Secret Organizations and Hidden Agendas The Future Is Calling (Part Two)
© 2003 – 2009 by G. Edward Griffin Revised 2009 April 19
JOHN RUSKIN PROMOTES COLLECTIVISM AT OXFORD
Now let’s put theory behind us and get back into some real history. From the minutes of the Carnegie Endowment, we recall the curious words: “We must control education in America.” Who is this “we?” Who are the people who are planning to do that? To answer that question we must set the co-ordinates on our machine once again, and we are now moving further back in time to the year 1870. We find ourselves suddenly in England in an elegant classroom of Oxford University, and we are listing to a lecture by a brilliant intellectual, John Ruskin.
Ruskin was a Professor of Fine Arts at Oxford. He was a genius. At first I was prepared not to like him, because he was a total collectivist. But, when I got his books and started to read the notes from his lectures, I had to acknowledge his talent. First of all he was an accomplished artist. He was an architect. He was a philosopher. About the only flaw that I could see was that he believed in collectivism. He preached it eloquently, and his students, coming from the wealthy class – the elite and the privileged from the finest areas of London – were very receptive to his message. He taught that those who had inherited the rich culture and traditions of the British Empire had an obligation to rule the world and make sure that all the less fortunate and stupid people had proper direction. That basically was his message, but it was delivered in a very convincing and appealing manner.
Ruskin was not the originator of collectivism. He was merely riding the crest of an ideological tidal wave that was sweeping through the whole Western World at that time. It was appealing to the sons and daughters of the wealthy who were growing up with guilt complexes because they enjoyed so much luxury and privilege in stark contrast to the world’s poor and starving masses.
In this milieu there were two powerful ideological movements coming to birth. One of them was Marxism, which offered the promise of defending and elevating these downtrodden masses. Wealthy young people felt in their hearts that this promise was worthy and noble. They wanted to do something to help these people, but they didn’t want to give up their own privileges. I will say this about John Ruskin, he actually did give of his own wealth to help the poor, but he was one of the rare exceptions. Most collectivists are hesitant about giving their own money. They prefer to have government be the solver of problems and to use tax revenues – other people’s money. Collectivists recognize that someone has to run this governmental machine, and it might as well be them, especially since they are so well educated and wise. In this way, they can retain both their privilege and their wealth. They can now be in control of society without guilt. They can talk about how they are going to lift up the downtrodden masses using the collectivist model. It was for these reasons that many of the wealthy idealists became Marxists and sought positions of influence in government.
THE FABIAN SOCIETY
But there was another movement coming to birth at about this same time that eventually gave competition to the hard-core Marxists. Some of the more erudite members of the wealthy and intellectual classes of England formed an organization to perpetuate the concept of collectivism but not exactly according to Marx. It was called the Fabian Society. The name is significant, because it was in honor of Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, the Roman general who, in the second century B.C., kept Hannibal at bay by wearing down his army with delaying tactics, endless maneuvering, and avoiding confrontation wherever possible. Unlike the Marxists who were in a hurry to come to power through direct confrontation with established governments, the Fabians were willing to take their time, to come to power without direct confrontation, working quietly and patiently from inside the target governments. To emphasize this strategy, and to separate themselves from the Marxists, they adopted the turtle as their symbol. And their official shield portrays an image of a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Those two images perfectly summarize their strategy.
It is now 1884, and we find ourselves in Surrey, England observing a small group of these Fabians, sitting around a table in the stylish home of two of their more prominent members, Sydney and Beatrice Webb. The Webbs later would be known world wide as the founders of the London School of Economics. Their home eventually was donated to the Fabian Society and became its official headquarters. Around the table are such well-known figures as George Bernard Shaw, Arnold Toynbee, H.G. Wells, and numerous others of similar caliber. By the way, the Fabian Society still exists, and many prominent people are members, not the least of which is England’s Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
H.G. Wells wrote a book to serve as a guide showing how collectivism can be embedded into society without arousing alarm or serious opposition. It was called The Open Conspiracy, and the plan was spelled out in minute detail. His fervor was intense. He said that the old religions of the world must give way to the new religion of collectivism. The new religion should be the state, he said, and the state should take charge of all human activity with, of course, elitists such as himself in control. On the very first page, he says: “This book states as plainly and clearly as possible the essential ideas of my life, the perspective of my world…. This is my religion. Here are my directive aims and the criteria of all I do.”1
When he said that collectivism was his religion, he was serious. Like many collectivists, he felt that traditional religion is a barrier to the acceptance of state power. It is a competitor for man’s loyalties. Collectivists see religion as a device by which the clerics keep the downtrodden masses content by offering a vision of something better in the next world. If your goal is to bring about change, contentment is not what you want. You want discontentment. That’s why Marx called religion the opiate of the masses.2 It gets in the way of revolutionary change. Wells said that collectivism should become the new opiate, that it should become the vision for better things in the next world. The new order must be built on the concept that individuals are nothing compared to the long continuum of society, and that only by serving society do we become connected to eternity. He was very serious.
The blueprint in The Open Conspiracy has been followed in all the British dependencies and the United Sates. As a result, today’s world is very close to the vision of H.G. Wells. A worship of the god called society has become a new religion. No matter what insult to our dignity or liberty, we are told it’s necessary for the advancement of society, and that has become the basis for contentment under the hardships of collectivism. The greater good for the greater number has become the opiate of the masses.
LOVE-HATE BETWEEN FABIANS AND LENINISTS
Fabians and Marxists are in agreement over their mutual goal of collectivism, but they differ over style and sometimes tactics. When Marxism became fused with Leninism and made its first conquest in Russia, these differences became the center of debate between the two groups. Karl Marx said the world was divided into two camps eternally at war with each other. One was the working class, which he called the proletariat, and the other was the wealthy class, those who owned the land and the means of production. This class he called the bourgeoisie.
