THE CUBAN CONSPIRACY (TEN) THE WIELAND'S CASE (II)

The murky origins of William Wieland a.k.a. Arturo Montenegro.

In 2001, Eric Paul Roorda wrote a thorough article entitled "McCarthyite in Camelot: The “Loss” of Cuba, Homophobia, and the Otto Otepka Scandal in the Kennedy State Department ". In it, the author complains about the unfair "witch hunt" suffered by hundreds of State Department officials on suspicion of homosexuality and/or of being Communists (1)

The article focuses on the confrontation of President John F. Kennedy and Secretary of State Dean Rusk to the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee or SISS.

In 1951, the SISS began investigating the administration of laws relating to the internal security of the U.S. and the subversive activities against it. Its creation was a direct result of the so-called McCarthyism.

Currently, McCarthyism is regarded as an irrational "witch hunt", mostly motivated by disloyalty, subversion or treason allegations based on prejudice or malice rather than evidence.

In fact, in the early 50's, many professionals, intellectuals, educators, artists and officials, among others, were innocent victims of persecution and repression engendered by prejudice, intrigue, paranoia and even vendettas in the midst of the anticommunist hysteria generated by the "Red Scare" during the Cold War.

But what is less emphasized is that the investigations stirred by McCarthyism led to the discovery of several spy networks in the depths of the U.S. government.

McCarthyism was a logical result of the intensification of the Cold War with the Soviet expansion in Eastern Europe, the first nuclear test of the USSR, the Communist revolution in China in 1949 and the Korean War.

The real problem laid in the fact that in one way or another all member organizations of the COMINTERN (the Communist Third International) were actually USSR instruments of espionage and subversion (2).

During the lengthy administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), there had been a blunt approach of the U.S. government to the USSR and the Chinese Communists of Mao Zedong under the excuse of being allies in the war against the Axis powers, i.e., Germany, Italy and Japan (3).

The American government's approach to the international Communism gave carte blanche to people from left affiliation and even to Communist party members to penetrate into American government agencies, the media, academic grounds, etc... (4)

In 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy gained the attention of the public about the dangerous influence of communists in the State Department, which negatively impacted U.S. foreign policy.

One of the most powerful arguments of McCarthy was the "loss" of China.

For McCarthy, the "loss" of China was mainly caused by the refusal of the State Department to continue helping the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek, causing its fall and the rise of the Communists led by Mao Zedong in Beijing (5).

In December 1950, in the heat of the complaints on the "loss" of China against the Department of State, the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee or SISS is created. It will be lately quite infamously known through movies and documentaries made in Hollywood, which never forgive harassment that many filmmakers suffered.

However, the SISS focused their research in government agencies and the State Department specifically.

A decade after its creation, in 1960, the SISS renewed its attacks on the State Department this time on the grounds of the "loss" of Cuba (1).

The Senate subcommittee had received allegations about the involvement of Department of State officials in the fall of the government of Fulgencio Batista and Fidel Castro's rise to power in Cuba.

The spearhead of this alleged conspiracy was William Arthur Wieland, the then director of the Office of Mexican and Caribbean Affairs from the Bureau of Latin American Affairs.

Wieland, among other things, was accused of being the main cause of the fall of Batista’s government, the rise of Fidel Castro, in addition to being a communist and also homosexual.

Roorda considers that the Wieland case was the result of blind prejudice and homophobia of McCarthyism.

In 1962, reports from the SISS research on "the loss of Cuba" and the case Wieland were leaked to the press and a media storm descended over the government of John F. Kennedy right in the midst of the Missile Crisis (6).

It is true that McCarthyism generated too many injustices and exacerbated the traditional homophobia.

However, if we look closely at the facts surrounding Wieland’s case, we see that it goes far beyond McCarthyism, witch-hunting, anti-communist hysteria, homophobia, the Antichrist, and even the person of William Wieland.

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On August 27, 1960, in Washington, a new round of meetings of the SISS began. (7)

The SISS focused this time, among other issues, in the failures of the process of security clearance in order to work in federal institutions. (8)

The trickiest case for the Senate subcommittee was the one of William Arthur Wieland, who had been nominated for a consular office in Germany without the appropriate security clearances.

Worst of all was that in the course of the investigation it was discovered that Wieland had worked for nearly 20 years, had been promoted several times and had reached influential positions in the State Department without the most basic security clearances and qualifications.

Subsequent investigations on the failures of security clearance in Wieland’s case brought to the fore the problem of the "loss" of Cuba, as well as suspicions about his possible Communist affiliation and even about his "deviant" sexuality.

Actually, nobody in the State Department or in any government agency could say for sure who actually William Wieland was and what his exact origins were. From start, he will claim that he never had a birth certificate because of a "clerical error" at birth, excuse suitable for natural-born conspirators like him. (9)

At various stages of his life, William Wieland had appeared in different circumstances and places with different names. For example, although he claims to have been named William Richard Wieland at birth, he used the name of William Arthur Wieland since he enters the State Department. In his youth, he was called Arturo Montenegro, Guillermo Montenegro and William Montenegro as well. (9)

Most of the information on Wieland's life before joining the State Department is based solely on his statements that no one has ever even tried to verify.

In the absence of a valid certificate of birth, you can only rely on Wieland's own testimony, who says he was born in New York in 1907. (9)

According to his own legend, Wieland's biological father died in 1911, when he was only four years old. After four years of mourning, his mother married a Venezuelan American named Guillermo Arturo Montenegro, from which the young William took his Spanish alias.

In the decade of 1920s, the Montenegro Wieland family moved to Havana. (9)

According to Wieland, his education elapsed between Havana and the U.S. under a questionable birth certificate on which he was named as William Montenegro (10).

