I read about it ages ago and my memory isn't what it used to be (or at least what I think I remember it as being) -- let me see if The Repository of All Knowledge and Wisdom can jog my memory ...

Ah, here's the skinny, then (assuming Wikipedia has it right, which is a better than 50% bet, anyway, according to some studies). The society was named after Birch. He died in '45 and the society was founded in '58. His parents, however, were lifetime members (presumably they got gold-plated keys to the executive washroom?).

The actual founder, Welch, was a real winner. Some of our muddy conspiracy theorists would love him. In the founding speech he gave at the first convention, he said, "both the U.S. and Soviet governments are controlled by the same furtive conspiratorial cabal of internationalists, greedy bankers, and corrupt politicians. If left unexposed, the traitors inside the U.S. government would betray the country's sovereignty to the United Nations for a collectivist New World Order, managed by a 'one-world socialist government.'"

Woo. Where's my tinfoil helmet? Are those black helicopters I see before me?