In Chapter One of The Shadows of Power by James Perloff,  titled  “A Primer on the CFR,” we glean the following details.

 

Sir William Pitt, before the House of Lords in London in 1770, said, “There is something behind the throne greater than the king himself.” This gave birth to the phrase “power behind the throne.”

 

In 1844, Benjamin Disraeli, England’s great statesman, wrote a novel entitled Coningsby in which he wrote: “The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.”

 

Felix Frankfurter, Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, restated this in an American context: “The real rulers in Washington are invisible, and exercise power from behind the scenes.”

 

John F. Hylan, Mayor of New York, City, said in a speech on March 26, 1922: “The real menace of our republic is the invisible government which like a giant octopus, sprawls its slimy length over our city, state and nation. At the head is a small group of banking houses generally referred to as ‘international bankers.’ This little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run our government for their own selfish ends.”

 

President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote to an associate, in a letter that is recorded on pg. 373 in his book containing his personal letters, the following, “The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson…”

 

Indiana Senator William Jenner warned in a speech on February, 23, 1954: “Today the path to total dictatorship in the U.S. can be laid by strictly legal means, unseen and unheard by the Congress, the President or the people…Outwardly we have a Constitutional government. We have operating within our government and political system, another body representing another form of government, a bureaucratic elite which believes our Constitution is outmoded and is sure that it is on the winning side…All the strange developments in foreign policy agreements may be traced to this group who are going to make us over to suit their pleasure…This political group has its own local political support organizations, its own pressure groups, its own vested interests, its foothold within our government, and its own propaganda apparatus.” 

 

Perloff says that in America the term “The Establishment” as defined by the American Heritage Dictionary means “an exclusive group of powerful people who rule a government or society by means of private agreements and decisions.”

 

Columnist Edith Kermit Roosevelt, granddaughter of President Theodore Roosevelt, explained it in these words in the Indianapolis News on Dec. 23, 1961. “ ‘Establishment’ is a general term for the power elite in international finance, business, the professions and government, largely from the Northeast, who wield most of the power regardless of who is in the White House. Most people are unaware of the existence of this ‘legitimate Mafia.’ Yet the power of the Establishment makes itself felt from the professor who seeks a foundation grant, to the candidate for a cabinet post or State Department job. It affects the nation’s policies in almost every area.”

 

Perloff continues to explain: The American “Establishment” follows a clearly time worn path. It’s associated with big business and wealthy old-line families. The sons of these families follow the tradition of private schools like Groton. From these they go to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or Columbia. They enter exclusive fraternities such as Yale’s secretive Skull and Bones, which both Presidents Bush were members. Some of the brightest go on to Oxford and become Rhoades Scholars. After College, they usually find themselves on Wall Street in an international investment bank like Chase Manhattan, or a prominent law firm or brokerage house. If they are politically inclined, they may sign on with an Establishment think tank like the Brookings Institute or the Rand Corporation. As they mature they may wind up on one of the boards of the big foundations such as Rockefeller, Ford, Carnegie. Some then advance on into “public service” and even high positions in the federal government.

 

For the latter, there has been a long time requirement to be a member of the New York based Council on Foreign Relations – the CFR. Since its founding in 1921, the Council has been the Establishment’s chief link to the U.S. government. 

 

Historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. has called the Council on Foreign Relations a “front organization” for “the heart of the American Establishment.” David Halberstam, in his book, The Best and the Brightest, called it “the Establishment’s unofficial club.” Newsweek [Sept. 6, 1971]  called CFR’s leaders “the foreign-policy establishment of the U.S.”  Richard Rovere, writing in Esquire [May, 1962] saw them as “a sort of Presidium for that part of the Establishment that guides our destiny as a nation.”

 

The Council describes itself as a “nonprofit and nonpartisan membership organization dedicated to improved understanding of American foreign policy and international affairs.” It is headquartered in the Pratt House at 58 East 68th St. in New York City. They have approximately 3,000 members consisting of prominent personalities in business, government, law, and the mass media. They have at least one prominent minister, Rick Warren.  Membership is by invitation only.

