CHAPTER SIX
TRILATERALS AND TAXATION
California’s Proposition 13, a measure reducing property taxes by 60
percent, is still echoing around the world. The mildly socialist
London Economist ran a lead article on 17 June 1978 entitled
“Throwing Tax Overboard,” expressing horror at the turn of events.
The solidly free enterprise Northern Miner (Toronto, Canada)
editorialized on 15 June 1978: “There may be hope for the Western
World yet,” but claimed “13” wasn’t enough; we need, wrote the
editor, “to finish the job by eliminating entrenched bureaucrats.”
All of which bring us to examine the common principles of taxation
held by both Marxists and Trilateralists. Oddly, while there are
Trilateralist papers on almost every major policy issue, there are
none at all on taxation. After some research, we discovered a
possible reason for the silence. Taxation is not a pressing problem
for Trilateralists; it is only a pressing problem for you and me.
Research unearthed an interesting paradox: Trilaterals emphatically
favor more taxes for the common man, but do very well avoiding
taxation for themselves and their corporate vehicles.
When we were able to identify Trilateral public statements on
Proposition 13, for example, they were not unexpectedly strongly
against reducing California property taxes. For example,
. Bank of America (Trilaterals Clawson and Wood are
directors) contributed $25,000 to defeat Jarvis-Gann (Proposition 13).
. Governor Thompson of Illinois, who is making
appropriate presidential noises, rejected a similar tax
reduction program in Illinois. . Carter said Proposition 13 is an “aberration” that will not sweep
the country. . The Los Angeles Times (a director is Commissioner
Harold Brown) was described by Jarvis himself as “the
vindictive paranoiac, schizophrenic Los Angeles Times” for the
vitriolic nature of its opposition to 13.
In sum, Trilaterals put their weight against Jarvis-Gann and tax
reduction.
AMBIGUITY IN TRILATERAL VIEWPOINT ON TAXES
Trilateral opposition to tax reduction most emphatically did not
apply to their own taxes nor to those of their corporate
affiliations. Trilateral multinationals have successfully avoided
paying taxes in the United States and have made some headway in tax
a voidance in England and possibly elsewhere.
The United States picture was publicized recently by Congressman
Charles A. Vanik (on 26 January 1978) after a congressional study of
the taxes paid by major multinational corporations. Reported
Congressman Vanik:
This study, covering tax year 1976, examines 168 companies. These
include 108 industrial, 7 mining, 8 airline, 9 railroad, 5 trucking,
13 utility, 8 retailing, and 10 commercial bank companies. Because a
few did not furnish data adequate for computation, some categories
of taxes or rates could not be computed.
Where sufficient data made computations possible, the average
effective U.S. tax rate on worldwide income of the corporations was
approximately 13.04 percent, down significantly from the 21.3
percent rate in tax year 1975. In order to qualify for a tax rate
this low, an average family of four could only have earned $20,000.
The companies listed in this study had a pretax income of more than
$38.7 billion.
The figures show that 17 companies paid nothing in
effective Federal income taxes in tax year 1976 6 more than
tax year 1975 -despite combined total worldwide net incomes
of more than $2,594,060,000 -table 1. The 17 companies
accumulated tax credits of more than $375 million. In some
cases, however, companies paid no taxes because they
sustained net losses. In other cases, some companies will claim
to have “paid” Federal taxes, but their credits exceed taxes,
resulting in no effective payment and an effective tax rate
of zero. 1
Included in this tax avoidance group of multinationals we find
numerous corporations with Trilateral connections.
WHAT TAXES DO TRILATERALS PAY?
Having assumed the burden of deciding the future for American
society and the New World Order, one would at least expect that
Trilaterals pay their full share of the costs. We therefore examined
the Vanik study from the viewpoint of identifying the taxes paid by
multinationals represented in the Trilateral Commission by company
directors.
The lowest income tax bracket for an individual U.S. taxpayer is 14
percent. On the other hand, Chase Manhattan, Continental Illinois,
and First Chicago, the power houses behind Trilateralism, all pay
far lower rates.
