Dan Kravetz sent the following, which is in reference to this item from the other day…
It is correct that Welch's grape products had nothing to do with Robert Welch, who founded the John Birch Society. The Welch's Candy company had little to do with the JBS, either. Robert Welch had been employed by his brother James O. Welch, who owned Welch's Candy, until he retired in 1956. He founded the JBS in 1958. Welch's Candy was acquired by Nabisco in 1963, ending any possibility that consumers of Junior Mints and Sugar Daddies might have been helping to fund the JBS.
Actually, I never thought consumers of Sugar Daddies could do much of anything. The only time I tried one, it tasted like sweet tar and I couldn't get my jaw unstuck for about nine hours. What an awful candy. I could never understand why anyone would buy that when the same stores sold Krackel bars, Peanut M&Ms and Butterfingers. (And watch: I'll get more angry e-mail about my taste in candy bars than I do about my views on the Iraq War.)