Fabians were never enthusiastic over this class-conflict view, probably because most of them were bourgeoisie, but Lenin and Stalin embraced it wholeheartedly. Lenin described the Communist Party as the “vanguard of the proletariat,” and it became a mechanism for total and ruthless war against anyone who even remotely could be considered bourgeoisie. In the final paragraph of The Communist Manifesto, Marx wrote: “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only through the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.” When the Bolsheviks came to power in Russia, landowners and shopkeepers were slaughtered by the tens of thousands, a process that continued well into the 1990s and eventually claimed the lives of over 100 million people murdered by their own government.
This brutality offended the sensibilities of the genteel Fabians, especially since most of them were landowners or shopkeepers. It’s not that Fabians are opposed to force and violence to accomplish their goals, it’s just that they prefer to use it as a last resort, whereas the Leninists were running amuck in Russia implementing a plan of deliberate terror and brutality. Fabians admired the Soviet system because it was based on collectivism but they were shocked at what they considered to be needless bloodshed. It was a disagreement primarily over style. When Lenin became the master of Russia, many of the Fabians joined the Communist Party thinking that it would become the vanguard of world Socialism. They likely would have stayed there if it hadn’t been for the brutality of the regime.
To understand the love-hate relationship between these two groups we must never lose sight of the fact that Leninism and Fabianism are merely variants of collectivism. Their similarities are much greater than their differences. That is why their members often move from one group to the other – or why some of them are actually members of both groups at the same time. Leninists and Fabians are usually friendly with each other. They may disagree intensely over theoretical issues and style, but never over goals.
Margaret Cole was the Chairman of the Fabian Society in 1955 and ‘56. Her father, G.D.H. Cole, was one of the early leaders of the organization dating back to 1937. In her book, The Story of Fabian Socialism, she describes the common bond that binds collectivists together. She says:
It plainly emerges that the basic similarities were much greater than the differences, that the basic Fabian aims of the abolition of poverty, through legislation and administration; of the communal control of production and social life …, were pursued with unabated energy by people trained in Fabian traditions, whether at the moment of time they called themselves Fabians or loudly repudiated the name…. The fundamental likeness is attested by the fact that, after the storms produced first by Syndicalism3 and then by the Russian Revolution in its early days had died down, those “rebel Fabians” who had not joined the Communist Party … found no mental difficulty in entering the revived Fabian Society of 1939 – nor did the surviving faithful find any difficulty with collaborating with them.4
Fabians are, according to their own symbolism, wolves in sheep’s clothing, and that explains why their style is more effective in countries where parliamentary traditions are well established and where people expect to have a voice in their own political destiny. Leninists, on the other hand, tend to be wolves in wolf’s clothing, and their style is more effective in countries where parliamentary traditions are weak and where people are used to dictatorships anyway.
In countries where parliamentary traditions are strong, the primary tactic for both of these groups is to send their agents into the power centers of society to capture control from the inside. Power centers are those organizations and institutions that represent all the politically influential segments of society. These include labor unions, political parties, church organizations, segments of the media, educational institutions, civic organizations, financial institutions, and industrial corporations, to name just a few. In a moment, I am going to provide a partial list of members of an organization called the Council on Foreign Relations, and you will recognize that the power centers these people control are classic examples of this strategy. The combined influence of all these entities adds up to the total political power of the nation. To capture control of a nation, all that is required is to control its power centers, and that has been the strategy of Leninists and Fabians alike.
They may disagree over style; they may compete over which of them will dominant the coming New World Order, over who will hold the highest positions in the pyramid of power; they may even send opposing armies into battle to establish territorial preeminence over portions of the globe, but they never quarrel over goals. Through it all, they are blood brothers, and they will always unite against their common enemy, which is any opposition to collectivism. It is impossible to understand what is unfolding in the War on Terrorism today without being aware of that reality.
THE KEY THAT UNLOCKS THE DOOR THAT HIDES THE SECRETS
The Fabian symbols of the turtle and the wolf in sheep’s clothing are emblazoned on a stained glass window that used to be in the Fabian headquarters. The window has been removed, we are told, for safety, but there are many photographs showing the symbols in great detail. The most significant part appears at the top. It is that famous line from Omar Khayyam:
Dear love, couldst thou and I with fate conspire
to grasp this sorry scheme of things entire,
would we not shatter it to bits
and then remould it nearer to the hearts desire?
Please allow me to repeat that line. This is the key to modern history, and it unlocks the door that hides the secret of the war on terrorism:
Dear love, couldst thou and I with fate conspire
to grasp this sorry scheme of things entire,
would we not shatter it to bits and then remould it nearer to the hearts desire?
Elsewhere in the window there is a depiction of Sydney Webb and George Bernard Shaw striking the earth with hammers. The earth is on an anvil, and they are striking it with hammers – to shatter it to bits! That’s what they were saying at the Carnegie Endowment Fund. That’s what they were saying at the Ford Foundation. “War is the best way to remold society. War! It will shatter society to bits, break it apart. Then we can remold it nearer to the heart’s desire.” And what is their heart’s desire? It is collectivism.
THE SECRET SOCIETY CREATED BY CECIL RHODES
From the vantage point of our time machine, now we return to the classroom where John Ruskin is extolling the virtues of collectivism, and we observe that one of his students is taking copious notes. His name is Cecil Rhodes. It will be revealed in later years that this young man was so impressed by Ruskin’s message that he often referred to those notes over the next thirty years of his life. Rhodes became a dedicated collectivist and wanted to fulfill the dream and the promise of John Ruskin. His life mission was to bring the British Empire into dominance over the entire world, to re-unite with America, and to create world government based on the model of collectivism. While the erudite Fabians were creating discussion groups among intellectuals to theorize the glories and strategies of collectivism, Rhodes was forming a secret society to actually establish collectivism in every nation of the world. What the Fabians hoped to accomplish by intellectual persuasion, Rhodes planned to accomplish by economic leverage and political deceit. His biographer, Sarah Millin, summed it up when she wrote: “The government of the world was Rhodes’ simple desire.” Most people are aware that Rhodes made one of the world’s greatest fortunes in South African diamonds and gold. What is not widely known is that he spent most of that fortune to implement the theories of John Ruskin.