In 1927, Wieland enlisted in the U.S. Cavalry and to this end he submitted a fake birth certificate in order to hide his age as he claimed. Nothing is known about his brief military career, which ended in 1928. (11)

After the death of his mother in 1930, Wieland reappears in Havana and, in his own words:

I worked for a year with the General Electric Co. there. And then I worked for a year with the Cuban Electric Co. in Havana. Then I taught Spanish and English to Americans and Cubans' … until I joined the Havana Post in late 1932. …I had only the 1 year of college (Villanueva). …I believe she (Mrs. Clara Pessino) became both owner and publisher (of the Havana Post). (12)

But as in almost all his accounts, everything about Wieland will be confusing and indefinite.

In the records of the “Communist Threat to The United States Through the Caribbean Hearings”, which investigated the participation of U.S. State Department officials in the installation of Fidel Castro in power can be read statements like the following:

It would not appear improper to classify Wieland's description of his Cuban career as "confused", perhaps, even "murky". Beginning in 1932 he was in "journalism", but this is all that can be said. In 1933 or 1934 the employees of the paper for which he has working took it over in an incident which would certainly stand out in an employee's memory. Wieland could "not remember" that incident. But his position as "journalist" he used to explain -whether truthfully otherwise- any contacts which could not be otherwise explained or denied.

For example, Mario Garcia testified that Wieland was fellow member of the ABC, a Cuban revolutionary organization. He also denied that he was the liaison officer between Sumner Welles and the ABC. He did admit to knowing the ABC leader, Martinez Saenz, but just as a journalist covering the ABC. All of which is inconclusive. It is however, germane to point out that, when asked his opinion under oath as to Wieland's testimony, State Department security officer Otto Otepka replied: I think he lied, yes, sir."

The Otepka investigation of Wieland was clearly forced on State Department by an individual of considerable influence who, as Otepka testified, made "...a specific allegation... that he had information that Mr. Wieland was a Communist who has been known..." as Guillermo o Arturo Montenegro. (13)

There were even those who accused Wieland of being a Stalinist agent trained by "Fabio" Grobart, Cuban-Polish-Jew Communist leader. However, like everything related to Wieland-Montenegro, there isn’t any clear documentation on the case.

In fact, during the SISS interrogations, Wieland not only denied that he was acquainted with Fabio Grobart but that he had ever heard of him. The problem was that Grobart was one of the best known Soviet’s intelligence agents by the U.S. State Department since the 1930's, in addition to be one of the most prominent Communist leaders in Cuba, so Wieland as director of the Bureau of the Mexican and Caribbean Affairs should have inside information on him. (14)

Apparently, the first known link of Wieland with the State Department and possibly with the Council on Foreign Relations or CFR was Benjamin Sumner Welles.

Sumner Welles is one of the most important and controversial figures in American politics. In fact, he is considered the main international strategist under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, having much of the responsibility for the design of the postwar world. (15)

Sumner Welles was a descendant of one of the most conspicuous families within the American establishment and was related to the Roosevelts.

Welles entered the diplomatic service during the First World War, quickly becoming a specialist in Latin American affairs.

Outside the Department of State Sumner Welles was part of the founding group of the Council on Foreign Relations in 1921, being one of its most distinguished members until his death en1961. (16)

As we have said in other articles of this series published in this blog, the CFR is the most important "think tank" of the U.S. and possibly the world: it gathers the group of the 4,000 most influential people of the political, financial, academic and intellectual fields in the U.S. The CFR mission has been to basically design-sometimes indirectly and others directly-, the American government's foreign policy (and thus internal). (17)

It could be said that Welles was one of the most conspicuous members of the CFR, participating in the creation of the League of Nations after the First World War, the United Nations after the second, besides being one of the designers of political map after the Second World War. (18)

In 1921, Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes appointed Welles as head of the Division of Latin American affairs. In 1924, President Coolidge sent him to Honduras as a mediator between parties that were fighting over the government. (18)

As soon as Franklin Delano Roosevelt assumed the presidency in 1933, he assigned Welles as assistant secretary for Latin American affairs. (18)

Roosevelt never could appoint Welles as Secretary of State because of the tremendous political influence of the acting secretary, Cordell Hull. However, the president regarded Welles as his main foreign policy adviser, giving him a prominence that secretary Hull resented. In this way, Hull became a sworn enemy to Welles and, finally, he has a keen involvement in Welles downfall.

At Roosevelt opening in the Oval Office, the Cuban issue became one of the most pressing concerns of his foreign policy.

The pretensions of the Cuban President Gerardo Machado of holding fraudulently the government and the devastating impact of the 1929 Great Depression on the Island, which bust the great achievements of Machado’s first government, led to a social crisis that plunged the country into anarchy.

In Washington, the intense lobbyism of Don Fernando Ortiz had called the attention of the American government on the Cuban situation. Roosevelt decided to send Welles as his special envoy given his previous mediating experience in Honduras and his knowledge of the region, in addition to his fluent Spanish.

Welles’ diplomatic demarche in Cuba was short lived but its blast will have long lasting impact until the very present moment.

It is true that Welles is the author of the repealing of the Platt Amendment to the Cuban constitution that "legitimate" the American prerogative to intervene militarily in Cuba. (19) However, the management of Welles laid the foundation for everything that happened on the island from 1933 until the present moment.

Welles arrived in Cuba on May 8, 1933 and initially promised the U.S. support to Machado. However, Welles literally acted as a governor controller, bypassing the presidential authority, which will cause a strong reaction from the Cuban president. Finally, both men will be unable to reach an agreement and, as the rope brakes by its weakest part, Welles forced Machado’s departure in June 1931. (20)

Welles tried to fill the power vacuum with the brief presidency of Carlos Manuel de Cespedes. However, this will be ousted just two months after his swearing by the "revolt of the sergeants" orchestrated by Welles himself.

According to the words of the poet Lorenzo Garcia Vega, the "revolt of the sergeants" allowed the entrance of the "mob" to the government and the Cuban army, inaugurating an era of superlative corruption at all levels of the political superstructure, dominated by violence and political gangsters. This process prepared the advent of Fidel Castro, the supreme product of political violence and corruption (21).

