Among the declassified documents by the FBI in recent years can be found many letters like the following:
[Maimed]
December 20, 1971
Honorable J. Edgar Hoover
Dear Mr. Hoover
[…]
Well informed patriotic American citizen know that the Council on Foreign Relations with its elite membership of fourteen hundred is the invisible government of the United States that has controlled our foreign policy along Leftist lines through the past ten national administrations. Through tax exempt foundations, they are free to support subversion in the United States and other parts of the world.
[…]It is my humble opinion that a complete investigation by the F.B.I. of the Council on Foreign Relations will break the backbone of the communist conspiracy in the Unites States.
[…]Sincerely,
[Maimed]1
Another letter of April 1961 stated:
[....] Is Congress informed regarding the fact that [maimed], etc., etc. are members of the CFR? Why the CFR is no publicized? Have you investigated the CFR? 2
In another, you can read:
[....] According to several publications this "Council on Foreign Relations" allegedly is America's number one "Red Front" organization. Could you clarify this for me? 3
Many letters have harsh tones like this one from 1963:
[....] I think a thorough investigation of the "Council on Foreign Relations" is due. If I know its corruption, you surely must. 4
And this one from September 1964:
[....] I have been reading about an agency of the government known as the Council on Foreign Relations and I have become confuse on the actual purpose of this organization. While many prominent government officials have been linked with this agency, it appears their goals are contrary to the basic freedoms that this country was founded on.5
Invariably, the FBI replied these letters with the same cliché:
"We have never investigated the Council on Foreign Relations, New York City, and our files contains no identiable derogatory information concerning it. It was formed in 1922 and is self-described as a noncommercial and nonpolitical organization, which studies American foreign relations in an impartial and scholarly spirit...."6
In fact, the CFR, apparently, isn't quite different from the other non-governmental organizations also called "think tanks".
The aim of the so-called "think tanks" is the investigation of certain aspects of social life in order to provide advice primarily to the different branches of government to support their functions.7
In the U.S. alone, there are over 200 institutions deemed as "think tanks".8
The problem is that the CFR is America's most important "think tank" and possibly of the world. Its membership consist of the group of the 4.500 most influential corporate, government, political and academic personalities of the nación.9
For certain segments of the public, the most worrisome about the CFR is the secrecy with which it works and its undoubted influence over the government.
Many believe that members of the CFR are an elitist club that operates above and outside the framework of the laws and constitution, serving effectively as an invisible oligarchic government of the nation 10
Moreover, others regard the CFR as the secret government of the "New World Order", whatever it might be. 11
The critics and opponents of the Council on Foreign Relations are mainly political and social sectors considered as "isolationist" by their foes because of their attitude towards U.S. foreign policy. 12
The so-called "isolationists" consider the CFR as the nerve center of the groups and powers that advocate an internationalist and interventionist foreign policy.
Many of these so-called isolationist tendencies coincide with the radical left (ironically being substantially opposed to them) as they both consider the CFR as the "brain" of the American "Imperialism".
The antagonism between isolationism and internationalism has been one of the essential pivots of the political confrontations in the history of the U.S.
The most intransigent of the so-called "isolationists" put the origins of their political trend in the very origins of the founding of the United States as a nation. They claim that the arrival of the Mayflower to American shores brought the seeds of the rejection to wars and religious persecutions of European Monarchies.13
Meanwhile, founding fathers as Thomas Paine, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe defended the doctrine of maximizing business relations with foreign countries but on the other hand minimizing the political connections with them. 13
Only in extreme cases, when there have been attacks to the life of their fellow citizens, the so-called isolationists have compelled the government to intervene beyond its borders.
For example, in 1848, the defense and massacre of the Alamo triggered the war against Mexico, which joined Texas and vast parts of Mexico into the Union.
In 1898, the strange explosion of the battleship Maine in Havana Bay and the deaths of hundreds of its crew lit the Spanish American War, stripping the Spanish empire of its last possessions of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. 14
In 1915, German torpedoes led 133 Americans to the bottom of the sea along with other nearly 1,200 passenger of the steamers Lusitania and Arabic.15 These incidents, well-seasoned by the press, infuriated the public opinion, which forgot its traditional isolationists and demanded President Wilson to abandon its policy of neutrality and to get involved in World War I.
Only incidents such as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor -which prompted the entry of U.S. in the 2nd World War-, the events in the Gulf of Tonkin, that led to the Vietnam War, and the attack on the Twin Towers in New York have made the majority of the American people forget its traditional anti-interventionist spirit and allow the government involvement in foreign affairs.
