Modern History Project

 "A little learning is a
dangerous thing"

Final Warning

: A History of the New World Order
Illuminism and the master plan for world domination
-- by: David Allen Rivera, 1994, source: darivera.com
MHP hypertext version for non-profit educational use only

5.2  The Council on Foreign Relations


The origin and goals of the elite U.S. policy organization

>> Click names in text for timelines and related articles

The Inquiry and the Round Table

In the fall of 1917, a group called "The Inquiry" was assembled by Col. Edward M. House to negotiate solutions for the Paris Peace Conference in Versailles. They worked out of the American Geographical Society doing historical research, and writing position papers. The Inquiry was formed around the inner circle of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society, which was a group of American socialist-oriented intellectuals.

House, President Wilson's most trusted advisor, was an admirer of Marx. In 1912, he anonymously wrote the book Philip Dru: Administrator (published by Fabian B. W. Huebsch), which was a novel that detailed the plans for the takeover of America, by establishing "socialism as dreamed by Karl Marx," and the creation of a one-world totalitarian government. This was to be done by electing an American President through "deception regarding his real opinions and intentions." The book also discussed the graduated income tax, and tax-free foundations. The novel became fact, and "Philip Dru" was actually House himself.

In the spring of 1918, a group of people met at the Metropolitan Club in New York City to form the Council on Foreign Relations . The group was made up of "high-ranking officers of banking, manufacturing, trading, and finance companies, together with many lawyers ... concerned primarily with the effect that the war and the treaty of peace might have on post-war business." The honorary Chairman was Elihu Root, a Wall Street lawyer, former New York Senator, former Secretary of War under McKinley, former Secretary of State under Theodore Roosevelt, member of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1912), and the most recognized Republican of his time. From June, 1918 to April, 1919, they held a series of dinner meetings on a variety of international matters, but soon disbanded.

On May 30, 1919, Baron Edmond de Rothschild of France hosted a meeting at the Majestic Hotel in Paris between The Inquiry and the Round Table groups to discuss a merger. The Inquiry was dominated by J. P. Morgan's people and included members such as:

Round Table representatives included:

They met again on June 5, 1919, and decided to have separate organizations, each cooperating with the other. On July 17, 1919, Edward M. House formed the Institute for International Affairs in New York City, and The Inquiry became the American branch of the Round Table. Their secret aims were:
"...to coordinate the international activities and outlooks of all the English-speaking world into one ... to work to maintain peace; to help backward, colonial, and underdeveloped areas to advance towards stability, law and order, and prosperity, along the lines somehow similar to those taught at Oxford and the University of London..."

The Council on Foreign Relations , and the Institute for International Affairs, both supporters of Wilson, strongly supported the League of Nations. However, the Round Table wanted to weaken the League by eliminating the possibility of collective security in order to strengthen Germany, and isolate England from Europe so an Atlantic power could be established, consisting of England, the British Dominions, and the United States.

In 1921, when it became apparent that the United States wasn't going to join the League, the Council on Foreign Relations was incorporated on July 21st, consisting of members from both groups, and others who had participated in the 1919 Paris Peace Talks. The name change was made so that the American branch of the Round Table would appear to be a separate entity, and not connected to the organization in England.

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) became the American headquarters for the Illuminati. Led by Edward M. House who wrote the Charter, they were financed by:

The membership of the CFR was mainly made up from the 150 members of Edward M. House's task force which worked on the Peace Treaty. Many were associates of the J.P. Morgan Bank. The first Board consisted of the seven who were on the Merger Committee, plus nine others:

Other CFR members included:

The CFR Begins Operation

Whereas All Souls College at Oxford University was the base for Round Table operations in England, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, established by Abraham Flexner of the Carnegie Foundation and Rockefeller's General Education Board, was the center of activities for the American branch.

The CFR membership grew from 97 in 1921, to 210 in 1922. In 1927, they began to receive funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, and later the Carnegie Endowment and Ford Foundation, in addition to the financial support they got from J.P. Morgan and the Wall Street banking interests. By 1936, their membership reached 250, and they already had a lot of influence on five American newspapers: The New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, The Washington Post, and the Boston Evening Transcript. This gave them the ability to slant the news in a way which would reflect their views, and thus begin the process of molding America to suit their needs.

In 1937, the CFR came up with the idea for 'Committees on Foreign Relations,' which would be established in various major cities around the country, for the "serious discussion of international affairs by leading citizens in widely separated communities." Between 1938 and 1940, Francis P. Miller organized these mini-Councils with funding from the Carnegie Corporation, to better influence thinking across the country. John W. Davis said after World War II that these committees had "provided an avenue for extending the Council to every part of the country." These CFR subsidiaries were established in 38 cities: Albuquerque, Atlanta, Billings, Birmingham, Boise, Boston, Casper, Charlottesville, Chicago (the most prominent), Cleveland, Denver, Des Moines, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Little Rock, Los Angeles, Louisville, Miami, Nashville, Omaha, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland (ME), Portland (OR), Providence, Rochester, St. Louis, St. Paul-Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Seattle, Tampa Bay, Tucson, Tulsa, Wichita, and Worcester.