In fact, Chase Manhattan Bank paid no U.S. taxes at all in 1976.
On the one hand, David Rockefeller (chairman of Chase and the
largest individual shareholder in Chase,) wants to decide the future
of American society and the world; on the other hand, his bank is
totally unwilling to make a contribution to the new American society
and a New World Order.
Given these facts, we have every right to be skeptical about
announced Trilateral intentions and objectives. We have every right
to assume that the Trilateral Commission may be a gigantic rip-off
on American society.
The following is a list of international banks with Trilateral
commissioners on the board, and their effective U.S. tax rate on
worldwide income in 1976.
As we all know, personal income tax rates are much higher than the
rates paid by the tax-avoiding multinationals. In the U.S. the
starting individual tax rate is 14 percent and the highest rate is
70 percent. In Canada the rate starts at 17 percent and ranges to 43
percent. Other European countries have even higher rates up to a
confiscatory 98 percent in Britain.
If you are a Trilaterally
connected international bank, your effective rate in 1976 was much
lower than the lowest individual bracket. In order of their success
in avoiding taxes, Trilateralist banks rank as follows:
If you will examine the chart in chapter three, note how the three
linked banks in the top left (Rockefeller) corner of the chart that
have
remarkable success in avoiding U.S. taxes. This success in avoiding
U.S. taxation is carried abroad by these same multinationals.
Take,
for example, a report in the London Economist (14 January 1978) from
the British viewpoint, under the scathing headline:
“No Tax Please, We’re Banks”
American and other foreign banks in London could end up paying
little or no British tax if their huge claims for relief which are
now being examined by the inland revenue are accepted. Even the
British clearing banks could have their tax bills dramatically
reduced.
A deluge of claims was lodged around Christmas 1978, following
rumors that one of the smaller American banks had persuaded the
inland revenue (British equivalent of IRS) to grant stock
appreciation relief (SAR) on its holding of foreign currency notes
as well as on gold bullion, which has been allowed for some time.
DO ALL MULTINATIONALS PAY LOW TAXES?
A prominent Trilateralist, Peter G. Peterson, chairman of Lehman
Brothers and formerly assistant to President Nixon for international
economic affairs has this to say about MNCs and taxes:
...the MNC is also a source of concern to some governments, since
from its wide base it is often able to circumvent national monetary,
fiscal, and exchange policies. The possibility of distortions
arising from intra-corporate pricing practices to take advantage of
national variations in tax laws has also been cited with concern.
A check of multinational corporations and their 1976 U.S. tax rates
on world income turns up some multinationals that did pay
significantly high U.S. tax rates.
Generally, however, those MNCs with Trilateral connections appear to
pay significantly lower rates. This is only an approximation. It
could be a spurious correlation, but there is sufficient evidence to
warrant a closer look.
TRILATERALISTS PROTECT THEIR OWN
We can push this argument a little further. Trilateralists in
government are protecting fellow capitalists from taxation.
A recent report by the House Government Operations Committee
disclosed the following:
. IRS decisions on some multinational oil firms have cost the U.S.
Treasury over $7 billion since 1974. “By the early 1970’s,
multinational petroleum companies were operating abroad under a set
of factual and legal circumstances completely at variance with those
upon which the previous foreign tax credit rulings were based.” . IRS failed to audit oil company returns or require them to provide
supporting information for their expense claims. (Presumably audits
are only for individual taxpayers.) . These favorable actions stemmed from “interference” by then
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. . More recent “improper interference” for the same purpose came from
Secretary of Treasury Blumenthal.
The committee did not cite the U.S. oil companies involved, except
to note that they operate in Saudi Arabia, Libya, and Indonesia.
Aramco alone was named in one place: this company is linked with
Exxon and Chase Manhattan interests.
In brief, a House committee has charged Trilateralists Henry
Kissinger and Michael Blumenthal with “improper interference” with
IRS to obtain benefits for certain companies. Even further,
In September 1977, at the very time that the subcommittee discovered
and criticized a suggestion made by a Treasury official a year
earlier to have IRS and Treasury officials “cooperate” in secret
dealings with Indonesia and oil companies therein regarding foreign
tax credits (a suggestion which was also admonished as being
improper by other Treasury officials), the new International Affairs
officials were recommending similar actions.
