(Author’s Note: This article was first published on 12.31.08 and filed under The Fed page.)

Money, Banking, and The Federal Reserve:

America’s Economic Collapse: An Intricate Web Of Money, Power, and Political Agendas, Part I

(Author’s Note: For those of you that are stopping by but are unwilling to spend the time to watch the videos and read the whole article, then you will remain one of the unwashed masses that the power elite of this country have been using for hundreds of years….you and your children will have to live with the consequences.)

Monster Readers; are you ready? Have you put on your comfy jammies and set yourself up with snacks and a beverage of your choice because you already know this is going to be a marathon session?

As you all know, a few weeks ago I put up a note about receiving an email and during the course of the research on one single item, it blossomed into an intricate web with an ever growing number of rabbit holes to follow for information and a quest to decipher what was real and what was tinfoil hat conspiracy theory. My intent with this series of articles, (and I still don’t know how many), is to show you all the pieces; those that can be ascertained and those that fall into the latter category, and give you the opportunity to decide for yourself.

The email you ask? The email I received was all about the Amero; a new form of currency supposedly being minted in Denver to replace a collapsed American Dollar when the North American Union of Canada, the United States, and Mexico are formed in direct response to the European Union and our unpayable $10? Trillion National Debt. (I have run across figures as high as $44 Trillion, but cannot confirm the accounting yet.) The characters in this chess game; The Federal Reserve, The Council On Foreign Affairs, The Wall Street Banks, and The Bilderberg Group. I am sure I am going to run across at least a few more before the series is over because I am still digging, and this also explains why we have not heard anything in months on the FBI’s investigation of Wall Street Banks.

The challenge for this series of articles has always been in the form of two questions. Where does one start with the players in this chess game, and how does one take an otherwise boring and overwhelming subject and make it simple and interesting enough that the average reader stays focused and embeds the most important material in such a way that creates THE immediate and profound action that is required to save our families and our way of life? We are going to start out easy by explaining the most important player, The Federal Reserve. In later articles, I will explain who really OWNS the Federal Reserve.

At this point, I must give kudos to one of my readers, Ginny, who pointed me to G. Edward Griffin who wrote, “The Creature From Jekyll Island; A Second Look At The Federal Reserve”. I have run across other books about this subject, but I am starting with Mr. Griffin because he explains it in the simplest terms. This may help overcome some of the mental trauma we experience when we think of trying to understand the banking system in this country, and believe me, you need to settle in and understand just how much danger we are in at this moment in time with the $700 Billion Bailout, the $2 Trillion the Fed gave out before the $700 Billion, and the $1 Trillion (estimated) that the PEBO is going to print for stimulus. The Federal Reserve is printing money out of thin air and then charging us interest on that money, and there is no end in sight. This is the reason that the “powers-that-be” will force the collapse of the dollar to start anew and every single American will be financially devastated, and then asked to accept the Amero at cents on the dollar. The time to educate yourselves is NOW, and here is just one link to what is happening behind the scenes; readiness for mass rioting. This also may explain why a completely unknown black senator was installed in the White House. The “rich, white, money men” kill two birds with one stone, and the black community loses all credibility of ever having another black person put in such a place of power because the first black president presided over the biggest collapse of an American Economy EVER. Think that is far-fetched? Applying that theory really does explain how someone like Barack Obama with such a jaded past, hidden documents, no experience, and total self-absorption could become the fall-guy for the Wall Street money men. ALWAYS FOLLOW THE MONEY!

What follows is a series of 12 videos of G. Edward Griffin’s lecture on his book and the material is riveting and easy to understand; so get comfy. These videos are a little over an hour in total and explain the who, what, where, when, and especially, the why of the Federal Reserve starting with the 7 New York Money Men who decided in a clubhouse on Jekyll Island, Georgia in 1910 to create the perfect “banking bill” that would achieve their ultimate goals and completely fool the American public into giving away ungodly amounts of money over the years, and bailing out American companies in bad times to keep the shell game going. If you wish to just hear the audio, go to the bottom of the article and listen to the very last video. (Author’s Updated Note: I have had a few requests for the original 12 part video as people were in the middle of watching them. Those 12 videos are from 1994. I recommend the 12 part for detailed information on exactly which NY Bankers were involved in crafting the FRS. The 5 part series on a 2008(?) Interview follows)

If you are not completely angered by all the money going to Wall Street right now, this will definitely up the ante.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Edward Griffin:

The Original 12 Part Video Series:
Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Part 11

Part 12

Audio Version of Entire Lecture:

2008 Interview:
Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

**********

America’s Economic Collapse: An Intricate Web of Money, Power and Political Agendas, Part 2

It is well that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a REVOLUTION before tomorrow morning – Henry Ford

Welcome back to those die hard Americans that really want to know what is happening behind the scenes of the marketed campaign to keep the general populace too anesthetized and/or worried to pay attention to what the “powers-that-be” are doing.

In the first article of this series, I started with the Federal Reserve System and we will be going back to them soon enough, but I thought that you may be needing a bit of a break from your blood pressure medication and/or pitchers of whatever adult libation that you may have been pounding down to get through G. Edward Griffin’s explanation of how the NY Banks never gave up their stranglehold on our economy. I also wrote about the other players in this web; the Council on Foreign Relations, The Wall Street Banks, and the Bilderberg Group, and am now adding the United Nations and the Trilateral Commission to the list.

As with the Federal Reserve, we are going to take this slow and easy with a couple of introductory videos. Many of you may already know about these groups and future articles will have more indepth research attached.

It is a commonly held point of view that where myths are concerned, there is a grain of truth somewhere in the background of the legend. I personally operate under that premise and look for the truth somewhere in the middle. I am asking that you suspend your disbelief for a moment and watch these two videos, (about 20 minutes in total), and then ask yourself, given the numbers, is it possible that with what we now know about the Federal Reserve System and Jekyll Island, there is a plan for a New World Order, and this is the first salvo in bringing down The United States Of America and crushing our freedoms? You may also want to take a moment to read Ms Placed Democrat’s Martial Law And The Bailout about troop training inside our borders to “quell civil unrest” due to the economic collapse.

It is also important to watch both videos even though the beginning of the first video seems way over the top when it comes to tinfoil hat theories, it does settle down quite a bit and there is valuable information imparted in both.

Two more facts to think about while watching these videos:

1. The estimated membership for the Council on Foreign Relations is 3000, and those 3000 “elite” hold 75% of the wealth in this country.
2. Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve unexpectedly attended the Bilderberg Group’s meeting here in the U.S. back in June.

Secret Societies: Bilderberg, Trilateral, CFR, Skull and Bones:
Part 1

Part 2

********

America’s Economic Collapse: An Intricate Web of Money, Power and Political Agendas, Part 3

(Author’s Note: There has been comments about the conspiracy theory surrounding JFK and EO11110. This article has two distincts parts; G. Edward Griffin’s take on that theory and the continuation of the “Money Men”. Skip the first part if you want to get back to the Fed quickly.)

There are probably few people that do not know who President John F. Kennedy was, and how he was assassinated on November 22nd, 1963. What is a little known fact is that 5 months prior to his death, he signed Executive Order 11110 amending EO10289. (H/T to TruthIsgold and GM, loyal Monster readers for their input and links.)

According to G. Edward Griffin (of Jekyll Island fame):

THE JFK MYTH
Was he assassinated because he opposed the Fed?
© 2000 by G. Edward Griffin – Updated 2006 December 13

This is in reply to an e-mail I received pointing out the views of the Christian Common-Law Institute regarding an alleged conflict between JFK and the Federal Reserve. It also suggested that this could have been the reason he was assassinated. On their website, the CCLI stated:

On June 4, 1963, a virtually unknown Presidential decree, Executive Order 11110, was signed with the authority to basically strip the Federal Reserve Bank of its power to loan money to the United States Federal Government at interest. With the stroke of a pen, President Kennedy declared that the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank would soon be out of business. President Kennedy’s Executive Order 11110 gave the Treasury Department the explicit authority: “to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the treasury.”… Perhaps the assassination of JFK was a warning to all future presidents not to interfere with the private Federal Reserve’s control over the creation of money.

