-Caveat Lector-
an excerpt from:
The Higher Circles - The Governing Class in America
G. William Domhoff�1970
Vintage Books Edition(1971)
orginally Random House(1970)
LCCN 79-102332
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CHAPTER SEVEN
The Power Elite, the CIA., and the Struggle for Minds
Early in 1960 Robert A. Lovett (Social Register, New York), a leading figure
in the power elite these past twenty-five years, testified before a Senate
subcommittee seeking to improve the institutional structure for policy-making
on national security. Lovett was certainly well qualified for this task. A
general partner in the Wall Street investment house of Brown Brothers,
Harriman (he married a Brown), and a director of the Union Pacific Railroad
(as was his father before him), he has served as an assistant secretary of
war, undersecretary of state, secretary of defense and special adviser to
Presidents. Before turning his testimony to detailed matters of
administrative functioning, he set the stage by painting the more general
picture of national security. The United States faces a world, reported
Lovett, in which rapid changes are occurring due to scientific and
technological advances, growing nationalism, and the 'development of new
countries in Africa and Asia. But most of all, Lovett warned, "our system of
government and our way of life have come under direct and deadly challenge by
an implacable, crafty, and, of late, openly contemptuous enemy of both."[1]
After quoting Khrushchev's famous "We will bury you," he stated the basic
premise that even today guides most of the policy decisions, foreign and
domestic, that are made by the power elite: ". . . we are in a struggle for
survival involving military power, economic productivity, and influence on
the minds of men in political, scientific, and moral fields . . ."[2]
The theory this leading Cold War architect propounds is not an unfamiliar one
despite the mild "thaw" of recent years. It is a concise statement of how
leading members of the power elite view the world. Stripped of the rhetoric
about the "Free World" (Spain? Portugal? South Africa?) and "free enterprise"
(in the oil industry? price fixing? subsidies?), this power elite stance is
succinctly described by sociologist Philip Rieff: ". . . a permanent war
economy based on a negative ideology of an absolute enemy."[3] It is the kind
of ideology that can justify any action, however contrary it may be to
espoused moral precepts, because of the nature of The Enemy. It is the kind
of ideology that can appeal to the "higher loyalty" which guides upper-class
CIA agents when they undertake actions "contrary to their moral precepts."[4]
In short, it is the kind of ideology traditionally used by power elites to
justify whatever actions are necessary to protect their privilege and
position.
Now it is obvious to the naked eye that the power elite are competing with
The Enemy in the military and economic spheres. The power elite have accepted
and marketed a military definition of reality throughout the postwar era,
raising their military establishment to a position of overwhelming prominence
within the country and throughout the world. Closely tied to this is an
increasing industrial capacity, encouraged by tax favors and nurtured by
defense contracts. As everyone now knows, even President Eisenhower had
occasion to make reference to the "military-industrial complex." What is
perhaps not so obvious is that the power elite have been just as deadly
serious about competing, as the quote from Lovett put it, for "the minds of
men in political, scientific, and moral fields." That is, it was not so
obvious until the mid-sixties, when the manipulation and infiltration of a
variety of American and world organizations in these fields by the CIA was
revealed to a surprised general population which very quickly got used to the
idea and understood its necessity (in the name of "national interest" and
"national security"). It turns out that the power elite, for all their sweet
reasonableness and liberal rhetoric here at home, have their secretive,
not-so-moral side.
The story of the CIA's ideological machinations has been told in bits and
pieces in a variety of places. It would not be worthwhile to bring most of it
together here if it were not clear at the outset that the CIA has become one
of the most important organizations of the power elite, at home and abroad.
Our research into the backgrounds of CIA leaders fully supports the following
generalization by the country's most knowledgeable journalists on the
"espionage establishment":
Espionage establishments tend to attract the elite, privileged, and
better-educated members of their society. In the West at least, intelligence
officials often come from older, upperclass families whose scions, already
assured of great wealth, are now more interested in public service [!] ...
And in both countries [England and the United States] there is a close
relationship between the espionage establishment and what has come, loosely,
to be termed the Establishment-that larger grouping of powerful men who, in
any country, seem to control its affairs.'
Nor is this upper-class bias present only in the top leadership of the
CIA. When we look at the lower levels and at specific operations�overthrowing
governments in Iran and Guatemala, spying on Cuba, invading Cuba�we find some
of the most respected and respectable members of the upper class doing the
dirty work. From Boston there is an Amory, a Cabot, and a Saltonstall. From
New York there are two Roosevelts. Until his death in the crash of a Kennedy
in-law's airplane, the CIA office in St. Louis was headed by Lewis G.
Werner-socialite, investment banker, and polo player. In the San Francisco
Social Register we find Sherman Kent, a Yale professor turned CIA
intellectual. These names are not exceptions; they are merely some of the
better-known of the upper-class names in our CIA file.