One of the best authorities on the social and political vision of Cecil Rhodes was Carroll Quigley, a highly respected history professor at Georgetown University. One of Quigley’s former students was President Clinton. In Clinton’s nomination acceptance speech on July 16, 1992, he mentioned Quigley and paid tribute to him as his mentor. He mentioned Quigley many times after that in other public speeches as well. Clearly, Clinton was profoundly affected by his exposure to Quigley’s ideas twenty-seven years earlier, and we may assume that the relationship between teacher and student was similar to that between Ruskin and Rhodes.
The significance of this intellectual bond is that Carroll Quigley taught the conspiratorial view of history – as explained by the conspirators themselves. He admired the conspiracy. He was close to it for much of his life, and was considered by many to be its historian. So, when President Clinton paid tribute to Professor Quigley, his remarks carried two messages. To the average person, he was merely honoring some nice, kindly professor for providing intellectual inspiration. But, to those who knew Quigley’s status, it was an embedded message that the new president was aware of the conspiracy and was in its service.
WHAT CONSPIRACY?
It’s time to define the word conspiracy. A composite definition taken from several dictionaries is that a conspiracy must have three components: (1) It includes two or more people; (2) It involves a plot to commit an illegal or immoral act; and (3) It employs deceit or coercion to accomplish its objective. As we shall see, the group that evolved from the funding of Cecil Rhodes’ fortune has far more than two people and it is a master of deceit and coercion. On those counts it is clearly a conspiracy, but on count number three, we must understand that the participants themselves do not consider their goal to be immoral. In fact, they affectionately describe it as The New World Order, and they consider its attainment to be the highest morality possible in social affairs. In their view, the virtue of this goal is so great that it justifies any act of destruction or sacrifice of individuals if it is necessary for its advance.
As for legality, these are the people who make the laws. They have passed thousands of them so that almost everything they do is entirely legal – and they force everyone else to comply in the name of law. So, in terms of a dictionary definition, this is not a conspiracy. However, in the eyes of those who are the target of its deceit and who are being forced into a collectivist system against their will, the word is entirely appropriate.
Quigley wrote the history of this conspiracy and published it in two books, Tragedy and Hope and The Anglo-American Establishment. They were not intended for mass readership. One-thousand seven-hundred pages altogether, they were written primarily for scholars, students of political science, and those who are involved with the conspiracy at some limited level and want a better understanding of its totality.
What Quigley taught in his classes was similar to what John Ruskin had taught and, like Rhodes before him, he took those lectures very seriously. Incidentally, it should not go unnoticed that Clinton was given a Rhodes Scholarship (most likely obtained with the help of Quigley), which took him to London to study at Oxford University, the alma mater of Ruskin and Rhodes.
QUIGLEY SUMMARIZED
If reading one-thousand seven-hundred pages of dry history is not high on your list of things to do, then here is a summary of Quigley’s message regarding the hidden hand behind world events:
At the end of the 19th Century, a secret society was formed by Cecil Rhodes. Most of his great wealth was given to extend this organization throughout the world. It exists today and has been a major historical force since World War I. Its original goal was to extend the British Empire and Anglo-Saxon culture throughout the world. It soon evolved into something even bigger in scope. The goal became world government of an international character based on the model of collectivism ruled from behind the scenes by an oligarchy composed of those who are loyal to the secret society.
The primary method of conquest is to infiltrate and capture control of the power centers of society. (Power centers are those organizations and institutions that wield influence over political action and public opinion.) Once the power centers are controlled, the nation will follow. People believe that organizations respond to the will of their membership, not realizing that they respond, instead, to the will of their leadership.
The structure of the secret society is based on the classical conspiracy model taken from Adam Weishaupt’s Illuminati. There is no reason to think that Rhodes was a member of the Illuminati, which according to Bavarian records, was disbanded there in 1784. However, there is no doubt that he had studied it carefully, because the structure he chose was modeled after it. It is characterized by organizational rings within rings. At the center is the leader and a few trusted associates called the Elect. These people create a slightly larger organization around themselves, which attracts members who have no knowledge that there is an inner core of direction. This outer ring then creates another, larger organization around itself with the same relationship to its inner ring of control. The larger organization then creates yet another larger organization, and so forth. These rings extend outward until, finally, they reach into the mainstream community where they enlist the services of innocent people who perform various tasks of the secret society without realizing who is creating the agenda or why.
Members of the outer rings are not allowed to see the existence of the inner rings. Only those few who prove themselves worthy are shown the deeper connection and invited to advance. It is through this structure that a small group of men can direct the activities of mass organizations and determine the policies of nations.
One of the benefits of this structure is that the Rhodes Secret Society, although it has attained extensive power, remains invisible to the casual observer. Also of benefit in this regard is the fact that it avoids a formal name. Quigley vacillates between calling it The Group and The Network. Others call it The Rhodes Secret Society. But it has no name! Without a name, it is difficult to even discuss it, much less expose it. The result is a high degree of invisibility.
The inner circle of this conspiracy is called the Society of the Elect. Originally, it consisted of Rhodes and a small brain trust from British banking and politics. After Rhodes’ death, and with the arrival of such powerful participants as Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, and John D, Rockefeller, the center of gravity began to shift from London to New York and eventually came to rest in the Rockefeller group with additional centers of influence in such organizations as the Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission. It was at this point that the goal also shifted from the expansion of the British Empire to the creation of global collectivism.
