On August 25, 1945, John Birch, an American missionary to China before the war and a captain in the Army during the war, is killed by Chinese communists days after the surrender of Japan, for no apparent reason. His death would inspire a small but vocal group of conservative anticommunists.
After America had entered the war, Birch, a Baptist missionary already in China, was made a liaison between American and Chinese forces fighting the Japanese. But on August 25, Birch, commanding an American Special Services team, was ordered to halt by Chinese communist troops. A scuffle ensued, and according to his commanding officer, Gustave Krause, Birch argued violently with the communist officer trying to disarm him. The Chinese shot Birch and bayoneted him repeatedly. “Birch made the communist lieutenant lose face before his own men," said Krause. "Militarily, John Birch brought about his own death.”
In the 1950s, Robert Welch would create a right-wing, anticommunist organization called the John Birch Society. For Welch, Birch was “the first casualty in the Third World War between communists and the ever-shrinking Free World.”