Before turning to a discussion of where and how the CIA has entered the
struggle for minds, it should be emphasized that the undercover work of that
organization is not the first attempt by members of the upper class and their
associates to have an impact in this all-important contest. Far from it. The
attempts are legion. Members of the power elite, as individuals and as
organizations, have purchased newspapers and created magazines to promote
their views and/or criticize and ridicule other views. They have withdrawn
advertising from mass media to silence opinions they do not favor. They have
created university chairs and research institutes to pursue topics of
interest to them, at the same time playing an active role as university
trustees in gating rid of professors with undesirable views.[6] They have
written and caused to be written articles and books that present their side
of every story as attractively and persuasively as is humanly possible. All
this, and more, is well known. No one pretends that members of the power
elite have no axe to grind. It is just that Time, Newsweek, the National
Advertising Council, the Foreign Policy Association, centers for
international studies and the Ford Foundation are there for all to see. Their
trustees, officers, and projects are carefully chronicled in self-published
annual reports.
Then too, the power elite have created and developed that wonderful field of
public relations on an incredible scale. Some of the early practitioners of
this art helped scrub up the images of the "Robber Baron" families; others
specialized in the corporate image and the corporate conscience. Functionally
speaking, the public relations departments of large corporations, in
conjunction with the giant public relations firms that service many
corporations, have become the early warning system of the upper class,
picking up and countering the slightest remark or publication that makes
funny lines on their sensitive radars. Thanks to them, public opinion is
well-monitored, with an assist of course from the alert social scientists in
certain university institutes financed by the big corporations and
foundations. Wayward opinions, once detected, are duly corrected by a barrage
of printed matter and public pronouncements, unless the advisers consider the
situation one in which replies should be avoided. More recently, the public
relations; firms are being used to foist political candidates on the
bedazzled populace. Truly, the attempt to manipulate public opinion has
become a conscious and full time profession. Perhaps its seeming success is
really due to the nation's general prosperity over these past many years, but
one has to admit that members of the power elite are in there selling every
minute.
However, public relations efforts are well known too, even if their
role in papering over cracks in the power elite image is not generally
emphasized. What surprises some people within this pluralistic society is to
find that the power elite have additional methods by which they carry on the
ideo-logical battle. That some of their members are under-handed and will
stop at nothing is to be expected within a large collection of mere human
beings. But to find out that the power elite as a group are intimately and
intricately involved in secretive, manipulative and deceitful operations, and
in the name of saving democracy and the open society, is to go beyond the
peccadillos of a few personalities to expose another side to the modus
operandi of the High and Mighty. Such is the import of the CIA revelations to
be recounted below. They are of system-wide consequence, throwing floods of
unwanted light on the activities and values of civic leaders who like to
have themselves presented in a more glowing, more moderate, more
philanthropic spotlight.
STRAIGHTENING OUT STUDENTS
Young people between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five are terribly
concerned with ideological matters. Worse, they are often in rebellion
against the old ways as they struggle to establish their independence and
self-identity. They are thus susceptible to people with persuasive arguments
who want to enlist them in political causes. This is an important problem as
more American and European youth are subjected to an even longer educational
process that makes them even more irascible and even more interested in ideas
and theories. Given the stakes, the youth battle could be a serious one to
lose to rival ideologies. The danger seemed great in several allied nations.
Leading members of the power elite, decided not to take any chances. They
therefore looked around for an effective way to combat the well-organized and
well-financed communist youth groups in other countries. Working through the
CIA, they found their mark in the National Student Association Liberal, but
anti-communist, the NSA had dropped out of the pro-communist International
Union of Students after the Communist take-over in Czechoslovakia in 1948.
Starting in 1950, apparently, the CIA began to help NSA.[7] Just a little at
first, like the $10-$12,000 Frederic Delano Houghteling accepted on behalf of
the NSA to send representatives to an international student meeting in
Prague.[8] 1950 was also the year that eighteen national student groups met
in Sweden to form a new international organization, the International Student
Conference. NSA soon became the key organization in this international
organization which had, as we shall soon see, considerable encouragement from
America's power elite. In any event, the NSA-CIA relationship grew more and
more important. All in all, the CIA shelled out $4 million before an
idealistic NSA officer finally blew the whistle in 1966. In some years 80% of
the 'NSA budget was coming from the CIA. Most of the money was used for
international programs, educational material, and student meetings.
Not everyone in NSA knew what was going on. In fact, only a handful did. Not
only is the national leadership of the organization far removed from its
grass roots, but the CIA was good at judging who and who not to "co-opt," to
make "witty." Just a few were approached each year, usually the president and
the international vice president. These witty lads would then graduate to the
CIA, foundations, or more mundane government jobs. It was quite an operation,
and it worked very well for sixteen years. The CIA made only one mistake�the
1965-66 president. It seems this president got to be too friendly with a
radical, unwitty student who was in charge of raising money. When the unwitty
one complained about the restrictions on his role, his president friend
spilled the beans. After much soul-searching, the radical squealed. The CIA
had been right about him; they had misjudged only the president.
What did the CIA get for its money? First, a flourishing anti-communist
alternative with which other non-communist students could interact,
particularly within the International Student Conference. Second,
intelligence about the personalities and social backgrounds of foreign
student leaders, which sounds harmless enough if it is not realized that such
mundanities are the crucial stuff of espionage agencies. Third, some say-so
in selecting officers and in shaping international programs. I should say
"perhaps" on this third point because there are conflicting reports about it.
