|
|
|
Comments on Specific Claims
This attachment addresses specific issues raised in the “Local 770” letter. It is keyed to specific “paragraphs.” Click here for my general response to that letter.
CLAIM #1:
“Mr. Fotheringham is wrong for two reasons: First he claims that the Board of Incorporators was never ‘intended to be anything but a legal fixture for launching the JBS.’”
Don F: I am willing to accept that Mr. Welch would later see the Board of Incorporators as a possible ultimate backstop should something crazy happen with the Council and the leadership of the Society. But he clearly realized that using the Board of Incorporators in this way would also destroy and undermine what he had set up when he developed the Council to believe that it had the responsibility for deciding the succession in leadership.
Mr. Welch put great emphasis on the public procedure he set up for choosing the leadership of the Society. And this process had been used through every leadership change until 2005. The Board of Incorporators had never been involved. Mr. Welch’s intentions were stated clearly in the April 1983 Bulletin. Under the heading “A Very Pleasant Assignment” Mr. Welch wrote [emphasis added]:
“At its meeting in January of this year, the Executive Committee agreed on a proposal which we felt made a lot of sense from many standpoints. Recognizing that one of the functions of the COUNCIL was to select my successor, the Executive Committee decided to present its recommendation to that body of leading Americanists at a special meeting arranged for that purpose.
“So on the evening of March 11th, one day before our COUNCIL Dinner was to be held in Los Angeles, members of the COUNCIL met in executive session. The recommendation was presented and, after some discussion, the COUNCIL voted unanimously to accept it or, more precisely, to designate the following new officers of the Society....
“We should point out that it was terribly important not to advise anyone of the recommendation of the Executive Committee until the full COUNCIL had an opportunity to review and consider it on March 11.”
Clearly, Mr. Welch never intended that the collective judgment of the men on the COUNCIL be routinely replaced by the decision of a few veteran members of his staff.
CLAIM #2:
“Mr. Fotheringham is wrong for two reasons: ... Second, he has misquoted and misrepresented what is actually stated in The Blue Book as to who selects the successor for the JBS leadership.”
Don F: Yes, my letter did oversimplify the story. A 1961 edition of The Blue Book actually says the Council, not its Executive Committee, was to select the Society’s leader. Mr. Welch formed the Council a full year after he formed the Society, and Mr. Welch’s comments about the Council’s functions were added in a section following his founding speech.
However, shortly after establishing the COUNCIL, Mr. Welch established the Executive Committee of the COUNCIL and gave it the leading role. In the early days of the Society, he met monthly with this select group. Mr. Welch’s comments in the April 1983 Bulletin, quoted earlier, make clear this development of the role of the Executive Committee.
CLAIM #3:
“For the record, John Fall, who is the last member of the Board of Incorporators to have been personally appointed to that position 35 years ago by Robert Welch has stated the following facts: .... Mr. Fall also added that ‘the Board was not expected to act very often, but that it should do so only under extreme circumstances.’”
I have no reason to doubt what Mr. Fall says Mr. Welch told him. But I do not think the circumstances in October 2005 were of that extreme nature, for no one claims that the leadership of the Society had strayed from Mr. Welch’s purposes or principles.
The Society was not even facing a financial crisis. It was facing an internal whispering crisis, ignited by a few disgruntled employees who were unhappy with the leader and most particularly about how they were being managed.
Two members of the staff, with the support of one former staffer, voted to appoint themselves to the positions of leadership, answerable, in effect, only to themselves. Who can replace them now should they prove to be incompetent?
Cranking up the rusty wheels of the Board on October 21 was a judgment call by Fall, Waters and McManus. In one sense, extreme circumstances did exist. For unless the Board acted immediately, the latter two (Waters and McManus) would never have been able to take over the organization. That is the reason why they would not wait even eight days for the Executive Committee to meet with the rest of the Council and why three of our most valued veteran members of the Executive Committee resigned.
