History and the Council

CHAPTER 1

President George Washington, in his Farewell Address to the People of the United States on September 17, 1796, established a foreign policy which became traditional and a main article of faith for the American people in their dealings with the rest of the world.


Washington warned against foreign influence in the shaping of national affairs. He urged America to avoid permanent, entangling alliances with other nations, recommending a national policy of benign neutrality toward the rest of the world. Washington did not want America to build a wall around herself, or to become, in any sense, a hermit nation.


Washington’s policy permitted freer exchange of travel, commerce, ideas, and culture between Americans and other people than Americans have ever enjoyed since the policy was abandoned. The Father of our Country wanted the American government to be kept out of the wars and revolutions and political affairs of other nations.


Washington told Americans that their nation had a high destiny, which it could not fulfill if they permitted their government to become entangled in the affairs of other nations. Despite the fact of two foreign wars (Mexican War, 1846-1848; and Spanish American War, 1898) the foreign policy of Washington remained the policy of this nation, unaltered, for 121 years–until Woodrow Wilson’s war message to Congress in April, 1917.

 

Wilson himself, when campaigning for re-election in 1916, had unequivocally supported our traditional foreign policy: his one major promise to the American people was that he would keep them out of the European war.

 

Yet, even while making this promise, Wilson was yielding to a pressure he was never able to withstand: the influence of Colonel Edward M. House, Wilson’s all-powerful adviser. According to House’s own papers and the historical studies of Wilson’s ardent admirers (see, for example, Intimate Papers of Colonel House, edited by Charles Seymour, published in 1926 by Houghton Mifflin; and, The Crisis of the Old Order by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., published 1957 by Houghton Mifflin), House created Wilson’s domestic and foreign policies, selected most of Wilson’s cabinet and other major appointees, and ran Wilson’s State Department.


House had powerful connections with international bankers in New York. He was influential, for example, with great financial institutions represented by such people as Paul and Felix Warburg, Otto H. Kahn, Louis Marburg, Henry Morgenthau, Jacob and Mortimer Schiff, Herbert Lehman.


House had equally powerful connections with bankers and politicians of Europe. Bringing all of these forces to bear, House persuaded Wilson that America had an evangelistic mission to save the world for „democracy.“ The first major twentieth century tragedy for the United States resulted: Wilson’s war message to Congress and the declaration of war against Germany on April 6, 1917.


House also persuaded Wilson that the way to avoid all future wars was to create a world federation of nations. On May 27, 1916, in a speech to the League to Enforce Peace, Wilson first publicly endorsed Colonel House’s world-government idea (without, however, identifying it as originating with House).

 

In September, 1916, Wilson (at the urging of House) appointed a committee of intellectuals (the first President’s Brain Trust) to formulate peace terms and draw up a charter for world government. This committee, with House in charge, consisted of about 150 college professors, graduate students, lawyers, economists, writers, and others.
Among them were men still familiar to Americans in the 1960’s: Walter Lippmann (columnist); Norman Thomas (head of the American socialist party); Allen Dulles (former head of C.I.A.); John Foster Dulles (late Secretary of State); Christian A. Herter (former Secretary of State).


These eager young intellectuals around Wilson, under the clear eyes of crafty Colonel House, drew up their charter for world government (League of Nations Covenant) and prepared for the brave new socialist one-world to follow World War I. But things went sour at the Paris Peace Conference. They soured even more when constitutionalists
in the United States Senate found out what was being planned and made it quite plain that the Senate would not authorize United States membership in such a world federation.


Bitter with disappointment but not willing to give up, Colonel House called together in Paris, France, a group of his most dedicated young intellectuals–among them, John Foster and Allen Dulles, Christian A. Herter, and Tasker H. Bliss–and arranged a dinner meeting with a group of like-minded Englishmen at the Majestic Hotel, Paris, on May 19, 1919.


The group formally agreed to form an organization „for the study of international affairs.“


The American group came home from Paris and formed The Council on Foreign Relations, which was incorporated in 1921.


The purpose of the Council on Foreign Relations was to create (and condition the American people to accept) what House called a „positive“ foreign policy for America–to replace the traditional „negative“ foreign policy which had kept America out of the endless turmoil of old-world politics and had permitted the American people to develop their great nation in freedom and independence from the rest of the world.