This is what I refer to on page 569 of my book, The Creature from Jekyll Island, as “The JFK Rumor.” I cannot accept this interpretation of history because of the following facts:

THE EXECUTIVE ORDERS
If you look at a copy of EO 11110 you will find that it does not order the issuance of Silver Certificates. It orders an amendment to EO 10289. If you then look up EO 10289, you will find that it says:

The Secretary of the Treasury is hereby designated and empowered to perform the following-described functions of the President without the approval, ratification, or other action of the President.

Those functions did not include the power to issue Silver Certificates. The purpose of EO 11110 was to add that power to the list. The exact wording of the Order was:

Executive Order No. 10289 of September 19, 1951, as amended, is hereby further amended (a) By adding at the end of paragraph 1 thereof the following subparagraph (j): (1) “The authority to issue silver certificates against any silver bullion, silver, or standard silver dollars in the Treasury.”

Therefore, my statement in The Creature from Jekyll Island is correct. EO 11110 did not order the printing of Silver Certificates. It ordered the amendment of a previous executive order so that the United States Code would authorize or “empower” the Secretary of the Treasury to issue Silver Certificates if the occasion should arise.

The occassion did arise between January 1963 and October 1964 with the issuance of 768 million of the 1957B Series, which carried the signatures of Kathryn O’Hay Granahan and C. Douglas Dillon. This was the smallest issuance since 1935, and it was the last. (See “Silver Certificate” at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Certificate.) Please remember, however; that, EO11110 did not order the issuance of these certificates. It merely authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to do so, which is what happened.

The following additional explanation was contained in a 1996 report from the Congressional Research Service at the Library of Congress:

What E.O. 11110 did was to modify previous Executive Order 10289, delegating to the Secretary of the Treasury various powers of the President. To these delegated powers, E.O. 11110 added the power to alter the supply of Silver Certificates in circulation. Executive Order 11110, therefore, did not create any new authority for the Treasury to issue notes; it only affected who could give the order, the Secretary or the President.

The reason for the move was that the President had just signed legislation repealing the Silver Purchase Act. With this repeal, the Treasury Secretary could no longer control the issue of Silver Certificates on his own authority. However, the issuance of certificates could be controlled under the President’s authority. Hence, for administrative convenience, President Kennedy issued Executive Order 11110.

Ironically, the purpose of the order and the legislation was to decrease the circulation of Silver Certificates, with Federal Reserve Notes taking their place. As economic activity grew and prices rose in the 1950s and early 1960s, the need for small-denomination currency grew at the same time that the price of silver increased. The Treasury required silver for the increasing number of Silver Certificates and coins needed for transactions. But the price of silver was rapidly approaching the point that the silver in the coins and in reserve for the certificates was worth more than the face value of the money.

To conserve on the silver needs of the Treasury, President Kennedy requested legislation needed to bring the issuance of Silver Certificates to an end and to authorize the Fed to issue small denomination notes (which it could not at that time). The Fed began issuing small denomination notes almost immediately after the legislation was passed. And in October 1964, the Treasury ceased issuing Silver Certificates altogether. If anything, E.O. 11110 enhanced Federal Reserve power and did not in any way reduce it.” (See “Money and the Federal Reserve System: Myth and Reality,” by G. Thomas Woodward, Specialist in Macroeconomics, Economics Division, Congressional Research Services, Library of Congress, CRS Report for Congress, No. 96-672 E, July 31, 1996.)

Let’s put this issue into perspective. The proponents of the JFK Myth assert that Kennedy was assassinated because he was about to issue Silver Certificates, thereby denying the bankers their customary interest payments on the nation’s currency. However, the reality was just the opposite. Previously, the President could have issued Silver Certificates on his own authority; but, with the signing of EO 11110, he delegated that authority to the Secretary of the Treasury. At that time, the Secretary of the Treasury was Douglas Dillon from a well-known and powerful banking family. That means Kennedy surrendered the power to issue Silver Certificates and gave it to a member of the banking fraternity who could do with it as he pleased “without the approval, ratification, or other action of the President.” Dillon, of course, would have strong motive to preserve the dominance of Federal Reserve Notes. The theory that Kennedy was getting ready to issue Silver Certificates is without evidence or logic.

The CCLI makes this additional claim in its report:

The Christian Common Law Institute has exhaustively researched this matter through the Federal Register and Library of Congress. We can now safely conclude that this Executive Order has never been repealed, amended, or superseded by any subsequent Executive Order. In simple terms, it is still valid.

This is not supported by the facts. The power granted to the Secretary of Treasury to issue Silver Certificates was rescinded on September 9, 1987, by Executive Order 12608, signed by President Reagan. The official purpose of the Order was stated as “Elimination of unnecessary Executive orders and technical amendments to others.” It did not affect EO 11110 directly but did affect the parent EO 10289 – along with 62 other executive orders. That is how paragraph (j) was amended to remove the power in question. This Order can be found in its entirety in the Federal Register 52 FR 34617.

The picture is blurred by the fact that the Treasury did issue United States Notes in the same year as EO 11110 (1963) but, as discussed further along, U.S. Notes are not the same as Silver Certificates. Furthermore, their issuance had nothing to do with EO 11110. It was mandated by an 1868 act of Congress, which required the Secretary of the Treasury to maintain the amount of U.S. Notes outstanding at a fixed level. This did not originate with JFK and, in fact, he probably had no deep understanding of it. It was a routine matter initiated by the Treasury merely to replace worn and damaged specimens of older Notes in order to comply with the 1868 law. Apparently some of these new Notes did get into circulation but were quickly snapped up by private collectors. They never became a significant part of the money supply and, in fact, were not intended to.

THE SPEECH THAT NEVER WAS
The persistent rumor regarding the bankers’ role in JFK’s death was reinforced by several books circulated in conservative circles. They contained an ominous passage from Kennedy’s speech at Columbia University, just ten days before his assassination. He is quoted as saying: “The high office of President has been used to foment a plot to destroy the Americans’ freedom, and before I leave office I must inform the citizen of his plight.” [Quoted by M.L. Beckman, Born Again Republic, Billings, Montana, Freedom Church, 1981, p. 23; also by Lindsay Williams, To Seduce A Nation, Kasilof, Arkansas: Worth Publications, 1984, p. 26.] However, when Columbia University was contacted to provide a transcript of the speech, it was learned that Kennedy never spoke there – neither ten days before his assassination nor at any other time! Ronald Whealan, head librarian at the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library in Boston, provides this additional information: “Ten days prior to the assassination he was at the White House meeting with, among others, the ambassador to the United States from Portugal.” [Source: Hollee Haswell, Curator at the Low Memorial Library, Columbia University.]

It is possible that the President did make the remarks attributed to him on a different date before a different audience. Even so, it is a cryptic message that could have several meanings. That he intended to expose the Fed is the least likely of them all. Kennedy had been a life-long collectivist and internationalist. He had attended the Fabian London School of Economics; participated in the destruction of the American money supply; and engineered the transfer of American wealth to foreign nations. (See page 109 of The Creature from Jekyll Island.) There is little reason to believe that he had suddenly “seen the light” and was reversing his life-long beliefs and commitments.