The secondary ring around the Society of the Elect is called The Round Table. It was established with branches in Britain, each of the British dependencies, and the United States. These, in turn, created outer rings in each country as front groups for the inner Round Tables. In Britain and it dependencies, the outer rings are called The Royal Institute for International Affairs. In Britain, it is informally known as Chatham House, named after the 18th century mansion in which it is located once occupied by William Pitt, First Earl of Chatham. The word Royal is not attractive to Americans; so, in the United States, the outer ring was called The Council on Foreign Relations.
After a hundred years of penetration into the power centers of the Western World, this Network now is close to the final achievement of its goal: the creation of a true world government based on the model of collectivism.
It is important to recall that the Rhodes Secret Society has primary influence in the Western World or, more specifically, those countries that have spun off from British rule. It also is influential in those parts of the world where American military and economic presence is strong. In most of the rest of the world, the dominant force is Leninism which – and it cannot be repeated too often – has the same goal of establishing a global government based on the model of collectivism but is a fierce competitor with the Rhodesians over which faction will rule.
LET THE CONSPIRATORS THEMSELVES DESCRIBE IT
Many will find it difficult to believe that this summary of history is accurate; so, now let’s allow the conspirators themselves to describe it in their own words. In his book, Quigley says:
I know of the operation of this network because I have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years during the 1960’s to examine its papers and secret records. I have no aversion to it or to most of its aims and have for much of my life been close to it and to many of its instruments. In general my chief difference of opinion is that it wishes to remain unknown.5
In The Anglo-American Establishment Quigley says: The Rhodes scholarship established by the terms of Cecil Rhodes’ seventh will are known to everyone. What is not so widely known is that Rhodes, in five previous wills, left his fortune to form a secret society, which was to devote itself to the preservation and expansion of the British Empire. And what does not seem to be known to anyone is that this secret society … continues to exist to this day. To be sure, [it] is not a childish thing like the Ku Klux Klan, and it does not have any secret robes, secret handclasps, or secret passwords. It does not need any of these, since its members know each other intimately. It probably has no oaths of secrecy nor any formal procedure of initiation. It does, however, exist and holds secret meetings….
This Group is, as I shall show, one of the most important historical facts of the twentieth century.6 One of the leaders and organizers of this secret society was William Stead who wrote a book entitled The Last Will and Testament of CJ Rhodes. In that book, he said: Mr. Rhodes was more than the founder of a dynasty. He aspired to be the creator of one of those vast semi-religious, quasi-political associations which, like the Society of Jesus, have played so large a part in the history of the world. To be more strictly accurate, he wished to found an Order as the instrument of the will of the Dynasty….7
I contend that we [English] are the finest race in the world and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race…. What scheme could we think of to forward this object? I look into history and I read the story of the Jesuits. I see what they were able to do in a bad cause and I might say under bad leaders. In the present day I became a member of the Masonic order. I see the wealth and power they possess, the influence they hold, and I think over their ceremonies, and I wonder that a large body of men can devote themselves to what at times appear the most ridiculous and absurd rites without an object and without an end. The idea gleaming and dancing before one’s eyes, like a will-of-the wisp, at last frames itself into a plan. Why should we not form a secret society with but one object: the furtherance of the British Empire and the bringing of the whole uncivilized world under British rule.8
In Quigley’s words, the goal of this secret society was: … nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. The system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basil, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world’s central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank …sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world.9
On page 4 of The Anglo-American Establishment, Quigley says: This organization has been able to conceal its existence quite successfully, and many of its most influential members, satisfied to possess the reality rather than the appearance of power, are unknown even to close students of British history … partly because of the deliberate policy of secrecy which this Group has adopted, partly because the Group itself is not closely integrated but rather appears as a series of overlapping circles or rings partly concealed by being hidden behind formally organized groups of no obvious political significance.
Regarding the organization’s structure, Quigley tells us this: In the secret society, Rhodes was to be leader. Stead, Brett (Lord Esher), and Milner were to form an executive committee [called “The Society of the Elect”]. Arthur (Lord) Balfour, (Sir) Harry Johnston, Lord Rothschild, Albert (Lord) Grey, and others were listed as potential members of a “Circle of Initiates”; while there was to be an outer circle known as the “Association of Helpers” (later organized by Milner as the Round Table organization).10
After the death of Cecil Rhodes, the organization fell under the control of Lord Alfred Milner, who was Governor General and High Commissioner of South Africa, also a very powerful person in British banking and politics.11 He recruited young men from the upper class of society to become part of the Association of Helpers. Unofficially, they were known as “Milner’s Kindergarten.” They were chosen because of their upper-class origin, their intelligence, and especially because of their dedication to uplifting mankind through collectivism. They were quickly placed into important positions in government and other power centers to promote the agenda of the secret society. Eventually, this Association of Helpers became the inner rings of larger groups, which expanded throughout the British Empire and into the United States.
Not everyone who implements the goals of Cecil Rhodes is a member of the inner councils of the Rhodes Network – any more than those who implement the Leninist strategy are necessarily members of the Communist Party. In both cases, the number of people who comprise the inner directorates of these movements is relatively small compared to their followers. Therefore, when we identify these people by the movements they support, it must be understood that this refers, not to actual membership but to ideological orientation. The genius of both camps is their ability to mobilize large numbers of followers into doing their work. Most of the foot soldiers have no knowledge of the history we are now examining. Nevertheless, we will refer to them as Rhodesians or Leninists if they consistently promote these respective agendas. This is especially true if they are in leadership positions; for, in that case, a conscious affinity to these movements becomes highly probable.