The CFR has always claimed to be a private organization that doesn't formulate any government policy, in fact, the following disclaimer appears on their books:

"The Council on Foreign Relations is a non-profit institution devoted to the study of the international aspects of American political, economic, and strategic problems. It takes no stand, expressed or implied, on American policy."

From the beginning, their goal was to infiltrate the government, and that was done. Actually, they were so successful, that today, the CFR practically controls, and dictates, both domestic and foreign policy.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt had Henry Wallace (Secretary of Agriculture) and Lewis Douglas (Director of the Budget Bureau) work with a CFR study group on national self-sufficiency, out of which came the Export-Import Bank and the Trade Agreements Act of 1934.

On September 12, 1939, after the start of World War II, CFR members Hamilton Fish Armstrong (editor of the CFR magazine Foreign Affairs) and Walter H. Mallory (Executive Director), went to the State Department and met with Assistant Secretary of State George S. Messersmith (CFR member), to offer the services of the Council by establishing a CFR study group concerning the war and a plan for peace, which would make recommendations to the State Department. They proposed to do research, and make informal recommendations in areas regarding national security and economics. Secretary of State Cordell Hull, and Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles (CFR member) liked the idea, and the "War and Peace Studies Project" was initiated with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, who gave grants totaling $300,000 over a 6 year period.

Under that umbrella, there were 5 study groups, each with 10-15 men and a full-time paid secretary. All together, between 1940 and 1945, there were 100 people involved, with 362 meetings, producing 682 documents, and meets regularly with State Department officials.

Officers:
Norman H. Davis (Chairman)
Walter H. Mallory (Secretary)
Peace Aims:
Hamilton Fish Armstrong
Territorial:
Isaiah Bowman (President of Johns Hopkins University, geography expert)
Armaments:
Allen W. Dulles (international corporate lawyer)
Hanson W. Baldwin (military correspondent for New York Times)
Political:
Whitney H. Shepardson (corporate executive who was House's secretary at the 1919 Versailles Peace Conference)
Economic and Financial:
Alvin H. Hansen (professor of political economy at Harvard)
Jacob Viner (professor of economics at University of Chicago)

In December, 1941, at the urging of the CFR , the State Department created the 14-member "Advisory Committee on Post-War Foreign Policy", in which the CFR was represented by eight of its members (2 more became members later). The core of the group was:

All were CFR members, with the exception of Hull, and were known as the 'Informal Political Agenda Group' which Roosevelt called his "post-war advisers." They controlled the Committee, and were assisted by a research staff financed and controlled by the CFR. In order to formulate a closer liaison between the CFR and the Advisory Committee, the Research Secretaries from the "War and Peace Studies Project" were brought into the State Department as consultants to the corresponding subcommittee of the Advisory Committee. The Committee had their last general meeting in May, 1942, and all work from then on occurred at the subcommittee level.

As World War II came to an end, CFR study groups planned the reconstruction of Germany and Japan, the establishment of the United Nations, the initiation of the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank (the U.N. International Bank for Reconstruction and Development). In December, 1943, the CFR began to outline their proposal for the United Nations, which was presented at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference. Historian Ruth B. Russell wrote in her 1958 book, A History of the United Nations Charter: The Role of the United States, 1940-1945, that "the substance of the provisions finally written into the (U.N.) Charter in many cases reflected conclusions reached at much earlier stages by the United States Government."

In 1945, the CFR moved into their present headquarters, which was largely financed by Rockefeller; and the study groups disbanded, with the men in those groups taking their place in the forefront of national affairs. For instance, Allen Dulles, former President of the CFR, was appointed director of the CFR; and John Foster Dulles, became Eisenhower's Secretary of State. Senator Barry Goldwater would later say: "From that day forward the Council on Foreign Relations had placed its members in policy-making positions with the federal government, not limited to the State Department."

In 1945, Sen. Arthur K. Vandenberg, a leading Republican, and a CFR member, traveled around the country to drum up support for the creation of the United Nations. He was also instrumental in getting the Republican-controlled Congress to go along with Truman's CFR-controlled foreign policy. When the U.N. Conference met in San Francisco in 1945, there were 47 CFR members in the U.S. delegation, including:

The Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR)

In 1925, Lionel Curtis, established the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR) in 12 countries in order to steer America towards Communism. This Round Table finger organization was financed by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the Ford Foundation.