Welles gave Batista (the "cute mulatto" which, according to gossips, was irresistible to Roosevelt's envoy) (22) the role of "strong man" of Cuban politics during the next quarter century, which led ultimately to the rise of Fidel Castro.

Welles also will provide access to the Department of State to William Wieland, the spearhead of the plot that will allow Castro to take absolute power in Cuba.

No one really knows how Sumner Welles got to know the murky and ambiguous reporter Guillermo Montenegro Wieland. But there are dark rumors about the rapport between these two men.

Needless to say, still in the 60's, and three more decades later, in general, given the prevailing Puritanism, there was a widespread prejudice that any government official with "sexual deviations" could be subject to blackmail or seduction by enemy agents, representing therefore a high security "risk".

Although, in fairness, we must recognize that all human beings are weak and heterosexuals are so prone to blackmail or sexual seduction as homosexuals or perhaps more, as history shows.

Now, among the preferred defamations to start an intrigue against any political enemy or rival there is the accusation of communist and/or homosexual. Especially since the early 50's, there is a widespread prejudice about the sine qua non relationship between the two "conditions".

Wieland, accused of "security risk", was therefore an object of suspicion on both his ideological and sexual tendencies. For that reason, great deal of the Senate subcommittee investigations focused on the personal live of Wieland.

The SISS had received testimony that Wieland was the “fair-haired boy” of Sumner Welles in Havana, who would have helped him to get his job in the Associated Press and have been instrumental in his entrance into the State Department in 1941.

J.G. Sourwine, chief adviser to the SISS for many years, endeavored to ascertain the nature of the relations between Wieland and the ex sub-secretary of State Sumner Welles, whose homosexuality had forced him to resign in 1943:

Wieland denied from start to finish to be Welles’ "fair-haired boy" .

Mr. Sourwine: Did you have any knowledge of anyone referring to you as Sumner Welles' fair haired boy in Havana?

Mr. Wieland: No, sir.

Mr. Sourwine: It has been testified that you were known... As a Government administrator, are you aware that sexual deviation, and especially homosexuality among employees, presents a very special security problem?

Mr. Wieland: Yes, sir...

Mr. Sourwine: Have you ever had deal with this problem in any way?

Mr. Wieland: No, sir. (23)

Dominant homophobia aside, it was quite confusing that Wieland’s story on the frequency of his contacts with Welles changed significantly between the beginning and the end of his testimony.

In his first appearance before SISS, Wieland testified that he had been only "one or two" dinners in which Welles was present and that he interviewed him "once or twice." This story changed substantially when he returned to the Subcommittee. In fact, it radically changed between the beginning and end of the second day of testimony:

Senator Dodd: ... My recollection is that you said you interviewed him (Welles) once or twice with other newsmen. Do you remember that?

Mr. Wieland: No, sir. I believe I said that I saw him from time to time in his office. It might have been a couple of times a week actually...

Senator Dodd; I should tell you that there are people who say you saw him all the time, and you were a close friend; that you boasted about your friendship....

Senator Dodd: ...they have said that you knew him well... and everybody in Havana who knew Welles was very aware of it at the time.

Mr. Wieland: Sir, I did talk with Mr. Welles, on, as I said, a number of occasions as a newspaperman. He always was very friendly and considerate...

Senator Dodd: I understood you (to say)... that you had no more a casual acquaintanceship... my impression from the statements made to me under oath by others who were in Havana at the time, gives me the impression that indeed you knew him very well and that was no secret...

Mr. Wieland: There was no secret, no sir, that was quite true... (24)

In October 1933, having "stabilized" the situation on the Island, Sumner Welles returned to Washington.

According to some sources, Welles not only bequeathed the U.S. embassy in Cuba to Jefferson Caffery, who had hitherto served as U.S. Deputy Secretary of State. Welles also gave up to Caffery his "fair-haired boy” William Arthur Wieland Montenegro. (1)

Caffery was chased by the "curse" of Welles and, during his stay in Havana, was repeatedly accused of "sexual perversion". (1)

According to some sources, Caffery surrender to the apparently irresistible charms of Wieland and sustain an intense romance throughout his term as ambassador to Cuba, turning the U.S. embassy into the center of scandal at the Havana downtown of those days. (25)

In 1937, Caffery ended his mission in Cuba and returned to Washington. However, it appears that Wieland did not lose his "fair-haired boy" status.

A few months after Caffery’s departure, Wieland is expelled from the Havana Post by plagiarizing stories from the Associated Press. (26)

Sumner Welles, now exalted as U.S. Undersecretary of State and leading figure in U.S. foreign policy, brought his "fair-haired boy" as a souvenir from Havana back to Washington. (25)

Moving influences, Welles put Wieland –now only William- very close to him, as a reporter covering the State Department. Wieland began to work nothing less than at the Associated Press, which didn’t show the slightest resentment for the plagiarist past of its new acquisition. (26)

However, the star of Sumner Wells will be beset by a series of scandals that shook Washington.

Welles’ strong influence on the State Department caused the split of its officials into two factions: the Secretary of State Cordell Hull loyals and those sympathetic to the sub-Secretary Welles. Hull, though Welles’ comrade in the Council on Foreign Relations, always saw him as a political enemy

Welles was also responsible for the State Department flooding by the CFR and its strong influence in US foreign policy. This think tank began to be heavily funded primarily by the Rockefeller Foundation, and, from now on, became the center from which the U.S. foreign policy was designed. (17)

Under Welles, too, if we believe the attacks against him, entered a faction of leftist gays that promoted the rapprochement with the USSR and the Communists in general.

Allegedly, in 1940, returning from the funeral of William Bankhead, the Speaker of the House, Sumner Welles, under the influence of alcohol and barbiturates, sexually harassed several African-American waiters at the train where he traveled.

