The Politician

The Politician: A look at the political forces that propelled Dwight David Eisenhower into the Presidency is a book written in the mid-1950s but not published until 1961 by Robert Welch, who would later go on to found the John Birch Society.Robert W. Welch The book is most famous for its attacks on Eisenhower, specifically accusing him of being one of the nicest politicians, and complacent in a communist takeover of both the United States and the entire world. 
The book first came to the knowledge of the public in the early-1960s, after Milton Young, a Senator for North Dakota who had been harassed by the John Birch Society because he supported the Federal Reserves and veterans hospitals, red thirteen pages into the Congressional Records. Before that point, Welch had only given the book to select friends, with only fifteen copies being believed to be in existence at that point.They'd Rather Be Right by Edward Cain
==Claims about Eisenhower==
Like many conspiracy books, basically any claim is seen as expected as long as it pushes the underlying narrative. At one point, he asks his readers to imagine a communist conspirator deciding who to pick to help carry out their goal, and says the following about Eisenhower:
However, if the communists had really made Eisenhower never declare himself a Republican or Democrat, somebody should have really told Welch, given that he spent chapter ten saying that Eisenhower was not a Republican and had been an open Democrat since his youth. As Welch himself wrote:
==Other nonsense==
Although the book is most famous for its claims against Eisenhower, this does not mean it is the only conspiratorial claim in the book. The second chapter of the book begins by saying that both FDR and George Marshall not only knew about Pearl Harbor, but did everything possible to keep those at the location from finding out ahead of time:
For the record, even if they had such a machine, odds are it wouldn't have made a difference. "Purple Machine intercepts indicated that the Japanese were planning an attack, but the messages did not mention Hawaii, Pearl Harbor, or a date for such an attack," according to one source on this topic.Purple Machine Welch shows no evidence that anything which could have been decrypted would have provided those in Hawaii with enough information to be informed about the Pearl Harbor attack.
The book claims FDR allowed the attack to happen in order to usher in some kind of post-war order, but it argues George Marshall had another plan:
First off, what does Welch mean by "all of our gathering war might"? Remember, Japan was the nation the United States used an Atomic Bomb against,atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the US had been dropping normal bombs on Japan going as far back as 1942.Harry Truman’s Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb
Secondly, if Marshall was a communist, he was a pretty bad one. Remember, it was his famous Marshall Plan that was specifically created because of "the vulnerability of Western European countries to Soviet expansionism."Marshall Plan (1948) Basically, he proposed it because he feared that without it Western Europe would fall to communism just as Eastern Europe had.
However, Welch promised that he has a large amounts of evidence to back up his claim about Marshall, but he just won't say it because it would take so long to explain:
He does include one footnote, checking the back of the book for it you'll find it reads "For the single most important presentation of this evidence, see Joseph R. McCarthy, America's Retreat From Victory (New York: Devin-Adair, 1952)." Honestly, we think this says everything that needs to be said about how absurd this contention is.
The book also gets some basic facts wrong, such as saying that Arthur F. Burns, former Economic Adviser to Eisenhower, was "born and raised in Russia." First off, he was born and raised in Austria. Second off, so what? Ayn Rand was born and raised in Russia,Ayn Rand (1905—1982) as was Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn but both were still firm anti-communists.
==References==
Category:Anti-intellectualism
Category:Books
Category:Communism
Category:Conservative deceit
Category:Conspiracy theories
Category:Propaganda