Chapter 11

COMMUNICATIONS MEDIA

In nine chapters of this Volume, I have managed to discuss only a few of the most powerful organizations interlocked with the Council on Foreign Relations, to form an amazing web which is the invisible government of the United States. There are scores of such organizations.

I have managed to name, relatively, only a few of the influential individuals who are members of the Council on Foreign Relations, or of affiliated agencies, and who also occupy key jobs in the executive branch of government, including the Presidency.

I have asserted that the objective of the invisible government is to convert America into a socialist nation and then make it a unit in a one-world socialist system.

The managers of the combine do not admit this, of course. They are "liberals" who say that the old "negative" kind of government we used to have is inadequate for this century. The liberals' "positive" foreign policy is said to be necessary for "world peace" and for meeting "America's responsibility" in the world. Their "positive" domestic policies are said to be necessary for the continued improvement and progress of our "free-enterprise" system.

But the "positive" foreign policy for peace has dragged us into so many international commitments (many of which are in direct conflict with each other: such as, our subsidizing national independence for former colonies of European powers, while we are also subsidizing the European powers trying to keep the colonies) that, if we continue in our present direction, we will inevitably find ourselves in perpetual war for perpetual peace--or we will surrender our freedom and national independence and become an out-voted province in a socialist one-world system.

The liberals' "positive" domestic policies always bring the federal government into the role of subsidizing and controlling the economic activities of the people; and that is the known highway to the total, tyrannical socialist state.

The Council on Foreign Relations is rapidly achieving its purpose. An obvious reason for its success: it is reaching the American public with its clever propaganda.

However much power the CFR combine may have inside the agencies of government; however extensive the reach of its propaganda through organizations designed to "educate" the public to acceptance of CFR ideas--the CFR needs to reach the _mass_ audience of Americans who do not belong to, or attend the meetings of, or read material distributed by, the propaganda organizations. Council on Foreign Relations leaders are aware of this need, and they have met it.

* * * * *

In the 1957 Annual Report of the Committee for Economic Development (a major propaganda arm of the CFR), Gardner Cowles, then Chairman of CED's Information Committee, did a bit of boasting about how successful CED had been in communicating its ideas to the general public. Mr. Cowles said:

"The value of CED's research and recommendations is directly related to its ability to communicate them ... the organization's role as an agency that can influence private and public economic policies and decisions ... can be effective ... only to the extent that CED gets its ideas across to thinking people....

"During the year [1957], the Information Division [of CED] distributed 42 pamphlets having a total circulation of 545,585; issued 37 press releases and texts of statements; arranged 4 press conferences, 10 radio and television appearances, 12 speeches for Trustees, 3 magazine articles and the publication of 3 books.... In assessing the year, we are reminded again of the great debt we owe the nation's editors. Their regard for the objectivity and non-partisanship of CED's work is reflected in the exceptional attention they give to what CED has to say. The [CED] statement, 'Toward a Realistic Farm Policy,' for example not only received extended news treatment but was the subject of 362 editorials. The circulation represented in the editorials alone totaled 19,336,299."

Mr. Cowles was modest. He gave only a hint of the total extent to which the mass-communication media have become a controlled propaganda network for the Council on Foreign Relations and its inter-connecting agencies.

I doubt that anyone really knows the full extent. My research reveals a few of the CFR members who have (or have had) controlling, or extremely influential, positions in the publishing and broadcasting industries. My list of _CFR members_ in this field is far from complete; and I have not tried to compile a list of the thousands of people who are _not_ members of the CFR, but who _are_ members of CED, FPA, or of some other CFR affiliate--and who also control important channels of public communications.

Hence, the following list--of Council on Foreign Relations members whom I know to be influential in the communications industries--is intended to be indicative, rather than comprehensive and informative:

Herbert Agar (former Editor, _Louisville Courier-Journal_)

Hanson W. Baldwin (Military Affairs Editor, _New York Times_)

Joseph Barnes (Editor-in-Chief, Simon & Schuster, Publishers)

Elliott V. Bell (Chairman of Executive Committee, McGraw-Hill Publishing Co.; Publisher and Editor of _Business Week_)

John Mason Brown (Editor, _Saturday Review of Literature_, drama critic, author)

Cass Canfield (Chairman of the Editorial Board of Harper & Brothers, Publishers)

Marquis Childs (author, syndicated columnist)

Norman Cousins (Editor-in-Chief, _Saturday Review of Literature_)

Gardner Cowles, quoted above from the 1957 CED Annual Report, and John Cowles (They occupy controlling offices in Cowles Magazine Company, which owns such publications as _Look_, _Minneapolis Star and Tribune_, and _Des Moines Register and Tribune_, and which also owns a broadcasting company.)

Mark Ethridge (Publisher, _Louisville Courier-Journal_, _Louisville Times_)

George Gallup (public opinion analyst, Gallup Poll; President, National Municipal League)

Philip Graham (Publisher, _Washington Post and Times Herald_)

Allen Grover (Vice President of _Time_, Inc.)