The Secretary of State Cordell Hull, either by puritanical indignation, revenge, or as part of the plot, dispatched Ambassador William Christian Bullitt, Jr., FDR's trusted person but a bitter enemy of Welles (27) to inform the President about the "facts" of the train “situation”. But Roosevelt rejected Bullitt allegations, dismissing him from office.

However, Bullitt would not relent in his efforts and, personally, began a campaign of intrigue, which harassed the political figure of Welles the rest of his life. (28)

Others say that Welles could not restrain his unbecoming behavior-indeed, the rest of his life he was involved in several scandals of the same cut-though Roosevelt himself had assigned bodyguards and FBI agents to control him. (29)

Still, Welles participated during 1942 in the Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy of the Department of State, who will take care of drawing the map of the world that would emerge after the war ended. (30)

Amid the political and media storm that pursued him, in 1941, it seems that Sumner Welles achieved entering his protégé William Wieland in the Foreign Service bypassing all established procedures and even without knowing well the background thereof.

However, the report of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee or SISS stresses that "it is interesting that Mr. Wieland had sworn two days before completing the application form for employment in the State Department."

Wieland was proposed for a job at the American Embassy in Brazil for his knowledge of Portuguese, but he lacked any qualification for the office

Wieland just sworn without filling any job application or passing neither the necessary examination nor even a background check. Two days later, he filled the form and left hurriedly to cover his new post. (31)

"For unexplained reasons, the application and entrance of Mr. Wieland into the State Department were marked by unusual haste, as if some individual or individuals were extremely anxious to secure for him an almost 100-percent advance in salary. . This haste was such that ordinary checkup precautions were ignored. On his application form filled out on June 4, 1941, there was no provision for entering his former name, William Arthur Montenegro, which name he adopted upon the remarriage of his mother after his father's death." (26)

Another thing that caught the attention of the Senate subcommittee was that the admission application’s form from the State Department that Wieland filled had the strange marking specifying that "no birth certificate is necessary." (32)

Wieland had never been able to submit a valid birth certificate, appearing at different times and places with different names and aliases.

With unusual urgency, Wieland was sent as a press attaché to the American embassy in Brazil without the minimum qualifications and a disproportionate salary, which scandalized his colleagues (33).

The report on the Internal Security of the Department of State mentioned the case of Wieland as the most outstanding in terms of violation of the admission procedures:

(Wieland) .. was appointed without any security check.(His appointment actually was effective before he even filled out any form of an application.) He falsified his job application by omission. When he later filled out an expanded personal history form, he falsified that by direct misstatement.(34)

Coincidentally, Wieland joined the Department of Latin America under the direction of Lawrence Duggan, a member as Welles of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), who later was charged of being a Soviet KGB agent (Duggan, coincidentally, "fell" from a window of a Manhattan hotel the day he was to appear to testify before a Senate investigating committee in 1948). (35)

The SISS found that "as notorious protégé of Sumner Welles, Wieland ‘won’ four promotions in nine months." (36)

Apparently, Welles had great haste to get his "fair-hairy boy" in a safe place. The attacks on his person -homophobia aside, caused largely by his unbecoming conduct, - had compromised greatly his position in the State Department and the government of President Roosevelt. This was finally compelled to accept the resignation of his chief political adviser in 1943. However, Welles, within the CFR, will remain one of the leading strategists of U.S. foreign policy until his death.

At Welles's resignation, Wieland was safe in the American Embassy in Rio de Janeiro. However, at this point, he met one of his bitterest enemies: the ambassador William Douglas Pawley.

Pawley was a pioneer of aviation in Cuba and China (founder of the Flying Tigers), global entrepreneur, diplomat in Peru and Brazil, an adviser to Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower and Nixon. He was one of the architects of U.S. covert policy, being involved in coups d’état against the governments of Guatemala and Cuba. He also was undercover CIA agent, organizer of the Cuban exiles for the Bay of Pigs invasion, a critic of President Kennedy, and friend of Clare Boothe Luce, the CIA director Allen Dulles, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, Secretary of State George C. Marshall, Senator James Eastland and several foreign dictators. Pawley was one of the most prominent names in the list of witnesses to the Senate hearings on the assassination of President Kennedy when, according to the official version, he committed suicide. (37)

Afterward, during the SISS hearings between 1960 and 62, William Pawley will be one of the main accusers of Wieland in the case of the "loss of Cuba," playing the same role he had played ten years ago during investigations into the "loss of China. "

William Pawley informed Eisenhower and the State Department about Wieland’s leftist activities. But his warnings were ignored.

Pawley himself wrote:

 The Press Attaché at our embassy was William A. Wieland, and after I had been in Rio for a few months, I came to be more and more of the opinion that Wieland was not carrying out his duties in a way which I felt to be appropriate and in the best interests of the United States. After trying to secure corrective measures and failing, I asked for his transfer. (38)

To Pawley’s surprise, Wieland was unexpectedly promoted and sent to Bogota in 1948, being recognized as one of the State Department untouchables. (38)

Shortly after beginning his diplomatic job in Bogota, the fate of William Wieland "coincided" with Fidel Castro's.

In April 1948 Castro started his long career as international agent provocateur. Then, he was involved in the assassination of the Colombian popular leader Eliezer Gaitan and cooperated actively in the instigation of the "bogotazo", one of the most important events in Colombian history. And in it, William Richard Arthur Wieland Montenegro played one of his darkest roles.

(To be continued)

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NOTES

PHOTO: William Arthur Wieland and Benjamin Sumner Welles .

