When Jimmy Carter was campaigning for President, he promised his followers “new faces, new ideas … a new generation of leadership.” His Cabinet appointments, however, make clear that his Administration will be. run by old faces, old ideas, and just another generation of the same old leadership that has dominated major American policies for the last 40 years.
A funny thing happened to the man from Georgia on his way to the White House. After he was entertained by David Rockefeller at the Twenty One Club in New York, Carter apparently decided to accept guidance from the most exclusive special-interest clique in the country today, the Council on Foreign Relations.
Although more than 60 CFR members held high policy-making positions in the Kennedy-Johnson Administrations, and the buildup rose to more than 100 in the Nixon Administration, the number of CFR members in the Cabinet under Carter will be the largest ever.
Carter’s most important appointment went to Cyrus Vance, who was Vice Chairman
of the CFR Board of Directors, second only to Board Chairman David Rockefeller.
The seven other members of Carter’s Cabinet who are members of the prestigious
Council on Foreign Relations are Vice President Walter F. Mondale, Defense Secretary Harold Brown, Treasury Secretary W. Michael Blumenthal, HEW Secretary Joseph A. Califano, Jr., CIA Director Theodore C. Sorensen, HUD Secretary Patricia R. Harris, and National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski.
David Rockefeller does not exercise vast powers because he is chairman of the Board of the Council on Foreign Relations, but because he heads one of the most powerful banks in the world and is a member of one of the world’s wealthiest families. When he decides to advance a particular policy, he does not do it through CFR, but through its members’ economic, political, and communications influence.
As accurately stated in its annual reports, the Council on Foreign Relations is an “organization of individual members.” But CFR members operate as a sort of floating coalition of individuals with similar objectives.
According to the 1972 CFR annual report, the Council on Foreign Relations was started because of disappointment that the United States did not join the League of Nations. The CFR has always been oriented toward world government.
Once the CFR leaders decide that the U.S. Government should adopt a particular policy, they unveil it in their magazine called Foreign Affairs. By reading this scholarly journal, anyone can learn years in advance what future U.S. foreign and defense policies will be. Historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., once frankly described Foreign Affairs as “an ideal way to communicate dangerous thoughts to the American establishment.”
Every Secretary of State since 1934, except James Byres, has been a member of CFR. The long line of Secretaries of Defense and Deputy Secretaries of Defense who were members includes Thomas S. Gates, Robert S. McNamara, Clark Clifford, Roswell L. Gilpatric, Paul H. Nitze, and Elliot Richardson.
Even the position of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is sometimes passed
from one CFR member to another, as when General L. L. Lemnitzer was succeeded by General Maxwell Taylor. The CIA has had many CFR directors, including Allen Dulles and John A. McCone.
Equally important is CFR influence in other occupations. Of its same 1,500 members, about 60 hold important positions in “communications management,” about 175 in “academic administration,” and about 80 in “nonprofit and foundation administration.”
Although Nelson Rockefeller held the second highest position under the outgoing Republican Administration, his brother David will have much greater influence in the incoming Democratic Administration.