Don’t hold your breath expecting further investigation. Henry has
either a charmed life or personal sovereign immunity from the rule
of law.
Compare this protective treatment for favored Trilateral associates
with the Carter “energy” plan. The energy plan is a disguised tax
plan aimed at the middle class. Carter proposes to give a few
low-income energy users a small credit, and tax high-income energy
users. When you total up the sum of credits and the sum of taxes, it
turns out that the energy credits just disappear after a year or so
and the energy taxes keep on mounting.
The disappearing Carter energy tax credit looks like this, in net
total receipts per year:
This change from credits to taxes comes about because while
low-income taxpayers and energy consumers qualify for credits in the
early years, inflation quickly pushes these low-income groups into
higher tax brackets (without credits). So by 1985 all energy users
pay energy taxes and none get energy credits.
Compare this deceptive “energy plan” for taxpayers with the already
cited benefits derived by Trilateralist connected firms with
Kissinger and Blumenthal to run “interference” at IRS.
To emphasize the discriminatory approach of the Carter
administration on tax matters, we can do no better than quote the
congressional testimony of Philip E. Vision, supervisory revenue
officer in the Chicago District Office of IRS, who in 1976 blew a
small whistle on IRS procedures before the Subcommittee on Oversight
of the Committee on Ways and Means. Congressmen Jones asked Vision
about differing treatment of rich and poor taxpayers:
Is there pressure to seize a small business or a poor taxpayer’s
property in order to close the case, and pressure to perhaps settle
quickly with a rich taxpayer who has plenty of accounting and legal
ability to drag things, out?
To which IRS official Vision replied:
In all candor, Congressman, I must say this: You will find those
branches or groups that are involved in the inner city of Chicago,
the low income, the closures are highest because there is really no
problem. It requires no technical skills or knowledge to prepare a
levy upon the employer of an employee who is getting take-home pay
of about $80. We can go in, serve the levy and take the entire $80.
Certainly a taxpayer who is earning $80 could hardly be expected to
employ an expensive attorney or CPA. Usually when he comes in, in
response to the levy, it is with tears in his eyes because he
allocated that $80 to the gas or electric company and because IRS
took that money, his electric and gas will be shut off and also part
of that money was intended to feed his family. This is a common
practice.
I am sorry to report that, but if you would look at the closures in
the poor areas of Chicago, the depressed areas, you would find that
the closures of the small dollar TDA’s are overwhelmingly larger
than they are in the affluent suburbs of Deerfield where I live.
TRILATERAL SENATOR ROTH JOINS TAX REVOLT?
Given our skepticism of
the Carter administration policy on taxation, how do we assess
Senator Roth’s tax reduction proposals? Take a hard look at the
Roth-Kemp Amendment for a federal tax reduction. Senator William V.
Roth Jr., is a Trilateralist. The proposal would cut federal taxes
by 33 to 36 percent for hard-pressed (over $20,000) middle income
groups.
Effects for a family of four are contained in the following
table:
Are the Trilaterals getting out in front of the tax revolt? Not at
all. Roth-Kemp just won’t increase real income. The catch is that
the tax reduction under this proposal will be phased in over three
years and is totally insufficient to cut the fat in Washington. We
are heading into a period of further major price inflation: 10 to 15
percent a year is more than probable. Where does that leave a
taxpayer pushed into higher tax brackets? He will save one-third in
federal taxes under Roth-Kemp and lose one-third from the hidden tax
of inflation! In sum, Roth-Kemp is a deception.
The only useful tax reform at the federal level is repeal of the
Sixteenth Amendment.
