April 19, 2010: Conservative Conference Co-Sponsored by Far-Right Racist Organization

This year’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is co-sponsored by the far-right, openly racist John Birch Society (JBS—see March 10, 1961). CPAC spokesman Ian Walters says this is the first time the JBS has sponsored the conference. In the 1960s, influential conservative pundit William F. Buckley denounced the society and its founder Robert Welch as “idiotic” and “paranoid.” Buckley’s condemnation effectively exiled the group from mainstream conservatism for half a century. Welch had accused then-President Dwight Eisenhower of being a “conscious, dedicated agent of the communist conspiracy” and said the government was “under operational control of the Communist Party.” Buckley argued that such paranoid rantings had no place in the conservative movement or the Republican Party. Lisa Depasquale, CPAC’s director for the American Conservative Union, which runs the conference, explains why the JBS is now a sponsor, saying: “They’re a conservative organization. Beyond that I have no comment.” [ABC News, 4/19/2010]