ARNOLD TOYNBEE, THE ULTIMATE RHODESIAN
Let us pause here for a moment and reflect on a fact that is easy to overlook when concentrating on historical chronology. It is that all of this recruiting and organizing and placing agents into power centers of society was done in secret. More than that, it was done deceitfully. Not only were the goals of this group hidden from view; it was a matter of policy to deliberately lie about them to the public. To illustrate this point, let us consider the career of Arnold Toynbee, one of the better-known members of Milner’s Kindergarten. Toynbee, was the ultimate Rhodesian: a prominent member of the Fabians, a professor at the London School of Economics (founded by Fabians Sydney and Beatrice Webb), and Director of Studies at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, which is a front for the British Round Table Group, which is a front for the Rhodes secret society. He also served in the Intelligence Department of the British Foreign Office in World Wars I and II. Toynbee was the author of a twelve-volume work entitled A Study of History, which expounds the theme that national sovereignty is doomed to extinction and the future belongs to collectivism. In 1931, in an article that appeared in International Affairs, published by the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Toynbee wrote:
I will hereby repeat that we are at present working, discreetly but with all our might, to wrest this mysterious political force called sovereignty out of the clutches of the local national states of our world. And all the time we are denying with our lips what we are doing with our hands….12
Replacing national sovereignty with world government doesn’t happen merely by writing articles in periodicals or even twelve-volume histories of the world. It happens only when people who champion that goal become leaders within government and other power centers of society. Only then can those ideas be transformed into reality. Quigley explains how this came about:
Through Lord Milner’s influence, these men were able to win influential posts in government, in international finance, and become the dominant influence in British imperial affairs and foreign affairs up to 1939. In 1909 through 1913, they organized semi-secret groups known as known as Round Table Groups, in the chief British dependencies and the United States. These still function in eight countries…. Once again the task was given to Lionel Curtis who established, in England and each dominion, a front organization to the existing local Round Table Group. This front organization, called the Royal Institute of International Affairs, had as its nucleus in each area the existing, submerged Round Table Group. In New York it was known as the Council on Foreign Relations, and was a front for J.P. Morgan and Company.13
At last we come to that obscure yet ubiquitous organization that plays such a decisive roll in contemporary American political life: The Council on Foreign Relations. Now we understand that it was spawned from the secret society of Cecil Rhodes, that it is a front for a Roundtable Group (originally embodied in J.P. Morgan and Company but now the Rockefeller consortium), and that its primary goal is to promote world government based on the model of collectivism.
Why is that important? Because members of the Council on Foreign Relations have become the hidden rulers of America.
THE COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
So who are the members of the CFR? Let’s start with the Presidents of the United States. Members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) include: Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, James Carter, George Bush Senior, and William Clinton. John F. Kennedy claimed he was a member, but his name does not appear on former membership lists. So there is confusion on that one, but he said he was a member. Incidentally, Kennedy was a graduate of the London School of Economics, which was founded by Sydney and Beatrice Webb to promote the ruling-class and collectivist concepts of the Fabians. Former presidential candidate John Kerry is also a member as is Vice President Richard Cheney.
Barack Obama is not a member but, as a Senator, he was invited to speak at CFR meetings. This provided a platform for him to officially endorse CFR policies and it signaled to the political world that he had CFR approval. Obama campaigned for “change,” but all that changed were the names of some of the players. Major policies did not change at all. His appointments included Robert Gates (carried over from the Bush Administration) as Secretary of Defense, Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary; Janet Napolitano as head of Homeland Security; Eric Holder as Attorney General, Susan Rice as Ambassador to the UN, and Paul Volker as head of the newly created Economic Recovery Board. All of these and many lesser appointments were members of the CFR.
Secretaries of State who were CFR members include: Robert Lansing, Frank Kellogg, Henry Stimpson, Cordell Hull, E.R. Stittinius, George Marshall, Dean Acheson, John Foster Dulles, Christian Herter, Dean Rusk, William Rogers, Henry Kissinger, Cyrus Vance, Edmund Muskie, Alexander Haig, George Schultz, James Baker, Lawrence Eagelberger, Warren Christopher, William Richardson, Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell, and Condoleezza Rice.
Secretaries of Defense who were members of the CFR include James Forrestal, George Marshall, Charles Wilson, Neil McElroy, Robert McNamara, Melvin Laird, Elliot Richardson, James Schlesinger, Harold Brown, Casper Weinberger, Frank Carlucci, Richard Cheney, Les Aspin, William Perry, William Cohen, Donald Rumsfeld, and Robert Gates. It is interesting that Rumsfeld has asked that his name be removed from the current list of CFR members. However, you will find his name on previous lists.
CIA Directors who were members of the CFR include Walter Smith, William Colby, Richard Helms, Allen Dulles, John McCone, James Schlesinger, George Bush, Sr., Stansfield Turner, William Casey, William Webster, Robert Gates, James Woolsey, John Deutch, William Studeman, George Tenet, and Porter Goss.
Some of the better known corporations controlled by past or present members of the CFR include The Atlantic Richfield Oil Co., AT&T, Avon Products, Bechtel (construction) Group, Boeing Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Chevron., Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola, Consolidated Edison of New York, EXXON, Dow Chemical, du Pont Chemical, Eastman Kodak, Enron, Estee Lauder, Ford Motor, General Electric, General Foods, Hewlett-Packard, Hughes Aircraft, IBM, International Paper, Johnson & Johnson, Levi Strauss & Co., Lockheed Aerospace, Lucent Technologies, Mobil Oil, Monsanto, Northrop, Pacific Gas & Electric, Phillips Petroleum, Procter & Gamble, Quaker Oats, Yahoo, Shell Oil, Smith Kline Beecham (pharmaceuticals), Sprint Corp., Texaco, Santa Fe Southern-Pacific Railroad, Teledyne, TRW, Southern California Edison, Unocal, United Technologies, Verizon Communications, Warner-Lambert, Weyerhauser, and Xerox.
During the big bailout in the Spring of 2009 when taxpayers paid for the staggering business losses of financial institutions and manufacturing companies, the lion’s share – over a trillion dollars within the first few months of the year – went to corporate sponsors of the CFR. That included American Express, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, AIG, Citibank, Morgan Stanley, Bank of New York, Freddie Mac, Chrysler, and JP Morgan Chase. The man in charge of administering the bailouts was Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, who is not only a member of the CFR but formerly employed on its staff.