THE GRADUATED INCOME TAX OF MARX AND
ENGELS
To fully understand the implications of a viciously graduated income
tax system aimed at the small/medium American businessman and the
broad middle class and to understand as well the role of the
multinationals and the international bankers who make up the power
elite behind the Trilateral Commission, we need to go back to 1847
and the Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
Of the Communist revolution, Marx and Engels wrote:
In the first instance, this can only be affected by despotic
inroads upon the rights of property and by despotic
interference with bourgeois methods of production; that is to say by
measures which seem economically inadequate and untenable, but have
far-reaching effects, and are necessary as means for revolutionizing
the whole system of production. In brief, elimination of property
owners and small- and mediumsized businessmen (“bourgeois methods of
production”) outside the orbit of the multinationals and
international banks is an essential prerequisites to socialism.
. Then Marx and Engels outline the famous ten “measures” for
achieving revolution in the advanced countries to bring about
socialism.
These measures are described by Marx and Engels as follows:
In the most advanced countries they will, generally speaking, take
the following forms:
1. Expropriation of landed property, and the use of landrents to
defray State expenditure. 2. A vigorously graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of the right of inheritance. 4. Confiscation of the property of all émigrés and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a
national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly. 6. Centralization of the means of transport in the hands of the
State. 7. Increase of national factories and means of production,
cultivation of uncultivated land, and improvement of cultivated land
in accordance with a general plan. 8. Universal and equal obligation to work; organization of
industrial armies, especially for agriculture. 9. Agriculture and urban industry to work hand-in-hand, in such a
way as, by degrees, to obliterate the distinction between town and
country. 10. Public and free education of all children. Abolition of factory
work for children in its present form. Education and material
production to be combined.
Notably, there is a parallel between Marx and Trilateral
propositions:
centralization of credit in IMF and the Federal Reserve System
parallels Marx’s measure 5. AMTRAK, federal funding of rapid
transit, and persistent efforts to cut down on use of individual
automobiles parallels Marx’s measure 6.
Finally, our Sixteenth
Amendment to the Constitution, the “income tax amendment,” is none
other than the “vigorously graduated income tax” proposed by Marx in
the Manifesto. What has this to do with Trilateral multinational
avoidance of taxation?
Plenty, as it turns out.
It is interesting to reread Karl Marx’s Manifesto in the light of
the alliance between Wall Street multinationals and the Communist
imperialists, Marxists, especially, should reread Marx. The enemy of
Marxist totalitarianism is not the capitalist but rather the
“bourgeoisie,” the middle class. Marx sees the bourgeoisie as the
source of all that is evil, yet he does not include all the ruling
establishment in those designated for elimination.
To the contrary,
when the class war is about to be fought to a finish, Karl Marx
envisaged a curious event:
“a small part of the ruling class breaks
away to make common cause with the revolutionary class, the class
which holds the future in its hands.”
In sum, Marx envisaged a coalition of ruling interests of the
revolutionary Marxists and a segment of the ruling class. This is
precisely what history has recorded in the hundred or so years since
the Manifesto was published.
One of the most significant forces in
modern world development has been the assistance from a relatively
small yet powerful part of the ruling Western establishment to the
Soviet Union channeled through such influential organizations as the
Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and today, the Trilateral
Commission. In Marx’s terms, are not Cyrus Eaton, Armand Hammer,
David Rockefeller and the Trilateral Commission ruling class
breakaways?
Have not Marxists and the “breakaway ruling class
capitalists” joined hands to eliminate the American middle class?
Unfortunately, academic analysts are blind to the implications of
the alliance: they read Marx with preconceptions. So let’s present
some evidence.
Earlier this year, the Marxist government of Angola reorganized
Diamang, its diamond-producing monopoly. Now the Neto Marxist
government will own 60.8 percent, and the balance will be owned by
the former foreign corporate owners. It will be a mixed company. But
which former owners will be expropriated to make way for the new
Marxist shareholders? Not the big greedy capitalists we hear so much
about in socialist literature, but, in the words of the Neto
government “a
large number of small shareholders.”
The major “foreign companies,”
the large multinationals, that is, the ruling capitalists, will not
be
affected by the takeover. In other words, the ruling class joins
hands with Marxist revolutionaries against the small bourgeois
owners.
Another example follows for those readers who have read
Antony Sutton’s Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution and who may
remember that in 1918 the leading Wall Street law firm supporting
the infant Bolshevik regime in Russia was Simpson, Thacher and
Bartlett of New York. As one indication of their support, partner
Thomas D. Thacher wrote a report which became decisive in gaining
British cabinet support for the Bolsheviks.