The Council did not amount to a great deal until 1927, when the Rockefeller family (through the various Rockefeller Foundations and Funds) began to pour money into it. Before long, the Carnegie Foundations (and later the Ford Foundation) began to finance the Council.


In 1929, the Council (largely with Rockefeller gifts) acquired its present headquarters property: The Harold Pratt House, 58 East 68th Street, New York City.


In 1939, the Council began taking over the U.S. State Department.


Shortly after the start of World War II, in September, 1939, Hamilton Fish Armstrong and Walter H. Mallory, of the Council on Foreign Relations, visited the State Department to offer the services of the Council. It was agreed that the Council would do research and make recommendations for the State Department, without formal assignment or responsibility. The Council formed groups to work in four general fields–Security and Armaments Problems, Economic and Financial Problems, Political Problems, and Territorial Problems.


The Rockefeller Foundation agreed to finance, through grants, the operation of this plan.


In February, 1941, the Council on Foreign Relations‘ relationship with the State Department changed. The State Department created the Division of Special Research, which was divided into Economic, Security, Political, Territorial sections. Leo Pasvolsky, of the Council, was appointed Director of this Division. Within a very short time, members of the Council on Foreign Relations dominated this new Division in the State Department.

 

During 1942, the State Department set up the Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy. Secretary of State Cordell Hull was Chairman. The following members of the Council on Foreign Relations were on this Committee: Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles (Vice-Chairman), Dr. Leo Pasvolsky (Executive Officer); Hamilton Fish Armstrong, Isaiah Bowman, Benjamin V. Cohen, Norman H. Davis, and James T. Shotwell.


Other members of the Council also found positions in the State Department: Philip E. Mosely, Walter E. Sharp, and Grayson Kirk, among others.


The crowning moment of achievement for the Council came at San Francisco in 1945, when over 40 members of the United States Delegation to the organizational meeting of the United Nations (where the United Nations Charter was written) were members of the Council. 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.


By 1945, the Council on Foreign Relations, and various foundations and other organizations interlocked with it, had virtually taken over the U.S. State Department.


Some CFR members were later identified as Soviet espionage agents: for example, Alger Hiss and Lauchlin Currie. Other Council on Foreign Relations members–Owen Lattimore, for example–with powerful influence in the Roosevelt and Truman Administrations, were subsequently identified, not as actual communists or Soviet espionage agents, but as „conscious, articulate instruments of the Soviet international conspiracy.“


I do not intend to imply by these citations that the Council on Foreign Relations is, or ever was, a communist organization. Boasting among its members Presidents of the United States (Hoover, Eisenhower, and Kennedy), Secretaries of State, and many other high officials, both civilian and military, the Council can be termed, by those
who agree with its objectives, a „patriotic“ organization.


The fact, however, that communists, Soviet espionage agents, and pro-communists could work inconspicuously for many years as influential members of the Council indicates something very significant about the Council’s objectives.


The ultimate aim of the Council on Foreign Relations (however well-intentioned its prominent and powerful members may be) is the same as the ultimate aim of international communism: to create a one-world socialist system and make the United States an official part of it.


Some indication of the influence of CFR members can be found in the boasts of their best friends. Consider the remarkable case of the nomination and confirmation of Julius C. Holmes as United States Ambassador to Iran. Holmes was one of the CFR members who served as United States delegates to the United Nations founding conference at San Francisco in 1945.


Mr. Holmes has had many important jobs in the State Department since 1925; but from 1945 to 1948, he was out of government service. During that early postwar period, the United States government had approximately 390 Merchant Marine oil tankers (built and used during World War II) which had become surplus.


A law of Congress prohibited the government from selling the surplus vessels to foreign-owned or foreign-controlled companies, and prohibited any American company from purchasing them for resale to foreigners. The purpose of the law was to guarantee that oil tankers (vital in times of war) would remain under the control of the United States government.


Julius Holmes conceived the idea of making a quick profit by buying and selling some of the surplus tankers. Holmes was closely associated with Edward Stettinius, former Secretary of State, and with two of Stettinius‘ principal advisers: Joe Casey, a former U.S. Congressman; and Stanley Klein, a New York financier.