In any case, it is not too important for my purpose in this essay, which is
to show how the power elite encourage and use organizations and programs that
fit their purposes.
NSA was not the only student organization utilized by the power elite. They
also bought into the aforementioned International Student Conference,
sponsoring its many programs of technical assistance, education, and student
exchanges.[9] Then too, between 1961 and 1965 they spent $180,000 on the
Independent Research Service, which sent American delegations to actively
oppose the communists at communist-oriented youth festivals. Stern notes that
the NSA as an organization remained aloof from such aggressive activities but
that "important NSA officers and exofficers were very active in the
Independent Research Service activities in Vienna and Helsinki."[10] One
Independent Research Service director became an NSA president, and then
received a "scholarship" from a CIA "foundation." The CIA was not alone in
its manipulations. It was not so crude as to hand the money over directly.
Frederic Delano Houghteling, for example, had to apply to two wealthy
philanthropists, one in Chicago and one in Wilmington, for the $10-12,000 NSA
received in 1950.[11] For later operations "foundations" were used. There are
several, but only the two most important ones will be noted here. The first,
the Independence Foundation, is a front in Boston about which little is
known. Its address is the same as that of the large corporate law firm of
Hale and Doff. Moreover, one of that firm's partners, Paul F. Hellmuth, is an
Independence Foundation trustee as well as a director of Cabot, Cabot, and
Forbes, the Nickel Plate Railroad, the Urban League, and the University of
Notre Dame. Another known trustee of the foundation is investment banker
David B. Stone, a graduate of Milton Academy and Harvard. Between 1962 and
1963 this foundation gave $256,000 to the NSA. It also provided NSA with
rent-free headquarters during the sixties.
Even more important than the Independence Foundation is the Foundation for
Youth and Student Affairs, which is an above-board operation founded in 1952.
In addition to giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to the NSA, it is also
the primary support for the International Student Conference. Along with the
San Jacinto Foundation set up by Texas oilman John Mecom, it gave the ISC $
1. 8 million between 1962 and 1964.[12] Some of its money comes from private
sources, some from the CIA. Among its eminent trustees of recent years are
five that are especially worthy of note here. The first two are Arthur A.
Houghton and Amory Houghton, Jr., members, of a prominent family that is in
every way at the heart of the Eastern branch of the American upper class.
Arthur Houghton, for example, is a Rockefeller Foundation trustee and a
director of US Steel. Another interesting trustee is Frederick W. Hilles, a
graduate of Taft School and Yale, and the vice president of the Yale
University Press. Yet another is Robert E. Blum, a director of Federated
Department Stores, Equitable Life Assurance Society and the Better Business
Bureau, among others. Finally, there is Gilbert W. Chapman, a listee in the
New York Social Register who graduated from Yale and is president of Pinnacle
Press and a trustee of the New York Public Library. Then too, the executive
secretary of the foundation, Harry Lunn, is a former NSA president. There can
be no doubt about the respectability and importance of the Foundation for
Youth and Student Affairs.
This brief recounting does not even begin to tap the involvement of the CIA
and the power elite in student organizations all over the world. For example,
it says nothing about the Institute of International Education, which brings
many foreign students to this country, helps develop agricultural and
business schools in foreign countries, provides counsel for corporations, and
keeps track of US students and scholars all over the world.[13] Two of its
known sources of income are the gala Diamond Ball that kicks off the New York
social season and the J. M. Kaplan Fund, one of many CIA conduits.[14]
Detailed studies of the FYSA, IIE and their many sister organizations will
have to be left to scholars wishing to research what C. Wright Mills called
"the cultural apparatus" and what Marxists call "ideological hegemony." In
the meantime, we can rest assured that the power elite are not neglecting
young minds: "The American operatives were competing directly with Communist
agents for the sympathy, loyalty, and support of the influential classes of
the emerging nations."[15]
REORGANIZING AND DISORGANIZING LABOR
Labor unions tend to become bureaucratic organizations controlled from the
top by a pervasive ideology and a few leaders. They are a number one target
for the communists, who think that the working classes will eventually bury
capitalism. Although most American scholars deny the theory, members of the
power elite do not want to count on theoretical arguments for their peace of
mind. They actively support anti-communist trade unions throughout the world.
This support consists of training non-communist leaders in the ways of
American trade unionism and pro-viding money and materiel for the propaganda
pamphlets, offices, staff, and muscle men who are necessary for organiz-ing a
new union or causing a split in an existing union.
However, the power elite have had considerable help in this effort. Since
many American workers in the American Federation of Labor craft unions long
have been xenophobic' and anti-communist, their leaders were ready and
willing partners in this venture. Indeed, they had been active in the
organizing of foreign labor for some time.[16] This does not mean that
industrial CIO unions were unwilling to be involved in such activities.
Walter and Victor Reuther of the United Auto Workers, for example, took fifty
thousand dollars in fifty-dollar bills from a CIA agent to pass out to
anti-communist labor leaders in Europe in the early 1950's.[17]
At the present time the key organization in the AFLCIO-CIA labor apparatus
seems to be the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD).[18]
Its chairman is J. Peter Grace of St. Paul's and Yale, whose many corporate
directorships include companies with interests in Latin America. The vice
chairman is Berent Friele, a corporation executive and a vice president and
director of the Rockefeller-financed American International Association for
Economic and Social Development. The president is George Meany, long-time
head of the AFLCIO. AIFLD tends to concentrate its efforts in Latin America,
but there are other organziations for other areas, such as the
African-American Labor Center and the Asian-American Free Labor Institute.