SILVER CERTIFICATES VS. U.S. NOTES
These facts alone should be enough to settle the matter, but there is yet one more point of confusion to be cleared up, and that involves the difference between Silver Certificates and United States Notes. In monetary terms, a Note means a promissory note. A Note is any financial instrument that states in clear and unambiguous terms who is to pay what to whom on what date. All four elements must be included. [See Ewart, James E., Money (Seattle, Principia Publishing, 1998), pp. 27-29.] Therefore, any paper currency that displays a statement such as “The United States Treasury will pay to the bearer on demand twenty dollars in silver coin” is a Note. A Silver Certificate is just one form of a Note. Other forms existed in the past and included Bank Notes, United States Notes, Gold Certificates, and even Federal-Reserve Notes in those by-gone days when they were backed by gold.

Earlier issues of U.S. Notes displayed printed statements to the effect that (1) the bearer could redeem them (2) at the Treasury (3) on demand (4) either for dollars or a specified weight of gold or silver. During those years, a dollar was defined by law as 371.25 grains of pure silver, which was the amount contained in a One-Dollar silver coin. The law also provided that the metal could be in the form of coins, dust, nuggets, plate, or bullion. Therefore, whether the phrase printed on the currency promised dollars, silver, or gold, it ultimately meant precious metal in one form or another – usually coin. Since there was nothing ambiguous about that, those U.S. Notes were true Notes in the legal sense because they contained all four elements of a promissory note.

This tradition began to change in the late 1960s and, since about 1971, U.S. Notes have become very ambiguous, indeed, about what can be redeemed for them. The former clearly written contracts have now been replaced by random, unconnected phrases such as The United States of America; Twenty Dollars: This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private. These words look official and impressive but, in terms of a contract to redeem the currency for something of intrinsic value, they have no meaning at all. Silver Certificates once were a promise to deliver silver. U.S. Notes now are a promise to deliver taxes and inflation.

Even in 1963 when EO 11110 was issued, there were important legal and technical differences in the regulations that governed the issuance of Silver Certificates and U.S. Notes. These words were not used interchangeably. Regulations pertaining to the issuance of Silver Certificates could not be applied to the issuance of U.S. Notes, and vice versa. When EO 11110 authorized the issuance of Silver Certificates, it said nothing about U.S. Notes. The subsequent issuance of U.S. Notes, therefore, had nothing to do with EO 11110. And that is the point of this analysis. Without that understanding, one cannot grasp the significance of the JFK executive orders.

I do not claim to have the final answers on these issues, but this is where our research has led so far. I am open to additional information or interpretation. I would especially welcome a response from the Christian Common Law Institute.

G. Edward Griffin
October 15, 2000

Hopefully Mr. Griffin’s explanation will put some of the controversy to bed on this issue, but that still leaves us with the 7 Money Men who put together the Federal Reserve Act.

Time to jump back into the deep end of the pool. Here are the players whose personal agendas have shaped our country over the last 100 years and who are the Jekyll Island Money Men who crafted the Federal Reserve Act. I believe that it is important to know these men as more than just the names we have heard over and over again in relation to other issues; therefore, the history class.

As stated by G. Edward Griffin, these gentlemen represented 1/4 of all the wealth in the WORLD at that time; I am thinking they were smart and accustomed to getting what they wanted. Please do not be alarmed that we are going a bit backwards, (remember how much the Socialism Series had to jump around?). It is important to have a clear picture of who these men were and how they were connected by blood, marriage, and dynasty, and why you, as the average American, might not trust the Federal Reserve to have your best interests at heart.

Our history with central banks:

The first institution with responsibilities of a central bank in the U.S. was the First Bank of the United States, chartered in 1791 by Alexander Hamilton. Its charter was not renewed in 1811. In 1816, the Second Bank of the United States was chartered. Early renewal of the bank’s charter became the primary issue in the reelection of President Andrew Jackson. After Jackson, who was opposed to the central bank, was reelected, he pulled the government’s funds out of the bank. Nicholas Biddle, President of the Second Bank of the United States, responded by contracting the money supply to pressure Jackson to renew the bank’s charter. The country entered into a recession, and the bank blamed Jackson’s policies. The bank’s charter was not renewed in 1836. From 1837 to 1862, in the Free Banking Era there was no formal central bank. From 1862 to 1913, a system of national banks was instituted by the 1863 National Banking Act. A series of bank panics, in 1873, 1893, and 1907 provided strong demand for the creation of a centralized banking system.

The timeline of central banking in the United States is as follows:
1791-1811: First Bank of the United States
1811-1816: no central bank
1816-1836: Second Bank of the United States
1837-1862: Free Bank Era
1863-1913: National Banks
1913-Present: Federal Reserve System

The main motivation for the third central banking system came from the Panic of 1907, which renewed demands for banking and currency reform.[2] During the last quarter of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century the United States economy went through a series of financial panics.[3] According to proponents of the Federal Reserve System and many economists, the previous national banking system had two main weaknesses: an “inelastic” currency; and a lack of liquidity.[3] The following year Congress enacted the Aldrich-Vreeland Act which provided for an emergency currency and established the National Monetary Commission to study banking and currency reform.[4] The American public believed that the Federal Reserve System would bring about financial stability, so that a panic like the one in 1907 could never happen again; but just 16 years later, in 1929, the stock market crashed again, and the United States entered the worst depression in its history, the Great Depression. Critics of the Federal Reserve System including Milton Friedman state that the Federal Reserve System helped to cause the Great Depression.

The Federal Reserve Act
Further information: Federal Reserve Act

Newspaper clipping, December 24, 1913

The chief of the bipartisan National Monetary Commission was financial expert and Senate Republican leader Nelson Aldrich. Aldrich set up two commissions — one to study the American monetary system in depth and the other, headed by Aldrich himself, to study the European central-banking systems and report on them.[4] Aldrich went to Europe opposed to centralized banking, but after viewing Germany’s banking system came away believing that a centralized bank was better than the government-issued bond system that he had previously supported. Centralized banking was met with much opposition from politicians, who were suspicious of a central bank and who charged that Aldrich was biased due to his close ties to wealthy bankers such as J.P. Morgan and his daughter’s marriage to John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

Aldrich fought for a private bank with little government influence, but conceded that the government should be represented on the Board of Directors. Most Republicans favored the Aldrich Plan,[5] but it lacked enough support in the bipartisan Congress to pass.[6] Progressive Democrats instead favored a reserve system owned and operated by the government and out of control of the “money trust”, ending Wall Street’s control of American currency supply.[5] Conservative Democrats fought for a privately owned, yet decentralized, reserve system, which would still be free of Wall Street’s control.[5] The Federal Reserve Act passed Congress in late 1913 on a mostly partisan basis, with most Democrats in support and most Republicans against it. (bold emphasis mine)

Senator Nelson Aldrich:

Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich (November 6, 1841 – April 16, 1915) was a prominent American politician and a leader of the Republican Party in the Senate, where he served from 1881 to 1911.

Because of his impact on national politics and central position on the pivotal Senate Finance Committee, he was referred to by the press and public alike as the “General Manager of the Nation”, dominating all tariff and monetary policies in the first decade of the 20th century. In a career that spanned three decades, Aldrich helped to create an extensive system of tariffs that protected American factories and farms from foreign competition. He rebuilt the American financial system along Progressive lines through the institution of the federal income tax amendment and the Federal Reserve System. He did so in the belief that it would lead to greater efficiency. Aldrich became wealthy with investments in street railroads, sugar, rubber and banking. His son Richard Steere Aldrich became a U.S. Representative, and his daughter, Abby, married John D. Rockefeller, Jr., the only son of John D. Rockefeller. Her son, Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller, served as Vice President of the United States under Gerald Ford.

Abraham Piatt Andrew:

• Assistant Secretary of the Treasury
• Member of the “National Monetary Commission” (dates uncertain)
• 1909 : Director of the U.S. Mint (1909-10)

Frank Vanderlip:

Frank A. Vanderlip (1864 – June 30, 1937) was an American banker. From 1897-1901, Vanderlip was the Assistant Secretary of Treasury for President of the United States William McKinley’s second term, 1897-1901. In that office he negotiated with National City Bank a $200 million loan to the government to finance the Spanish American War. Thereafter he was vice president and then president of National City Bank (1909-19). In November, 1910, he was a member of the Jekyll Island group, a group of bankers that wrote the bill that became the Federal Reserve Act.

