An Inside Job
Happy Friday, the 13th! I hope you're not scared or superstitious because today I'm writing you a blog about influencers. No, I'm not talking about TikTok and other social media influencers. Yes, those are scary in their way, but I'm referring to Geo-Political authority. Real influential people who have a significant impact on how the people on this planet live.
Here's a question for you. Who created the Marshall Plan and NATO after WWII? You'd be half correct if you said it was the Truman administration. However, it was a trick question. I asked who created the plan. The plans directly resulted from an anonymous article named "The Sources of Soviet Conduct" that appeared in Foreign Affairs in 1947. What the hell is the Foreign Affairs, you ask? A magazine run by the think tank, The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). The topic of today's post.
What is CFR, and why should I care? Remember when I told you the story of how the United States Congress voted to give our country's monetary control over to a company called the Federal Reserve?
Colonel" Edward M. House
The man who made that happen and the federal income tax part of your daily life created this group after WWI. Woodrow Wilson's closest adviser and long-time friend "Colonel" Edward M. House and Walter Lippmann met to assemble the strategy for the postwar world.
Let's work Together
In 1918, some of America's most wealthy and influential people met at the Hotel Majestic in Paris to create an Anglo-American organization called "The Institute of International Affairs," which would have offices in London and New York.
Meanwhile, some pushback from Britain around control and authority took place. Subsequently, House decided to make the public meetings more discreet (secret) and moved the gatherings in 1921 to New York City and called the group the "Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)."
The Who's Who
If you look up the CFR charter and learn about the think tank, you'll notice it states that the CFR is nonpartisan (not republican or democrat) and is a nonprofit organization. Above all, I do believe the group is nonpartisan. As I looked over the membership spanning the last century, many Congressmen from both sides of the aisle have influenced this group and the policies they created. Picking a side is what voters do. The CFR knows there is no side, just one focus area.
To help shape opinion among Americans, the CFR started a publication of a magazine that would be the "authoritative" source on foreign policy. Furthermore, it caught the attention of three of our country's wealthiest families. The Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation began contributing large amounts of money to the council. In 1938, they created various Committees on Foreign Relations, which later became ruled by the American Committees on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C., the Carnegie Corporation also gave a significant grant to support their work.
Take me to Your Leader
Consequently, by 1939, the council achieved much greater prominence within the government and the State Department. It established the strictly confidential War and Peace Studies, funded entirely by the Rockefeller Foundation ($7.2M). The war and peace study was headed by Allen Welsh Dulles, who later became a pivotal figure in the CIA's predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). CFR ultimately produced 682 memoranda for the State Department, marked classified. Call to mind, this was two years before the Japanese attacked the U.S. at Pearl Harbor (read my blog on that story).
Remember when I said that the CFR was nonpartisan? A critical study found that of 502 government officials surveyed from 1945 to 1972, more than half were members of the CFR. 48 During the Eisenhower administration, 40% of the top U.S. foreign policy officials were CFR members (Eisenhower himself had been a council member); under Truman, 42% of the top posts were council members. This number rose to 51% during the Kennedy administration and peaked at 57% under the Johnson administration.
The Greatest Generation
Most importantly, Dwight D. Eisenhower chaired a CFR study group while serving as President of Columbia University. Furthermore, Eisenhower gained most of his economic knowledge from the CFR members. As a result, The CFR study group devised "Americans for Eisenhower" to increase his chances for the presidency. Eisenhower would later draw many Cabinet members from CFR ranks and become a CFR member himself.
Eisenhower's primary CFR appointment was, wait for it, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles after the election win. Dulles gave a public address at the Harold Pratt House (headquarters of the CFR think tank) in New York City. He announced a new direction for Eisenhower's foreign policy: "There is no local defense which alone will contain the mighty land power of the communist world. Local defenses must be reinforced by the further deterrent of massive retaliatory power." After this speech, the council convened a "Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy" session and chose Henry Kissinger to head it. Yes, the Henry Kissinger.