The labor men who seem to be in charge of running these operations are Jay
Lovestone, who was chairman of the Communist Party in the late twenties, and
Irving Brown, who started out with the garment workers. The key man from the
CIA side is apparently Cord Meyer, Jr., of St. Paul's and Yale. He is a
former president of the United World Federalists. His mother is listed in the
New York Social Register.
Certain labor leaders also help out directly through theirs unions. The
International Oil Workers have spent CIA money in Indonesia. The
Communications Workers of America have done their part, and so have the Food
and Restaurant Workers Secretariat. One of the biggest operations is that of
the American Newspaper Guild, which spent the million dollars given to it by
CIA fronts to fight communism in journalism.[19] Another big CIA spender is
the National Education Association (NEA), the company union of school
teachers and administrators. It works closely with the World Confederation of
Organizations of the Teaching Profession (WCOTP) in presenting an alternative
to the Communist-oriented World Federation of Trade Unions. The money for NEA
and WCOTP came primarily from the "Vernon Fund." A former NEA executive
secretary joined with a Washington lawyer, Bryce Rea, Jr., in setting up the
Vernon Fund.[20]
No one knows how effective these efforts are, but no one can deny
that the CIA is giving it a good go. Budget estimates run to $120 million a
year for labor operations. One of the few case studies available suggests
that AIFLD, at least, is not entirely impotent.[21]
The CIA did not exhaust its labor organizing efforts with its involvement
in unions and training organizations related to the AFL-CIO. It also
speculated in the activities of the "democratic left." Through the J. M.
Kaplan Foundation, Which was founded originally through the beneficence of
the president of Welch Grape Juice Company, the CIA gave $1,048,940 between
1961 and 1963 to socialist Norman Thomas' Institute of International Labor
Research, Inc. The money was used primarily to train democratic left
unionists in Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic. Thomas reports that he
didn't know the money was coming from the CIA, although he was somewhat
suspicious. In any case, the CIA did not try to dictate policy.[22] However,
the following story suggests that Norman Thomas was no stranger to the CIA
and its long-time director, Allen Dulles (Social Register, New York; Sullivan
and Cromwell). It seems that in the mid-fifties the head of the American
Committee for Cultural Freedom was having trouble getting money for his
projects. So he wrote to Edward Lilly, a member of a governmental agency for
coordinating intelligence and psychological warfare operations, to plead his
case. At the same time he wrote to Thomas, asking him to get in touch with
Allen Dulles via telephone. Shortly thereafter the American Committee for
Cultural Freedom received $14,000 from the Farfield Foundation and the Asia
Foundation, important organizations with the most eminent of the eminent for
directors. Thomas then wrote to the committee head: "I am, of course,
delighted that the Farfield Foundation came through . . . I am happy to think
I had a little to do with the proposition in certain quarters."[23] Dulles to
Farfield Foundation to a committee to defend cultural freedom from
totalitarians, with socialist Norman Thomas serving as greaser. Politics do
make strange bedfellows. Maybe the CIA apologists are right when they say
they had to sneak the money because Congress and its rightwingers wouldn't be
able to comprehend that helping non-communist leftists, was good strategy.
After all, Barry Goldwater & Co. did complain about the funding of "leftists"
when the CIA's activities in this area were revealed.[24] But if Norman
Thomas and his democratic leftists manage to get to the left of the power
elite on occasion, perhaps it is compensated for by the fact that the AFL-CIO
is usually a bit to the right of the entire power elite on foreign policy.
It's a tolerable kind of pluralism, financed from the wealthy "center." Now
if only those rightwingers would wise up.
PATRONIZING THE INTELLIGENTSIA
Intellectuals, which means writers, artists, critics, sophisticated
journalists, and a few broad-gauge scholars, are a narcissistic bunch, full
of their own self-importance. They love to talk, they love to see their words
in print, and they love to be flattered. The power elite, through the CIA and
other organizations, have been very accommodating about these intellectual
needs. In fact, patronizing would be a better word. They have given American
intellectuals money to start organizations, to hold conferences, and to
publish magazines and books. They have encouraged them to meet with
intellectuals from all over the world. The result is a series of CIA-financed
associations, institutes, and magazines that provide opportunities for
discussion, travel, publication, and mutual adulation. The CIA is seeing to
it that rival ideologies do not go unanswered. It wants to be sure everyone
who has anything to say against communism can get a hearing. No foreigners
are going to outdo the US power elite when it comes to flattering the people
who might, if frustrated enough, provide the catalytic words and programs for
the socially disadvantaged.
American Friends of the Middle East, American-African Institute, magazines
for Iron Curtain emigres�there must be dozens of these organizations and
publications which are aimed at the intelligentsia of the world. With few
exceptions, very little is known about them, partly because they are not all
that important, partly because they have not invited scholarly attention.