In August, 1947, this group formed a corporation (and ultimately formed others) to buy surplus oil tankers from the government. The legal and technical maneuvering which followed is complex and shady, but it has all been revealed and reported by congressional committees.


Holmes and his associates managed to buy eight oil tankers from the U.S. government and re-sell all of them to foreign interests, in violation of the intent of the law and of the surplus-disposal program. One of the eight tankers was ultimately leased to the Soviet Union and used to haul fuel oil from communist Romania to the Chinese reds during the Korean war.


By the time he returned to foreign service with the State Department in September, 1948, Holmes had made for himself an estimated profit of about one million dollars, with practically no investment of his own money, and at no financial risk.


A Senate subcommittee, which, in 1952, investigated this affair, unanimously condemned the Holmes-Casey-Klein tanker deals as „morally wrong and clearly in violation of the intent of the law,“ and as a „highly improper, if not actually illegal, get-rich-quick“ operation which was detrimental to the interests of the United States.


Holmes and his associates were criminally indicted in 1954–but the Department of Justice dismissed the indictments on a legal technicality later that same year. A few weeks after the criminal indictment against Holmes had been dismissed, President Eisenhower, in 1955, nominated Julius C. Holmes to be our Ambassador to Iran.
Enough United States Senators in 1955 expressed a decent sense of outrage about the nomination of such a man for such a post that Holmes „permitted“ his name to be withdrawn, before the Senate acted on the question of confirming his appointment.


The State Department promptly sent Holmes to Tangier with the rank of Minister; brought him back to Washington in 1956 as a Special Assistant to the Secretary of State; and sent him out as Minister and Consul General in Hong Kong and Macao in 1959.


And then, in 1961, Kennedy nominated Julius C. Holmes for the same job Eisenhower had tried to give him in 1955–Ambassador to Iran.


Arguing in favor of Holmes, Senator Prescott Bush admitted that Holmes‘ tanker deals were improper and ill-advised, but claimed that Holmes was an innocent victim of sharp operators! The „innocent“ victim made a million dollars in one year by being victimized. He has never offered to make restitution to the government. Moreover, when questioned, in April, 1961, Holmes said he still sees nothing wrong with what he did and admits he would do it again if he had the opportunity–and felt that no congressional committee would ever investigate.


All Senators, who supported Holmes in debate, hammered the point that, although Holmes may have done something shady and unsavory during the three-year period in the late 1940’s when he was out of government service, there was no evidence that he had ever misbehaved while he was in government service.


This amoral attitude seems to imply that a known chicken thief cannot be considered a threat to turkey growers, unless he has actually been caught stealing turkeys. Senate debates on the confirmation of Holmes as Ambassador to Iran are printed in the Congressional Record: pp. 6385-86, April 27, 1961; pp. 6668-69, May 3, 1961; and pp. 6982-95, May 8, 1961.


The vote was taken on May 8. After the history of Julius C. Holmes had been thoroughly exposed, the Senate confirmed Holmes‘ nomination 75 to 21, with 4 Senators taking no stand. Julius C. Holmes was sworn in as United States Ambassador to Iran on May 15, 1961.


The real reason why Holmes was nominated for an important ambassadorship by two Presidents and finally confirmed by the Senate is obvious–and was, indeed, inadvertently revealed by Senator Prescott Bush: Holmes, a Council on Foreign Relations member, is a darling of the leftwing internationalists who are determined to drag America into a socialist one-world system.


During the Senate debate about Holmes‘ nomination Senator Bush said:
„I believe that one of the most telling witnesses with whom I have ever talked regarding Mr. Holmes is Mr. Henry Wriston, formerly president of Brown University, now chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, in New York, and chairman of the American Assembly. Mr. Wriston not only holds these distinguished offices, but he has also made a special study of the State Department and the career service in the State Department.


„He is credited with having ‚Wristonized‘ the Foreign Service of the United States. He told me a few years ago … [that] ‚Julius Holmes is the ablest man in the Foreign Service Corps of the United States.'“ Dr. Wriston was (in 1961) President (not Chairman, as Senator Bush called him) of the Council on Foreign Relations. But Senator Bush was not exaggerating or erring when he said that the State Department has been Wristonized–if we acknowledge that the State Department has been converted into an agency of Dr. Wriston’s Council on Foreign Relations. Indeed, the Senator could have said that the United States government has been Wristonized.


