(3) they wanted a permanent, ready source of war which the United States government could use, at any time, to salvage its own internationalist policies from criticism at home, by scaring the American people into "buckling down" and "tightening up" for "unity" behind our "courageous President" who is "calling the Kremlin bluff" by spending to prepare this nation for all-out war, if necessary, to "defend the interests of the free-world" in Berlin.
George F. Kennan and Philip E. Mosely and the other men a.s.sociated with them in the Council on Foreign Relations are not ignorant fools. I do not believe they are traitors who wanted to serve the interests of the Kremlin. So, in trying to a.s.sess their motives, I am left with one choice: they wanted to set Berlin up as a perpetual excuse for any kind of program which the Council on Foreign Relations might want the American government to adopt.
Long, long ago, King Henry of England told Prince Hal that the way to run a country and keep the people from being too critical of how you run it, is to busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels.
A study of President Kennedy"s July 25, 1961, speech to the nation about Berlin, together with an examination of the spending program which he recommended to Congress a few hours later, plus a review of contemporary accounts of how the stampeded Congress rushed to give the President all he asked--such a study, set against the backdrop of our refusal to do anything vigorous with regard to the communist menace in Cuba, will, I think, justify my conclusions as to the motives of men, still in power, who created the Berlin situation.
Chapter 3
FPA--WORLD AFFAIRS COUNCIL--IPR
Through many interlocking organizations, the Council on Foreign Relations "educates" the public--and brings pressures upon Congress--to support CFR policies. All organizations, in this incredible propaganda web, work in their own way toward the objective of the Council on Foreign Relations: to create a one-world socialist system and to make America a part of it. All of the organizations have federal tax-exemption as "educational" groups; and they are all financed, in part, by tax-exempt foundations, the princ.i.p.al ones being Ford, Rockefeller, and Carnegie. Most of them also have close working relations with official agencies of the United States Government.
The CFR does not have formal affiliation--and can therefore disclaim official connection with--its subsidiary propaganda agencies (except the Committees on Foreign Relations, organized by the CFR in 30 cities throughout the United States); but the real and effective interlock between all these groups can be shown not only by their common objective (one-world socialism) and a common source of income (the foundations), but also by the overlapping of personnel: directors and officials of the Council on Foreign Relations are also officials in the interlocking organizations.
The Foreign Policy a.s.sociation-World Affairs Center, 345 East 46th Street, New York 17, New York, is probably the most influential of all the agencies which can be shown as propaganda affiliates of the Council on Foreign Relations in matters concerned primarily with American foreign policy.
On April 29, 1960, the March-April Term Grand Jury of Fulton County, Georgia, handed down a Presentment concerning subversive materials in schools, which said:
"An extensive investigation has been made by the Jury into the Foreign Policy a.s.sociation of New York City and its "Great Decisions Program," which it is sponsoring in our area....
"This matter was brought to our attention by the Americanism Committee of the Waldo M. Slaton Post 140, American Legion, and several other local patriotic groups. We were informed that the Great Decisions Program was being taught in our public high schools and by various well-meaning civic and religious groups, who were not aware of the past records of the leaders of the Foreign Policy a.s.sociation, nor of the authors of the textbooks prescribed for this Great Decisions program.
"Evidence was presented to us showing that some of these leaders and authors had a long record, dating back many years, in which they either belonged to, or actively supported left-wing or subversive organizations.
"We further found that invitations to partic.i.p.ate in these "study groups" were being mailed throughout our county under the name of one of our local universities.... We learned that the prescribed booklets were available upon request in our local public libraries....
"The range of the activity by this organization has reached alarming proportions in the schools and civic groups in certain other areas in Georgia. Its spread is a matter of deep concern to this Jury and we, therefore, call upon all school officials throughout the state to be particularly alert to this insidious and subversive material. We further recommend that all textbook committee members--city, county and state--recognize the undesirable features of this material and take action to remove it from our schools.
"Finally, we urge that all Grand Juries throughout the State of Georgia give matters of this nature their serious consideration."
On June 30, 1960, the May-June Term Grand Jury of Fulton County, Georgia, handed down another Presentment, which said:
"It is our understanding that the Foreign Policy a.s.sociation"s Great Decisions program, criticized by the March-April Grand Jury, Fulton County, has been removed from the Atlanta and Fulton County schools....
"Numerous letters from all over the United States have been received by this grand jury, from individuals and a.s.sociations, commending the Presentment of the previous grand jury on the Foreign Policy a.s.sociation. Not a single letter has been received by us criticizing these presentments."
In September, 1960, the Americanism Committee of Waldo M. Slaton Post No. 140, The American Legion, 3905 Powers Ferry Road, N.W., Atlanta 5, Georgia, published a 112-page mimeographed book ent.i.tled _The Truth About the Foreign Policy a.s.sociation_ (available directly from the Post at $1.00 per copy). In the Foreword to this book, the Americanism Committee says:
"How can we account for our apathetic acceptance of the presence of this arch-murderer (Khrushchev, during his tour of the United States at Eisenhower"s invitation) in America? What has so dulled our sense of moral values that we could look on without revulsion while he was being wined and dined by our officials? How could we dismiss with indifference the shameful spectacle of these officials posing for pictures with this grinning Russian a.s.sa.s.sin--pictures which we knew he would use to prove to communism"s enslaved populations that the Americans are no longer their friends, but the friends of Khrushchev?
"There is only one explanation for this lapse from the Americanism of former days: we are being brainwashed into the belief that we can safely do business with communism--brainwashed by an interlocked group of so-called "educational" organizations offering "do-it-yourself" courses which pretend to instruct the public in the intricacies of foreign policy, but which actually mask clever propaganda operations designed to sell "co-existence" to Americans.
