A brief history of absolute nonsense

Robert W Welch Jr was, shall we say, an interesting bloke. You might think that a chap who made a fortune selling candy with names like Sugar Daddies, Sugar Babies and Pom Poms would be a fun guy to have a drink with, at least. But, alas, he drank lemonade. And in his ample spare time, in 1958, Robert W. Welch Jr founded the John Birch Society.  

We tend to forget the John Birch Society now. It seems a trifle odd to suggest, as Welch and his Society did, that the Republican President Dwight D Eisenhower was a card-carrying Communist agent of the Soviet Union, controlled by his brother Milton (also a Communist agent, apparently). “Eisenhower and his Communist bosses and their pro-Communist appointees are gradually taking…