CLAIM #4:
“Mr. Fall is not alone in his assessment as to the true purpose of the Board of Incorporators ... then-Vice President Tom Gow (and Board of Incorporators member) stated the following:”
The “Local 770” letter puts up a strawman. No one disputes what Tom Gow stated so well in the quoted letter. The Board of Incorporators does have a legal basis for doing what it did. That is not the issue that needs to be raised. The real issue, which demands the attention of every member, is the serious failures of judgment and responsibility to maintain the structure of control Mr. Welch put it place. A jury may have the authority to vote a particular defendant guilty of murder in the first degree, regardless of the evidence or case, but that does not mean that such a verdict would always be responsible merely because it had the authority.
CLAIM #5:
“The Board of Incorporators acted exactly as it was supposed to: it revoked the authority given to the Executive Committee and exercised its proper role to remedy a problem that the Executive Committee patently refused to address.”
I am trying to be forgiving. I want to believe that the “Local 770” letter is merely full of mistakes rather than deceit. Nevertheless, this statement is so absurd it defies understanding. First, Mr. Welch never intended that the Board of Incorporators would exercise management judgment and jump into change the structure of JBS control whenever uninformed voices claimed that the Executive Committee was ignoring a management issue. The Executive Committee did not “patently refuse to address” the leadership matter, but had tried repeatedly to hold off the Board of Incorporators meeting until October 29 for their scheduled meeting in order to address the growing complaints. It was the Board that patently refused to allow the Executive Committee to address the matter.
CLAIM #6:
“In recent years, as practiced by the majority of the controlling members of the previous Executive Committee, the group became an enforcement arm of the CEO, meant to slap down any challenge to that official’s continued tenure, regardless of the effects on the rest of the organization.”
Wow, that is quite an indictment of the most dedicated, highly respected, most generous members of the Executive Committee, to accuse them of being an enforcement arm of the CEO! Under Mr. Smith’s leadership many of these men substantially increased their giving to the Society. It is silly to think these successful businessmen did so because they were Mr. Smith’s lapdogs. Why would they, or anyone else, want to sustain in office a CEO who was doing harm to their investment in freedom?Give me a break!
Not only is the charge ridiculous, it is irresponsible speculation by individuals who have no knowledge whereof they speak, yet dare to speak with great passion. Very few individuals, other than the men involved, sat in these councils and were privy to the discussions.
And last, this statement disgracefully insults some great Birchers. Recall that in the recent past those on the Executive Committee also included Thomas N. Hill, Dr. Philip E. Binzel, Jr. and Joseph P. Grinnan, all appointed to that body by Mr. Welch.
CLAIM #7:
“Mr. Fotheringham wants to reconstitute the Executive Committee under majority control of Wayne Rickert, Walt Ruckel, and Keith Van Buskirk – even though they failed or refused entirely to hold the former CEO accountable for his job performance, and his creating an unhealthy corporate culture we are now eradicating.”
My absolute conviction is that the October 21st damage to the structure of JBS control must be repaired. To do that, I stand by the recommendations in my original January 10th letter. The three men mentioned have the experience and proven dedication to get the job done. But their authority to act must not be diluted with the votes of those who supported the events of October 21st.
For many years, Wayne Rickert, Walt Ruckel, and Keith Van Buskirk carried the responsibility for holding JBS management accountable for real performance. I totally reject the self-serving characterization of these men by the “Local 770” letter. That characterization, as noted earlier, is totally irresponsible speculation by individuals who have no knowledge whereof they speak. None of the signers of that letter ever sat in an Executive Committee meeting.Their judgments of job performance are based on a very narrow view of the challenges that have faced and will face any leader of the Society.
And last, the comments about correcting the corporate culture are boastful and misleading. The new leaders have yet to demonstrate positive fruits from their leadership. But a popular, democratic, employee-driven culture would certainly have been anathema to Mr. Welch – not the kind of structure needed by an organization that hopes to take on a powerful Conspiracy.
Already we see signs in the publications of this new found freedom in direction (e.g., some embarrassing articles), where employees have the freedom to vent their spleens whether or not they persuade. Someone at the top needs to be accountable for the output of the home office. Whatever the JBS publishes represents all of the members and Chapters of this organization.