There are many of these propaganda outfits working to undermine Americans" faith in America, but none, in our opinion, is as slick or as smooth or as dangerous as the Foreign Policy a.s.sociation of Russian-born Vera Micheles Dean....
"This doc.u.mented handbook has been prepared in response to numerous requests for duplicates of the file which formed the basis of the case (before the Fulton County Grand Juries) against the Foreign Policy a.s.sociation. We hope that it will a.s.sist patriots everywhere in resisting the un-American propaganda of the Red China appeasers, the pro-Soviet apologists, the relativists, and other dangerous propagandists who are weakening Americans" sense of honor and their will to survive."
_The Truth About The Foreign Policy a.s.sociation_ sets out the communist front record of Vera Micheles Dean (who was Research Director of the FPA until shortly after the Legion Post made this exposure, when she resigned amidst almost-tearful words of praise and farewell on the part of FPA-WAC officials). The Legion Post booklet sets out the communist front records of various other persons connected with the FPA; it presents and a.n.a.lyzes several publications of the FPA, including materials used in the Great Decisions program; it reveals that FPA establishes respectability and public acceptance for itself by publicizing "endors.e.m.e.nts" of prominent Americans; it shows that many of the FPA"s claims of endors.e.m.e.nts are false; it shows the interlocking connections and close working relationships between the Foreign Policy a.s.sociation and other organizations, particularly the National Council of Churches; and it presents a great deal of general doc.u.mentation on FPA"s activities, operations, and connections.
The Foreign Policy a.s.sociation was organized in 1918 and incorporated under the laws of New York in 1928 (the Council on Foreign Relations was organized in 1919 and incorporated in 1921). Rockefeller and Carnegie money was responsible for both FPA and CFR becoming powerful organizations.
The late U. S. Congressman Louis T. McFadden (Pennsylvania), as early as 1934, said that the Foreign Policy a.s.sociation, working in close conjunction with a comparable British group, was formed, largely under the aegis of Felix Frankfurter and Paul Warburg, to promote a "planned"
or socialist economy in the United States, and to integrate the American system into a worldwide socialist system. Warburg and Frankfurter (early CFR members) were among the many influential persons who worked closely with Colonel Edward M. House, father of the Council on Foreign Relations.
From its early days, the Foreign Policy a.s.sociation had interlocking personnel, and worked in close co-operation with the Inst.i.tute of Pacific Relations, which was formed in 1925 as a tax-exempt educational organization, and which was financed by the great foundations--and by the same groups of businessmen and corporations which have always financed the CFR and the FPA.
The IPR played a more important role than any other American organization in shaping public opinion and influencing official American policy with regard to Asia.
For more than twenty years, the IPR influenced directly or indirectly the selection of Far Eastern scholars for important teaching posts in colleges and universities--and the selection of officials for posts concerning Asia in the State Department. The IPR publications were standard materials in most American colleges, in thirteen hundred public school systems, and in the armed forces; and millions of IPR publications were distributed to all these inst.i.tutions.
Along toward the end of World War II, there were rumblings that the powerful IPR might be a communist front, despite its respectable facade--despite the fact that a great majority of its members were Americans whose patriotism and integrity were beyond question.
In 1951, the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, under the chairmanship of the late Pat McCarran (Democrat, Nevada) began an investigation which lasted many months and became the most important, careful, and productive investigation ever conducted by a committee of Congress.
The McCarran investigation of the IPR was predicated on the a.s.sumption that United States diplomacy had never suffered a more disastrous defeat than in its failure to avert the communist conquest of China.
The communist conquest of China led to the Korean war; and the tragic mishandling of this war on the part of Washington and United Nations officialdom destroyed American prestige throughout Asia, and built Chinese communist military power into a menacing colossus.
The Senate investigation revealed that the American policy decisions which produced these disastrous consequences were made by IPR officials who were traitors, or under the influence of traitors, whose allegiance lay in Moscow.
Owen Lattimore, guiding light of the IPR during its most important years (and also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations), was termed a conscious articulate instrument of the Soviet international conspiracy.
Alger Hiss (a CFR member who was later identified as a Soviet spy) was closely tied in with the IPR during his long and influential career in government service. Hiss became a trustee of the IPR after his resignation from the State Department. The secret information which Hiss delivered to a Soviet spy ring in the 1930"s kept the Soviets apprised of American activity in the Far East.
Lauchlin Currie (also a member of the CFR) was an administrative a.s.sistant to President Roosevelt. Harry Dexter White virtually ran the Treasury Department under both Roosevelt and Truman. Both Currie and White had strong connections with the IPR; and both were Soviet spies--who not only channeled important American secrets to Soviet military intelligence, but also influenced and formulated American policies to suit the Soviets.
By the time the McCarran investigation ended, the whole nation knew that the IPR was, as the McCarran committee had characterized it, a transmission belt for Soviet propaganda in the United States.
The IPR, thoroughly discredited, had lost its power and influence; but its work was carried on, without any perceptible decline in effectiveness, by the Foreign Policy a.s.sociation.
The FPA did this job through its Councils on World Affairs, which had been set up in key cities throughout the United States.
These councils are all "anti-communist." They include among their members the business, financial, social, cultural, and educational leaders of the community. Their announced purpose is to help citizens become better informed on international affairs and foreign policy. To this end, they arrange public discussion groups, forums, seminars in connection with local schools and colleges, radio-television programs, and lecture series. They distribute a mammoth quant.i.ty of expensively produced material--to schools, civic clubs, discussion groups, and so on, at little or no cost.
The Councils bring world-renowned speakers to their community. Hence, Council events generally make headlines and get wide coverage on radio and television. The Foreign Policy a.s.sociations" Councils on World Affairs, through the parent organization, through the Council on Foreign Relations, and through a mult.i.tude of other channels, have close working relationships with the State Department.