The Invisible Government Part 11

In its 1957 Annual Report, the Committee for Economic Development gave details on its educational work in public schools and colleges. This work was, at that time, carried on primarily by the CED's Business-Education Committee, and by two subsidiary operations which that Committee created: the College-Community Research Centers and the Joint Council on Economic Education. From the 1957 Annual Report of the Committee for Economic Development:

"CED's efforts to promote and improve economic education in the schools are of special appeal to those who are concerned ... both with education and the progress of the free enterprise system. The Business-Education program and the numerous College-Community Research Centers it has sponsored, together with the use of CED publications as teaching materials, represent an important contribution to economic education on the college level.

"In the primary and secondary schools, the introduction of economics into teaching programs is moving forward steadily, thanks largely to the Joint Council on Economic Education which CED helped to establish and continues to support....

"The Business-Education Committee continued in 1957 its work with the College-Community Research Centers and with the Joint Council on Economic Education.

"The Joint Council's program to improve the teaching of economics in the public schools is now operating in 39 states, and the 25 college-community research centers active last year brought to more than 3000 the number of business and academic men who have worked together on economic research projects of local and regional importance....

"In its work, the committee [Business-Education Committee] is finding especially valuable the experience gained through the operation of the College-Community Research Centers. These centers are financed partly by CED, partly by the Fund for Adult Education [a Ford Foundation operation] and partly by locally-raised funds....

"The Joint Council [on Economic Education] is making excellent progress in training teachers and incorporating economics education in all grade levels of public school systems. In addition to its national service programs, the Council has developed strong local or state councils which not only help guide its work but last year raised more than $500,000 to finance local projects.

"CED helped to establish and works closely with this independent organization [Joint Council on Economic Education] which is now conducting four major types of activities.

"1. _Summer Workshops for Teachers._ These working sessions, sponsored by colleges and universities, provide three weeks training in economics and develop ways to incorporate economics into the school curriculum. Over 19,000 persons have partic.i.p.ated since the program began.

"2. _Cooperating School Program._ Twenty school systems are working with the Joint Council [on Economic Education] to demonstrate how economics can be incorporated into the present curriculum....

"3. _College Program._ Few students majoring in education now take economics courses; therefore, 20 leading inst.i.tutions are working with the Joint Council [on Economic Education] to develop better training in economics for prospective teachers....

"4. _High School-Community Projects._ The Joint Council [on Economic Education] is helping to conduct demonstration programs which show how students can use community resources to improve their economics education. For example, the Whittier, California school system conducted a six-week program to help high school seniors understand the kind of economy in which they would live and work. They joined in research studies on regional economic problems being carried on by the Southern California College-Community research center...."

The Committee for Economic Development claims that its educational work in economics is dedicated to progress of free enterprise; and many of its programs in schools and colleges are educational; but its subtle and relentless emphasis is on the governmental interventionism that is the essence of New-Dealism, Fair-Dealism, Modern-Republicanism, and New-Frontierism--the governmental interventionism prescribed long ago as the way to socialize the economy of America in preparation for integrating this nation into a worldwide socialist system.

Paul Hoffman's CED has come a long way since 1942. In 1957, the CED's College-Community Research Centers had "Projects in Progress" in 33 inst.i.tutions of higher learning:

Bates College, Boston College, Boston University, Bowdoin College, Brown University, Colby College, Dartmouth College, Emory University, Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, Iowa State College, Lewis & Clark College, McGill University, Northeastern University, Northwestern University, Occidental College, Pomona College, Reed College, Rutgers University, Southern Methodist University, Tulane University, University of Alabama, University of Arkansas, University of Iowa, University of Maine, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of North Carolina, University of Oklahoma, University of Pennsylvania, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, Utica College of Syracuse University, and Washington University.

In 1957, the following inst.i.tutions of higher learning were partic.i.p.ating in the CED's Joint Council on Economic Education "College Program" to develop training in economics for prospective teachers:

Brigham Young University, George Peabody College for Teachers, Indiana University, Montclair State Teachers College, New York University, Ohio State University, Oklahoma A & M College, Pennsylvania State University, Purdue University, Syracuse University, Teachers College of Columbia University, University of Colorado, University of Connecticut, University of Illinois, University of Iowa, University of Minnesota, University of Southern California, University of Tennessee, University of Texas, University of Washington.

In 1957, the following 20 school systems were working in the CED's Joint Council on Economic Education "Cooperating School Program," to demonstrate how economics can be incorporated in the school curriculum, beginning in the first grade:

Akron, Ohio; Albion, Illinois; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Colton, California; Dayton, Ohio; Fort Dodge, Iowa; Hartford, Connecticut; Kalamazoo, Michigan; Lexington, Alabama; Minneapolis, Minnesota; New York City, New York; Portland, Oregon; Providence, Rhode Island; Ridgewood, New Jersey; Seattle, Washington; Syracuse, New York; University City, Missouri; Webster Groves, Missouri; West Hartford, Connecticut; Whittier, California.