Henry Davison:

Henry Pomeroy Davison (June 12, 1867 in Troy, Pennsylvania – May 6, 1922 in Locust Valley, New York) was an American banker and philanthropist.

…Three years later he moved to New York City where he was employed by the Astor Place Bank, and sometime later became president of the Liberty National Bank. Several years later he was involved in the founding and formation of the Bankers Trust Company. In 1909 he became a senior partner at JP Morgan & Company, and in 1910 he was a participant in the secretive meeting on Jekyll Island, Georgia that may have led to the creation of the Federal Reserve and has generated much speculation over the years.

Charles Norton:

President of First National Bank of New York (J.P. Morgan Dominated)

Benjamin Strong:

Benjamin Strong, Jr. (December 22, 1872 – October, 16, 1928) was an American economist. He served as Governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for 14 years until his death. Strong exerted great influence over the policy and actions of the entire Federal Reserve System.

Strong was also involved in the establishment of the Federal Reserve System. After the panics of the 1890s, leading bankers believed a private central bank should be created to issue money. The public was adamantly opposed to the establishment of a central bank. Strong, who was Vice President of Banker’s Trust of New York, was JP Morgan’s emissary to the secret Jekyll Island (Georgia) expedition in 1910—one of the selected members who stayed at the luxurious Jekyll Island Hunt Club retreat in November for a private ten-day conference. Also in attendance were Paul Warburg, a recent immigrant from a prominent German banking family who was a partner in the New York banking house of Kuhn, Loeb & Co.; Senator Nelson Aldrich (Nelson Rockefeller was named after Aldrich, his maternal grandfather); A. Piatt Andrew, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and Special Assistant to the National Monetary Commission (the only other NMC member besides Aldrich); and other bankers including Frank Vanderlip, president of the National City Bank of New York; Henry P. Davison, senior partner of J.P. Morgan & Co.; and Charles D. Norton, president of the Morgan-dominated First National Bank of New York.

What came to be known as the Aldrich Plan was drafted by these men during their conference at Jekyll Island. The plan was written in secrecy, as the public would never approve of a banking reform bill written by bankers; much less of a plan for a central bank. The Aldrich Plan was introduced in the U.S. Congress, and followed by much debate, but never came to a vote, because the party in favor of it was voted out, and the Glass-Owens Bill was introduced instead.

The general outline of the Aldrich Plan did eventually serve as the model upon which the Federal Reserve System was created with, however, significant changes that placed control into political hands (via the Board of Governors, selected by the President of the United States), and limited the role of professional bankers in its operation to that of the 12 branches. It met with Warburg’s satisfaction, as he said that minor changes could be adjusted administratively later. The term Central Bank purposely was kept out of its name, as Warburg and others warned it would not be passed otherwise.

A bill creating the Federal Reserve System was approved by Congress three years later, after much heated debate, and signed into law on December 23, 1913 after initial hesitation[citation needed] on the part of President Woodrow Wilson, and after a conference between him and Bernard Baruch,[citation needed] one of his largest campaign donors. The Federal Reserve System is similar to the National Reserve Association proposed by The Aldrich Plan, but with vastly differing management and control.

Strong became President of Banker’s Trust in 1914, and shortly thereafter was appointed Governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York the same year, which position he maintained until his death in 1928.

Economic historian Charles P. Kindleberger states that Strong was one of the few American policymakers interested in the troubled financial affairs of Europe in the 1920s, and that had he not died in 1928, just a year before the Great Depression, he might have been able to maintain stability in the international financial system.

Paul Warburg: (Probably the most pivotal “Money Men” character to pay attention to)

Paul Moritz Warburg (August 10, 1868 — January 24, 1932) was a German-American banker and early advocate of the U.S Federal Reserve system.

Warburg was born in Hamburg, Germany, to a successful Jewish banking family. His parents were Moritz and Charlotte (Esther) Warburg. After graduating from the Realgymnasium in Hamburg in 1886 he entered the employ of Simon Hauer, a Hamburg importer and exporter, to learn the fundamentals of business practice. He similarly worked for Samuel Montague & Company, bankers, in London in 1889-90, the Banque Russe pour le Commerce Etranger in Paris in 1890-91.[1][2]

In 1891 Warburg entered the office of the family banking firm of M.M. Warburg & Company, which had been founded in 1798 by his great-grandfather. He interrupted work there to undertake a world tour during the winter of 1891-92. Warburg was admitted to a partnership in the family firm in 1895.[3]

On October 1, 1895, Warburg was married in New York City to Nina J. Loeb, daughter of Solomon Loeb, founder of the New York investment firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Company. The Warbugs were the parents of a son, James Paul Warburg, and a daughter, Dr. Bettina Warburg.

Although a major factor in German finance, after frequent business trips to New York Warburg settled there in 1902 as a partner in Kuhn, Loeb & Company where the influential Jacob Schiff, his wife’s brother-in-law, was senior partner. Warburg remained a partner in the family firm in Hamburg, but he became a naturalized American citizen in 1911. He was a member of Temple Emanu-El in New York City.[5][6]

Warburg was elected a director of Wells Fargo & Company in February 1910. He resigned in September 1914 following his appointment to the Federal Reserve Board, and Jacob Schiff was elected to his seat on the Wells Fargo board.[7]

Paul Warburg became known as a persuasive advocate of central banking in America, in 1907 publishing the pamphlets “Defects and Needs of Our Banking System” and “A Plan for A Modified Central Bank”. His efforts were successful in 1913 with the founding of the Federal Reserve System. He was appointed a member of the first Federal Reserve Board by President Woodrow Wilson, serving until 1918.

In 1919 he founded and became first chairman of the American Acceptance Council. He organized and became the first chairman of the International Acceptance Bank of New York in 1921. International Acceptance was acquired by the Bank of the Manhattan Company in 1929, with Warburg becoming chairman of the combined organization.

He became a director of the Council on Foreign Relations at its founding in 1921, remaining on the board until his death. From 1921 to 1926 Warburg was a member of the advisory council of Federal Reserve Board, serving as president of the advisory council in 1924-26. He was also a trustee of the Institute of Economics, founded in 1922; when it was merged into the Brookings Institution in 1927, he became a trustee of the latter, serving until his death.[8][9]

So you see the connections from the past to the present through Aldrich, Rockefeller, Warburg, The Council On Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institute?

Forbes magazine founder Bertie Charles Forbes wrote several years later:

Picture a party of the nation’s greatest bankers stealing out of New York on a private railroad car under cover of darkness, stealthily riding hundred of miles South, embarking on a mysterious launch, sneaking onto an island deserted by all but a few servants, living there a full week under such rigid secrecy that the names of not one of them was once mentioned, lest the servants learn the identity and disclose to the world this strangest, most secret expedition in the history of American finance. I am not romancing; I am giving to the world, for the first time, the real story of how the famous Aldrich currency report, the foundation of our new currency system, was written… The utmost secrecy was enjoined upon all. The public must not glean a hint of what was to be done. Senator Aldrich notified each one to go quietly into a private car of which the railroad had received orders to draw up on an unfrequented platform. Off the party set. New York’s ubiquitous reporters had been foiled… Nelso (Aldrich) had confided to Henry, Frank, Paul and Piatt that he was to keep them locked up at Jekyll Island, out of the rest of the world, until they had evolved and compiled a scientific currency system for the United States, the real birth of the present Federal Reserve System, the plan done on Jekyll Island in the conference with Paul, Frank and Henry… Warburg is the link that binds the Aldrich system and the present system together. He more than any one man has made the system possible as a working reality.[8] (Emphasis mine)

In the next article in the series, (if you can stand it), we will explore James P. Warburg, the Council On Foreign Relations, the Brookings Institute, Institute For Policy Studies, The United Nations, and whatever else rears it’s ugly head while I am researching.

