Illuminati, but not yet the insiders, came in his more stately mansion speech delivered before a crowd of 1700 at the Conrad Hilton in Chicago on June 5th, 1964. He told his biographer that although he had been studying this subject for a number of years prior to this, he understood that you couldn't start putting it all out in one go because nobody would believe you. Despite these concerns, Welch's idea of the insiders was quickly incorporated into the society's official worldview with Birch writers like Medford Evans and Dean Rusk. But just as often, the conspirators continued to be identified as the Communists, the Liberals, the Establishment,