Part 3 (1/2)
”'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 partic.i.p.ating companies....
Secretary Ball [discussed] the foreign economic policy of the new Kennedy Administration.”
George W. Ball was, for several years, a registered lobbyist in Was.h.i.+ngton, 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 princ.i.p.al 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, Amba.s.sador 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 the International Monetary Fund; Abba Eban, Amba.s.sador of Israel to the United States; w.i.l.l.y Brandt, Mayor of West Berlin; 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; Sir Grantley H. Adams, Prime Minister of the West Indies Federation; 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, Amba.s.sador 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 ent.i.tled _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 a.s.sistance 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.”