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[Ya-ta Boy]

I miss the good old days, back when Ike was a knowing dupe of the Commies and Alaska was going to be a concentration camp for those who were anti-floridated water.

The more things change...

"The wisecrack traced to Robert Welch�s expressed conviction, a year or so earlier, that the state of Alaska was being prepared to house anyone who doubted his doctrine that fluoridated water was a Communist-backed plot to weaken the minds of the American public.

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In the next issue of my magazine, National Review, I published a 5,000-word excoriation of Welch:

How can the John Birch Society be an effective political instrument while it is led by a man whose views on current affairs are, at so many critical points . . . so far removed from common sense? That dilemma weighs on conservatives across America. . . . The underlying problem is whether conservatives can continue to acquiesce quietly in a rendition of the causes of the decline of the Republic and the entire Western world which is false, and, besides that, crucially different in practical emphasis from their own.
In response, National Review received the explicit endorsement of Senator Goldwater himself, who wrote a letter we published in the following issue:

I think you have clearly stated the problem which Mr. Welch�s continued leadership of the John Birch Society poses for sincere conservatives. . . . Mr. Welch is only one man, and I do not believe his views, far removed from reality and common sense as they are, represent the feelings of most members of the John Birch Society. . . . Because of this, I believe the best thing Mr. Welch could do to serve the cause of anti-Communism in the United States would be to resign. . . . We cannot allow the emblem of irresponsibility to attach to the conservative banner.
The wound we Palm Beach plotters delivered to the John Birch Society proved fatal over time. Barry Goldwater did not win the presidency, but he clarified the proper place of anti-Communism on the Right, with bright prospects to follow."

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/goldwater%E2%80%94the-john-birch-society%E2%80%94and-me-11248