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America’s Economic Collapse: An Intricate Web Of Money, Power, and Political Agendas, Part 4

Did you really think this series was going to end at Part 3? Y’all know what happens when the Monster starts digging, and from the type of visitors I have been seeing lately, I must be hitting a very large nerve….go here for the first 3 parts, (and a very special welcome to Lehman Bros.)

At the end of Part 3, I stated:

In the next article in the series, (if you can stand it), we will explore James P. Warburg, the Council On Foreign Relations, the Brookings Institute, Institute For Policy Studies, The United Nations, and whatever else rears it’s ugly head while I am researching.

Please pay attention to those names and the new ones that come up in this article; the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and Carnegie Foundation just to name a few.

(Author’s note: sections highlighted in blue bold type are my emphasis. Also remember that I did say we would start out easy with just the videos. Take your time getting through this material because you need to understand the web)

********

Paul Warburg was instrumental and is the cornerstone of what we see happening today in the American and World economies. I would like to refresh your memories before we go on. This info is from Wikipedia and I am only using it because it is actually accurate and concise. (I checked)

Warburg was born in Hamburg, Germany, to a successful Jewish banking family. His parents were Moritz and Charlotte (Esther) Warburg. After graduating from the Realgymnasium in Hamburg in 1886 he entered the employ of Simon Hauer, a Hamburg importer and exporter, to learn the fundamentals of business practice. He similarly worked for Samuel Montague & Company, bankers, in London in 1889-90, the Banque Russe pour le Commerce Etranger in Paris in 1890-91.^[1][2]

In 1891 Warburg entered the office of the family banking firm of M.M. Warburg & Company, which had been founded in 1798 by his great-grandfather. He interrupted work there to undertake a world tour during the winter of 1891-92. Warburg was admitted to a partnership in the family firm in 1895.^[3]

On October 1, 1895, Warburg was married in New York City to Nina J. Loeb, daughter of Solomon Loeb, founder of the New York investment firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Company. The Warbugs were the parents of a son, James Paul Warburg, and a daughter, Dr. Bettina Warburg.^[4]

Although a major factor in German finance, after frequent business trips to New York Warburg settled there in 1902 as a partner in Kuhn, Loeb & Company where the influential Jacob Schiff, his wife’s brother-in-law, was senior partner. Warburg remained a partner in the family firm in Hamburg, but he became a naturalized American citizen in 1911.

A german banker marrying into the New York banking community, and in 1910 he was instrumental in the Jekyll Island meeting to craft the Federal Reserve Act, being a huge proponent of central banks. Do you remember our Founding Father, Thomas Jefferson, being completely against that particular idea?

In 1913, the Federal Reserve Act is passed creating the Federal Reserve System of banks all over the country, but with all the power still remaining at the “national level” located in New York City. BTW, is not Timothy Geithner, the current Chairman of the NY Fed going to become the Secretary of the Treasury after Hank Paulson who was the CEO of Goldman Sachs (another NY Bank) leaves office? How much do you know about our friend Hank or his Chicago connections? Thought so….

Goldman Sachs

He joined Goldman Sachs in 1974, working in the firm’s Chicago office under James P. Gorter. He became a partner in 1982. From 1983 until 1988, Paulson led the Investment Banking group for the Midwest Region, and became managing partner of the Chicago office in 1988. From 1990 to November 1994, he was co-head of Investment Banking, then, Chief Operating Officer from December 1994 to June 1998;^[8] eventually succeeding Jon Corzine (now Governor of New Jersey) as its chief executive. His compensation package, according to reports, was US $37 million in 2005, and US $16.4 million projected for 2006.^[9] His net worth has been estimated at over US $700 million.^[9] Paulson has personally built close relations with China during his career. In July 2008 it was reported by The Daily Telegraph that: “Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has intimate relations with the Chinese elite, dating from his days at Goldman Sachs when he visited the country more than 70 times.”^[10]

In 2004, at the request of the major Wall Street investment houses, including Goldman Sachs, then headed by Paulson, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission agreed unanimously to release the major investment houses from the net capital rule, the requirement that their brokerages hold reserve capital that limited their leverage and risk exposure. The complaint that was put forth by the investment banks was of increasingly onerous regulatory requirements — in this case, not U.S. regulator oversight, but European Union regulation of the foreign operations of US investment groups. In the immediate lead-up to the decision, EU regulators also acceded to US pressure, and agreed not to scrutinize foreign firms’ reserve holdings if the SEC agreed to do so instead. The 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, however, put the parent holding company of each of the big American brokerages beyond SEC oversight. In order for the agreement to go ahead, the investment banks lobbied for a decision that would allow “voluntary” inspection of their parent and subsidiary holdings by the SEC.

During this repeal of the net capital rule, SEC Chairman William H. Donaldson agreed to the establishment of a risk management office that would monitor signs of future problems. This office was eventually dismantled by Chairman Christopher Cox, after discussions with Paulson. According to the New York Times, “While other financial regulatory agencies criticized a blueprint by Mr. Paulson, the Treasury secretary, that proposed to reduce their stature — and that of the S.E.C. — Mr. Cox did not challenge the plan, leaving it to three former Democratic and Republican commission chairmen to complain that the blueprint would neuter the agency.”^[11] In late September 2008, Chairman Cox and the other Commissioners agreed to end the 2004 program of voluntary regulation.

…snip

U.S. Secretary of the Treasury

Paulson was nominated by U.S. President George W. Bush to succeed John Snow as the Treasury Secretary on May 30, 2006.^[12] On June 28, 2006, he was confirmed by the United States Senate to serve in the position.^[13] Paulson was officially sworn in at a ceremony held at the Treasury Department on the morning of July 10, 2006.

Paulson’s three immediate predecessors as CEO of Goldman Sachs — Jon Corzine, Stephen Friedman, and Robert Rubin — each left the company to serve in government: Corzine as a U.S. Senator (later Governor of New Jersey), Friedman as chairman of the National Economic CouncilPresident’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board) under President George W. Bush, and Rubin as both chairman of the NEC and later Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton.^[14]

Paulson identified the wide gap between the richest and poorest Americans as an issue on his list of the country’s four major long-term economic issues to be addressed, highlighting the issue in one of his first public appearances as Secretary of Treasury.^[15]

Paulson conceded that chances were slim for agreeing on a method to reform Social Security financing, but said he would keep trying to find bipartisan support for it.^[16]

He also helped to create the Hope Now Alliance to help struggling homeowners during the subprime mortgage crisis.^[17]

Anybody want to leave a comment and tell me how you feel about that info? Or these interesting connections that Timothy Geithner has:

Early life and education

Geithner was born in Brooklyn, New York.^[2] His father, Peter F. Geithner, is the director of the Asia program at the Ford Foundation in New York. During the early 1980s, Peter Geithner oversaw the Ford Foundation’s microfinance programs in Indonesia being developed by Ann Dunham-Soetoro, mother of President-elect Barack Obama, and they met in person at least once.^[3] Timothy Geithner’s mother, Deborah Moore Geithner, is a pianist and piano teacher in Larchmont, New York where his parents currently reside. Geithner’s maternal grandfather, Charles F. Moore, was an adviser to President Dwight D. Eisenhower and served as a vice president of Ford Motor Company.^[4] Geithner spent most of his childhood living outside the United States, including present-day Zimbabwe, India and Thailand, where he completed high school at International School Bangkok.^[2] He then attended Dartmouth College, graduating with a A.B. in government and Asian studies in 1983.^[5] He earned an M.A. in international economics and East Asian studies from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in 1985.^[5][6] He has studied Chinese^[5] and Japanese.^[7]