Also Thomas Lamont,
Dwight Morrow, and H. P. Davison were closely involved in developing
policy towards the Bolsheviks: all were partners in the J. P. Morgan
firm. While in London on 13 April 1918 Thomas D. Thacher, a member
of the American Red Cross Mission to Russia, wrote to the American
ambassador in London that he had received a request from H. P.
Davison, a Morgan partner, “to confer with Lord Northcliffe”
concerning the situation in Russia and then to go on to Paris “for
other conferences.”
Lord Northcliffe was ill, and Thacher left a
memorandum to be submitted to Northcliffe on his return to London
with yet another Morgan partner, Dwight W. Morrow. This memorandum
not only made explicit suggestions about Russian policy that
supported the pro-Bolshevik position of William Boyce Thompson
(director of Chase, now Chase Manhattan, Bank), but even stated that
“the fullest assistance should be given to the Soviet government in
its efforts to organize a volunteer revolutionary army.”
The first three proposals in Thacher’s report follow:
First of all...the Allies should discourage Japanese
intervention in Siberia. In the second place, the fullest assistance should be given to the
Soviet Government in its efforts to organize a volunteer
revolutionary army. Thirdly, the Allied Governments should give their moral support to
the Russian people in their efforts to work out their own political
system free from the domination of any foreign power...
Was Wall Street attorney Thacher a capitalist enemy of the
Bolsheviks? Of course not. Thacher was right in there, helping the
revolution, as part of the “breakaway ruling class,” along with
capitalists from J. P. Morgan and Chase Bank.
Similar aid for Marxist revolution is taking place today in South
Africa and Red China. And who is U.S. secretary of state today in
charge of facilitating this aid? Cyrus D. Vance, who before his
appointment as secretary of state was also a partner in Simpson,
Thacher and Bartlett. As a final twist, do you recall that Senator
Clifford P. Case was defeated in the primaries last month in New
Jersey? Well, Clifford P. Case was also a member of the firm of
Simpson. Thacher and Bartlett from 1928 to 1953, when he became
president of the Fund for the Republic, the foundation that funded
the study for a “new constitution” so desired by the elite.
Yet another memorandum from William Boyce Thompson (director of the
Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Chase Bank) to Lloyd George
(prime minister of Great Britain,) December 1917, supported the
Bolsheviks and admitted in part:
About the overthrow of the last Kerensky government we materially
aided the dissemination of the Bolshevik literature, distributing it
through agents and by aeroplanes to the German army. If the
suggestion is permissible, it might be well to consider whether it
would not be desirable to have this same Bolshevik literature sent
into Germany and Austria across the West and Italian fronts.
Does this sound as if Wall Street and the Bolsheviks were enemies?
Another excellent example of the capitalist-communist alliance is
Gulf Oil in Angola, the financial backer of the Neto government,
while Cuban troops protect Gulf’s Cabinda production facilities. And
how about Armand Hammer, chairman of Occidental- Petroleum? In the
Russian edition of Lenin’s Collected Works, you will find several
letters from Lenin to Hammer addressed affectionately as “Dear
Comrade.” Capitalists, the big enemy of communists? Nonsense. They
work hand-in-glove to rule the world.
The key to understanding world events is to look at the world in
terms of a Marxist Ruling-Class Alliance. Then seemingly
inconsistent actions and events make sense:
. The elite subsidizes Marxist regimes: they are not enemies.
. The elite abandons free enterprise allies: it wants
socialism. . The elite presses for more individual taxation. that is, the
Marxist “graduated income tax.” . The elite reduces its own taxation in the same way that the Moscow
elite lives it up at the expense of the Russian working class.
The textbook modern history is illusory because it is based on a
mythical capitalist versus communist struggle.
Thus, when we are asked to believe that Trilateral ambitions are
morally justified to build a New World Order devoted to the peace
and welfare of mankind, two points strike us:
(a) this end does not
coincide with other interpretations of Trilateral motivations and
actions
(b) the means adopted appear authoritarian and suggest
that the ends may also be authoritarian
What are some of the practical lessons we can learn from this
alliance?
