PIONEER
An Interview with LESLIE FLEMING
President of the Oregon Chapter of
The John Birch Society
(The views expressed by Mr. Fleming are his
own and not necessarily those of the John
Birch Society. He stressed that his answer to
many questions would have been different if
he was speaking officially for the Society.)
Q. How many members does the John Birch
Society have in Oregon?
A. That's a secret.
Q. How many members does the Society have
nationally ?
A. That’s also a secret—we don't give out
those figures.
Q. How long you been active in the Society?
A. Since 195S. Since practically the founding.
Q. What other occupation do you have?
A. I used to be a dairy farmer—but now spend
my full-time with the Society and the
bookstore. (The Freedom Bookstore in
Eugene.) I got fed up with dairy-farming
and being regulated and controlled by the
government—so I quit. I don't want all
the money' I make to go to the govern
ment.
Q. You mean you quit dairy-farming because
the government was regulating your ac
tivities?
A. Yes—byr the time all those fuzzy-headed
government people got through with their
percentages milk is priced so high—I don’t
want anyr part of it.
Q. What do you mean by “percentages”?
A. Taxes—excise, property, income—anything
you can think of billions in taxes for noth
ing—going down the drain—being tossed
away by' melon-heads in Washington.
Q. You don’t want taxes?
A. Not income taxes and the other “social”
taxes—only' the taxes that were originally
intended in the constitution—the excise
taxes.
Q. How could the government finance its pro
grams if the income tax was eliminated? It
accounts for over 80% of the government
revenues—
A. They don’t need to spend all that money.
Q. But most of the money is for defense any
way—what would you do about that?
A. You don't realize that we could eliminate
or bring all government non-defense
spending down to a billion and military
experts say thirteen billion is adequate for
defense—so there you’ve got only fourteen
billion which could be covered without in
come taxes.
Q. The Russians are spending approximately
fifty billion a year on defense—the Rus
sians are the very people your group is
trying to beat—wouldn’t we lose the arms
race if we only spent thirteen billion?
A. Well—General Walker states right here
(holding out a 1952 magazine) that all the
defense needs of the country could be tak
en care of for thirteen billion.
Q. Is he your only “military expert”?
A. Yes. Of course, I never believe Russian
figures—they’re all phony. Never believe
anything the Russians distribute.
Q. You don’t believe their figures—then why
are they a threat to the U.S. a nation with
a 500 billion plus G.N.P.?
A. By subtrifuge and sneaky, dirty tactics—
not so much an external threat as an in
ternal one.
Q. You mentioned the high price of milk and
your quitting dairy farming—if your pro
gram of taxation was followed how would
it lead to lower milk prices ?
A. Well, milk is now about 22c a quart—I bet
that with no income tax and the other
government mumble-jumble, milk would
cost only 12c a quart. That would make
sense.
O. Wouldn’t that lead to deflation—lower
wages as well as lower prices—no one
would benefit.
A. What’s wrong with deflation?
Q. What do you think of John Keyne’s theory
of economics?
A. Well, I don't care for any of those Harvard
people Kennedy has got in his group.
Q. But Keynes is dead—he’s an English econ
omist.
A. Oh—I was thinking of Galbraith. I read
his Status Seekers and thought it poor.
(Ed. Xote: Vance Packard wrote The
Status Seekers.)
Q. I notice your book-store here. What books
do you recommend for Americans to read?
A. Well, Hoover's—J. Edgar Hoover’s—
"Masters of Deceit”. Welch’s stuff (Rob
ert Welch is founder and president of the
John Birch Society)—some reprints of
Goldwater speeches. National Review and
Human Events are good too.
Q. What do you think of National Review’s
attack on Welch as being a liability rather
than an asset of the John Birch Society ?
A. Not much. Wo don’t subscribe to every
thing they (National Review) write—but
generally it’s a good publication.
Q. Do you follow Welch’s claim that Eisen
hower was a "conscious Communist
agent”?
A. Look at the record of Eisenhower, or any
President since Roosevelt and tell me they
weren’t helping the Communist cause.
Roosevelt gave them Europe. Truman
gave them China. Eisenhower gave them
Cuba. And just watch Kennedy because
he'll give them what they want too.
Q. \\ hat do you think of Ayn Rand’s writ
ings? Do you believe “Atlas Shrugged”
and “Fountainhead” are good?
A. I ve read a few of her things and believe
she is thinking straight. I didn’t care for
the bedroom scenes, though.
Q. Did you prefer working in the Society
when it wasn’t so publicized?
A. Well, once you become effective they get
after you. You know the press of the coun
try is controlled by Communists.
Q. If the press and government of the country
are controlled by “conscious communist
agents” why isn’t the U.S. in Russian
hands now? It seems if they have all this
working for them we wouldn’t be any
threat to them ?
A. W ell, it’s part of a plan. They’ve got to