The American branch of the IPR also received funding from:

The IPR was led by Professor Owen Lattimore, head of Johns Hopkins University School of Diplomacy, who, during a 1951-52 investigation of the IPR, was identified as a Soviet operative. The Senate found the group to be "a vehicle toward Communist objectives." Men from the IPR (who were all communist or pro-communist) were placed in important teaching positions and dominated the Asian Affairs section of the State Department. After a four-year battle, their tax exempt status was revoked from 1955-1960.

Their publications were used by the armed forces, colleges, and close to 1,300 public school systems. They published a magazine called Amerasia, whose offices had been raided by the FBI which found 1,700 secret documents from various government agencies, including the Army and Navy, that were either stolen or given to them by traitors within the State Department. The Senate Internal Subcommittee concluded that the American policy decision which helped establish Communist control in China (by threatening to cut-off aid to Chiang Kai-shek unless he went communist), was made by IPR officials acting on behalf of the Soviet Union.

Besides Lattimore, they also named Lauchlin Currie (an Administrative Assistant to the President, who was identified as a Soviet agent by J. Edgar Hoover), Alger Hiss, Joseph Barnes, Philip Jessup, and Harry Dexter White as Communist sympathizers. While he was Assistant Secretary of Treasury, Harry Dexter White provided Russia with the means of printing currency. He became Director of the International Monetary Fund in 1946, but resigned in 1947, when Whittaker Chambers accused him of being pro-communist, which he denied. In November, 1948, after White's death, Whittaker produced five rolls of microfilmed documents, which included eight pages of U.S. military secrets which had been written by White.

After World War II, the CFR was able to expand its study programs with grants of $1.5 million from the Ford Foundation, $500,000 from the Rockefeller Foundation, and $500,000 from the Carnegie Endowment.

Pro-communist Cyrus Eaton, Sr., a recipient of the Lenin Peace Prize, established the "Joint Conferences on Science and World Affairs", also known as the "Pugwash Conferences", in 1945 to gather intellectuals from across the world, and to exchange information on ways to push America towards disarmament. The group was financed by the CFR , the Rockefeller Foundation and the Ford Foundation. In 1959, a disarmament proposal developed by the CFR, and discussed at the Conference, became the basis for Kennedy's disarmament policy in September, 1961.

In Study No. 7 Basic Aim of U.S. Foreign Policy, published by the CFR in November, 1959, they revealed their plans for the country:

"The U.S. must strive to build a new international order ... (which) must be responsive to world aspirations for peace ... (and) for social and economic change...including states labeling themselves as 'Socialist' ... (and to) gradually increase the authority of the U.N.."

They also advocated secret negotiations with Russia concerning disarmament, and increased foreign aid to China. The foreign policy of the CFR seemed to mirror that of the U.S. Communist Party, only because a change to a socialistic form of government would bring them that much closer to a one-world government.

The Globalist Goals of the CFR

The CFR 's "1980's Project" evolved from a Council Study Group on International Order, which had met from 1971-73. They sought to duplicate the success they had achieved with the War and Peace Studies, and their concentration was to be on creating a new political and economic system that would have global emphasis. Miriam Camps, former Vice-Chairperson of the State Department's Policy Planning Council, recorded the group's discussion in a report called The Management of Independence, which called for "the kind of international system which we should be seeking to nudge things."

In the fall of 1973, the 1980's Project was initiated, and to accommodate it the CFR staff was expanded and additional funds raised, including $1.3 million in grants from the Ford, Lilly, Mellon and Rockefeller Foundations. The Coordinating Committee had 14 men, with a full-time staff; plus 12 groups, each with 20 members; in addition to other experts and advisors who acted as consultants to the project. Some of the reports produced: Reducing Global Inequities, Sharing Global Resources, and Enhancing Global Human Rights.

Stanley Hoffmann, a chief participant of the Project, wrote a book in 1978, called Primacy or World Order, which he said was an "illegitimate offspring" of the Project. Basically, it was a summary of the Project's work, and concluded that the best chance for foreign policy success, was to adopt a "world order policy."

When Jimmy Carter was elected to the Presidency in 1976, some of the Project's strongest supporters, such as Cyrus Vance, Michael Blumenthal, Marshall Shulman, and Paul Warnke, went to the White House to serve in the new Administration. In 1979, the Project was discontinued for being too unrealistic, which meant it was too soon for that kind of talk.

The CFR headquarters and library is located in the five-story Howard Pratt mansion (a gift from Pratt's widow, who was an heir to the Standard Oil fortune) at 58 E. 68th Street, in New York City (on the corner of Park Ave. and 68th Street), on the opposite corner of the Soviet Embassy to the United Nations. They are considered a semi-secret organization whose 1966 Annual Report stated that members who do not adhere to its strict secrecy can be dropped from their membership. On the national level, the Business Advisory Council and the Pilgrim Society are groups which form the inner circle of the CFR, while on the international level it's the Bilderberg Group.