Here, for example, are some of the members of the Council on Foreign Relations who, in 1961, held positions in the United States Government:

John F. Kennedy, President; Dean Rusk, Secretary of State; Douglas Dillon, Secretary of the Treasury; Adlai Stevenson, United Nations Ambassador; Allen W. Dulles, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency; Chester Bowles, Under Secretary of State; W. Averell Harriman, Ambassador-at-large; John J. McCloy, Disarmament Administrator; General Lyman L. Lemnitzer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; John Kenneth Galbraith, Ambassador to India; Edward R. Murrow, Head of United States Information Agency; G. Frederick Reinhardt, Ambassador to Italy; David K. E. Bruce, Ambassador to United Kingdom; Livingston T. Merchant, Ambassador to Canada; Lt. Gen. James M. Gavin, Ambassador to France; George F. Kennan, Ambassador to Yugoslavia; Julius C. Holmes, Ambassador to Iran; Arthur H. Dean, head of the United States Delegation to Geneva Disarmament Conference; Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Special White House Assistant; Edwin O. Reischauer, Ambassador to Japan; Thomas K. Finletter, Ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development; George C. McGhee, Assistant Secretary of State for Policy Planning;
Henry R. Labouisse, Director of International Cooperation Administration; George W. Ball, Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs; McGeorge Bundy, Special Assistant for National Security; Paul H. Nitze, Assistant Secretary of Defense; Adolf A. Berle, Chairman, Inter-Departmental Committee on Latin America; Charles E. Bohlen, Assistant Secretary of State.


The names listed do not, by any means, constitute a complete roster of all Council members who are in the Congress or hold important positions in the Administration. In the 1960-61 Annual Report of the Council on Foreign Relations, there is an item of information which reveals a great deal about the close relationship between the Council and the executive branch of the federal government.


On Page 37, The Report explains why there had been an unusually large recent increase in the number of non-resident members (CFR members who do not reside within 50 miles of New York City Hall):


„The rather large increase in the non-resident academic category is largely explained by the fact that manyacademic members have left New York to join the new administration.“

 

Concerning President Kennedy’s membership in the CFR, there is an interesting story. On June 7, 1960, Mr. Kennedy, then a United States Senator, wrote a letter answering a question about his membership in the Council. Mr. Kennedy said:
„I am a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City. As a long-time subscriber to the quarterly, Foreign Affairs, and as a member of the Senate, I was invited to become a member.“


On August 23, 1961, Mr. George S. Franklin, Jr., Executive Director of the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote a letter answering a question about President Kennedy’s membership. Mr. Franklin said:
„I am enclosing the latest Annual Report of the Council with a list of members in the back. You will note that President Eisenhower is a member, but this is not true of either President Kennedy or President Truman.“ President Kennedy is not listed as a member in the 1960-61 Annual Report of the CFR.


The complete roster of CFR members, as set out in the 1960-61 Annual Report, is in Appendix I of this volume. Several persons, besides President Kennedy, whom I have called CFR members are not on this roster. I have called them CFR members, if their names have ever appeared on any official CFR membership list.


The Council is actually a small organization. Its membership is restricted to 700 resident members (American citizens whose residences or places of business are within 50 miles of City Hall in New York City), and 700 non-resident members (American citizens who reside or do business outside that 50-mile radius); but most of the members occupy important positions in government, in education, in the press, in the broadcasting industry, in business, in finance, or in some multi-million-dollar tax-exempt foundation.


An indication of overall accomplishments of the Council can be found in its Annual Report of 1958-59, which reprints a speech by Walter H. Mallory on the occasion of his retiring after 32 years as Executive Director of the Council. Speaking to the Board of Directors of the Council at a small dinner in his honor on May 21, 1959, Mr. Mallory said: „When I cast my mind back to 1927, the year that I first joined the Council, it seems little short of a miracle that the organization could have taken root in those days. You will remember that the United States had decided not to join the League of Nations…. On the domestic front, the budget was extremely small, taxes were light … and we didn’t even recognize the Russians. What could there possibly be for a Council on Foreign
Relations to do?  „Well, there were a few men who did not feel content with that comfortable isolationist climate. They thought the United States had an important role to play in the world and they resolved to try to find out what that role ought to be. Some of those men are present this evening.“


The Council’s principal publication is a quarterly magazine, Foreign Affairs. Indeed, publishing this quarterly is the Council’s major activity; and income from the publication is a principal source of revenue for the Council.