The anti-internationalist sentiment has motivated great deal of Americans to reject their government's participation not only in the affairs and wars of other countries, but also in international organizations like the UN, the OAS, the World Bank, IMF and everything related with foreign policy. 16
Many right-wing isolationists agree with their hated enemies of the extreme left that all or most of the incidents that have involved the U.S. in foreign conflicts have been caused by conspiracies of the "merchants of death", mainly bankers and arms merchants, whose interests are opposed to ones of the American people.17
Conspiracy theories aside, it is true that banking and financial interests were the main promoters of the U.S. government intervention in international politics.
Needless to say that banking is a large supranational body.
Banking lives from the world market. Large international trade and monetary transactions are its main food.
Every economic, social or political event of importance is reflected in national and international banking. That is why banking has always tried to influence not only the economy but, especially, in national and international policies in the sense of its interests.
In general, banking has tried to influence the economy and politics of nations through their central banks.
As isolationism has been the dominant trend in America regarding foreign policy, concerning economic policy, has dominated the opposition to the creation of a central bank in North America, as we saw in the previous article. 18
As noted, international banking, led by the House of Rothschild, had endeavored to establish a U.S. central bank in order to control its economy and government, as they had done with the major European powers. This resulted in more than a century of political battles that even led to international wars.18
The American tycoons, as described in the previous article, took advantage and / or contribute to the great financial crisis of 1883, 1893 and 1907 not only to expand and strengthen their business empires but to convince the U.S. public of the need the creation of a new U.S. central bank to avoid or reduce economic crisis.18
In 1910, given the favorable spirit of the moment, the Morgan, the Rockefellers and the Rothschild sent their representatives to Jekyll Island in absolute secrecy, as we have seen 18, in order to draft the Federal Reserve Bill, in violation of legislative procedures the nation.
Similarly, they instructed their agent at the government, the alleged "Colonel" Edward Mandell House, the personal adviser of President Woodrow Wilson, to convince this to sign the Federal Reserve Act during the Congress Christmas holidays of 1913, an unconstitutional action that President Wilson will soon regret.18
The persistence of the banking domination on the Fed and the government was demonstrated by the congressional report of 1976, which bitterly acknowledges that "... the Federal Reserve system is dominated by a very small universe of private institutions ..." and that "... the directors of the Federal Reserve are clearly representative of a small elite group which dominates much of the economic life of this nation."20
However, despite of all the justified criticism and accusations, the creation of the Federal Reserve also meant the establishment of a new kind of economy, quite more dynamic and flexible than anything known before, based on debt and credit, and in a flexible currency.21
This new kind of economy will be expanded to the rest of the world with the Brenton Woods agreements at the end of WW II. This meeting established the global economic and political leadership of the U.S., the dollar as the universal currency and mean of reserve, as well as the bonds of U.S. government debt as the main mean of banking and national reserves.22
Anyway, despite all the criticism and negative effects, the type of economy dictated by the elite who control the Federal Reserve has been the main driving force of U.S. economic, technological, political and cultural global leadership.
No one can doubt, then, that knowledge and control of international relations and politics is one of the main objectives of the international banking elite.
Therefore, it is not surprising that these financial groups that advocated the creation of the Federal Reserve had the need to organize a team of experts to investigate the conditions and international political circumstances in order to design appropriate policies and strategies that fit the overall interests of the international financial elite.
In this sense, it is possible to say that the founding of the Council on Foreign Relations is a necessary consequence of the creation of the Federal Reserve.
At the end of the First World War, bankers, businessmen and lawyers raised major concerns about the isolationist boost in the U.S. and the effects of war and peace treaties on the postwar businesses.
Thus, in June 1918, a hundred leading figures from banking, industry, commerce and finance, along with many lawyers united around Elihu Root, created a club in New York.23
This select club called itself the Council on Foreign Relations.23
The original CFR was created to organize banquets in order to address pressing problems of finance and politics, and to make contact with distinguished foreign visitors under conditions congenial to future commerce.23
However, as the post-war skies began to clear for business, the members' interest in the dinner meetings dwindled to the point that, by April 1919, the original Council on Foreign Relations went dormant. 23
Nevertheless, after the war, there was another group very interested in reviving the Council on Foreign Relations.
In early 1918, our old friend, the "Colonel" House, had created already a working group of experts that should report to President Wilson about the options for the world to be born after the defeat of the Kaiser and Imperial Germany.