1. Eric Paul Roorda, McCarthyite in Camelot: The “Loss” of Cuba, Homophobia, and the Otto Otepka Scandal in the Kennedy State Department (pages 723–754) en Diplomatic History © The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR).September 2001 Volume 31, Issue 4 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/diph.2007.31.issue-4/issuetoc

2. Leer John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander Vassiliev; Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America, Yale University Press: New Haven, CT, 2009, ISBN 978-0-300-16438-1, 548,

3 FDR and the Soviet Union; The President’s Battles over Foreign Policy by Mary E. Glantz, February 2005 Modern War Studies Cloth ISBN 978-0-7006-1365-6,

4 http://spectator.org/archives/2002/02/11/the-demolition-of-franklin-roo y http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/pearl/www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/fdr.html

5 The Institute of Pacific Relations and the Betrayal of China in http://www.dcdave.com/article5/120207.htm

6 John F. Kennedy: The President's News Conference http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=9460#ixzz1qQdUBqOf

7 In STATE DEPARTMENT SECURITY, THE CASE OF WILLIAM WIELAND, page 99 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=plaintext;size=100;id=uc1.%24b643336;page=root;seq=5;num

8. In STATE DEPARTMENT SECURITY, THE CASE OF WILLIAM WIELAND, page 99 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=plaintext;size=100;id=uc1.%24b643336;page=root;seq=5;num

9. In Milestones in William Arthur Wieland's Life. in http://www.miamiherald.com/2009/01/02/834781/milestones-in-william-arthur-wielands.html

10. Latin American Political Yearbook, Volume 5 By Robert G. Breene, Jr., Robert G. Breene page 213 http://books.google.com/books?id=67EoU5ImPqgC&dq=%22William+Arthur+Wieland%22&q=Wieland#v=snippet&q=Wieland&f=false

11. Latin American Political Yearbook, Volume 5 By Robert G. Breene, Jr., Robert G. Breene page 214 http://books.google.com/books?id=67EoU5ImPqgC&dq=%22William+Arthur+Wieland%22&q=Wieland#v=snippet&q=Wieland&f=false

12. In STATE DEPARTMENT SECURITY, THE CASE OF WILLIAM WIELAND, page 99 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=plaintext;size=100;id=uc1.%24b643336;page=root;seq=5;num

13.  Latin American political yearbook, Volume 5 By Robert G. Breene, Jr., Robert G. Breene. Latin American News Syndicate, 2004. page 215

14. In STATE DEPARTMENT SECURITY, THE CASE OF WILLIAM WIELAND, page 102 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=plaintext;size=100;id=uc1.%24b643336;page=root;seq=5;num

15 Secret Affairs: Franklin Roosevelt, Cordell Hull, and Sumner Welles by Professor Irwin Gellman Johns Hopkins University Press, Mar 1, 1995 page 341 and following

16 http://www.nndb.com/org/505/000042379/

17. See in this blog Archive THE CUBAN CONSPIRACY (EIGHT) THE COUNCIL ON FOREIG RELATIONS In http://havanaschooleng.blogspot.com/2011/09/cuban-conspiracy-eight-council-on.html

18.  Sumner Welles, Postwar Planning, and the Quest for a New World Order, 1937-1943 By Christopher D. O'Sullivan http://www.gutenberg-e.org/osc01/index.html

19. Sumner Welles in Cuba, St. Petersburg Times, March 22, 4http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=888&dat=19350322&id=_jhPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=BU4DAAAAIBAJ&pg=4443,4233079 

20 http://www.historyofcuba.com/history/machado.htm

21. In ¿Qué hacía el Arzobispo de La Habana leyendo 'Paradiso'? http://www.diariodecuba.com/cultura/11669-que-hacia-el-arzobispo-de-la-habana-leyendo-paradiso

22.  http://babalublog.com/2009/10/did-the-u-s-smuggle-zelaya-into-honduras/

23. That Infernal Little Cuban Republic: The United States and the Cuban Revolution By Lars Schoultz http://books.google.com/books?id=37LopzbPotYC&pg=PA133&lpg=PA133&dq=Sumner+Welles'+fair+haired+boy+Wieland&source=bl&ots=vrFAtRDEJz&sig=l3tW4iNw81V8WYF8wUUvJ-16QUU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=7kb8T6fxOqbp6wGa7aTNBg&sqi=2&ved=0CEoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Sumner%20Welles'%20fair%20haired%20boy%20Wieland&f=false

24. Latin American Political Yearbook, Volume 5 By Robert G. Breene, Jr., Robert G. Breene, Page 216 http://books.google.com/books?id=67EoU5ImPqgC&pg=PA215&lpg=PA215&dq=Sumner+Welles'+fair+haired+boy&source=bl&ots=K8BQ1phvOf&sig=k1G7KN3q_q4W24nB6jz551dm7_U&hl=en&sa=X&ei=aUD8T4LeOqO36wGX1fjYBg&sqi=2&ved=0CEQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Sumner%20Welles'%20fair%20haired%20boy&f=false

25. Criminal Action Against a Once Friendly People and Nation by Oswaldo F. Hernandez http://www.amigospais-guaracabuya.org/oagoh001.php

26. In STATE DEPARTMENT SECURITY, THE CASE OF WILLIAM WIELAND, page 99 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=plaintext;size=100;id=uc1.%24b643336;page=root;seq=5;num

27 http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1713154a

28. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2751/is_n52/ai_20852435/?tag=content;col1

29. http://www.reformation.org/welles-confidential-magazine.html

30The Invisible Government by Dan Smoot, P. 8 http://www.munseys.com/diskfive/ingo.pdf

31. In STATE DEPARTMENT SECURITY, THE CASE OF WILLIAM WIELAND, page 98 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=plaintext;size=100;id=uc1.%24b643336;page=root;seq=5;num=i

32. In STATE DEPARTMENT SECURITY, THE CASE OF WILLIAM WIELAND, pages 98-99 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=plaintext;size=100;id=uc1.%24b643336;page=root;seq=5;num=i

33. State Department Security: The Case of William Wieland", 1962,  page IV http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.%24b643336;page=root;view=plaintext;size=100;seq=5;num=i