Together we Stand/Divided we Fall
Go back to my blog on military spending and watch the Eisenhower video link I added. At his last presidential address, he stated to the American public, "Beware the military-industrial complex." I find it interesting the connection regarding foreign policy between Presidents and Heads of State.
In summation, the word policy (a course of action provided by a government) is not so much for peace or support but for someone or some company getting paid. Yes, follow the money; however, House understood the power of special interest and public support. He knew it so well that he convinced the American public that the FED could better manage U.S. finances than our Democratic separation of powers or checks and balance (Executive, Judicial, and Legislative branches of government).
They've Warned us Before
Finally, in 2019, the CFR was criticized for accepting a donation from Len Blavatnik, a Ukrainian-born English billionaire with close links to Vladimir Putin. Several CFR members and dozens of international affairs experts were upset over accepting a $12 million gift to fund an internship program. Fifty-five international relations scholars and Russian experts wrote a letter to the organization's board and CFR's president, Richard N. Haass.
"It is our considered view that Blavatnik uses his 'philanthropy'—funds obtained by and with the consent of the Kremlin, at the expense of the state budget and the Russian people. We regard this as another step in the longstanding effort of Mr. Blavatnik—who... has close ties to the Kremlin and its kleptocratic network—to launder his image in the West."
In the Name of Unity
Who stands to gain from unrest in the East? President Biden signed legislation on 3/15/22 after the Senate passed it by a 68-31 margin late that night. The financial assistance to Ukraine, which includes several billion dollars in humanitarian aid, garnered bipartisan support as Congress urged Biden to take more aggressive steps against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Roughly half the $13.6 billion would arm Ukraine and cover the Pentagon's costs for sending U.S. troops to other Eastern European nations that might see the war spill past their borders. Much of the rest is for humanitarian and economic assistance, strengthening regional allies' defenses, and protecting their energy supplies and cybersecurity needs.
I wonder who informed Congress to "urge" the president to spend $13.6B at a time when Congress doesn't agree on much these days. At best, a 68 - 31 margin in today's political environment is curious; some would say influential.
We Won't Get Fooled Again
I'll end this blog by looking at who is currently running the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Please take a look at the names and their current job descriptions. The more things change, the more things stay the same. Ultimately, it is up to you. Who wants you to believe their story, and why? I know that Edward M. House would know.
The Players
Members of CFR's board of directors include:
- David M. Rubenstein (Chairman) – Co-founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer, The Carlyle Group. Regent of the Smithsonian Institution, chairman of the board for Duke University, co-chair of the committee at the Brookings Institution, and president of the Economic Club of Washington.
- Blair Effron (Vice-Chairman) – Cofounder, Centerview Partners.
- Jami Miscik (Vice-Chairman) – Chief Executive Officer and Vice-Chairman, Kissinger Associates, Inc. Ms. Miscik served as the global head of sovereign risk at Lehman Brothers. She also serves as a senior advisor to Barclays Capital. Currently serves on the boards of EMC Corporation, In-Q-Tel, and the American Ditchley Foundation, and is a member of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board. Before entering the private sector, she had a twenty-year career as an intelligence officer, including a stint as the Central Intelligence Agency's Deputy Director for Intelligence (2002–2005) and as the Director for Intelligence Programs at the National Security Council (1995–1996).
- Richard N. Haass (President) – Former State Department director of policy planning and lead U.S. official on Afghanistan and Northern Ireland (2001–2003), and principal Middle East adviser to President George H.W. Bush (1989–1993).
- Thad W. Allen − Chair, National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Advisory Board, NASA.
- Nicholas F. Beim – Partner, Venrock.
- Afsaneh Mashayekhi Beschloss − Founder and Chief Executive Officer, RockCreek.
- Sylvia Mathews Burwell – President, American University. Former United States Secretary of Health and Human Services (2014–2017) under President Barack Obama.
- Ashton B. Carter – Director, Belfer Center at the Harvard Kennedy School. Former United States Secretary of Defense (2015–2017) under President Barack Obama.