. If you are a small - or medium-sized business man or
banker, a professional, or part of the “middle class,” you are
targeted for elimination. . If you are actively working for a multinational (among those cited
in this book), you may as well work in the Kremlin: you are
assisting destruction of free enterprise and the free world. . If you are a socialist, you are deluding yourself. You are working
hand in hand with the totalitarians you proclaim to despise. . If you, as an individual, are interested in tax reform, the only
acceptable tax reform is complete repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment.
ENDNOTES: CHAPTER SIX
1. Congressional Record - House, 26 January 1978.
Back to Contents
CHAPTER SEVEN
TRILATERAL CENSORSHIP: THE CASE
OF C. GORDON TETHER
Trilateralists by their own statements see freedom of the press as a
threat to achieving their objectives, the First Amendment of the
Constitution notwithstanding. In The Crisis of Democracy, Trilateral
authors Michael J. Crozier, Samuel P. Huntington, and Joji
Watanuki describe our society as drifting with a “dangerously
progressed alienation.” The media, it is argued by the three
authors, has
played a role in this alienation, and
“the media have thus become an
autonomous power...we now are witnessing a crucial change when the
profession (the media) tends to regulate itself in such a way as to
resist
pressure from financial or governmental interests.” 1
Note the key phrase: “resist pressure from financial or governmental
interests.” We shall see later that the Gordon Tether case in
England fits this mold precisely.
Trilateralists do not like resistance to special interest pressure
because “the media deprive governments and to some extent also other
responsible authorities of the time lag, tolerance and thrust that
make it
possible to innovate and to experiment responsibly.” 2
Again note the self-appointed Trilateralist role as “responsible
authorities” and the threads of authoritarianism woven into this
brief passage. And further:
“the media become a tremendous sounding
board for the difficulties and tensions of society. Movements and
fashions take broader proportions. It is much more difficult to
escape the whirlpool of public relations events and to concentrate
on more basic problems.” 3
In other words, legitimate grievances can
be stated and faulty government criticized, but this weakens
“authority.”
What do the Trilaterals propose to do about this “threat” of free
expression? In The Crisis of Democracy, the counter action is
spelled out:
“...significant measures are required to restore an
appropriate balance between the press, the government and other
institutions in society.”4
Specifically, Trilaterals call for an
interstate commerce act for the media, that is, a regulatory agency
for the media, to assure to the government the right and the ability
to withhold information at the source.
So here we have it. Trilaterals want a “responsible” press, that is,
a captive censored press, and propose legislation to achieve this
end.
While waiting for appropriate legislation, Trilaterals are applying
an
informal censorship. There are some annoying journalists - like
Gordon Tether of London - who feel a higher call than that of crass
Trilateralism and - who are persecuted by Trilateralists.
In this chapter we will detail one case of Trilateral censorship in
an English newspaper, and incidentally illustrate the long globalist
arm of Trilateralism. Secret elitist groups always censor, or try to
censor, news about their covert activities. Censorship stems from
the overall need for secrecy, to conceal from the world at large. As
long as Trilaterals (and Bilderbergers and other elitist groups)
skulk around the world convening closed meetings in secluded corners
with security guards to keep out the press then we may conclude that
Trilaterals, Bilderbergers, and the rest have something to hide. For
that reasonable conclusion, we shall probably be labeled “paranoid”
- but the name calling is merely added emphasis of covert doings.
From an intelligence viewpoint knowledge of what such secret groups
want to suppress is important – submerged “inside” information is a
reliable clue to actual intentions, as opposed to public stated
intentions. The case of C. Gordon Tether, a prominent London
journalist, is important precisely because a Trilateral commissioner
squashed Tether’s articles. Tether, for his part, retained the
suppressed information and has since made it available to the
public. Who is C. Gordon Tether? Tether, age sixty-three, is a very
wellknown London journalist.