Only the intemperate bragging of a former CIA agent has exposed one of them
to the clear light of day. In what follows I will therefore focus on the
Congress for Cultural Freedom, an organization which financed such
avant-garde magazines as Great Britain's Encounter and included leading
artists, writers and social scientists of the fifties among its members.
The CIA's relationship to the Congress for Cultural Freedom and Encounter
was first noted in passing in one of a series of articles on the CIA that
appeared in The New York Times (April 27, 1966). The mention brought heated
letters. One was signed by economist-novelist-humorist John K. Galbraith,
historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., physicist Robert Oppenheimer, and
foreign service officer George Kerman.[25] The other was from Stephen
Spender, Melvin Lasky, and Irving Kristol, all Encounter editors at one time
or another.[26] The whole thing seemed to have blown over, when one year
later an ex-CIA agent, Thomas Braden, apparently upset over criticisms of the
CIA, stirred up the whole controversy again with his revelations in the
Saturday Evening Post. Braden raised cain with the CIA critics who seemed to
have forgotten the all-pervasiveness of the Moscow-directed Red Menace (some
of the critics must be "naive," some "must be worse," some must be
"pretending to be naive").[27] In the process he bragged about his role in
putting CIA agents and money into the Congress for Cultural Freedom and
Encounter. By the time the dust had settled the Congress had a new name
(Association for Cultural Freedom) and a new director, Shepard Stone,
director of internal affairs for the Ford Foundation, which assumed financial
responsibility for the organization. Two Encounter, editors had resigned in
anger, and a third Encounter editor, Melvin Lasky, had admitted he was
"insufficiently frank in explaining to Mr. [Frank] Kermode [Lasky's
co-editor] what I had come to suspect had happened."[28] Galbraith, ever
insouciant and unflappable, opined that "you could easily persuade me" that
the letter to which he had attached his name was "much too fulsome." He even
hinted he had known of the CIA involvement in the Congress since 1960.[29]
The financing for the Congress' programs and Encounter's articles came in
large measure from two above-board CIA conduits. The first, the Farfield
Foundation, is at the heart of the New York Establishment; the second, the
Hoblitzelle Foundation, is in the same position in Texas. Among the Farfield
trustees are publisher Cass Canfield (Harper & Row), publisher Gardner Cowles
(Look), investment banker Donald Stralem, investment banker William A. M.
Burden (who is also a trustee for the Institute of Defense Analysis), and
Godfrey S. Rockefeller. Karl Hoblitzelle of the Hoblitzelle Foundation is
chairman of the Republic National Bank of Dallas, and a director of the
Hoblitzelle Properties, Southwest Insurance, Texas Power and Light, and the
Texas Research Foundation. Trustee James Aston is with the same bank and sits
on the boards of American Airlines, Lone Star Steel, and the Texas Research
Foundation, among others. Another trustee on whom we could find information,
George MacGregor, is a director of four utilities companies. The final
trustee we could identify is Judge Sarah T. Hughes, the judge who swore in
Lyndon Johnson as President after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
Many people concern themselves with the problem of which intellectuals "knew"
and which were mere dupes, but that is of secondary importance. The point is
that some men have views the power elite like, and some don't. The likable
group gets financial, institutional, and mass media support (overtly and
covertly) from members of the power elite. That is the "where it is at" of
this subsection.[30] Establishment-oriented intellectuals are not bought.
Indeed, they are not even very well paid.[31] They are merely patronized,
flattered, and wittingly or unwittingly, used. In 1955 a New York Times
editorial called the American Committee for Cultural Freedom "a most
important front of freedom's defenders today" and praised it for its "key
role" in the "struggle for the loyalty of the world's intellectuals."[32]
Mighty fine praise indeed, if a little patronizing.
USING THE EXPERTS
American academia at the major universities is in large measure a collection
of experts, with each expert relatively confined to his particular specialty.
Some of these experts are more useful than others. The more useful are housed
in institutes as well as the traditional departments. They receive research
grants from foundations, institutes, corporations and governments to further
develop their expertise and train new experts. They often do consulting on
the side for industry, government and power elite associations Some are on
yearly corporation retainer fees that can go as high as several thousands of
dollars a year. Others work for $100-$200 a day (plus expenses) on a
job-by-job basis. A very few are getting rich in conjunction with the
investment bankers who finance them in a variety of enterprises. Experts, in
short, seem to be a little more important than intellectuals.
CIA entanglements with the experts are several: hiring them as agents and
analysts, supporting their research, financing the publication of their
articles and books. The first well-publicized instance concerned CIA
involvement in the Center for International Studies at MIT.[33] A second
instance showed how the CIA and Michigan State University collaborated in
propping up the American-created government in South Vietnam.[34] However,
the case I would like to pursue here concerns an organization whose officers
are functionaries in the American Political Science Association as well as
close friends of former Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Operations and Policy
Research, Inc., was founded in 1955 as a "non-profit research organization
set up to help the USIA (United States "Information" Agency] distribute
literature in the United States and abroad and to -advise on the selection of
books to be sponsored by the USIA."[35] The executive director of the
organization from the start has been political scientist Evron Kirkpatrick of
Minnesota, a friend of Hubert Humphrey. Kirkpatrick had served in the Office
of Strategic Services during the war and as a State Department intelligence
officer after the war. The vice president of the OPR is lawyer Max Kampelman,
also of Minnesota, who had served as a legislative counsel to Senator Hubert
Humphrey. He is now a Washington lawyer and a director of a Minnesota company
which he helped in "hoodwinking" the Agency for International Development out
Of $2.3 million.[36] In addition to aiding the USIA, Kirkpatrick and the many
political scientists he has hired on a part-time and consulting basis were
giving their services to the CIA. Probably the professors were unknowing
dupes, but it seems likely that Kirkpatrick himself was "witty." What makes
the OPR operation particularly interesting is that Kirkpatrick has been
executive director of the American Political Science Association since 1955,
while Kampelman is the association's treasurer and general counsel. They
provide a double interlock between OPR and the APSA.