34. State Department Security: The Case of William Wieland", 1962 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.%24b643336;page=root;view=plaintext;size=100;seq=5;num=i

35. Traitors and Treason By Robert W. Pelton. Ed Infinity publishing.com, PA. 2003. Page 195 http://books.google.com/books?id=AM73_etFKn0C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

36. STATE DEPARTMENT SECURITY page 100 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=plaintext;size=100;id=uc1.%24b643336;page=root;seq=5;num=i

37 MORE RUTHLESS THAN THE ENEMY: The Dark Diplomacy of Ambassador William Douglas Pawley by David Price  http://williampawley.blogspot.com/2009/12/chapter-1-sunset_12.html

38 Why the Communists are Winning as of 1976...and how they lost in 1990 by William D. Pawley & Richard R. Tryon en http://www.gratisbooks.com/pchapdet.php?chapter_id=32920

 

THE CUBAN CONSPIRACY (NINE) THE WIELAND'S CASE (I)

CANTILLO’S LIST

Around one o'clock on January the first, 1959, the engines of several DC-3, DC-4, and C-46 aircrafts thundered at the civilian sector of the Columbia military airport, West of Havana, where 'Q’ Airways were.

The scheduled flights from this airline linking Havana with the Isle of Pines, Veracruz, and various points in Florida. 1

However, on that first morning of 1959, the planes that warmed their engines at the airstrip broke the routine. Some would head for Jacksonville, Florida, and the rest would be diverted towards Dominican Republic.2

According to the memoirs of General Fulgencio Batista, the reason for those irregular flights was his hasty departure from Cuba with his family and his closest aides given the seriousness of the political and military circumstances.3

Minutes before the aircraft engines started, Batista had resigned from his position as de facto president of the Republic of Cuba. Before leaving, he handed over the power to a military junta headed by General Eulogio Cantillo, Chief of Joint Staff of the Cuban Army.2

The dispatcher of this unique flight wasn’t a ’Q’ Airways employee, as usual,  but precisely the very General Cantillo.

A week earlier, on Christmas Eve 1958, Cantillo, had flown in a helicopter to the sugar factory named “Cuba” in the east of the Island to meet his "arch" enemy, Fidel Castro, the then leader of the guerrillas who dominated a large area of the Sierra Maestra in eastern Cuba. This was the second time both enemy commanders met. The first was in September of that year when the already shaky regime of General Batista had no other choice but to recognize the belligerent group.2

The Christmas Eve meeting was the final one.

In March 1958, the U.S. had stopped all political and logistical support to Batista.

The army was demoralized and the rebels took the military and political initiative.

Castro and Cantillo negotiated a peaceful transition.

According to Castro, Cantillo promised to deliver him the government along with Batista and his highest military officers and government officials in order to bring them to the revolutionary justice. This, indeed, seems rather doubtful, given the involvement of Cantillo in all the alleged crimes of Batista’s government.

But seven days later, on the morning of Jan. 1959, Cantillo was on Columbia’s airstrip, organizing the escape of key government officers and officials of General Fulgencio Batista's government.

In the hands of Cantillo was a blacklist of those representatives of the Batista government who had been denied the entry into the United States. Those had been appointed for flights to Ciudad Trujillo. The rest would travel to Jacksonville, Florida.2

To Dominican Republic should fly the already Cuban ex-president Fulgencio Batista, part of his family, and several of his closest aides as police chief, General Pedraza, etc.

On the flight list to Jacksonville, Florida, was the eldest son of Batista, who had to board the plane under protest, separated from his family, along with the army chief, General Tabernilla, and other government officials and minions of his father " authorized "to enter to the U.S.2

Year and a half after Batista escaped from Cuba, in August 1960, in the U.S. Senate, there still were questioning who the author of the Cantillo's black list was.

On August 27, 1960, in Washington began the sessions of the Sub-Committee to investigate the administration of the internal security of the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States Senate. Its  president was Mississippi Senator James O. Eastland.4

The subcommittee's purpose was to determine if a remedial legislation was needed to fill the cracks in the internal security legislation.

One of the most difficult issues faced by the subcommittee was that of the security clearances in order to work in federal institutions as sensitive as the State Department.

The most disconcerting situation which the subcommittee faced was the case of William Arthur Wieland.

The so called Wieland’s case will be investigated recurrently and extensively from 1960 to 1982, and was used as example in subsequent Senate investigations because of its tremendous implications for the internal security of the State Department and the U.S. government in general.6

Wieland joined the State Department in 1941, and in 1957, he had reached the high position of Director of the Bureau for Mexico and the Caribbean of the Undersecretary of State for Latin America.7

The problem was that Wieland's long career in the State Department apparently had begun and had developed without the required security clearances. In addition, Wieland had never even managed to present the necessary identity documents to begin work on the Department.8

 Nobody knew for sure what his real name was because he sometimes appeared as William Arthur Wieland, others as Arturo Montenegro and others as William Montenegro.

This led to questioning sensitive foreign policy decisions in which Wieland was involved.

Wieland was regarded not only as the main responsible of the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista in Cuba, but as also the central player of the rise and consolidation of Fidel Castro in power.

The members of the subcommittee and several State Department officials who testified before the subcommittee were suspicious about Wieland as the main instigator of the suspension of arms shipments to General Batista’s  government.9

As Director of Mexican and the Caribbean affairs, Wieland was able to recommend policies toward any country of the region and influence his boss, Roy Rubottom, head of the Undersecretary of State for Latin America in the sense of its implementation. 10

In addition, Wieland, was pointed out as the mastermind of the international media manipulation that misshapen the image of Fidel Castro, who was only an unknown guerrilla leader in the Cuban mountains, in a modern day Robin Hood in the eyes of American public opinion and the world’s as well.