This team came to be called "The Inquiry".23
"The Inquiry" grouped about 150 university professors, graduate students, lawyers, economists, writers and others. 24
In ending the World War I, Wilson and House travelled to Europe with a large group of the "inquiry" to ensure U.S. presence in the peace talks.23
During the plenary session in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, scholars of "inquiry" helped draw the borders of Central Europe for the first twentieth century's postwar.23
In May 1919, in the midst of the peace talks, the members of "Inquiry" with senior American diplomats met with British counterparts at the Hotel Majestic in Paris to discuss their post-war cooperation. In this meeting was proposed the creation of an Anglo-American Institute for International Affairs with subsidiaries in London and New York.23
One of the objectives of the institute was the formation of the League of Nations as an international center where governments work together to settle disputes and a climate of stability and world peace.23
But President Wilson's ideas concerning the League of Nations were quite differed from the ones that flourished through the halls of Versailles.
Wilson, mesmerized by the ideas of "Colonel" House, conceived the League of Nations as the necessary antecedent of a future world government devoted to erase the borders between the countries, promoting the world's free trade, its development and peace.25
But some saw with great suspicion "Colonel" House's Internationalists "teachings".
The problem was that House was acting inspired by his fervent admiration for Marxism and Fabian socialism. Such fascination was expressed frankly in his novel "Philip Dru: Administrator" in which House tried to describe "socialism as dreamed by Marx".26
In July 1920, British diplomats and academics carried out their part, founding the Royal Institute of International Affairs in an elegant mansion known as Chatham House, as the Institute has come to be known. 27
But across the Atlantic, the members of "Inquiry" stumbled upon his return with a climate where isolationism had been reborn with renewed power and with a great hostility against any idea about the League of Nations and other of internationalist fashion born at the Paris talks.23
However, they managed to find a lifejacket.
Some members of the "Inquiry" approached the bankers and lawyers of the almost moribund Council on Foreign Relations, offering their expertise and international contacts -that these fully lacked- in exchange of a badly-needed funding. .23
So, after settling some ego issues, interests and conceptions, on February 3, 1921, the veterans of "The Inquiry" met with the former guests of the Council to find common ground for creating the future organization. This finally was founded in July of that year under the name of The Council on Foreign Relations, with which, of course, the scholars of the "Inquiry" wanted to ingratiate themselves with their benefactors.23
If we review the list of the founders of the new Council on Foreign Relations, there are no doubts about the orientation of the nascent "think tank" and its relationship with the promoters of the Federal Reserve and the financial elite, especially JP Morgan, Rockefeller and Rothschild.
In the front row, we stumbled, of course, with the ubiquitous "Colonel" Edward Mandell House, a great affection of J.P. Morgan and Rockefeller.
The first president of the CFR was Elihu Root, J.P. Morgan's personal lawyer, who inspired the original CFR. Root also was former secretary of war of President McKinley, former secretary of state under President Theodore Roosevelt and Nobel Peace Prize for his work on behalf of the League of Nations.23
Among other associates of J.P. Morgan, we found one of his main partners, Henry Pomeroy Davison (who represented Morgan in the infamous meeting on the Jekyll Island where the Fed bill was drafted), and Benjamin Strong, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.28
Also, in the founding of the CFR, there was a broad representation of Rockefellers' interests. For example, there it was Raymond Blaine Fosdick (one of the founders of the League of Nations, president of the Rockefeller Foundation and mentor of John D. Rockefeller Jr.). It was also Whitney Shepardson, director of the John D. Rockefeller General Board of Education, vice president of International Railways of Central America, the carrier arm of the United Fruit Company and director of the Carnegie Corporation.
Moreover, there were the former members of the "inquiry", the brothers John Foster and Allen Dulles. The first was the all-powerful Rockefeller family lawyer who will be the secretary of state under President Truman. The second was director of the Rockefeller bank-Schroeder Bank, who will become the founding director of the Central Intelligence Agency.30
They were, as well, the president of National City Bank, Frank A. Vanderlip, and Harold Pratt, director of Standard Oil Co., both Rockefeller's. 28
Three representatives of Rothschild's Khun-Lobe & Co. were also founders of the CFR: Paul D. Cravath, a lawyer for the firm, Otto H. Kahn and Paul M. Warburg. The latter participated in the meeting of the Jekyll Island as representative of the Rothschild, and was a member of the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.28
With just these few names among the hundreds of participants at the opening of the CFR should not be any doubt of the influence of the international banking interests and their close relationship with the creation of the Federal Reserve.