In the Media there are past or present members of the CFR holding key management or control positions – not just working down the line – but in top management and control positions of Atlantic magazine, The Army Times, American Publishers, American Spectator, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Associated Press, Association of American Publishers, Boston Globe, Business Week, Christian-Science Monitor, Dallas Morning News, Detroit Free Press, Detroit News, Dow Jones News Service, Farm Journal, Financial Times, Financial World, Forbes, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Harper’s, Industry Week, Insight, London Times, Los Angeles Times, Medical Tribune, MySpace, National Geographic, National Review, Naval War College Review, New Republic, New York Post, New York Times, New Yorker, New York Review of Books, Newsday, News Max, Newsweek, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Progressive, Political Science Quarterly, Public Interest, Random House, Reader’s Digest, Rolling Stone, Rupert Murdoch News Corp, San Diego Union-Tribune, Scientific American, Time, Times Mirror, Time-Warner, U.S. News & World Report, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Warner Books, Washington Post, Washington Times, The Washingtonian, Weekly Standard, World Policy Journal, Worldwatch, W.W. Norton & Co., ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, NBC, PBS, RCA, and the Walt Disney Company.
Media personalities include David Brinkley, Tom Brokaw, William Buckley, Katie Couric, Peter Jennings,14 Kathryn Pilgrim, Dan Rather, Diane Sawyer, Leslie Stahl, Barbara Walters, Brian Williams, Judy Woodruff, Paula Zahn, and Andrea Mitchell, wife of Alan Greenspan, former Chairman FRS, also a member of the CFR.
In the universities, the number of past or present CFR members who are professors, department chairman, presidents, or members of the board of directors is 563.
In financial institutions, such as banks, the Federal Reserve System, the stock exchanges, and brokerage houses the total number of CFR members in controlling positions is 284.
In tax exempt foundations and think tanks, the number of CFR members in controlling positions is 443. Some of the better known names are: The American Civil Liberties Union,15 Aspen Institute, Atlantic Council, Bilderberg Group, Brookings Institute, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Carnegie Foundation, Ford Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation, Hudson Institute, John D. & Catherine T. MacArther Foundation, Mellon Foundation, RAND Corp., Rhodes Scholarship Selection Commission, Sloan and Kettering Foundations, Rockefeller Foundation and Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Trilateral Commission, and the UN Association.
And finally, the labor unions that are dominated by past or present members of the CFR include the AFL-CIO, United Steel Workers of America, United Auto Workers, American Federation of Teachers, Bricklayers and Allied Craft, Communications Workers of America, Union of Needle Trades, and Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers.
Please understand that this is just a sampling of the list. The total membership is about four thousand people. There are many churches in your community that have that many members or more. What would you think if it were discovered that members of just one church in your community held controlling positions in 80% of the power centers of America? Wouldn’t you be curious? First of all you would have to find out about it, which would not be easy if those same people controlled the avenues of information that you rely on to learn of such things.
I should emphasize that most of these people are not part of a secret society. The CFR calls itself a semi-secret organization, which, indeed, it is. It is not the secret society. It is at least two rings out from that. Most members are not aware that they are controlled by an inner Round Table Group. Most of them are merely opportunists who view this organization as a high-level employment agency. They know that, if they are invited to join, their names will appear on a prestigious list, and collectivists seeking to consolidate global control will draw upon that list for important jobs. However, even though they may not be conscious agents of a secret society, they all have been carefully screened for suitability. Only collectivists are invited, and so they have the necessary mindset to be good functionaries within the New World Order.
THE QUIGLEY FORMULA
The CFR embraces members of both major American political parties. It is not a partisan organization. Voters are led to believe that, by choosing between the Democrat and Republican parties, they have a choice. They think they are participating in their own political destiny, but that is an illusion. To a collectivist like Professor Quigley, it is a necessary illusion to prevent the voters from meddling into the important affairs of state. If you have ever wondered why the two American parties appear so different at election time but so similar afterward, listen carefully to Quigley’s approving overview of American politics:
The National parties and their presidential candidates, with the Eastern Establishment assiduously fostering the process behind the scenes, moved closer together and nearly met in the center with almost identical candidates and platforms, although the process was concealed as much as possible, by the revival of obsolescent or meaningless war cries and slogans (often going back to the Civil War). … The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to the doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can “throw the rascals out” at any election without leading to any profound or extreme shifts in policy. … Either party in office becomes in time corrupt, tired, unenterprising, and vigorless. Then it should be possible to replace it, every four years if necessary, by the other party, which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies.16
What are those basic policies? They are anything that advances the network’s long-range goal. Quigley says that candidates and parties can and should differ on many things so long as they mutually advance world government based on the model of collectivism. While campaigning, they should appear to be fierce opponents; but when the elections are over, they must work in harmony for the main objective. Everything else is showmanship. Let us examine a few examples.
In the Carter Administration, the U.S. electorate was overwhelmingly opposed to giving away the Panama Canal, yet the leadership of both parties voted to do so, led on both sides of the isle by members of the CFR.
Republicans call for war in the Middle East and advocate that we give more power to the UN. Democrats call for peace and advocate that we give more power to the UN. The voters don’t want that, but it is a goal of CFR. Neither party objects to the fact that a UN resolution was the legal basis for war rather than the U.S. Constitution.
Republicans promote legislation to restrict personal rights in the name of anti-terrorism. Democrats give speeches of concern and then vote for those laws. The voters don’t want that, but it is the goal of the CFR. The legislation was written by members of the CFR even before 9/11.
Republicans give speeches about the danger of illegal immigration. Democrats give speeches about compassion to immigrants. Both parties unite in merging the U.S. with Mexico and Canada so that national borders soon will be meaningless. The voters don’t want that, but it is the goal of CFR.