Apparently, Wieland had much to do with the interview of Herbert Matthews, the star reporter of the New York Times, to Fidel Castro in the Sierra Maestra and the CBS television documentary on Castro guerrillas in the mountains of eastern Cuba.11

Wieland had also managed to replace Arthur Gardner, the American ambassador who was sympathetic to the Batista government,  with Earl E. T. Smith, who will play an important role in the fall of the regime.4

Wieland also violated the most basic rules of the State Department, instructing Smith -who had no diplomatic experience nor any knowledge on Cuban affairs- to be briefed in the subject by Herbert Matthews, who was a great fan and literally the bard of Fidel Castro, rather than a specialist in the Department of State, as expected in these cases.11

Worse, it was also very suspicious that Wieland and Rubbotom were in Colombia in 1948, at the time when Fidel Castro stood out as one of the promoters of social disorder later baptized as the "bogotazo".12

Some have even suggested that Wieland was acquainted with Castro since his stays in Cuba during the decade of the 40 and had certain links with Fabio Grobart, a Soviet Comintern agent.

One of the issues in which the subcommittee spent a great deal of its time was in trying to identify the author of the blacklist on which were inscribed the officials of the regime of Batista to which they were prohibited from entering the territory of the United States in that early morning of January 1959.

When the issue of the "Black List" came up, Mr. J.G. Sourwine -who has been for many years chief counsel to a Senate subcommittee that sought to uncover subversion and communism- asked Wieland: "...And you say there was a list. Where did the list come from? Who made it up, who initiated it?" Hesitating, Wieland answered in an evasive way: "The list, I believe, was prepared by the Embassy in Havana and sent to the Department,” Mr. Sourwine asked more directly: "You had nothing to do with initiating it?" As many times before, Wieland's answer was indefinite: "I can't be precise, but I don't think so." Mr. Sourwine tried to be more precise: "You didn't ask the Embassy for a list of prominent Batistianos who might seek entry into the United States?" Mr. Wieland's answer was all but precise: "I think we did, yes, sir."  Chairman Eastland repeated upset. "Do you think 'we' did?" And Wieland, with ingenuity said: "The Department, yes, sir." Mr. Sourwlne insists: "Do you recall that you were instructed to do this?" And, Wieland sidestepped: "I recall that I worked on that list, I received that list, but I don't know whether I initiated it or someone else did." Senator Dodd exploded: "I don't understand this "we" business. Some human beings do those things?" And, with greater ingenuity, Wieland replied just: "Yes." Really angry, Senator Dodd addressed Wieland:  "Can't you help us a little more than saying "we," you are not sure, and so on? What did you do with respect to the list? Who gave you the list, who did you give it back to? Those seem to me to be simple matters." But Wieland stopped him with a bitter answer: “The list comes in from the Embassy and is received by the Department. It passed through various hands. I am not trying to dodge the issue here at all."14

For hours, the senators and the subcommittee counsel interrogated Wieland without getting the slightest clue. It was impossible to know the name of the one who ordered or suggested to make a blacklist.

Wieland hided himself behind the supposed intricate bureaucratic labyrinth of the State Department, making it impossible to know who ordered the list, who wrote it and who took the final decision.

Wieland's responses to the questions of the subcommittee only indicated that the list Cantillo was holding in the early hours of January 1959 had materialized from nowhere. This appeared to have been absorbed by the intricate bureaucracy of the Department of State, which set to work mechanically, regardless of any policy, strategy or tactics of the U.S. government's foreign relations.

In the end, no one could definitely known how the dam list, after allegedly leaving the American Embassy in Havana, arriving in Washington, circulate through all the intricacies of the bureaucracy of the State Department, was in time in the hands of General Cantillo so can he organize the stampede of the Batista regime officials, and distribute the passengers among the aircrafts that would lead them to their destination on that first morning of 1959.

What links existed between the Fidel Castro and Cantillo meetings, Wieland, and the State Department black list?

Once Cantillo said good-bye to the ex-president and his entourage at Columbia airport, he appointed himself Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, demanded the resignation of the President of the Senate and proclaimed restored the 1940 Constitution. Following its precepts, Cantillo called Carlos M. Piedra, Supreme Court judge, to whom correspond the presidential succession.2

Fidel Castro was the head of the bulk of the guerrilla forces in the mountains and the underground movement in the cities precisely because, basically, Batista had led a coup de etat and repealed the 1940 Constitution. However, upon learning Cantillo's decisions, Castro declared him a traitor and unconstitutional the Provisional Government of Piedra in his first public address by radio from Santiago de Cuba. Nevertheless, it is astonishing the way in which Fidel Castro treated Cantillo later.15

When Castro managed to catch the vast majority of military commanders, police and other officials of the government of Fulgencio Batista, most of them were sentenced to the firing squad or to very long prison terms ranging between 25 and 30 years.

General Cantillo was not only at the top of chain of command of Batista's army, from which were given the orders that executed most of the military and police officers condemned by the "revolutionary justice". He was also accused of treason by Castro himself, allegedly for not having given directly to him the power along with Batista and his main collaborators.

However, Cantillo just got 15 years in prison and, without meeting even half of his sentence, he managed to leave Cuba to the U.S. with his family in the decade of the sixties.2

It seems that Cantillo knew what awaited him when he was detained by Jose Ramon "el Gallego" Fernandez, one of the nearest collaborators of Castro, following him to prison in quite a confident fashion.16

Concerning the Wieland Case, along more than 2 years, lots of dubious facts were accumulated about him and his actions within the Department of State. Some even accused him of being an agent provocateur from the International Communism.

It is then when, contrary to all procedures and compartmentalization of the American executive, the Secretary of State Dean Rusk (prominent member of the Council on Foreign Relations or CFR, in addition to a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation) and President JF Kennedy stepped in in defense of Wieland, who was declared as a completely reliable and loyal official of the State Department. 17

This will silence the long process against Wieland, although it will leave lots of difficult questions, floating in the imponderable.