On June 30, 1961, Foreign Affairs had a circulation of only 43,500; but it is probably the most influential publication in the world. Key figures in government–from the Secretary of State downward–write articles for, and announce new policies in, Foreign Affairs.


Other publications of the Council include three volumes which it publishes annually (Political Handbook of the World, The United States in World Affairs and Documents on American Foreign Relations), and numerous special studies and books.


The Council’s financial statement for the 1960-61 fiscal year listed the following income:

  • Membership Dues $123,200
  • Council Development Fund $ 87,000
  • Committees Development Fund $ 2,500
  • Corporation Service $112,200
  • Foundation Grants $231,700
  • Net Income from Investments $106,700
  • Net Receipt from Sale of Books $ 26,700
  • Foreign Affairs Subscriptions and Sales $210,300
  • Foreign Affairs Advertising $ 21,800
  • Miscellaneous $ 2,900–-–-–-
  • Total $925,000

„Corporation Service“ on this list means money contributed to the Council by business firms. Here are firms listed as contributors to the Council during the 1960-61 fiscal year:

 

Aluminum Limited, Inc.
American Can Company
American Metal Climax, Inc.
American Telephone and Telegraph Company
Arabian American Oil Company
Armco International Corporation
Asiatic Petroleum Corporation
Bankers Trust Company
Belgian Securities Corporation
Bethlehem Steel Company, Inc.
Brown Brothers, Harriman and Co.
Cabot Corporation
California Texas Oil Corp.
Cameron Iron Works, Inc.
Campbell Soup Company
The Chase Manhattan Bank
Chesebrough-Pond’s Inc.
Chicago Bridge and Iron Co.
Cities Service Company, Inc.
Connecticut General Life Insurance Company
Continental Can Company
Continental Oil Company
Corn Products Company
Corning Glass Works
Dresser Industries, Inc.Ethyl Corporation
I. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., Inc.
Farrell Lines, Inc.
The First National City Bank of New York
Ford Motor Company, International Division
Foster Wheeler Corporation
Freeport Sulphur Company
General Dynamics Corporation
General Motors Overseas Operations
The Gillette Company
W. R. Grace and Co.
Gulf Oil Corporation
Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Company
Haskins and Sells
H. J. Heinz Company
Hughes Tool Company
IBM World Trade Corporation
International General Electric Company
The International Nickel Company, Inc.
International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation
Irving Trust Company
The M. W. Kellogg Company
Kidder, Peabody and Co.
Carl M. Loeb, Rhoades and Co.
The Lummus Company
Merck and Company, Inc.
Mobil International Oil Co.
Model, Roland and Stone
The National Cash Register Co.
National Lead Company, Inc.
The New York Times
The Ohio Oil Co., Inc.
Olin Mathieson Chemical Corporation
Otis Elevator CompanyOwens-Corning Fiberglas Corporation
Pan American Airways System
Pfizer International, Inc.
Radio Corporation of America
The RAND Corporation
San Jacinto Petroleum Corporation
J. Henry Schroder Banking Corporation
Sinclair Oil Corporation
The Singer Manufacturing Company
Sprague Electric Company
Standard Oil Company of California
Standard Oil Company (N. J.)
Standard-Vacuum Oil Company
Stauffer Chemical Company
Symington Wayne Corporation
Texaco, Inc.
Texas Gulf Sulphur Company
Texas Instruments, Inc.
Tidewater Oil Company
Time, Inc.
Union Tank Car Company
United States Lines Company
United States Steel Corporation
White, Weld and Co.
Wyandotte Chemicals Corporation


What do these corporations get for the money contributed to the Council on Foreign Relations?