As indicated, the Business-Education Committee of the CED is the select group which supervises this vast "educational" effort reaching into public schools, colleges, and communities throughout the nation:

_James L. Allen_, Senior Partner of Booz, Allen & Hamilton; _Jervis J. Babb_, Chairman of the Board of Lever Brothers, Company; _Sarah G. Blanding_, President of Va.s.sar College; _W. Harold Brenton_, President of Brenton Brothers, Inc.; _James F. Brownlee_, former government official who is Chairman of the Board of the Minute Maid Corporation, and a director of many other large corporations, such as American Sugar Refining Co., Bank of Manhattan, Gillette Safety Razor, R. H. Macy Co., Pillsbury Mills, American Express; _Everett Needham Case_, President of Colgate University; _James B. Conant_, former President of Harvard and Amba.s.sador to Germany; _John T.

Connor_, President of Merck & Co.; _John S. d.i.c.key_, President of Dartmouth College; _John M. Fox_, President of Minute Maid Corporation; _Paul S. Gerot_, President of Pillsbury Mills; _Stanley Marcus_, President of Neiman-Marcus; _W. A. Patterson_, President of United Air Lines; _Morris B. Pendleton_, President of Pendleton Tool Industries; _Walter Rothschild_, Chairman of the Board of Abraham & Straus; _Thomas J. Watson, Jr._, President of International Business Machines Corporation; _J. Cameron Thomson_, Chairman of the Board of Northwest Bancorporation.

Note that three of these CED Business-Education Committee members--Conant, d.i.c.key, and Marcus--are influential members of the Council on Foreign Relations and have many connections with the big foundations financing the great CFR interlock.

In addition to the educational work which it discusses in its 1957 Annual Report, the Committee for Economic Development utilizes many other means to inject its (and the CFR's) economic philosophies into community thought-streams throughout the nation.

Here, for example, are pa.s.sages from a news story in _The Dallas Morning News_, June 30, 1953:

"Dallas businessmen and Southern Methodist University officials Monday [June 29] launched a $25,000 business research project financed through agencies of the Ford Foundation.

"Stanley Marcus of Dallas, a national trustee of Ford Foundation's Committee for Economic Development, said the project would go on two or three years under foundation funds. After that ... the City might foot the bill....

"The SMU project--along with several others like it throughout the nation--is designed to foster study in regional and local business problems, Marcus commented.

"Here's how the Dallas project will work:

"A business executive committee, composed of some of Dallas' top businessmen, will be selected. These men then will select a group of younger executives for a business executive research committee.

This will be the working group, Marcus explained....

"At SMU, several of the schools' chief officials will act as a senior faculty committee.... Acting as co-ordinator for the project will be Warren A. Law ... who soon will get his doctorate in economics from Harvard University."

The "experimental" stage of this Business Executives Research Committee lasted five years in Dallas. During that time, the researchers filed two major reports: an innocuous one in 1955 concerning traffic and transit problems in Dallas; and a most significant one in 1956, strongly urging metropolitan government for Dallas County, patterned after the metro system in Toronto, Canada.

In October, 1958, Dr. Donald K. David, then Chairman of the Committee for Economic Development and Vice Chairman of the Ford Foundation (and also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations) went to Dallas to speak to the Citizens Council, an organization composed of leading Dallas business executives, whose president that year was Stanley Marcus.

Dr. David told the business men that they should give greater support and leadership to the government's foreign aid program; and, of course, he urged vast expansion of foreign aid, particularly to "underdeveloped nations."

That was the signal and the build-up. The next month--November, 1958--the experimental Business Executives Research Committee, which the CED had formed in 1953 and which had already completed its mission with its report and recommendation on metropolitan government for Dallas, was converted into "The Dallas CED a.s.sociates."

Here is a news story about that event, taken from the November 11, 1958, _Dallas Morning News_:

"A Dallas Committee for Economic Development--the first of its kind in the nation--has been founded at Southern Methodist University.

It will give voice to Southwestern opinions--and knowledge--on economic, matters or international importance. Keystone will be an economic research center to be established soon at SMU.

"A steering group composed of Dallas and Southwestern business, industrial and educational leaders laid the groundwork for both committee and center in a weekend meeting at SMU."

The "steering group" included George McGhee and Neil Mallon.

Mr. McGhee (presently a.s.sistant Secretary of State for Policy Planning) is, and has been for many years, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Neil Mallon, then Chairman of the Board of Dresser Industries and a former official of the Foreign Policy a.s.sociation, founded the Dallas Council on World Affairs in 1951. Dresser Industries is one of the big corporations which contribute money to the Council on Foreign Relations.

In the group with Mr. McGhee and Mr. Mallon were five SMU officials, a Dallas banker, a real estate man, and Stanley Marcus, the head man in the "steering group" which set up the Dallas a.s.sociates of the Committee for Economic Development.

The first literary product of the Dallas a.s.sociates of the CED--at least, the first to come to my attention--is a most expensive-looking 14-page printed booklet ent.i.tled "The Role of Private Enterprise in the Economic Development of Underdeveloped Nations." The t.i.tle page reveals that this pamphlet is a policy statement of The Dallas a.s.sociates of CED. It is little more than a rewrite of the speech which Dr. Donald K.

David had made to the Dallas Citizens Council in November, 1958, urging business to give support and leadership to the government's foreign aid programs.