Bush & the Council for Revolution
by William F. Jasper
On January 25th the Council on Foreign Relations issued a press release announcing that Morton H. Halperin was rejoining the organization’s staff as a Senior Fellow to "direct a project on democracy." Mr. Halperin, readers may recall, was President Clinton’s pick back in 1993 for a top Defense Department post. That nomination was scuttled, however, when Comrade Mort’s long, subversive record was brought to the attention of the U.S. Senate — thanks in large measure to The New American.
This magazine and its predecessors, American Opinion and The Review of the News, had reported extensively on Halperin’s radical activism over three decades, including his role in the release of the top secret "Pentagon Papers," his leadership in long-term campaigns against U.S. intelligence agencies and local law enforcement, his association with traitor Philip Agee, his obsession with U.S. disarmament, his apologias for Communist regimes, and his longtime involvement with that nest of KGB-connected subversion known as the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). This was obviously a very bad choice for any federal government position, let alone one with top national defense and security responsibilities.
As it became apparent that the Halperin nomination was in serious trouble, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) mobilized an amazing "save Mort" campaign that enlisted an impressive lineup of the organization’s membership in the media, business, politics, and academia. Alton Frye, the CFR’s senior vice president, sent out a letter to political luminaries eliciting their phone calls and letters to the Senate "in defense of Morton’s integrity, patriotism, competence, intelligence and general suitability...." The appeal was signed by Mr. Frye and fellow CFR members Arnold Lee Kanter and Jeremy J. Stone.
Jeremy Stone is the son of the late I.F. Stone, one of the granddaddies of the ultra-left, and an honorary fellow at the IPS, Halperin’s Marxist alma mater. Jeremy has followed in dad’s footsteps, focusing especially with fanatical zeal on disarming the United States. In September 1974 he joined Halperin, Anthony Lake, and a bevy of other subversives (including many with extensive Soviet connections) in a two-day conference attacking the U.S. intelligence community — sponsored by Halperin’s Center for National Security Studies, an IPS spin-off.
While Alton Frye led the campaign from the CFR’s Washington, D.C. offices, CFR President Leslie Gelb was directing the effort from the Council’s headquarters at the Harold Pratt House in New York City. Mr. Gelb, a former left-wing columnist for the New York Times, is an old boon companion of Halperin; it was Les and Mort who, while serving together in the Defense Department, gave radical Daniel Ellsberg (CFR) unauthorized access to the "Pentagon Papers." Ellsberg passed the Papers on to the comrades at IPS, who then passed them on to fellow travelers at the New York Times and Washington Post.
When Senate opposition made the Halperin appointment untenable, Clinton (CFR) found another posting for Mort that didn’t require confirmation. Clinton then reprised the Halperin fiasco by trying to place fellow IPS radical Anthony Lake (CFR) as head of the CIA. Again, we helped shoot that turkey down, even though the CFR opinion cartel turned out in force in Lake’s defense. (David Brinkley, CFR, attacked this writer by name in a New York Times op-ed for exposing Lake’s crimson record.)
The late Admiral Chester Ward, who resigned from the CFR in disgust after being a member for 16 years, was not exaggerating when he charged that the group’s agenda is to promote "disarmament and submergence of U.S. sovereignty and national independence into an all-powerful one-world government." The leadership of the group, he said, "is composed of the one-world-global-government ideologists — more respectfully referred to as the organized internationalists."
Admiral Ward’s harsh assessment is more than justified.
The CFR has cut a sordid path through American history. But its dreadful record has not stopped it from gaining unprecedented power and influence. Author/journalist Richard Rovere (CFR) has aptly described the Council as "a sort of Presidium for that part of the Establishment that guides our destiny as a nation." It controls both major parties and has had a virtual lock-hold on the executive branch of the federal government since World War II.
In his 1979 memoir, With No Apologies, Senator Barry Goldwater noted: "When a new President comes on board, there is a great turnover in personnel but no change in policy. Example: During the Nixon years Henry Kissinger, CFR member and Nelson Rockefeller’s protégé, was in charge of foreign policy. When Jimmy Carter was elected, Kissinger was replaced by Zbigniew Brzezinski, CFR member and David Rockefeller’s protégé."
That pattern has continued. The Clinton administration was loaded with over 400 CFR members; the Bush team, it appears will match that. Top Bush picks such as Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, Rice, Zoellick, and Chao are all Pratt House veterans. One of the first persons Colin Powell officially received as Secretary of State was Frank Carlucci, who recently chaired the CFR’s panel on restructuring the State Department. The party labels may have changed, but don’t expect a substantive change in policies.
thenewamerican.com |