…snip

Career

After completing his studies, Geithner worked for Kissinger and Associates in Washington, D.C., for three years and then joined the International Affairs division of the U.S. Treasury Department in 1988. He went on to serve as an attache at the US Embassy in Tokyo. He was deputy assistant secretary for international monetary and financial policy (1995–1996), senior deputy assistant secretary for international affairs (1996-1997), assistant secretary for international affairs (1997–1998).^[6]

He was Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs (1998–2001) under Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers.^[6] Summers was his mentor,^[10][11] but other sources call him a Rubin protégé.^[11][12][13]

In 2002 he left the Treasury to join the Council on Foreign Relations as a Senior Fellow in the International Economics department.^[8] At the International Monetary Fund he was director of the Policy Development and Review Department (2001-2003).^[6]

In October 2003, he was named president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.^[14] His salary in 2007 was $398,200.^[15] Once at the New York Fed, he became Vice Chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee component. In 2006, he also became a member of the Washington-based financial advisory body, the Group of Thirty.^[16]

In March 2008, he arranged the rescue and sale of Bear Stearns^[10][17] and later, in the same year, he is believed to have played a pivotal role in both the decision to bail out AIG as well as the government decision not to save Lehman Brothers from bankruptcy.^[18] As a Treasury official, he helped manage multiple international crises of the 1990s^[12] in Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea and Thailand.^[13]

On November 24, 2008, President-elect Barack Obama announced his intention to nominate Geithner to be Treasury Secretary.^[19][20]

Geithner believes, along with Henry Paulson, that the Treasury Department needs new authority to experiment with responses to the financial crisis of 2008.^[10] Paulson has described Geithner as “[a] very unusually talented young man…[who] understands government and understands markets.”^[17]

I am sure if I went digging even deeper, I would find Hank Paulson’s name on the list of members of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Paul Warburg started the Council on Foreign Relations in 1921.

In 1919 he founded and became first chairman of the American Acceptance Council. He organized and became the first chairman of the International Acceptance Bank of New York in 1921. International Acceptance was acquired by the Bank of the Manhattan Company in 1929, with Warburg becoming chairman of the combined organization.

He became a director of the Council on Foreign Relations at its founding in 1921, remaining on the board until his death. From 1921 to 1926 Warburg was a member of the advisory council of Federal Reserve Board, serving as president of the advisory council in 1924-26. He was also a trustee of the Institute of Economics, founded in 1922; when it was merged into the Brookings Institution in 1927, he became a trustee of the latter, serving until his death.^[8][9]

Keep this in mind as we move on; James Paul Warburg, Paul Warburg’s son stated while speaking before the US Senate on February 17, 1950. As an aside, James Warburg started the Institute For Policy Studies.

“We shall have World Government, whether or not we like it.
The only question is whether World Government will be achieved by conquest or consent.”

The CFR, Institute of Economics, Brookings and The Federal Reserve System tied together and Paul Warburg is behind all of them.

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an American nonpartisan foreign policy membership organization founded in 1921 and based at 58 East 68th Street (at Park Avenue) in New York City, with an additional office in Washington, D.C. Some international journalists and American paleoconservatives believe it to be the most powerful private organization to influence United States foreign policy.^{[1][2][3][4][5]} It publishes the bi-monthly journal Foreign Affairs. It has an extensive website, featuring links to its think tank, The David Rockefeller Studies Program, other programs and projects, publications, history, biographies of notable directors and other board members, corporate members, and press releases.^[6]

This is what the Council’s spin is:

The Council’s mission is promoting understanding of foreign policy and the United States’ role in the world. Meetings are convened at which government officials, global leaders and prominent members debate major foreign-policy issues. It has a think tank that employs prominent scholars in international affairs and it commissions subsequent books and reports. A central aim of the Council, it states, is to “find and nurture the next generation of foreign policy leaders.” It established “Independent Task Forces” in 1995, which encourage policy debate. Comprising experts with diverse backgrounds and expertise, these task forces seek consensus in making policy recommendations on critical issues; to date, the Council has convened more than fifty times.^[6]

The internal think tank is The David Rockefeller Studies Program, which grants fellowships and whose programs are described as being integral to the goal of contributing to the ongoing debate on foreign policy; fellows in this program research and write on the most important challenges facing the United States and the world.^[7]

At the outset of the organization, founding member Elihu Root said the group’s mission, epitomized in its journal Foreign Affairs, should be to “guide” American public opinion. In the early 1970s, the CFR changed the mission, saying that it wished instead to “inform” public opinion.^[8]

This is what we are finding out:

The Invisible Government:

The Birth of the CFR (1920s)

Wilson himself, when campaigning for re-election in 1916, had unequivocally supported our traditional foreign policy: his one major promise to the American people was that he would keep them out of the European war.

Yet, even while making this promise, Wilson was yielding to a pressure he was never able to withstand: the influence of Colonel Edward M. House, Wilson’s all-powerful adviser. According to House’s own papers and the historical studies of Wilson’s ardent admirers (see, for example, the “Intimate Papers of Colonel House”, edited by Charles Seymour, published in 1926 by Houghton Mifflin; and, “The Crisis of the Old Order” by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., published 1957 by Houghton Mifflin), House created Wilson’s domestic and foreign policies, selected most of Wilson’s cabinet and other major appointees, and ran Wilson’s State Department.

House had powerful connections with international bankers in New York. He was influential, for example, with great financial institutions represented by such people as Paul and Felix Warburg, Otto H. Kahn, Louis Marburg, Henry Morgenthau, Jacob and Mortimer Schiff, Herbert Lehman. House had equally powerful connections with bankers and politicians of Europe.

Bringing all of these forces to bear, House persuaded Wilson that America had an evangelistic mission to save the world for “democracy.” The first major twentieth century tragedy for the United States resulted: Wilson’s war message to Congress and the declaration of war against Germany on April 6, 1917.

House also persuaded Wilson that the way to avoid all future wars was to create a world federation of nations. On May 27, 1916, in a speech to the League to Enforce Peace, Wilson first publicly endorsed Colonel House’s world-government idea (without, however, identifying it as originating with House).

In September, 1916, Wilson, at the urging of House, appointed a committee of intellectuals (the first President’s Brain Trust) to formulate peace terms and draw up a charter for world government. This committee, with House in charge, consisted of about 150 college professors, graduate students, lawyers, economists, writers, and others. Among them were men still familiar to Americans in the 1960′s:

• Walter Lippmann, columnist
• Norman Thomas, head of the American socialist party
• Allen Dulles, former head of C.I.A.
• John Foster Dulles, late Secretary of State
• Christian A. Herter, former Secretary of State

These eager young intellectuals around Wilson, under the clear eyes of crafty Colonel House, drew up their charter for world government ( League of Nations Covenant) and prepared for the brave new socialist one-world to follow World War I. But things went sour at the Paris Peace Conference. They soured even more when constitutionalists in the United States Senate found out what was being planned and made it quite plain that the Senate would not authorize United States membership in such a world federation.

Bitter with disappointment but not willing to give up, Colonel House called together in Paris, France, a group of his most dedicated young intellectuals — among them, John Foster and Allen Dulles, Christian A. Herter, and Tasker H. Bliss — and arranged a dinner meeting with a group of like-minded Englishmen at the Majestic Hotel, Paris, on May 19, 1919. The group formally agreed to form an organization “for the study of international affairs.”

The American group came home from Paris and formed The Council on Foreign Relations, which was incorporated in 1921.

The purpose of the Council on Foreign Relations was to create (and condition the American people to accept) what House called a “positive” foreign policy for America — to replace the traditional “negative” foreign policy which had kept America out of the endless turmoil of old-world politics and had permitted the American people to develop their great nation in freedom and independence from the rest of the world.