Joseph C. Harsch (of _The Christian Science Monitor_)

August Heckscher (Editor, _New York Herald Tribune_)

Palmer Hoyt (Publisher, _Denver Post_)

David Lawrence (President and Editor-in-Chief, _U. S. News and World Report_)

Hal Lehrman (Editor, _New York Post_)

Irving Levine (NBC news official and commentator)

Walter Lippmann (author, syndicated columnist)

Henry R. Luce (Publisher, _Time_, _Life_, _Fortune_, _Sports Illustrated_)

Malcolm Muir (Chairman of the Board and Editor-in-Chief, _Newsweek_)

William S. Paley (Chairman of the Board, Columbia Broadcasting System)

Ogden Reid (former Chairman of the Board, _New York Herald Tribune_)

Whitelaw Reid (former Editor-in-Chief, _New York Herald Tribune_)

James B. Reston (Editorial writer, _New York Times_)

Elmo Roper (public opinion analyst, Roper Poll)

David Sarnoff (Chairman of the Board, Radio Corporation of America--NBC, RCA Victor, etc.)

Harry Scherman (founder and Chairman of the Board, Book-of-the-Month Club)

William L. Shirer (author, news commentator)

Paul C. Smith (President and Editor-in-Chief, Crowell-Collier Publishing Company)

Leland Stone (head of News Reporting for Radio Free Europe, _Chicago Daily News_ foreign correspondent)

Robert Kenneth Straus (former research director for F. D. Roosevelt's Council of Economic Advisers; owner and publisher of the San Fernando, California, _Sun_; largest stockholder and member of Board of Orange Coast Publishing Company, which publishes the _Daily Globe-Herald_ of Costa Mesa, the _Pilot_ and other small newspapers in California; member of group which owns and publishes _American Heritage_ and _Horizon_ magazines; Treasurer and Director of Industrial Publishing Company of Cleveland, which publishes trade magazines)

Arthur Hayes Sulzberger (Chairman of the Board, _New York Times_)

C. L. Sulzberger (Editorial writer, _New York Times_)

I do not mean to imply that all of these people are controlled by the Council on Foreign Relations, or that they uniformly support the total program of international socialism which the Council wants. The Council does not _own_ its members: it merely has varying degrees of influence on each.

For example, former President Herbert Hoover, a member of the Council, has fought eloquently against many basic policies which the Council supports. Spruille Braden is another.

Mr. Braden formerly held several important ambassadorial posts and at one time was Assistant Secretary of State in charge of American Republic Affairs. In recent years, Mr. Braden has given leadership to many patriotic organizations and efforts, such as For America and The John Birch Society; and, in testimony before various committees of Congress, he has given much valuable information about communist influences in the State Department.

Mr. Braden joined the Council on Foreign Relations in the late 1920's or early 30's, when membership in the Council was a fashionable badge of respectability, helpful to the careers of young men in the foreign service, in the same way that membership in expensive country clubs and similar organizations is considered helpful to the careers of young business executives.

Men who know Braden well say that he stayed in the Council after he came to realize its responsibility for the policies of disaster which our nation has followed in the postwar era--hoping to exert some pro-American influence inside the Council.

It apparently was a frustrated hope. There is a story in well-informed New York circles about the last time the Council on Foreign Relations ever called on Spruille Braden to participate in an important activity. Braden was asked to preside over a Council on Foreign Relations meeting when the featured speaker was Herbert Matthews (member of the _New York Times_ editorial board) whose support of communist Castro in Cuba is notorious. It is said that the anti-communist viewpoint which Braden tried to inject into this meeting will rather well guarantee against his ever being asked to officiate at another CFR affair.

Generally, however, the degree of influence which the CFR exerts upon its own members is very high indeed.

* * * * *

Apart from an occasional article or editorial which criticizes some aspect of, or some leader in, the socialist revolution in America; and despite much rhetoric in praise of "free enterprise" and "the American way," such publications as _Time_, _Life_, _Fortune_, _New York Times_, _New York Post_, _Louisville Courier-Journal_, _Washington Post and Times Herald_, _Saturday Review of Literature_, the _Denver Post_, _The Christian Science Monitor_ and _Look_ (I name only those, in the list above, which I, personally, have read a great deal.) have not one time in the past 15 years spoken editorially against any fundamentally important aspect of the over-all governmental policies which are dragging this nation into socialism and world government--at least, not to my knowledge.

On the contrary, these publications heartily support those policies, criticizing them, if at all, only about some detail--or for being too timid, small and slow!

In contrast, David Lawrence, of _U. S. News & World Report_, publishes fine, objective news-reporting, often featuring articles which factually expose the costly fallacies of governmental policy. This is especially true of _U. S. News & World Report_ in connection with domestic issues. On matters of foreign policy, David Lawrence often goes down the line for the internationalist policy--being convinced (as all internationalists seem to be) that this is the only policy possible for America in the "shrunken world" of the twentieth century.

An intelligent man like David Lawrence--who must see the endless and unbroken chain of disasters which the internationalist foreign policy has brought to America; and who is thoroughly familiar with the proven record of marvelous success which our traditional policy of benign neutrality and no-permanent-involvement enjoyed: how can he still feel that we are nonetheless inescapably bound to follow the policy of disaster? I wish I knew.