James P. Warburg (banker, economist, a member of FDR's brain trust, and son of Paul M. Warburg) of the CFR told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee on February 17, 1950:

"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 Chicago Tribune printed an editorial on December 9, 1950 which said:

"The members of the Council are persons of much more than average influence in the community. They have used the prestige that their wealth, their social position, and their education have given them to lead their country towards bankruptcy and military debacle. They should look at their hands. There is blood on them -- the dried blood of the last war and the fresh blood of the present one."

They have only been investigated once and that was in 1954 by the Special House Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations (the Reece Committee), who said that the CFR was "in essence an agency of the United States Government." The Committee discovered that their directives were aimed "overwhelmingly at promoting the globalistic concept."

A July, 1958 Harper's magazine article said:

"The most powerful clique in these (CFR) groups have one objective in common: they want to bring about the surrender of the sovereignty and the national independence of the U.S. They want to end national boundaries and racial and ethnic loyalties supposedly in increase business and ensure world peace.

What they strive for would inevitably lead to dictatorship and loss of freedoms by the people. The CFR was founded for 'the purpose of promoting disarmament and submergence of U.S. sovereignty and national independence into an all-powerful one-world government'."

On September 1, 1961, The Christian Science Monitor printed the following statement: "The directors of the CFR make up a sort of Presidium [as in the Soviet Union] for that part of the Establishment that guides our destiny as a nation."

On December 23, 1961, columnist Edith Kermit Roosevelt (granddaughter of President Theodore Roosevelt) wrote in the Indianapolis News that CFR policies: "favor ... gradual surrender of United States sovereignty to the United Nations." Researcher Dan Smoot, a former FBI employee, said their goal was "to create a one-world Socialist system and make the United States an official part of it."

(See "The Invisible Government" by Dan Smoot, 1962)

Rep. John R. Rarick of Louisiana said in 1971:

"The CFR, dedicated to one-world government, financed by a number of the largest tax-exempt foundations, and wielding such power and influence over our lives in the areas of finance, business, labor, military, education and mass communication-media, should be familiar to every American concerned with good government and with preserving and defending the U.S. Constitution and our free-enterprise system.

Yet, the nation's right-to-know machinery, the news media, usually so aggressive in exposures to inform our people, remain conspicuously silent when it comes to the CFR, its members and their activities.

The CFR is the Establishment. Not only does it have influence and power in key decision-making positions at the highest levels of government to apply pressure from above, but it also finances and uses individuals and groups to bring pressure from below, to justify the high level decisions for converting the U.S. from a sovereign Constitutional Republic into a servile member state of a one-world dictatorship."

Phyllis Schlafly and Rear Admiral Chester Ward, former Judge Advocate General of the Navy from 1956-60 who was a member of the CFR for 16 years, wrote in their 1975 book Kissinger on the Couch that the CFR's

"...purpose of promoting disarmament and submergence of U.S. sovereignty and national independence into an all-powerful one-world government is the only objective revealed to about 95 percent of 1,551 members (1975 figures). There are two other ulterior purposes that CFR influence is being used to promote; but it is improbable that they are known to more than 75 members, or that these purposes ever have even been identified in writing."

The book went on to say that the "most powerful clique in these elitist groups have one objective in common -- they want to bring about the surrender of the sovereignty and the national independence of the United States." Ward's indictment of the group revealed their methods:

"Once the ruling members of the CFR have decided that the U.S. Government should adopt a particular policy, the very substantial research facilities of CFR are put to work to develop arguments, intellectual and emotional, to support the new policy, and to confound and discredit, intellectually and politically, any opposition."

The published accounts of CFR activities greatly understate their power and influence on national and foreign policy. They have been called the "invisible government" or a front for the intellectual leaders who hope to control the world through the Fabian technique of "gradualism." Besides their involvement in the government, they hold key positions in all branches of the media, including the control or ownership of major newspapers, magazines, publishing companies, television, and radio stations.

The New York Times wrote:

"The Council's membership includes some of the most influential men in government, business, education and the press (and) for nearly half a century has made substantial contributions to the basic concepts of American foreign policy."

Newsweek called the Council's leadership the "foreign policy establishment of the U.S." Well-known political observer and writer Theodore White said: "The Council counts among its members probably more important names in American life than any other private group in the country." In 1971, J. Anthony Lukas wrote in the New York Times Magazine: "If you want to make foreign policy, there's no better fraternity to belong to than the Council."

Copyright © David A. Rivera