CLAIM #8:
“... Mr. Smith engineered the removal of any member of the Executive Committee who did attempt to exercise oversight. As case in point, Mr. Fotheringham did not mention in his letter that when Executive Committee member Art Crino opposed giving Mr. Smith a ‘vote of confidence’ last fall, he was swiftly booted off the Executive Committee and the Council without even being informed that this retaliatory action was being taken against him until after the fact. In fact, John Fall informed us that it was capricious actions such as this and others that convinced him that the Board of Incorporators needed to act sooner as opposed to later to force Mr. Smith’s removal as CEO.”
How many of the signers to this letter were at the Executive Committee meeting in Tampa? Zero. The author of the “Local 770” letter is having trouble maintaining the fiction that a committee wrote this letter.
According to my research, it is true that Art Crino was removed from the Executive Committee last fall (September 28th), but not because he failed at the meeting to give Vance Smith a vote of confidence. Mr. Crino was removed for breach of trust with the Executive Committee. He had boasted to JBS staff member Brian Turner that he had been at work since April 2005 urging members of the Council, and certain field staff leaders, to voice their disapproval of Vance Smith and to remove him from leadership. However, the full Executive Committee only learned of his actions in September.
Quiet and private deliberations of the Executive Committee and Council are essential in the selection of a monolithic leader. As noted earlier, Robert Welch stressed this principle in regard to his successor: “We should point out that it was terribly important not to advise anyone of the recommendations of the Executive Committee until the full council had an opportunity to review and consider it...” Art Crino violated that principle by working behind the back of his fellow Executive Committee members and was removed for so doing.
Mr. Crino’s removal was not a crisis at all, but when the story was slightly altered, it served as yet another pretext for the unwarranted action of the Board of Incorporators. Thus, the leadership question was determined outside the established structure. Clearly, Mr. Welch never intended that the collective judgment of the men on the Council be routinely replaced by the decision of a few veteran members of his staff. That is exactly what has happened, and if the JBS is to survive, we must get the organization back under the safeguards set in place by Robert Welch.
CLAIM #9:
“... during at least one previous leadership controversy in the past, before Mr. Smith’s tenure as CEO, Executive Committee members visited JBS headquarters in Belmont and interviewed the employees to get a sense of the health of the company’s culture and its internal workings in order to judge the effectiveness of the CEO. However, the Executive Committee under Mr. Smith refused to perform this indispensable function.”
Again, this is clearly written from an employee/labor union standpoint. It is not the “indispensable function” of Boards to go behind their appointed CEO to survey employee opinion just because a few disgruntled employees desire it and decide to orchestrate the appearance of mass discontent.
There was a major difference between the unrest in 2005 and what transpired in 1986. In 1986, a few members of the Executive Committee traveled to Belmont to talk to employees, because the organization was facing bankruptcy, not because the employees were unhappy. Something needed to be done
to keep the JBS from going under. And some of these men would be asking themselves and their colleagues to write checks and underwrite the solution, so they naturally wanted to assess for themselves the cost and productivity of the home office. In 2005, who decided that it was time for the Executive Committee to survey the employees for their opinion as to Mr. Smith’s leadership?
CLAIM #10:
Since Mr. Smith’s departure on October 21, 2005, the morale of the staff at JBS headquarters in Appleton has turned around 180 degrees. It is as if somebody threw open the dark drapes... There is a real spirit of teamwork that has not existed here for a very long time.”
Let’s have DEEDS not WORDS. If it is true that much good is coming, great. We can then all rejoice (that, for once good fruit, came from the use of improper means). For we all desperately want and need the JBS to succeed under some leadership. But so far the new leadership seems willing to brag a lot about what it is going to do and how great things are and are going to be. Let’s see it.
But we haven’t seen it yet. We have no new videos, no new books, and no support for any new campaigns. (Actually, we would not be surprised to see a “fresh, new” video released shortly – another talking head performance of Overview by John McManus.) Even the vital fights to stop the FTAA and SPP seem to have disappeared from the JBS radar screen. What other organization is going to give leadership to the American people to oppose these blatant sellouts of our constitutional Republic?
There is no doubt that teamwork in the home office is important, but even more vital in fighting a Conspiracy is leadership that keeps the eye of the entire organization on that ball. Every veteran Society member can judge whether that kind of leadership is coming out of Appleton – we don’t need to be told how great thou art!
|
|
|