Four former APSA presidents investigated the situation and decided there was
no reason for Kirkpatrick and Kampelman to sever one of their affiliations. A
committee on professional standards was in general agreement.[37] Still, an
enterprising student might want to try to trace the affiliations and beliefs
of the men brought before the association by Kirkpatrick; apparently leaders
of the CIA-financed Radio Free Europe were among them.[38]
The American Political Science Association felt compromised in only one
respect. It may have received CIA funds indirectly from a conduit called the
Asia Foundation. The connection is a highly significant one, however, for the
Asia Foundation is a key outpost in the power elite network. It is symbolic
of the whole operation. Founded in 1954, no information about it is listed in
the Foundation Directory, a standard reference source on foundations. Its
annual budget is $6 million, most of which is used for grants throughout
Asia.[39] Among other things, the grants support Asian schools and libraries
and travel grants for Asians to international conferences. Asia Foundation
representatives are stationed in fourteen countries. Economist Clark Kerr,
former president of the University of California, has been quoted as saying
that "the Asia Foundation has more contacts with Asian intellectuals than any
other American institution."[40] The Asia Foundation also has economic
interests:
Of late, the Asia Foundation has become increasingly interested in the
expansion of Pacific trade. It has sponsored trade conferences and is
underwriting trade advisors to Asian governments. It is assisting in the
development of Asian commercial codes. In addition, the Foundation has taken
an active role in exploring the avenues of economic and poli-tical
regionalism in Asia.[41]
The president of the foundation is Dr. F. Hayden Williams, a former Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Defense. The chairman of the board is Russell G.
Smith, a retired vice-president of the Bank of America. The trustees are some
of the most prominent men in the country, all of whom admitted in a signed
statement they were aware the Foundation was receiving government money.
Unfortunately, the assistant public affairs officer who released their
statement didn't know whether or not they were aware that it was CIA
money.[42] Among the fifteen trustees are the following:
Arthur H. Dean (Social Register, New York), lawyer, Sullivan and Cromwell,
negotiator of the truce in Korea
Ellsworth Bunker (Social Register, New York), Ambassador to South Vietnam
Mortimer Fleishhacker, Jr., San Francisco philanthropist
Cyril Haskins, president, Carnegie Institution of Washington
Walter H. Mallory, executive director of the Council on Foreign Relations,
and, he says, a twelfth generation descendant of a leader of the Pilgrims on
the Mayflower
Mrs. Maurice T. Moore (Social Register, New York), chairman, Institute of
International Education, wife of a partner in Cravath, Swaine, and Moore, and
sister of the late Henry R. Luce of Time, Inc.
J. E. Wallace Sterling (Social Register, San Francisco), then president of
Stanford University, which has a Stanford Research Institute doing yeoman
work for the power elite in Thailand.[43]
Grayson L. Kirk (Social Register, New York), then president of Columbia
University
Charles J. Hitch, then vice president, now president, University of
California. Hitch is a former RAND Corporation economist and Defense
Department consultant
Lucian W. Pye, professor of political science, MIT. Pye is one of the leaders
of his profession
Three university presidents, a Carnegie foundation president, a Council on
Foreign Relations executive, the chairman of the Institute of International
Education, leading businessmen, corporate lawyers, and one of the bright
young men- of the political science field-together they direct a foundation
with a $6 million-a-year budget derived in part from the CIA. The Asia
Foundation and its projects are a microcosm of the relationship between the
power elite and academic experts. Sociologically and ideologically,
relationships such as these transcend the legalism and narrow professional
standards that are used by the academic experts in discussing them.
FOUNDATIONS AND FRONTS
This essay has presented only a segment of the seamy side of the power elite.
There are many other organizations and "fronts" in Houston, Detroit, and
Cleveland that could have been used to make the same points. It is impressive
to note, however, that this underside mirrors in structure and personnel the
aboveboard foundations, associations, institutes, committees, commissions and
civic organizations that the other essays in this book have discussed.
Indeed, to focus too narrowly on the infrastructure of the seamy side and the
minor conduit foundations is to miss the point, for they are really only a
nicely circumscribed case study in a larger picture. All power elite
foundations, institutes and associations, above ground and below ground, are
involved in ideological combat While reasonable critics are chiding CIA
foundations as naughty fronts and criticizing ultraconservative foundations
as partisan and political, they are overlooking, and hence legitimating, the
partisanship of the nonpartisan power elite groups that merely encourage us
to be internationally-oriented in our thinking. They are missing the
nefariousness of power elite groups that merely ask us to look at the facts
and be practical. They are overlooking the fact that nonpartisanship and
fact-finding are aspects of a low-key ideology of the status quo, as is that
disarming Congress of Cultural Freedom-John F. Kennedy notion that ideologies
are now passe and that all we need are a few experts to hone up the system.
