The Invisible Government Part 20

On August 27, an a.s.sociated Press release announced that House Leader John W. McCormack (Democrat, Ma.s.sachusetts), was attempting to enlist the cooperation of 2,400 city mayors in support of a long-range foreign aid bill to meet the President's demands.

McCormack sent the city officials a statement of his views with a cover letter suggesting that the matter be brought to "the attention of citizens of your community through publication in your local newspaper,"

and, further, urging their "personal endors.e.m.e.nt of this bipartisan program through the medium of your local press...."

State Department officials scheduled speaking tours throughout the land, and CFR affiliated organizations (like the Councils on World Affairs) started the build-up to provide audiences--all in the interest of "briefing" the American people on the necessity and beauties of foreign aid.

Anyone with sense had to wonder how the giving of American tax money to communist governments in Europe and to socialist governments all over the earth could help us resist communism in Berlin. But with the top leaders in our society (from the President downward to officials in the National Council of Churches) telling us that the survival of our nation depended on the President's getting all the foreign aid "authorization"

he wanted--most Americans remained silent, feeling that such consequential and complicated matters should be left in the hands of our chosen leaders.

By the end of August, the Foreign a.s.sistance Act of 1961 had been pa.s.sed by both houses of Congress; and the Berlin crisis moved from front page lead articles in the nation's newspapers to less important columns.

Thus, in 1961, as always, the foreign aid bill was a special project of our invisible government, the Council on Foreign Relations. And, in 1961, as always, the great, tax-supported propaganda machine used a fear psychology to bludgeon the people into silence and the Congress into obedience.

President Kennedy signed the Act as Public Law 87-195 on September 4, 1961.

Public Law 87-195 authorized $10,253,500,000 (10 billion, 253 million, 500 thousand) in foreign aid: $3,066,500,000 appropriated for the 1962 fiscal year, and $7,187,000,000 Treasury borrowing authorized for the next five years. The law does require the President to obtain annual appropriations for the Treasury borrowing, but permits him to make commitments to lend the money to foreign countries, _before_ he obtains appropriations from Congress.

It was widely reported in the press that Congress had denied the President the long-term borrowing authority he had requested; but the President himself was satisfied. He knew that by promising loans to foreign governments (that is, "committing" the funds in advance of congressional appropriation) he would thus force Congress (in the interest of showing "national unity" and of not "repudiating" our President) to appropriate whatever he promised.

On August 29, the President said:

"The compromise ... is wholly satisfactory. It gives the United States Government authority to make commitments for long-term development programs with reasonable a.s.surance that these commitments will be met."

Former Vice President Richard M. Nixon (a member of the CFR) was happy about the 1961 foreign aid bill. On August 29, Nixon, on the ABC radio network, said that he favored such "long-range foreign aid planning, financed through multi-year authorizations and annual appropriations."

Nelson A. Rockefeller, Republican Governor of New York, announced that he too favored "long-range foreign aid planning, financed through multi-year authorizations and annual appropriations"--exactly like Nixon.

Former President Eisenhower was also happy. He, too, said he favored this sort of thing.

Senator J. William Fulbright (Democrat, Arkansas) was almost jubilant: he said Congress for the next five years would be under "strong obligation" to put up the money for whatever the President promises to foreign governments.

All in all, it is improbable that Congress ever pa.s.sed another bill more destructive of American const.i.tutional principles; more harmful to our nation politically, economically, morally, and militarily; and more helpful to communism-socialism all over the earth--than the Foreign a.s.sistance Act of 1961, which was, from beginning to end, a product of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Our foreign aid does grievous harm to the American people by burdening them with excessive taxation, thus making it difficult for them to expand their own economy. This gives government pretext for intervening with more taxation and controls for domestic subsidies.

Furthermore, the money that government takes away from us for foreign aid is used to subsidize our political enemies and economic compet.i.tors abroad. Note, for example, the large quant.i.ties of agricultural goods which we give every year to communist satellite nations, thus enabling communist governments to control the hungry people of those nations.

Note that while we are giving away our agricultural surpluses to communist and socialist nations, we, under the 1961 foreign aid bill (as under previous ones), are subsidizing agricultural production in the underdeveloped countries.

The 1961 foreign aid bill prohibited direct aid to Cuba, but authorized contributions to United Nations agencies, which were giving aid to Cuba.

At a time when the American economy was suffering from the flight of American industry to foreign lands, the 1961 foreign aid bill offered subsidies and investment guarantees to American firms moving abroad.

Our foreign aid enriches and strengthens political leaders and ruling oligarchies (which are often corrupt) in underdeveloped lands; and it does infinite harm to the people of those lands, when it inflates their economy and foists upon them an artificially-produced industrialism which they are not prepared to sustain or even understand.

The basic argument for foreign aid is that by helping the underdeveloped nations develop, we will keep them from falling under the dictatorship of communism. The argument is false and unsound, historically, politically, economically, and morally.

The communists have never subjugated a nation by winning the loyalties of the oppressed and downtrodden. The communists first win the support of liberal-intellectuals, and then use them to subvert and pervert all established mores and ideals and social and political arrangements.