NOTES:

Photo: General Cantillo and judge Piedra  http://baracuteycubano.blogspot.com/2010/09/entrevista-de-emilio-ichikawa-al-sr.html

1. http://www.timetableimages.com/ttimages/qaw.htm
2.  Entrevista con Fulgencio Rubén Batista y Godínez. http://www.eichikawa.com/entrevistas/Fulgencio_Batista.html
3. Cuba Betrayed. Fulgencio Batista Page 136  http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=54321978
4. COMMUNIST THREAT TO THE UNITED STATES THROUGH THE CARIBBEAN HEARINGS http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/us-cuba/gardner-smith.htm
5. STATE DEPARTMENT SECURITY, THE CASE OF WILLIAM WIELAND, http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=plaintext;size=100;id=uc1.%24b643336;page=root;seq=5;num=i
6. STATE DEPARTMENT SECURITY, THE CASE OF WILLIAM WIELAND, page iii http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=plaintext;size=100;id=uc1.%24b643336;page=root;seq=5;num=i
7. STATE DEPARTMENT SECURITY, THE CASE OF WILLIAM WIELAND, Page 97 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=plaintext;size=100;id=uc1.%24b643336;page=root;seq=5;num=i
8. STATE DEPARTMENT SECURITY, THE CASE OF WILLIAM WIELAND, Page 92 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=plaintext;size=100;id=uc1.%24b643336;page=root;seq=5;num=i
9. STATE DEPARTMENT SECURITY, THE CASE OF WILLIAM WIELAND, Page 140 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=plaintext;size=100;id=uc1.%24b643336;page=root;seq=5;num=
10. STATE DEPARTMENT SECURITY, THE CASE OF WILLIAM WIELAND, Page 93 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=plaintext;size=100;id=uc1.%24b643336;page=root;seq=5;num=
11. STATE DEPARTMENT SECURITY, THE CASE OF WILLIAM WIELAND, Page 161 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=plaintext;size=100;id=uc1.%24b643336;page=root;seq=5;num=
12. STATE DEPARTMENT SECURITY, THE CASE OF WILLIAM WIELAND, Page 115 http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=plaintext;size=100;id=uc1.%24b643336;page=root;seq=5;num=
13. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1986-07-24/news/8602230391_1_communist-party-reno-house-committee
14. STATE DEPARTMENT SECURITY, THE CASE OF WILLIAM WIELAND…page 163, http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?view=plaintext;size=100;id=uc1.%24b643336;page=root;seq=5;num=i
15. DISCURSO DE FIDEL CASTRO RUZ EL 8 DE ENERO DE 1959 http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/1959/esp/f080159e.html
16. Interview with José Ramón Fernández, July 15, 1985 page  45  http://merrick.library.miami.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/chc0189/id/1768/rec/31
17. The President's News Conference October 9, 1963 http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=9460#ixzz1qQdUBqOf

THE CUBAN CONSPIRACY (EIGHT) THE COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS (CFR)

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:

1. In <http://vault.fbi.gov/Council%20on%20Foreign%20Relations%20>; cfr1c.pdf p. 38
   






2. In <http://vault.fbi.gov/Council%20on%20Foreign%20Relations%20>; cfr1b.pdf p. 22
   






3. In <http://vault.fbi.gov/Council%20on%20Foreign%20Relations%20>; cfr1b.pdf p. 26
   






4. In <http://vault.fbi.gov/Council%20on%20Foreign%20Relations%20>; cfr1b.pdf p. 35
   






5. In <http://vault.fbi.gov/Council%20on%20Foreign%20Relations%20>; cfr1b.pdf p. 48
   






6. In <http://vault.fbi.gov/Council%20on%20Foreign%20Relations%20>; cfr1b.pdf p. 21
   






7. http://library.columbia.edu/indiv/lehman/guides/ttanks.html
   






8. http://www.votesmart.org/resource_political_resources.php?category=10
   






9. http://www.cfr.org/content/about/About_CFR_Web.pdf
   






10. Wall Street, Banks, and American Foreign Policy by Murray N. Rothbard in http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard66.html
    






11. 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
    






12. American Anti-Interventionist Tradition in http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=795&Itemid=259
    






13. http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1601.html
    






14. http://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/
    






15. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Lusitania#cite_note-jones73-100
    






16. 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
    






17. http://www.countriesquest.com/north_america/usa/history/america_and_world_war_ii/isolationism_vs_internationalism.htm
    






18. http://havanaschooleng.blogspot.com/2011/05/cuban-conspiracy-seven-david.html
    






19. Federal Reserve Directors.A Study of Corporate and Banking Influence. en http://adabyron.net/FederalReserveDirectors.pdf
    






20. Ibidem p. 120
    






21. http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/FederalReserveSystem.html
    






22. http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/classes/econ355/choi/bre.htm
    






23. http://www.cfr.org/about/history/cfr/inquiry.html
    






24. The invisible Government by Dan Smoot p. 7, http://www.munseys.com/diskfive/ingo.pdf
    






25. 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
    






26. http://www.voltairenet.org/IMG/pdf/House_Philip_Dru__Administrator.pdf; p. 28
    






27. http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/about/
    






28. http://www.cfr.org/about/history/cfr/appendix.html
    






29. 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)
    






30. http://www.princeton.edu/~mudd/finding_aids/MC019.09/Clippings_Articles_English_1939-1967/19560901_0000034116.pdf
    






31. http://www.cfr.org/about/new_york.html
    






32. http://www.munseys.com/diskfive/ingo.pdf. p 8
    






33. http://www.cfr.org/about/membership/roster.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members_of_the_Council_on_Foreign_Relations
    






34. http://www.cfr.org/about/membership/roster.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members_of_the_Council_on_Foreign_Relations
    






35. http://www.cfr.org/about/history/cfr/assumptions.html
    






36. 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
    






37. 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
    






38. http://havanaschooleng.blogspot.com/2010/10/cuban-conspiracy-two-castro-rockefeller.html