Takeover of the U.S. State Department (1940s)

The Council did not amount to a great deal until 1927, when the Rockefeller family (through the various Rockefeller Foundations and Funds) began to pour money into it. Before long, the Carnegie Foundations (and later the Ford Foundation) began to finance the Council.

In 1929, the Council (largely with Rockefeller gifts) acquired its present headquarters property: The Harold Pratt House, 58 East 68th Street, New York City.

In 1939, the Council began taking over the U.S. State Department.

Shortly after the start of World War II, in September, 1939, Hamilton Fish Armstrong and Walter H. Mallory, of the Council on Foreign Relations, visited the State Department to offer the services of the Council. It was agreed that the Council would do research and make recommendations for the State Department, without formal assignment or responsibility. The Council formed groups to work in four general fields: Security and Armaments Problems, Economic and Financial Problems, Political Problems, and Territorial Problems.

The Rockefeller Foundation agreed to finance, through grants, the operation of this plan.

In February, 1941, the Council on Foreign Relations‘ relationship with the State Department changed. The State Department created the Division of Special Research, which was divided into Economic, Security, Political, Territorial sections. Leo Pasvolsky, of the Council, was appointed Director of this Division. Within a very short time, members of the Council on Foreign Relations dominated this new Division in the State Department.

During 1942, the State Department set up the Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy. Secretary of State Cordell Hull was Chairman. The following members of the Council on Foreign Relations were on this Committee:

• Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles (Vice-Chairman)
• Dr. Leo Pasvolsky (Executive Officer)
• Hamilton Fish Armstrong
• Isaiah Bowman
• Benjamin V. Cohen
• Norman H. Davis
• James T. Shotwell

…snip

Founding of the United Nations (1945)

The crowning moment of achievement for the Council came at San Francisco in 1945, when over 40 members of the United States Delegation to the organizational meeting of the United Nations (where the United Nations Charter was written) were members of the Council. Among them:

• Alger Hiss
• Edward R. Stettinius, Secretary of State
• Leo Pasvolsky
• John Foster Dulles
• John J. McCloy
• Julius C. Holmes
• Nelson A. Rockefeller
• Adlai Stevenson
• Joseph E. Johnson
• Ralph J. Bunche
• Clark M. Eichelberger
• Thomas K. Finletter

By 1945, the Council on Foreign Relations, and various foundations and other organizations interlocked with it, had virtually taken over the U.S. State Department.

Some CFR members were later identified as Soviet espionage agents: for example, Alger Hiss and Lauchlin Currie.

Other Council on Foreign Relations members — Owen Lattimore, for example — with powerful influence in the Roosevelt and Truman Administrations, were subsequently identified, not as actual communists or Soviet espionage agents, but as “conscious, articulate instruments of the Soviet international conspiracy.”

I do not intend to imply by these citations that the Council on Foreign Relations is, or ever was, a communist organization. Boasting among its members Presidents of the United States (Hoover, Eisenhower, and Kennedy), Secretaries of State, and many other high officials, both civilian and military, the Council can be termed, by those who agree with its objectives, a “patriotic” organization.

The fact, however, that communists, Soviet espionage agents, and pro-communists could work inconspicuously for many years as influential members of the Council indicates something very significant about the Council’s objectives. The ultimate aim of the Council on Foreign Relations (however well-intentioned its prominent and powerful members may be) is the same as the ultimate aim of international communism: to create a one-world socialist system and make the United States an official part of it.

I have to stop there. The Invisible Government goes on and on and on. What is important is who actually started it and who/what/where it leads to.

Morgan and Rockefeller involvement

The Americans who subsequently returned from the conference became drawn to a discreet club of New York financiers and international lawyers who had organized previously in June 1918 and was headed by Elihu Root, J. P. Morgan‘s lawyer;^[16] this select group called itself the Council on Foreign Relations.^[10] They joined this group and the Council was formally established in New York on July 29, 1921, with 108 founding members, including Elihu Root as a leading member, geographer Isaiah Bowman as a founding Director, and John W. Davis, the chief counsel for J. P. Morgan & Co. and former Solicitor General for President Wilson,^[16] as its founding president. Davis was to become Democratic presidential candidate in 1924.

Other members included John Foster Dulles, Herbert H. Lehman, Henry L. Stimson, Averell Harriman, the Rockefeller family‘s public relations expert, Ivy Lee,^[20] and Paul M. Warburg and Otto Kahn of the investment bank Kuhn, Loeb.^[16]

The Council initially had strong connections to the Morgan interests, such as the lawyer, Paul Cravath, whose pre-eminent New York law firm (later named Cravath, Swaine & Moore) represented Morgan businesses; a Morgan partner, Russell Cornell Leffingwell, later became its first chairman. The head of the group’s finance committee was Alexander Hemphill, chairman of Morgan’s Guaranty Trust Company. Economist Edwin F. Gay, editor of the New York Evening Post, owned by Morgan partner Thomas W. Lamont, served as Secretary-Treasurer of the organization. Other members related to Morgan included Frank L. Polk, former Under-Secretary of State and attorney for J.P. Morgan & Co. Former Wilson Under-Secretary of State Norman H. Davis was a banking associate of the Morgans.^[16] Over time, however, the locus of power shifted inexorably to the Rockefeller family. Paul Cravath’s law firm also represented the Rockefeller family.^[21] Edwin Gay suggested the creation of a quarterly journal, Foreign Affairs. He recommended Archibald Cary Coolidge be installed as the first editor, along with his New York Evening Post reporter, Hamilton Fish Armstrong, as assistant editor and executive director of the Council.^[16]

Even from its inception, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. was a regular benefactor, making annual contributions, as well as a large gift of money towards its first headquarters on East 65th Street, along with corporate donors .^[22] In 1944, the widow of Standard Oil executive Harold I. Pratt donated the family’s four-story mansion on the corner of 68th Street and Park Avenue for council use and this became the CFR’s new headquarters, known as The Harold Pratt House, where it remains today.

Several of Rockefeller’s sons joined the council when they came of age; David Rockefeller joined the council as its youngest-ever director in 1949 and subsequently became chairman of the board from 1970 to 1985; today he serves as honorary chairman.^[23] The major philanthropic organization he founded with his brothers in 1940, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, has also provided funding to the Council, from 1953 to at least 1980.^[24]

Another major support base from the outset was the corporate sector; around 26 corporations provided financial assistance in the 1920s, seizing the opportunity to inject their business concerns into the weighty deliberations of the academics and scholars in the Council’s ruling elite. In addition, the Carnegie Corporation contributed funds in 1937 to expand the Council’s reach by replicating its structure in a diminished form in eight American cities.^[25]

John J. McCloy became an influential figure in the organization after the Second World War, and he held connections to both the Morgans and Rockefellers. As assistant to Secretary of War (and J. P. Morgan attorney) Henry Stimson during World War II, he had presided over important American war policies; his brother-in-law John Zinsser was on the board of directors of JP Morgan & Co. during that time, and after the war McCloy joined New York law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hope, Hadley & McCloy as a partner. The company had long served as legal counsel to the Rockefeller family and the Chase Manhattan bank. McCloy became Chairman of the Board of Chase Manhattan, a director of the Rockefeller Foundation and Chairman of the Board of the CFR from 1953 to 1970. President Harry S. Truman appointed him President of the World Bank Group and U.S. High Commissioner to Germany. He served as a special adviser on disarmament to President John F. Kennedy and chaired a special committee on the Cuban crisis. He was said to have had the largest influence on American foreign policy of anyone after World War II. McCloy’s brother-in-law, Lewis W. Douglas, also served on the board of the CFR and as a trustee for the Rockefeller Foundation; Truman appointed him as American ambassador to Great Britain.^[16]

I want to give just one example of the intricacy of the web:

Morton Halperin

• Senior Vice President of the Center for American Progress
• Director of George Soros’ Open Society Policy Center
• Long associated with the Institute for Policy Studies and the National Lawyers Guild
• Foreign policy expert who proposed unilateral U.S. nuclear disarmament, the end of all American clandestine activities, and United Nations control over every international use of the U.S. military
• Befriended CIA agent-turned-Communist Philip Agee

Morton Halperin is Senior Vice President of the Center for American Progress and Director of the Open Society Policy Center established by George Soros.