Our foreign aid does not finance freedom in foreign lands; it finances socialism; and a world socialist system is what communists are trying to establish. As early as 1921, Joseph Stalin said that the advanced western nations must give economic aid to other nations in order to socialize their economies and prepare them for integration in the communist's world socialist system.

Socializing the economies of all nations so that all can be merged into a one-world system was the objective of Colonel Edward M. House, who founded the Council on Foreign Relations, and has been the objective of the Council, and of all its a.s.sociated organizations, from the beginning.

Chapter 9

MORE OF THE INTERLOCK

It is impossible in this volume to discuss all organizations interlocked with the Council on Foreign Relations. In previous chapters, I have discussed some of the most powerful agencies in the interlock. In this chapter, I present brief discussions of a few organizations which make significant contributions to the over-all program of the Council.

INSt.i.tUTE FOR AMERICAN STRATEGY

There are some men in the Council on Foreign Relations who condemn the _consequences_ of the CFR's policies--but who never mention the CFR as responsible for those policies, and who never really suggest any change in the policies.

Frank R. Barnett is such a man. Mr. Barnett, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, is research director for the Richardson Foundation and also program director for the Inst.i.tute for American Strategy, which is largely financed by the Richardson Foundation. The Inst.i.tute for American Strategy holds two-day regional "Strategy Seminars" in cities throughout the United States. Partic.i.p.ants in the seminars are carefully selected civic and community leaders. The announced official purpose of the seminars is:

"...to inform influential private American citizens of the danger which confronts the United States in the realm of world politics.

They have been conceived as a means for arousing an informed and articulate patriotism which can provide the basis for the sustained and intensive effort which alone can counter the skillful propaganda and ruthless conquest so successfully practiced by the Soviet Union and her allies and satellites."

Mr. Barnett is generally one of the featured speakers at these seminars.

He speaks effectively, arousing his audience to an awareness of the Soviets as an ugly menace to freedom and decency in the world. He makes his audience squirm with anxiety about how America is losing the cold war on all fronts, and makes them burn with desire to reverse this trend. But when it comes to suggesting what can be done about the terrible situation, Mr. Barnett seems only to recommend that more and more people listen to more and more speakers like him in order to become angrier at the Soviets and more disturbed about American losses--so that we can continue the same policies we have, but do a better job with them.

Mr. Barnett never criticizes the basic internationalist policy of entwining the affairs of America with those of other nations, because Mr. Barnett, like all other internationalists, takes it for granted that America can no longer defend herself, without "allies," whom we must buy with foreign aid. He does imply that our present network of permanent, entangling alliances is not working well; but he never hints that we should abandon this disastrous policy and return to the traditional American policy of benign neutrality and no-permanent-involvement, which offers the only possible hope for our peace and security. Rather, Mr.

Barnett would just like us to conduct our internationalist policy in such a way as to avoid the disaster which our internationalist policy is building for us.

Mr. Barnett's recommendations on how to fight communism on the domestic front also trail off, generally, into contradictions and confusion. For example, in his speech to the "Strategy Seminar" arranged by the Inst.i.tute for American Strategy and sponsored by the Fulton County Medical Society in Atlanta, Georgia, June, 1961, Mr. Barnett urged all citizens to inform themselves about the communist threat and become educated on its aims so that they will be capable of combatting communist propaganda. But, Mr. Barnett said, citizens are "silly" who concern themselves with trying to find communists and fellow-travelers in the PTA!

In a speech to reserve officers at the War College in July, 1961, Mr.

Barnett denounced "crackpots" who hunt "pinkos" in local colleges. He said the theory that internal subversion is the chief danger to the United States is fallacious--and is harmful, because it has great popular appeal. Belief in this theory, Mr. Barnett said, makes people mistakenly feel that they "don't have to think about ... strengthening NATO, or improving foreign aid management, or volunteering for the Peace Corps, or anything else that might require sacrifice."

Mr. Barnett, who speaks persuasively as an expert on fighting communism, apparently does not know that the real work of the communist conspiracy is not performed by the shabby people who staff the official apparatus of the communist party, but is done by well-intentioned people (in the PTA and similar organizations) who have been brainwashed with communist ideas. Communists (whom Mr. Barnett hates and fears) did not do the tremendous job of causing the United States to abandon her traditional policies of freedom and independence for the internationalist policies which are dragging us into one-world socialism. The most distinguished and respected Americans of our time, in the Council on Foreign Relations (of which Mr. Barnett is a member) did this job.

It is interesting to note that the princ.i.p.al book offered for sale and recommended for reading at Mr. Barnett's, "Strategy Seminars" is _American Strategy For The Nuclear Age_. The first chapter in the book, ent.i.tled "Basic Aims of United States Foreign Policy," is a reprint of a Council on Foreign Relations report, compiled by a CFR meeting in 1959, attended by such well-known internationalist "liberals" as Frank Altschul, Hamilton Fish Armstrong, Adolf A. Berle, Jr., Robert Blum, Robert R. Bowie, John Cowles, Arthur H. Dean, Thomas K. Finletter, William C. Foster, W. Averell Harriman, Philip C. Jessup, Joseph E.