Republican leaders steal elections with rigged voting machines. Democrat leaders accept their fate with no serious challenge. That’s because rigging elections by pre-programmed voting machines is merely the latest and perhaps ultimate implementation of the Quigley Formula. It’s the end of the line for honest elections and representative government.
The leaders of both political parties are like TV wrestlers. They put on a great show in the ring. They slam each other onto the mat. They jump on each other, pummel each other with apparently bone-breaking blows. They throw each other out of the ring; but it is not a real contest. They have agreed in advance who is going to win, and they are content to wait their turn to be the winner next time. They are professionals, and it’s good for business.
Likewise, politicians today are professionals. They also know what is good for their business, and they play the game well. Meanwhile, voters are like tennis balls, smashed back and forth across the net of politics. The tennis players win half the time, but the tennis ball never wins. And so the game goes on, as our nation and freedom fade into history.
CONTROLLED OPPOSITION
This game would not be convincing without the media pied pipers who serve the two major parties. These celebrity-status commentators and organizations offer themselves as unbiased observers with no political ambitions of their own; but, in reality, they are highly partisan propagandists. No matter what grave issue is up for discussion, their analysis will skew it as a reason to vote Republican or Democrat, depending on their bias. Here are a few examples.
Talk-show host, Rush Limbaugh, does a great job of exposing and ridiculing corrupt Democrats and their policies, but he never met a Republican he didn’t like. He may gently criticize Republicans once in a while, but never with the vitriol heaped upon Democrats. He may express disdain now and then for the United Nations but only because it is not strong enough or because it fails to take what Republicans consider to be the correct action. He never questions its power or legitimacy – and, of course, he never mentions the CFR.
Film producer, Michael Moore, does a great job of exposing and ridiculing corrupt Republicans and their policies, but he never met a Democrat he didn’t like. He’s all for the United Nations and never mentions the CFR.
The organization called Accuracy in Media does a great job of exposing deceit and treachery within the ranks of Democrats, but it finds little to criticize in the Republican camp and never mentions the CFR.
The organization called Move-On does a great job of exposing deceit and treachery within the ranks of Republicans, but it finds little to criticize in the Democrat camp and never mentions the CFR.
The Internet news and commentary service, Human Events Online, calls itself a “conservative” weekly; but it is an obedient supporter of the Republican Party even when it’s policies are the opposite of traditional conservatism. It never mentions the CFR.
The editors of the Internet news service, Unknown News, say they are disgusted with both parties because they do not offer serious solutions to the problems they mutually have created. Hooray! But, in their commentary, they routinely identify corrupt Republicans by party label (implying they are scumbags because they are Republicans). They usually omit the party label when reporting on corrupt Democrats. If they do include it, they often accompany it by saying: “Even the Democrats” were involved with this or failed to oppose that. The clear message is that they expect more from the Democrats. Unknown News reports the deeds of such corrupt world leaders, as Putin, Castro, and Chavez in sympathetic or admiring tones. We are never reminded of their failures or crimes. Domestic leaders who are Marxist/Leninists also receive favorable coverage, which reveals that the affinity of its editors is with Leninism. Collectivism is their solution-of-choice for every problem. They are disgusted with both political parties, not because they have led us deeper into collectivism, but because they are not aligned with Leninism. The Democrats are more so, in the sense that most U.S. based Leninists are within the Democrat Party and have a strong voice there, which explains the more gentle treatment the Democrats receive from Unknown News. It never mentions the CFR.
THE POLITICS OF PLUNDER, STUPIDITY, AND HATRED
The result of this two-party charade is that Americans – and those in most other countries in the Western World – are the victims of a great deception. Voters have been fooled into thinking they are participating in their own political destiny when, in reality, they are being herded into a high-tech feudalism entirely without their consent and, to a large degree, even without their knowledge. This is accomplished by the mirage of a meaningful choice at election time when, in fact, the major parties and their candidates are merely two branches of the same tree of collectivism. Voters today are not attracted to candidates because of their political principles. They have none. Political principles are never allowed as a topic of debate, anyway. Instead, voters make choices on the basis of candidates’ good looks, their smiles, how clever they are in televised debates, their perceived sincerity, and especially how many “benefits” they promise to give to some citizens that are paid from taxes from other citizens. Legalized plunder is a powerful motivator, and it is used with precision by both major parties.
Many voters have come to regard elections as magnificent games in which only the cleverest contestants are entitled to win. They become fascinated by the strategies and deployment of resource, and techniques for evading tough issues, and cleverness of TV spots, and ability to appeal to large voting blocs. They don’t really care who wins as much as they want to pick the winner. To them, it’s like betting in a football pool. They may favor one team over another, but they will place their bet on the team they think stands the best chance of winning, even if it is not their favorite. Winning is everything.
That is how they cast their votes. They may prefer a certain candidate, but they will not vote for him if they think someone else will win. How many times have we heard: “I like Bill Smith but he can’t win. So I’m voting for Harry Stone.” All the media has to do is convince people that Bill Smith can’t win, and that will influence enough people to withdraw their vote and make the prediction a self-fulfilling prophecy. The primary purpose of a vote is, not to choose a winner, but to express a choice. It is to create a public record of how many people support the policies and principles of a particular candidate so that, even if he does not win, the winner and the community will be aware of how much support the losing candidate has. It is the ultimate public-opinion poll. We do not want a winner-take-all type of system where those who are considered to have the best chance of winning receive an overwhelming but misleading vote of support. A tyrant who receives 51% of the vote will be more restrained than one who has 80%. The good man who receives 49% of the vote, even though not a winner, becomes a rallying point for those of like mind. He becomes a much more serious contender in the next election than if he receives only 20% of the vote. There is no point in voting for a candidate unless it is a true reflection of our choice. Representative government is serious business, and treating it as a football pool is succumbing to the politics of stupidity.