From the 1960-61 Annual Report of the Council:
„Subscribers to the Council’s Corporation Service (who pay a minimum fee of $1,000) are entitled to several privileges. Among them are

  • (a) free consultation with members of the Council’s staff on problems of foreign policy,
  • (b) access to the Council’s specialized library oninternational affairs, including its unique collection of magazine and press clippings,
  • (c) copies of all Council publications and six subscriptions to Foreign Affairs for officers of the company or its library,
  • (d) an off-the-record dinner, held annually for chairmen and presidents of subscribing companies at which a prominent speaker discusses some outstanding issue of United States foreign policy, and
  • (e) two annual series of Seminars for business executives appointed by their companies. These Seminars are led by widely experienced Americans who discuss various problems of American political or economic foreign policy.“

All speakers at the Council’s dinner meetings and seminars for business executives are leading advocates of internationalism and the total state. Many of them, in fact, are important officials in government. The ego-appeal is enormous to businessmen, who get special off-the-record briefings from Cabinet officers and other officials close to the President of the United States.


The briefings and the seminar lectures are consistently designed to elicit the support of businessmen for major features of Administration policy. For example, during 1960 and 1961, the three issues of major importance to both Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy were Disarmament, the declining value of the American dollar, and the tariff-and-trade problem. The Eisenhower and Kennedy positions on these three issues were virtually identical; and the solutions they urged meshed with the internationalist program of pushing America into a one-world socialist system.


The business executives who attended CFR briefings and seminars in the 1960-61 fiscal year received expert indoctrination in the internationalist position on the three major issues of that year. From „Seminars For Business Executives,“ Pages 43-44 of the 1960-61 Annual Report of the Council on Foreign Relations:
„The Fall 1960 Seminar … was brought to a close with an appraisal of disarmament negotiations, past and present, by Edmund A. Gullion, then Acting Deputy Director, United States Disarmament Administration….
„‚The International Position of the Dollar‘ was the theme of the Spring 1961 Seminar series. Robert Triffin, Professor of Economics at Yale University, spoke on the present balance of payments situation at the opening session. At the second meeting, William Diebold, Jr., Director of Economic Studies at the Council, addressed the group on United States foreign trade policy. The third meeting dealt with foreign investment and the
balance of payments. August Maffry, Vice President of the Irving Trust Company, was discussion leader…. „On June 8, George W. Ball, Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs, spoke at the annual Corporation Service dinner for presidents and board chairmen of participating companies…. Secretary Ball [discussed] the foreign economic policy of the new Kennedy Administration.“ George W. Ball was, for several years, a registered lobbyist in Washington, representing foreign commercial interests. He is a chief architect of President Kennedy’s 1962 tariff-and-trade proposals–which would internationalize American trade and commerce, as a prelude to amalgamating our economy with that of other nations.


In 1960-61, 84 leading corporations contributed 112,200 tax-exempt dollars to the Council on Foreign Relations for the privilege of having their chief officers exposed to the propaganda of international socialism. A principal activity of the Council is its meetings, according to the 1958-1959 annual report:
„During 1958-59, the Council’s program of meetings continued to place emphasis on small, roundtable meetings…. Of the 99 meetings held during the year, 58 were roundtables…. The balance of the meetings program was made up of the more traditional large afternoon or dinner sessions for larger groups of Council members. In the course of the year, the Council convened such meetings for Premier Castro; First
Deputy Premier Mikoyan; Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold….“


The Council’s annual report lists all of the meetings and „distinguished“ speakers for which it convened the meetings. It is an amazing list. Although the Council has tax-exemption as an organization to study international affairs and, presumably, to help the public arrive at a better understanding of United States foreign policy, not one
speaker for any Council meeting represented traditional U.S. policy. Every one was a known advocate of leftwing internationalism. A surprising number of them were known communists or communist sympathizers or admitted socialists.