The influence of the CFR as a "think tank" won't have great weight until, in 1927, its funding began coming from the Rockefeller Foundation, effectively becoming the ideological arm of the family. No wonder, the CFR established its headquarters in the Harold Pratt House in New York, a mansion bought by the Rockefeller family of one of the former presidents of the Standard Oil, the family monopoly, and one of the "founding fathers" of the Council. 31
Shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, the Council on Foreign Relations will offer its services to the State Department, which agreed in letting the CFR do researches and recommendations without formal assignment or responsibility.32
Consequently, the CFR created several working groups, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation through scholarships.32
In February 1941, the State Department created the Special Investigations Division, and quickly, it will be dominated by members of the Council of Foreign Exteriores.32
During 1942, the State Department created the Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy in order to design the post-war world map. This Committee consisted of several members of the Council on Foreign Relations as the Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Sub-secretary of State Sumner Welles, el Dr. Leo Pasvolsky, Hamilton Fish Armstrong, Isaiah Bowman, Benjamin V. Cohen, Norman H. Davis, and James T. Shotwell.32
Moreover, other members of the CFR will get positions in other divisions of the Department of State as Philip E. Mosely, Walter E. Sharp, Grayson Kirk, among others.
The highlight of the Council came at San Francisco in 1945 when more than 40 members of the United States delegation to the meeting to sign the Charter of the United Nations were CFR members. Among them, Alger Hiss, Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius, Leo Pasvolsky, John Foster Dulles, John J. McCloy, Julius C. Holmes, Nelson A. Rockefeller, Adlai Stevenson, Joseph E. Johnson, Ralph J. Bunche, Clark M. Eichelberger, and Thomas K. Finletter.32
By 1945, the Council on Foreign Relations, various foundations and other organizations intertwined with the CFR had taken all the leading positions in the Department of State.32
Furthermore, if you review the CFR membership roster from its inception until today, you'll be surprised.
The CFR membership not only compiles by the most conspicuous group of the banking, corporate and academic elite of the nation, but the most important government officials and politicians.
Since the early 30's, the vast majority of the American presidents, vice presidents and secretaries of state have been CFR members. 33
Similarly, the most influential senators, congressmen and state governors, diplomats, officials, consultants, etc. (including most of the officers and directors of the Federal Reserve) are or have been CFR members. 34
All this demonstrates the close relationship between the CFR, the corporate banking and the Federal Reserve, and its immense ascendancy over the U.S. government.
Anyone would think it should be logical that the influence of banks and their organizations on the U.S. government should have a clear conservative right trend, mainly pro-capitalist and pro-American, especially Anti-Communist. But, paradoxically, it seems to be the opposite.
The letters at the beginning of this article and others contained in the files of FFBI show that critics and opponents of the Council on Foreign Relations accuse it of being the main center for communist infiltration and U.S. enemies
Many of the publications, activities and relationships of the CFR seem to support such accusations.
For example, in the editorial of the inaugural issue of Foreign Affairs -the main publication of the CFR- in September 1922, the new president of the Council, Elihu Root, wrote a panegyric against isolationism and praising the internationalism. Karl Radek, an ideologist for the new Bolshevik regime of Russia, got very excited with this editorial and gave it to his boss, Vladimir Ilich Lenin. The grateful Radek returned the journal to the Council with Lenin's marginal notes to Radek's. Interestingly enough, the Lenin/Radek annotations came to light in a Dulles's essay assessing European economic problems.35
In the early 40's, some members of the CFR, with great influence in the administration of Roosevelt and Truman, were identified as communists and even as Soviet spies. Among these were, for example, Alger Hiss and Lauchlin Currie and Owen Lattimore.32
This led to Senator Joseph McCarthy, among many other facts, to begin his campaign against Communist penetration of the State Department.
In 1950, McCarthy made serious allegations to the State Department, at that time dominated by members of the CFR, in saying:
"The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department."36
Since its founding, prominent representatives of communism and anti-Americanism have been feted at the headquarters of the CFR as guests of honor.
Remember the words of David Rockefeller, the undisputable leader of the Council on Foreign Relations, internationalism and the international banking elite:
"For more than a century ideological extremists at either end of the political
spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents such as my encounter with
Castro to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim
we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we
are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United
States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring
with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and
economic structure--one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand
guilty, and I am proud of it."37
This charges refers to the encounter taken place at the Harold Pratt House in New York, the CFR headquarters, in celebration of 50 anniversary of the UN in 1995.38
This time, instead of the highest international figures of democracy, were honored the representatives of terrorist movements and the most anti-American totalitarian governments, inter alia, Yasser Arafat, Jiang Zemin and Fidel Castro.38
Castro, especially, as we have seen, was awarded by Rockefeller with an invitation to his family home in Westchester County. Here, David introduced him to Manhattan's social elite, representatives of the jet-set, the intelligentsia and the U.S. financial and political power. However, this is not the first nor the last time Rockefeller honored the Cuban dictator.38
This is neither new nor accidental.