For twenty years Tether wrote as the
Financial Times’s “Lombard,” the longest running columnist in
England and listed as such in the Guinness Book of Records. After
1974 some Tether articles were not printed and some not-too-subtle
hints were made by the Financial Times about rewriting others.
Tether refused and was thrown out on his ear – after twenty years at
the Financial Times, and only a year or so before retirement.
The managing editor who banned the articles and did the firing is
German born Trilateral Commissioner M. H. (Ferdy) Fisher. Of added
significance to the United States is the Financial Times’s plan to
enter the American market in late 1978 with a special edition
printed in West Germany.
Of still further significance is the
Trilateral influence in the media, such as, La Stampa (Italy),
Avanti (Italy), Die Zeit (Germany), Field Enterprises (U.S.) and the
Kyodo News Service (Japan).
WHO READS GORDON TETHER?
What makes Gordon Tether especially damaging to Trilateral
ambitions is his readership. And let’s make it clear from the start
that
this author does not necessarily agree with all Tether’s views; what
is
critical is the suppression of free speech and the subject matter
suppressed. Tether’s readers would make most of us writers downright
envious.
For instance, they include(d):
. King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, who had such high regard for the
“Lombard articles they were translated into Arabic for Faisal’s
personal perusal...” . Conservative member of Parliament Peter Tapsell, who considers
Lombard articles “required reading” for someone like himself
(although Tapsell disagrees on Tether’s low marks for the Common
Market and the value of multinationals). . Harold Wilson (Labor prime minister) who cited Tether as “...one
of the most distinguished independent writers...” . Former Financial Times editor (for twenty years before
Ferdy Fisher) Sir Gordon Newton, who testified that Tether was “amenable to suggestions from him” and that
“he (Newton) would not ban a subject.” Further that he
(Newton) “always defended Mr. Tether’s column on
occasions when it was disapproved by members of the Financial Times board.”
. Labor Minister for Overseas Development Mrs. Judith Hart,
testified, “...it would be a very dangerous situation if columnists
in our newspapers were to find they were not able to say what they
thought.”
You see why Tether’s writing could be either extremely useful to
Trilateral ambitions or extremely damaging?
Over twenty years Tether had built up an influential and admiring
(if not always agreeable) readership. That adds up to power,
although Tether is almost certainly not looking for power.
Trilateralists are well aware of the crucial role of journalism in
surfacing or suppressing information.
Michel Crozier, Huntington,
and Watanuki in The Crisis of Democracy term media “the gatekeeper”:
“Their main impact is visibility. The only real event is the event
that is reported and seen. Thus, journalists possess a crucial role
as gatekeepers of one of the central dimensions of public life.” 5
Now there is much information that Trilaterals do not want seen by
the public, that they want to remain invisible and to go unreported
and suppressed as nonevents.
Unruly journalists who do not read the guidelines on the elitist
gate are unwelcome: after all they have the means to sabotage the
New World Order.
THE BANNED ARTICLES
Forty-six Tether articles were banned by Financial Times editor cum
Trilateral Commissioner Ferdy Fisher, presumably because they
contained information which was supposed to remain invisible.
Certainly an editor has control over the content of a newspaper or
journal. That is an editor’s right and responsibility. However, in
Tether’s case, a long-lasting twenty-year editorial relationship had
been established by mutual consent -so that Fisher’s censorship was
a one-sided action tantamount to breach of contract. This is a vital
point to hold in mind. Moreover, many of the “banned articles” were
later published elsewhere, ranging from the Spectator (conservative)
to New Solidarity (socialist), which makes nonsense of the Financial
Times’s plea that Tether’s articles were “not up to standard.”
The most objective way to get to the root of the Tether-Financial
Times dispute is by a theme analysis. Every piece of writing has a
theme. By assessing and grouping themes, one can isolate what, if
anything, was annoying Commissioner Fisher. We extracted a random
sample of nine articles (every fifth banned article) and listed
their themes. (See table.) Run your eye down the list of selected
banned titles. Then do the same with the theme column. There is a
common theme which will hit readers like a ten ton truck.