Imagine. After thousands of years of ideology they ask us to believe that
ideology has suddendly ended�and in our own time, no less. Truly, it is one
of the more subtle conservative ideologies ever developed, a tribute to the
sophistication of, among others, the National Bureau of Economic Research,
the Bureau of Applied Social Research, the Congress for Cultural Freedom, and
other such institutes and organizations in and around the
MIT-Harvard-Yale-Columbia-Princeton-Johns Hopkins-University of Chicago
complex that houses and generates the Eastern half of the American
intellectual establishment.
The temptation to concentrate on CIA machinations and right-wing heresies and
buy the power elite propaganda about non-ideology is very great. We hear it
every day from the nicest people in the most respectable journals. But it
must be resisted. Those who want to understand the power structure must stand
back and assert in the face of all the power elite's kindness to academics,
and all the intellectual establishment's objectivity and scientificality,
that all power elite foundations, institutes, and associations are propaganda
fronts which are involved in maintaining the legitimacy and respectability of
the present Establishment, even if in some cases this involves no more than
giving some bright-eyed novice a few thousand dollars with which to amuse
himself. If the Independence Foundation is a front, so is the Rockefeller
Foundation, however unaware of that role some of its leaders and recipients
may be. If the Farfield Foundation is a conduit, so is the Ford Foundation
(which is also a tax dodge). If the Congress of Cultural Freedom fobs the
illuminati, so does the holier-than-thou Foreign Policy Association and its
dry-as-dust affiliate, the World Affairs Council.
THE HIGHER IMMORALITY
When C. Wright Mills called the power elite "irresponsible" and accused them
of practicing the "higher immorality," the Intellectual Establishment was
annoyed. They momentarily forgot the white collar crimes of the big business
world, not to mention the thugs and spies that are sometimes unleashed on new
labor unions. Nor did the tax dodges, expense-account parties,
expense-account vacations, and expense-account girls come into consciousness.
No, all they could think was that Mills had once again gone too far, once
again let jealousy and ill temper get the best of him.
Now, 13 years later, there can be little doubt about the validity of Mills'
indictment, which certainly had a good basis in fact even then. The
activities of the CIA at home and abroad in para-military and intellectual
undertakings are in themselves enough to expose the power elite and their
morality for all to judge. By either an absolute morality or the more mundane
standards of their own moral claims, the power elite and their intellectual
collaborators have reaffirmed an age-old axiom about governing classes and
their word magicians. However much they may plead otherwise, they are
primarily self-interested partisans, their horizons severely limited by the
ideologies and institutions that sustain and justify their privilege,
celebrity and power.
pps. 251-275
--[notes]--
1. Henry M. Jackson, The National Security Council: Jackson Sub-committe
Papers on Policy Making at the' Presidential Level (New York: Frederick A.
Praeger, 1965), P. 76.
2. Ibid., P. 76-7. Italics mine.
3. Philip Rieff, "Socialism and Sociology," C. Wright Mills and The Power
Elite, G. William Domhoff and Hoyt B. Ballard, eds. (Boston: Beacon Press,
1968), p. 16q.
4. David Wise and Thomas B. Ross, The Espionage Establishment (New York:
Random House, 1967), p. 293, quoting Richard Bissell, former CIA deputy
director for plans. The son of an insurance company director, Bissell
attended Groton and Yale, was a leading figure in the Committee for Economic
Development during the early forties, and played a key role in the Marshall
Plan and the invasion of Cuba.
5. Wise and Ross, op. cit., p. 4.
6. Lionel S. Lewis, "The Academic Axe: Some Trends in Dismissals From
Institutions of Higher Learning in America" (Social Problems, Fall, 1964),
pp. 156-7; Lionel S. Lewis, "Dismissals from the Academy" (Journal of Higher
Education, May, 1966), pp. 257-8.
7. The following account of the CIA and student groups is based upon three
sources: Sol Stern, "NSA-CIA" (Ramparts, March, 1967); Stuart H. Loory, "How
CIA Became Involved in NSA" (San Francisco Chronicle, February 28, 1967), pp.
1, 12; and the concise summary of all articles and letters on the problem in
The New York Times, which appears on pages 1269-72 of The New York Times
Index, 1967, Volume 55 (New York: The New York Times Company, 1968).
8. Loory, op. cit., p. 12; Houghteling's father was a financial consultant
who served in the Treasury Department during World War II. His mother was
Laura Delano. Frederic Delano, be it recalled from an earlier essay, was
Franklin D. Roosevelt's uncle.
9. Stern, op. cit., pp. 30. 33.
10. Ibid., p. 32.
11. Loory, op. cit., p. 12.
12. Stem, op. cit., P. 33
13. Michael Holcomb, "Student Exchanges Serve U.S. Policy" (Guardian, January
20, 1968), p. 6. One trustee of the HE is Mrs. Morris Hadley. Her lawyer
husband is the head of the Rubicon Foundation, which has served as a CIA
conduit. One of his law partners is J. J. McCloy.