Fidel Castro has been, among the leftist leaders, the one who had have the longer and deeper relationship with the Council on Foreign Relations and, above all, its leader, David Rockefeller.38
This series of articles is mainly about, as we shall see, the role played by Fidel Castro from the very beginning of his political career in the global strategy designed by the Council on Foreign Relations and in defense of the specific interests the Rockefeller clan.
NOTES:
- In <http://vault.fbi.gov/Council%20on%20Foreign%20Relations%20>; cfr1c.pdf p. 38
- In <http://vault.fbi.gov/Council%20on%20Foreign%20Relations%20>; cfr1b.pdf p. 22
- In <http://vault.fbi.gov/Council%20on%20Foreign%20Relations%20>; cfr1b.pdf p. 26
- In <http://vault.fbi.gov/Council%20on%20Foreign%20Relations%20>; cfr1b.pdf p. 35
- In <http://vault.fbi.gov/Council%20on%20Foreign%20Relations%20>; cfr1b.pdf p. 48
- In <http://vault.fbi.gov/Council%20on%20Foreign%20Relations%20>; cfr1b.pdf p. 21
- http://library.columbia.edu/indiv/lehman/guides/ttanks.html
- http://www.votesmart.org/resource_political_resources.php?category=10
- http://www.cfr.org/content/about/About_CFR_Web.pdf
- Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy by Murray N. Rothbard in http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard66.html
- The GLOBALISTS: The Power Elite Behind the Rising New World Order by Dennis L. Cuddy, Ph.D en http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/009/cuddy/1-power-elite.htm
- American Anti-Interventionist Tradition in http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=795&Itemid=259
- http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1601.html
- http://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Lusitania#cite_note-jones73-100
- Giuliani, at U.N. Opening Ceremony, Assails New Isolationist Mood in Congress en http://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/20/nyregion/giuliani-at-un-opening-ceremony-assails-new-isolationist-mood-in-congress.html
- http://www.countriesquest.com/north_america/usa/history/america_and_world_war_ii/isolationism_vs_internationalism.htm
- http://havanaschooleng.blogspot.com/2011/05/cuban-conspiracy-seven-david.html
- Federal Reserve Directors.A Study of Corporate and Banking Influence. en http://adabyron.net/FederalReserveDirectors.pdf
- Ibidem p. 120
- http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/FederalReserveSystem.html
- http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/classes/econ355/choi/bre.htm
- http://www.cfr.org/about/history/cfr/inquiry.html
- The invisible Government by Dan Smoot p. 7, http://www.munseys.com/diskfive/ingo.pdf
- The United States, The League of Nations and World Peace by House, Edward M.Vital Speeches of the Day;11/4/35, Vol. 2 Issue 3, p88
- http://www.voltairenet.org/IMG/pdf/House_Philip_Dru__Administrator.pdf; p. 28
- http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/about/
- http://www.cfr.org/about/history/cfr/appendix.html
- The Invisible Man of the New World Order:Raymond B. Fosdick(1883-1972)By Will Banyan http://www.martinfrost.ws/htmlfiles/third_section/Fosdick_2008.pdf)
- http://www.princeton.edu/~mudd/finding_aids/MC019.09/Clippings_Articles_English_1939-1967/19560901_0000034116.pdf
- http://www.cfr.org/about/new_york.html
- http://www.munseys.com/diskfive/ingo.pdf. p 8
- http://www.cfr.org/about/membership/roster.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members_of_the_Council_on_Foreign_Relations
- http://www.cfr.org/about/membership/roster.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members_of_the_Council_on_Foreign_Relations
- http://www.cfr.org/about/history/cfr/assumptions.html
- Griffith, Robert (1970). The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate. University of Massachusetts Press. pp. 49. ISBN 0-87023-555-9. cited in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy
- Quotes from David Rockefeller's Memoirs (Random House, New York, 2002) Chapter 27, pages 404 and 405. Cited by Dr. Dennis Cuddy. http://www.crossroad.to/Quotes/brainwashing/rockefeller-mind-control.htm
- http://havanaschooleng.blogspot.com/2010/10/cuban-conspiracy-two-castro-rockefeller.html
