John McManus
President of the John Birch Society
excerpted from the online version of The Insiders

The Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission

Most Americans have never heard of these two organizations. But knowing something about them is essential to understanding what has been going on in America for several decades. So, let us examine, first, the Council on Foreign Relations and then...the Trilateral Commission.
 

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)

The Council on Foreign Relations (7) was incorporated in 1921. It is a private group which is headquartered at the corner of Park Avenue and 68th Street in New York City, in a building given to the organization in 1929.

The CFR’s founder, Edward Mandell House, had been the chief adviser of President Woodrow Wilson. House was not only Wilson’s most prominent aide, he actually dominated the President. Woodrow Wilson referred to House as "my alter ego" (my other self), and it is totally accurate to say that House, not Wilson, was the most powerful individual in our nation during the Wilson Administration, from 1913 until 1921.

Unfortunately for America, it is also true that Edward Mandell House was a Marxist whose goal was to socialize the United States. In 1912 House wrote the book, Philip Dru - Administrator. In it, he said he was working for "Socialism as dreamed of by Karl Marx." The original edition of the book did not name House as its author, but he made it clear in numerous ways that he indeed was its creator.

In Philip Dru: Administrator, Edward Mandell House laid out a fictionalized plan for the conquest of America. He told of a "conspiracy" (the word is his) which would gain control of both the Democratic and Republican parties, and use them as instruments in the creation of a socialistic world government.

The book called for passage of a graduated income tax and for the establishment of a state-controlled central bank as steps toward the ultimate goal. Both of these proposals are planks in The Communist Manifesto. And both became law in 1913, during the very first year of the House-dominated Wilson Administration.

The House plan called for the United States to give up its sovereignty to the League of Nations at the close of World War I. But when the U.S. Senate refused to ratify America’s entry into the League, Edward Mandell House’s drive toward world government was slowed down. Disappointed, but not beaten, House and his friends then formed the Council on Foreign Relations, whose purpose right from its inception was to destroy the freedom and independence of the United States and lead our nation into a world government-if not through the League of Nations, then through another world organization that would be started after another world war. The control of that world government, of course, was to be in the hands of House and like-minded individuals.

From its beginning in 1921, the CFR began to attract men of power and influence. In the late 1920s, important financing for the CFR came from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Carnegie Foundation. In 1940, at the invitation of President Roosevelt, members of the CFR gained domination over the State Department, and they have maintained that domination ever since.

By 1944, Edward Mandell House was deceased but his plan for taking control of our nation’s major political parties began to be realized. In 1944 and in 1948, the Republican candidate for President, Thomas Dewey, was a CFR member. In later years, the CFR could boast that Republicans Eisenhower and Nixon were members, as were Democrats Stevenson, Kennedy, Humphrey, and McGovern. The American people were told they had a choice when they voted for President. But with precious few exceptions, Presidential candidates for decades have been CFR members.

But the CFR’s influence had also spread to other vital areas of American life. Its members have run, or are running, NBC and CBS, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Des Moines Register, and many other important newspapers. The leaders of Time, Life, Newsweek, Fortune, Business Week, and numerous other publications are CFR members. The organization’s members also dominate the academic world, top corporations, the huge tax-exempt foundations, labor unions, the military, and just about every segment of American life.

Let’s look at the Council’s Annual Report published in 1978. The organization’s membership list names 1,878 members, and the list reads like a Who’s Who in America. Eleven CFR members are U.S. senators; even more congressmen belong to the organization. Sitting on top of this immensely powerful pyramid, as Chairman of the Board, is David Rockefeller.

As can be seen in that CFR Annual Report, 284 of its members are U.S. government officials. Any organization which can boast that 284 of its members are U.S. government officials should be well-known. Yet most Americans have never even heard of the Council on Foreign Relations.

One reason why this is so is that 171 journalists, correspondents and communications executives are also CFR members, and they don’t write about the organization. In fact, CFR members rarely talk about the organization inasmuch as it is an express condition of membership that any disclosure of what goes on at CFR meetings shall be regarded as grounds for termination of membership.

...The CFR publishes a very informative quarterly journal called Foreign Affairs. More often than not, important new shifts in U.S. policy or highly indicative attitudes of political figures have been telegraphed in its pages. When he was preparing to run for the Presidency in 1967, for instance Richard Nixon made himself acceptable to the Insiders of the Establishment with an article in the October 1967 issue of Foreign Affairs. (14) In it, he called for a new policy of openness toward Red China, a policy which he himself later initiated in 1972.

The April 1974 issue of Foreign Affairs carried a very explicit recommendation for carrying out the world-government scheme of CFR founder Edward Mandell House. Authored by State Department veteran and Columbia University Professor Richard N. Gardner (himself a CFR member), "The Hard Road to World Order" admits that a single leap into world government via an organization like the United Nations is unrealistic. (15)

Instead, Gardner urged the continued piecemeal delivery of our nation’s sovereignty to a variety of international organizations He called for an end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece." That means an end to our nation’s sovereignty.