Born in 1933 in Brooklyn, New York, Halperin graduated from Columbia University in 1958 and earned a Ph.D. from Yale University three years later.

From 1961 to 1966 he taught at Harvard University‘s Center for International Affairs. During this period, he advocated U.S. nuclear disarmament even if the Soviet Union did not likewise disarm. In any mutual arms reduction treaty with the Soviets, wrote Halperin in his 1961 treatise A Proposal for a Ban on the Use of Nuclear Weapons, “inspection was not absolutely necessary. … The United States might, in fact, want to invite the Soviets to design the inspection procedures if they seem interested in them.”

…snip

After he left government in 1970, Halperin became a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He was feted and embraced by many leftist organizations that promoted similar views, such as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Council on Foreign Relations.

…snip

In 1975 Halperin became Director of the Center for National Security Studies (CNSS), a spinoff of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). CNSS also is aligned with the National Lawyers Guild. Much of CNSS’s staff was derived from these two organizations. IPS Director Robert Borosage helped Halperin run CNSS.

…snip

In 1998 Halperin became Director of Policy Planning for the U.S. State Department. During his tenure there, 15 State Department laptop computers containing highly classified intelligence information disappeared; one of them was checked out to Halperin’s office. A number of people were punished for this serious security breach, but Halperin was not.

In February 2002 Halperin became Director of the Open Society Policy Center and has worked closely ever since with its creator, George Soros.

According to a March 1, 2004 report by Robert Dreyfuss in The Nation, Halperin and Soros together hand-picked the President of the Center for American Progress (CAP), former Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta. Halperin today is Senior Vice President at CAP, where his son David is a Special Adviser on Campus Outreach.

Another of Morton Halperin’s sons, Mark Halperin, is the Political Director of ABC News.

Moving on….

The Brookings Institute

The Brookings Institution defines itself as “a private nonprofit organization devoted to independent research and innovative policy solutions.” Professing to be without a political agenda, it aims to “provide the highest quality research, policy recommendations, and analysis on the full range of public policy issues … for decision-makers in the U.S. and abroad on the full range of challenges facing an increasingly interdependent world.”

The Brookings Institution is an outgrowth of the Institute for Government Research (IGR), which was founded in 1916 to analyze public policy issues at the national level. In 1922 and 1924, one of IGR’s supporters, St. Louis businessman and philanthropist Robert Somers Brookings (1850-1932), established two sister organizations: the Institute of Economics and a graduate school (as part of Washington University) bearing his name. In 1927, the three entities merged to form the Brookings Institution. Its first Board included Mr. Brookings; Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter; Charles W. Eliot, former President of Harvard; Fredric Delano, uncle of future President Franklin Delano Roosevelt; Herbert Hoover; and Frank Goodnow, who would become the first Chairman of the IGR’s Board of Trustees and President of Johns Hopkins University.

Mr. Brookings officially opposed FDR’s expansion of the welfare state during the Great Depression, and then-Brookings Institution President Harold Moulton concluded that the National Recovery Administration had actually impeded recovery. The Institution assisted in the planning of World War II, providing the government with manpower estimates and price control data; it also offered suggestions on the most efficient way to carry out the rebuilding of Europe after the War.

The Brookings Institution’s capacity to shape government policy increased dramatically in the 1950s, when it received substantial grants from the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations. President Robert Calkins reorganized the Institution into Economic Studies, Government Studies, and Foreign Policy Studies programs, and by the mid-1960s Brookings was conducting nearly 100 research projects per year for the government as well as for private industry, making it the preeminent source of research in the world.

…snip

Brookings income derives from a wide variety of sources, including seminars run for government and businesses, and a vast array of corporate and government contracts. In recent years, Brookings has received grants from the Aetna Foundation; the American Express Foundation; the Open Society Institute; the Fannie Mae Foundation; the Carnegie Corporation of New York; the Ford Foundation; the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; the MacArthur Foundation; the Rockefeller Foundation; the Rockefeller Brothers Fund; the AT&T Foundation, the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Vira I. Heinz Endowment, the Heinz Family Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts, the Turner Foundation, the Surdna Foundation, and the Verizon Foundation. In 2004, grants to the Brookings Institutions totaled $32,107,359.

How are you feeling about that one? Are you seeing the same names over and over again?

I am going to end here for the moment with lists of people on the Council on Foreign Relations for your perusal and background processing. Are the conspiracy theorists right? Was the plan always to have a “New World Order” starting with taking control of our money, then our elected offices, foreign policy and now leading to a market collapse caused by the Community Reinvestment Act? Do we have the new French Aristocracy telling us to “eat cake”? Is America’s version of Bastille Day coming? Notice the corporate members; UBS, the Swiss bank closing American offshore accounts is on the list.

OFFICE	NAME
Co-Chairman of the Board	Carla A. Hills
Co-Chairman of the Board	Robert E. Rubin
Vice Chairman	Alexandre Louise Mohan
President	Richard N. Haass
Board of Directors
Director	Peter Ackerman
Director	Fouad Ajami
Director	Madeleine Albright
Director	Charlene Barshefsky
Director	Henry Bienen
Director	Alan Blinder
Director	Stephen W. Bosworth
Director	Tom Brokaw
Director	Sylvia Mathews Burwell
Director	Frank J. Caufield
Director	Kenneth Duberstein
Director	Martin Feldstein
Director	Richard N. Foster
Director	Stephen Friedman
Director	Ann M. Fudge
Director	Helene D. Gayle
Director	Maurice R. Greenberg
Director	J. Tomilson Hill
Director	Richard Holbrooke
Director	Karen Elliott House
Director	Alberto Ibargüen
Director	Shirley Ann Jackson
Director	Henry Kravis
Director	Jami Miscik
Director	Michael H. Moskow
Director	Joseph Nye
Director	Ronald L. Olson
Director	James W. Owens
Director	Colin Powell
Director	David Rubenstein
Director	George E. Rupp
Director	Anne-Marie Slaughter
Director	Joan E. Spero
Director	Vin Weber
Director	Christine Todd Whitman
Director	Fareed Zakaria

The Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations is composed in total of thirty-six officers. Peter G. Peterson and David Rockefeller are Directors Emeriti (Chairman Emeritus and Honorary Chairman, respectively). It also has an International Advisory Board consisting of thirty-five distinguished individuals from across the world.^[6][31]

Corporate Members

ABC News Alcoa American Express AIG Bank of America Bloomberg L.P. Boeing BP CA, Inc. Chevron Citigroup Coca-Cola De Beers Deutsche Bank Duke Energy DVS Group ExxonMobil FedEx Ford Motor General Electric GlaxoSmithKline Google

Halliburton Heinz Hess IBM JPMorgan Chase Kohlberg Kravis Roberts Lockheed Martin MasterCard McGraw-Hill McKinsey Merck Merrill Lynch Morgan Stanley Motorola NASDAQ News Corp Nike PepsiCo Pfizer

Shell Oil Sony Corporation of America Tata Group Time Warner Total S.A. Toyota Motor North America UBS United Technologies United States Chamber of Commerce U.S. Trust Corporation Verizon Visa[32]

Notable current council members

• Angelina Jolie (UN Goodwill Ambassador)^[33]
• Roger St. Moritz
• Erin Burnett – CNBC News Anchor ^[34]
• Timothy Geithner^[35]

Notable historical members

Source: The Council on Foreign Relations from 1921 to 1996:Historical Roster of Directors and Officers^[37]