14. Ibid; "The PassThrough: How the CIA Bankrolled Private Projects"
(Newsweek, March 6, 1967), p. 31, a complex diagram which samples the
interlocks among "fronts," "conduits," and "recipients."
15. Loory, op. cit., p. 12.
16. Thomas Braden, "I'm Glad the CIA Is 'ImmoraI'" (Saturday Evening Post,
May 20, 1967), P. 14; Henry W. Berger, "American Labor Overseas" (The Nation,
January 16, 1967), pp. 80-4.
17. Braden, op. cit., p. to.
18. Philip Reno, "The Ordeal of British Guiana" (Monthly Review, July-August,
1964), PP. 50-2; Richard Ward, "AFL-CIO Penetrates Latin America" (Guardian.
August 24, 1968), P. 24.
19. Neil Sheehan, "News Guild Aided by Groups linked to CIA Conduits" (The
New York Times, February 18, 1967), pp. 1, 14. The American Newspaper Guild
received money from the Granary Trust, whose known officer is lawyer George
H. Kidder of St. Mark's School, Williams College, Harvard Law School, and the
Boston Social Register, and from the Chesapeake Fund, whose known officer is
lawyer George Constable of Princeton, Yale, and the Baltimore Social Register.
20. Gerald Grant, "2 Teacher Units Got CIA Funds" (Washington Post, February
22, 1967), p. 8.
21. Reno, op cit., pp. 50-2; Berger, op. cit., p. 83; Neil Sheehan, "CIA Men
Aided Strikes in Guiana Against Dr. Jagan" (The New York Times, February 22,
1967), p. 1.
22. Steven Roberts, "Thomas Upholds CIA-Aided Work" (The New York Times,
February 22, 1967), P. 17.
23. "The CIA Finds a Publisher" (Ramparts, November 30, 1968), p. 60.
24. Steven Roberts, "CIA Is Criticized by Conservatives" (The New York
Times., February 23, 1967), P. 25; Roy Reed, "Goldwater Says CIA Is Financing
Socialism in U.S." (The New York Times, February 27, 1967), P. I. Actually,
the ultra-conservatives have no reason to complain, for the CIA funneled
money to their Christianform through Goldwaterite Peter O'Donnell's
Jones-O'Donnell Fund. See Robert G. Sherrill, "Educational Pipelines: The
Beneficent CIA" (The Nation, May 9, 1966),. PP. 542-3.
25. "Record of Congress for Cultural Freedom" (The New York Times, May 9.
1966), P. 38. The letter did not address itself to whether or not the CIA
funded the Congress, but to the complete independence of the Congress'
policy. There is a difference.
26. "Freedom of Encounter Magazine" (The New York Times, May 10, 1966), p.
44. This letter stressed editorial independence, but contained the sentence
"We know of no 'indirect' benefactions."
27. Braden, op. cit., p. 10.
28. Christopher Lasch, "The Cultural Cold War" (The Nation, September 1,
1967), p. 209; The New York Times Index, 1967, op. cit., p. 1272; Lasky Will
Stay With Encounter" (The New York Times, May 9, 1967), p. 3; "Cultural Group
Once Aided by CIA Picks Ford Fund Aide to Be Its Director" (The New York
Times, October 2, 1967), p. 17.
29. Lasch, op. cit., p. 209.
30. Jason Epstein, "The CIA and the Intellectuals" (The New York Review of
Books, April 30, 1967), pp. 19-21.
31. Irving Kristol, "Memoirs of a Cold Warrior" (The New York Times Magazine,
February 11, 1968), p. 91.
32. "They Speak for Freedom" (The New York Times, March 25, 1955), p. 22.
33. David Wise and Thomas Ross, The Invisible Government (New York: Random
House, 1964), pp. 243-4.
34. Warren Hinckle, Sol Stern and Robert Scheer, "University on the Make"
(Ramparts, April, 1966); Martin Nicolaus, "The Professors, the Policemen, and
the Peasants" (Unpublished manuscript, January, 1966).
35. Marvin Suskin, "Political Science: The Battle for Integrity" (The Nation,
September 2, 1968), p. 179;
36. "The Vice President: Political Fallout?" (Newsweek, February 19,
1968), P. 26.
37. Surkin, op. cit., pp. 179-80.
38. The Shadow, "Hubert's Advisors: Cold War Cronyism" (Guardian, August 24,
1968), p. 8.
39. Tom Caylor, "The Rising Tide of Pacific Business" (Fortune, June 15,
1968), P. 77. This article is part of a lengthy advertising section which
extols San Francisco (and the heart of its power elite).
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid., p. 78.
42. Wallace Turner, "Asia Foundation Got CIA Funds" (The New York Times,
March 22, 1967), P. 17.
43. David Ransom, "Case Studies: The Stanford Complex" (Viet Report, January,
1968), p. 19; David Ransom, "Stanford's Warriors Invade Thailand" (The
Midpeninsula Observer, January 22-February 5, 1968), p. 1.
-----
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris
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