  • Kwame Nkrumah, Prime Minister of Ghana, who is widely believed to be a communist; who is admittedly socialist; and who aligned his nation with the Soviets–spoke to the Council on „Free Africa,“ with W. Averell Harriman presiding.
  • Mahmoud Fawzi, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the United Arab Republic, a socialist whose hatred of the United States is rather well known, spoke to the Council on „Middle East.“
  • Herbert L. Matthews, a member of the editorial board of The New York Times (whose articles on Castro as the Robin Hood of Cuba built that communist hoodlum a worldwide reputation and helped him conquer Cuba) spoke to the Council twice, once on „A Political Appraisal of Latin American Affairs,“ and once on „The Castro Regime.“
  • M. C. Chagla, Ambassador of India to the United States, a socialist, spoke to the Council on „Indian Foreign Policy.“
  • Anastas I. Mikoyan, First Deputy Premier, USSR, spoke to the Council on „Issues in Soviet-American Relations,“ with John J. McCloy (later Kennedy’s Disarmament Administrator) presiding.
  • Fidel Castro spoke to the Council on „Cuba and the United States.“


Here are some other well-known socialists who spoke to the Council on Foreign Relations during the 1958-59 year:

  • Dag Hammarskjold, Secretary-General of the United Nations;
  • Per Jacobsson, Managing Director of theInternational Monetary Fund;
  • Abba Eban, Ambassador of Israel to the United States;
  • Willy Brandt, Mayor of WestBerlin;
  • Stanley de Zoysa, Minister of Finance of Ceylon;
  • Mortarji Desai, Minister of Finance of India;
  • Victor Urquidi, President of Mexican Economic Society;
  • Fritz Erler, Co-Chairman of the Socialist Group in the German Bundestag;
  • Tom Mboya, Member of the Kenya Legislative Council;
  • SirGrantley H. Adams, Prime Minister of the West IndiesFederation;
  • Theodore Kollek, Director-General of the Office of the Prime Minister of Israel;
  • Dr. Gikomyo W. Kiano, member of the Kenya Legislative Council.

Officials of communist governments, in addition to those already listed, who spoke to the Council that year, included

  • Oscar Lange, Vice-President of the State Council of the Polish People’s Republic; and
  • Marko Nikezic, Ambassador of Yugoslavia to the United States.

Throughout this book, I show the close inter-locking connection between the Council on Foreign Relations and many other organizations. The only organizations formally affiliated with the Council, however, are the Committees on Foreign Relations, which the Council created, which it controls, and which exist in 30 cities: Albuquerque, Atlanta, Birmingham, Boise, Boston, Casper, Charlottesville, Denver, Des Moines, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Little Rock, Los Angeles, Louisville, Nashville, Omaha, Philadelphia, Portland (Maine), Portland (Oregon), Providence, St. Louis, St. Paul-Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Seattle, Tucson, Tulsa, Wichita, Worcester.


A booklet entitled Committees on Foreign Relations: Directory of Members, January, 1961, published by the Council on Foreign Relations, contains a roster of members of all the Committees on Foreign Relations, except the one at Casper, Wyoming, which was not organized until later in 1961. The booklet also gives a brief history of the Committees:
„In 1938, with the financial assistance of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Council began to organize affiliated discussion groups in a few American cities….
„Each Committee is composed of forty or more men who are leaders in the professions and occupations of their area–representatives of business, the law, universities and schools, the press, and so on. About once a month, from October through May, members come together for dinner and an evening of discussion with a guest speaker of special competence….Since the beginning in 1938, the Carnegie Corporation of New York has continued to make annual grants in support of the Committee program.“


The following information about the Committees on Foreign Relations is from the 1960-61 Annual Report of the Council on Foreign Relations: „During the past season the Foreign Relations Committees carried on their customary programs of private dinner meetings. In all, 206 meetings were held….“The Council arranged or figured in the arrangement of about three-quarters of the meetings held, the other sessions being undertaken upon the initiative of the Committees. Attendance at the discussions averaged 28 persons, slightly more than in previous years and about the maximum number for good discussion. There was little change in membership–the total being just under 1800. It will be recalled that this membership consists of men who are leaders in the various professions and occupations…. „On June 2 and 3, the 23rd annual conference of Committee representatives was held at the Harold Pratt House. Mounting pressures throughout the year … made it advisable to plan a conference program that would facilitate re-examination of the strategic uses of the United Nations for American Policy in the years ahead. Accordingly, the conference theme was designated as United States Policy and the United Nations. Emphasis was upon re-appraisal of the United
States national interest in the United Nations–and the cost of sustaining that interest….
„In the course of the year, officers and members of the Council and of the staff visited most of the Committees for the purpose of leading discussions at meetings, supervising Committee procedures and seeking the strengthening of Committee relations with the Council.“

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