And he named as organizations to accomplish his goal the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the Law of the Sea Conference, the World Food Conference, the World Population Conference, disarmament programs, and a United Nations military force. This approach, Gardner said, "can produce some remarkable concessions of sovereignty that could not be achieved on an across-the-board basis."

Richard Gardner’s preference for destroying the freedom and independence of the United States in favor of the CFR’s goal of world government thoroughly dominates top circles in our nation today. The men who would scrap our nation’s Constitution are praised as "progressives" and "far-sighted thinkers." The only question that remains among these powerful Insiders is which method to use to carry out their treasonous plan.
 

The Trilateral Commission

Unfortunately, the Council on Foreign Relations is not the only group proposing an end to the sovereignty of the United States. In 1973, another organization which now thoroughly dominates the Carter Administration first saw the light of day. Also based in New York City, this one is called the Trilateral Commission.

The Trilateral Commission’s roots stem from the book Between Two Ages (16) written by Zbigniew Brzezinski in 1970. The following quotations from that book show how closely Brzezinski’s thinking parallels that of CFR founder Edward Mandell House.

On page 72, Brzezinski writes: "Marxism is simultaneously a victory of the external, active man over the inner, passive man and a victory of reason over belief."

On page 83, he states: "Marxism, disseminated on the popular level in the form of Communism, represented a major advance in man’s ability to conceptualize his relationship to his world."

And on page 123, we find: "Marxism supplied the best available insight into contemporary reality."

Nowhere does Mr. Brzezinski tell his readers that the Marxism "in the form of Communism," which he praises, has been responsible for the murder of approximately 100 million human beings in the Twentieth Century, has brought about the enslavement of over a billion more, and has caused want, privation and despair for all but the few criminals who run the communist-dominated nations.

On page 198, after discussing America’s shortcomings, Brzezinski writes: "America is undergoing a new revolution" which "unmasks its obsolescence." We disagree; America is not becoming obsolete.

On page 260, he proposes "Deliberate management of the American future...with the...planner as the key social legislator and manipulator." The central planning he wants for our country is a cardinal underpinning of communism and the opposite of the way things are done in a free country.

On page 296, Mr. Brzezinski suggests piecemeal "Movement toward a larger community of the developed nations...through a variety of indirect ties and already developing limitations on national sovereignty." Here, we have the same proposal that has been offered by Richard Gardner in the CFR publication Foreign Affairs.

Brzezinski then calls for the forging of community links among the United States, Western Europe, and Japan; and the extension of these links to more advanced communist countries. Finally, on page 308 of his 309-page hook, he lets us know that what he really wants is "the goal of world government".

A Meeting of Minds

Zbigniew Brzezinski’s Between Two Ages was published in 1970 while he was a professor in New York City. What happened, quite simply, is that David Rockefeller read the book. And, in 1973, Mr. Rockefeller launched the new Trilateral Commission whose purposes include linking North America, Western Europe, and Japan "in their economic relations, their political and defense relations, their relations with developing countries, and their relations with communist countries." (l7)

The original literature of the Trilateral Commission also states, exactly as Brzezinski’s book had proposed, that the more advanced communist states could become partners in the alliance leading to world government. In short, David Rockefeller implemented Brzezinski’s proposal. The only change was the addition of Canada, so that the Trilateral Commission presently includes members from North America, Western Europe, and Japan, not just the United States, Western Europe, and Japan.

Then, David Rockefeller hired Zbigniew Brzezinski away from Columbia University and appointed him to be the Director of the Trilateral Commission.

...As with the CFR, we do not believe that every member of the Trilateral Commission is fully committed to the destruction of the United States. Some of these men actually believe that the world would be a better place if the United States would give up its independence in the interests of world government. Others go along for the ride, a ride which means a ticket to fame, comfortable living, and constant flattery. Some, of course, really do run things and really do want to scrap our nation’s independence.

What It All Means

...The Council on Foreign Relations was conceived by a Marxist, Edward Mandell House, for the purpose of creating a one-world government by destroying the freedom and independence of all nations, especially including our own. Its Chairman of the Board is David Rockefeller. And its members have immense control over our government and much of American life.

The Trilateral Commission was conceived by Zbigniew Brzezinski, who praises Marxism, who thinks the United States is becoming obsolete, and who also wants to create a one-world government. Its founder and driving force is also David Rockefeller. And it, too, exercises extraordinary control over the government of the United States.

The effect of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission on the affairs of our nation is easy to see. Our own government no longer acts in its own interest; we no longer win any wars we fight; and we constantly tie ourselves to international agreements, pacts and conventions.