There is a third scenario that is even worse. Voters may vote for Harry Stone, not because they think he has a better chance than Bill Smith but because they think he is the lesser of two evils. They vote, not for someone but against someone. It’s not that they like candidate A but they hate candidate B. This is exactly as prescribed by the Quigley Formula. Quigley said that a controlled two-party system will allow people to “throw the rascals out” and replace them with a fresh team with new vigor so the government can continue the bi-partisan drive toward global collectivism with the support of the electorate – until the next cycle when it may be advantageous to swing back again to the previous party. If people wonder why we have evil in government, it’s because they voted for it. The lesser of two evils is still evil. This is the politics of hatred, and it is a highly effective weapon against those who are not aware of the tactic – which is to say, most voters.
Voting for a candidate because we hate the other one, and thinking that we cannot go outside the two-party system because a third-party candidate cannot win, is a trap. To escape that trap, we must understand, not only the Quigley Formula, but also the secret society and its outer rings that have implemented it.
REVIEW
Now it’s time to review. The power centers of the United States – including both major political parties – are controlled by members of the Council on Foreign Relations. This, in turn, is controlled by a submerged Round Table Group, which is associated with other Round Tables in other countries. These are extensions of a secret society founded by Cecil Rhodes and still in operation today. I call it the Rhodesian Network, not because these people are members of an organization by that name, but because they share the ideology and strategies envisioned by Cecil Rhodes and because, today, they are clustered around the organizations that were created by his followers.
-End of Part Two -
1 H.G. Wells, The Open Conspiracy (New York: Doubleday, Doran and Co., 1928), p. vii.
2 There is disagreement over the correct translation from the German text. One translation is opium of the people. It’s a small matter, but we prefer opiate of the masses because we believe it is a more accurate translation and is more consistent with the fiery vocabulary of Marx.
3 Syndicalism is a variant of collectivism in which labor unions play a dominant role in government and industry.
4 Margaret Cole, The Story of Fabian Socialism (Stanford, California, Stanford University Press, 1961), p. xii.
5 Caroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (New York: Macmillan, 1966), p. 326.
6 Carroll Quigley, The Anglo-American Establishment: from Rhodes to Cliveden (New York: Books in Focus, 1981), p. ix. The existence of this secret society is also confirmed by Rhodes’ biographer, Sarah Millin, op. cit, pp. 32, 171, 173, 216.
7 Quoted by Quigley, Ibid., p. 36.
8 Cecil Rhodes’ Will, http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers/rhodes-will.html.
9 Quigley, Tragedy, p. 324.
10 Caroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (New York: Macmillan, 1966), p. 131. Additional reference to “The Society of the Elect” is in Anglo-American Establishment, pp. 3, 39.
11 Since this secret society continues to exist today, I am often asked who the leaders have been after Rhodes and Milner. Under normal circumstances, that would be a silly question; because, if anyone on the outside knew the answer, it would no longer be a secret organization. However, in a rare turn of events, we do know who the leaders have been up until fairly recent times. Quigley was privy to the records of this organization and knew their names and order of succession. A major portion of his book, The Anglo-American Establishment: was devoted to their role in history.
12 “The Trend of International Affairs Since the War,” by Arnold Toynbee, International Affairs, Vol. X, No. 6 (November 1931), pp. 803-826.
13 Quigley, Tragedy, pp. 132, 951-52.
14 Peter Jennings appeared as a member in the CFR Annual Report for 1988. He and Bill Moyer (not a CFR member) have participated in meetings of the Bilderberg Group, which has the same ideological orientation as the CFR but functions at the international level as a kind of steering committee to coordinate the policies of similar groups in other countries.
15 The ACLU enjoys the reputation of being a defender of civil liberties. In keeping with that image, it has spoken against the Patriot Act and other legislation that denies civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism. So far, so good, but there is a difference between speaking out on a topic and actually doing something about it. When it comes to applying its legal and financial resources, the ACLU moves in other directions. At the time of this writing, the Executive Director of the ACLU is Anthony Romero, a member of the CFR. Previously, he had been in charge of the Ford Foundation’s grant program where he channeled approximately $90 million to organizations promoting “crisis” messages that frighten the public into accepting bigger government, which means into accepting laws like the Patriot Act. For example, The Ford Foundation has funded studies and groups promoting the concepts of environmental crisis and population-growth crisis and then calling for vast new government powers as the only way to head off global catastrophe. The Foundation has been a major source of funding for MALDEF, LaRaza, and other Hispanic separatist groups, which means it finances those who call for breaking away parts of California and Texas and giving them to Mexico. It also has funded the American Indian Movement, which has a similar separatist agenda for parts of the U.S. where American Indian populations are prominent. It is not likely that either movement would ever succeed; but if enough revolutionaries can be funded and mobilized into the streets with violent demonstrations and riots, peaceful citizens are expected to gratefully accept martial law and internationalization of these areas as acceptable alternatives to violence. In all of these cases, the role played by the Ford Foundation is to fan the flames of fear, to frighten us into accepting a police state at home, comfortably merged with other police states at the UN, in a world government based on the model of collectivism. The ACLU supports these causes strongly and speaks against their consequences softly. This is a classic case of controlling one’s own opposition to insure that it does not succeed. It is an extension of the strategy described to Norman Dodd in 1954 by Ford Foundation President, Rowan Gaither when he explained that war – and the dread of war – was the most effective way to bring people to accept a rapid shift in society toward collectivism. Dread of war is still the most powerful motivator, but collectivists have discovered that dread of terrorism, dread of environmental catastrophe, and dread of overpopulation are also useful for this purpose. For that part of the story, see chapter twenty-four, “Doomsday Mechanisms,” in The Creature from Jekyll Island; A Second Look at the Federal Reserve.
16 Quigley, Tragedy, pp. 1247–1248.
Related Posts:
Reports and commentaries that look beyond the news to identify historical facts and trends that must be understood to place the news into perspective. This is our “think-tank” section that makes it possible to anticipate future events.