                       

Besides conducting 15 to 20 study groups every year on foreign policy topics and published in a book, the Council puts out a journal called Foreign Affairs that has been called by Time magazine “the most influential periodical in print.” It also has a “Corporate Program” that indoctrinates businessmen in international matters. The Council’s annual budget is around $10 million, which is funded by foundation grants, member’s dues, contributions and publication revenue.

 

The Council holds frequent meetings and dinners, which feature a speech by a guest,   -- usually a high ranking statesman from Washington or a foreign country --

followed by a discussion time. These meetings are not recorded and are off the record. Violation of this rule is considered grounds for dismissal from the organization. The CFR explains that its code of silence is to encourage openness, but economist John Kenneth Galbraith, himself a former member, has called it “a scandal.” He asks why businessmen should be briefed by Government officials on information not available to the general public, especially since it can be financially advantageous.

 

The Council has exercised decisive impact on U.S. policy, especially foreign policy, for many decades. It is done primarily in two ways. First, by supplying personnel for upper government jobs, and secondarily by influencing U.S. foreign policy toward Globalism through propaganda.

 

Few Americans know how a President chooses his administrators. Pulitzer Prize winner Theodore White said that the Council’s “roster of members has for a generation, under Republican and Democratic administrations alike, been the chief recruiting ground for cabinet-level officials in Washington.” [The Making of the President, New York: Atheneum, 1965]. The Christian Science Monitor said “there is a constant flow of its members from private life to public service.” [Sept. 1, 1961]. They went on to say that almost half of the CFR members had been invited to assume official government positions or to act as consultants at one time or another.

 

Joseph Kraft, writing in Harpers, called the Council a “school for statesmen.” [July 1958] David Halberstam puts it even more bluntly by saying, “They walk in one door as acquisitive businessmen and come out the other door as statesmen-figures.” [The Death Rattle of the American Establishment –New York - Sept. 20, 1971].

 

 Perloff says that the historical record speaks even louder. Through early 1988, fourteen secretaries of state, fourteen treasury secretaries, eleven defense secretaries, and scores of other federal department heads have been CFR members. This doesn’t count the many Supreme Court Justices. Every Secretary of State since 1949 has been a member, and one joined after his appointment. According to the CFR itself, as of June 1987, 318 of its members were current U.S. government officials under supposedly the most conservative president that America has ever had, at least in our lifetime, Ronald Wilson Reagan.

 

According to the N.Y. Times, there are 3,605 jobs at the Federal level in Washington, D.C. Under President George HW Bush, who was a member, the CFR gladly filled 492 of those. Most of the leaders of both administrations, Republican and Democrat, over the past several decades have been supplied their leaders from the CFR -- including cabinet members such as Secretaries of States William J. Perry, Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, Secretaries of Defense Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld, National Security Directors Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Skowcroft, along with Federal Reserve Chairmen Paul Volker and Alan Greenspan. Democratic Presidential nominee John Kerry was a member.

 

The present Bush administration has much fewer at a modest 95, but they fill some of the most important offices such as Vice-President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. Many government officials are beginning to hide their association with the CFR, the Tri-lateral Commission and the Club of Rome, which are the other two like-minded groups with the same One World, globalist goals. To continue to name others would be an exercise in ad nauseaum. 

 

One of the most famous of the all time Council Converts was one President William Jefferson Clinton. He admitted that he was greatly influenced by his History professor at Georgetown University, Carroll Quigley, who authored Tragedy and Hope. In this amazingly dull book, Quigly admits that there is a conspiracy to create a One World Government and encourages the conspirators to come out openly and declare victory because it is too late for any organized opposition. He also sets forth his political model for the two-party system with these words. “The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to the doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can ‘throw the rascals out’ at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy.”

 

So even if John McCain and his bomb shell Conservative, Pro-life, easy-on-the-eyes Sarah Louise Palin pull an upset and defeat the Barack/Biden ticket in the fall elections, it really won’t make any difference. The Council on Foreign Relations will be waiting in the wings to supply their ready-made political pawns to man or woman the key places in their administration, and the goals of the one world internationalists will continue unabated.

 

As my old theology professor and editor of the Baptist Bible Tribune, the late Dr. Noel Smith always said, “Turn the Republicans and Democrats wrong side out and they both look the same.” And the Religious Right falls for it every election.

 

To receive The Trumpet Newsletter (the voice of the unregistered church movement), e-mail drgregdixon@earthlink.net