The themes of the nine selected banned articles 6 strongly suggest
what is bothering Ferdy Fisher (and his Trilateral cohorts). Any
editor or writer in the transatlantic Establishment press who
touches upon certain topics too often or in too much depth receives
a polite telephone call to suggest that “perhaps you have exhausted
the potential on this topic.”
No fewer than five Tether articles (of the selected nine) have a
common theme -a “no-no” theme of criticism of the supercapitalists,
international bankers who act as if God has ordained their right to
rule the world. Two articles are anti-European Economic Community
(EEC), and EEC is a vital first step to the global authoritarian
structure demanded by Trilaterals.
Let’s look briefly at each of
these nine banned articles:
(1) A July 1974 article (“Need for a City Lobby”) points out the
one-sided nature of City (of London) propaganda and its delicate
avoidance of the seamy side of the financial world. Just a week
before this Ferdy
had banned another article (“Beyond the Limits of Detente”), in
which Tether attacked the supercapitalist Kissinger policy of
subsidizing Soviet military prowess. From this author’s personal
experience at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University
(influential Trilateralist David Packard is on the executive board),
I can assure the reader that our subsidy of the USSR is a very
touchy subject among Trilaterals they know they are betraying the
Western world but can’t resist the profits.
(2) “Spotlight on the Honours System” (banned 12 February 1975 but
printed ten days later in The Spectator) refers to the British
system of awarding “Honours,” that is, titles, in an annual “Honours
List.” Tether made a simple point: that the great disadvantage of
such a system is “our inability to get away from class
distinctions.” Furthermore, businessmen are well rewarded monetarily
for expertise and shouldn’t be clamoring after such baubles. Tether
suggests resentment is thereby generated and undue attention is
given to “unscrupulous power-seekers.”
(3) “Silencing the Resistance” (banned, 12 June 1975) touches on the
Europeanization of England, a necessary first step to a
Trilateralist world government. Tether doesn’t like Europeanization,
nor the EEC (European Economic Community). The theme is that
suppression of anti-EEC views makes England a “one party state” and
could be “the first step down the path leading to a Police State.”
(4) “Newsletters at Loggerheads” (banned 19 September 1975) is
another “no-no” subject in the Establishment media. There are
several hundred “hard money” (i.e., pro-gold) newsletters, maybe
more, mostly in the United States, which over the last decade have
been far more accurate in their advice than pro-Establishment
financial media. Tether reports in this article on their
differences, affirming that a healthy underground financial press
exists. Schultz and Myers for example may have differences, but both
have been more right in their prognostications over the long run
than such newsletters as Greens Commodity Reports or newspaper
financial columnists such as Sylvia Porter who tend to reflect the
Establishment “party line.” Schultz, Myers, and other pro-gold
newsletter editors are “non-persons” so far as the Establishment is
concerned.
(5) In “Supercapitalists Fall Out” (banned 16 January 1976) Tether
comments favorably on Solzhenitsyn and argues that the rivalries
among the supercapitalists can have great significance for the
world.
We should start to take an interest in their doings before they get
us
into trouble. Tether cites Woodrow Wilson’s famous lines: “Some of
the biggest men in the U.S. in the fields of commerce and
manufacturing know that there is a power so organized, so subtle, so
complete, so pervasive that they had better not speak above their
breath when they speak in condemnation of it.” Tether correctly
records that this behind-the-scenes power still exists. Of course
this is another “nono” for the Establishment press; you won’t find
this topic investigated by the Washington Post, and the New York
Times.
(6) In “The Prince and the Bilderbergers” (banned 3 March 1976)
Tether hit the jackpot. Every self-respecting journalist knows that
the Bilderberger secret comings and goings and meetings are just not
to be reported in depth. But Tether actually complained, “why is it
that, if there is so little to hide, so much effort is devoted to
hiding it?” Tether’s conclusion is logical: the Bilderbergers have
something to hide. (The article was later published in Verdict in
November 1975.) Prince Bernhard (onetime leader of the
Bilderbergers) was personally involved in the messy Lockheed
kickback affair, and this supports an argument that all these groups
(Trilaterals, Bilderbergers, Council on Foreign Relations and so on)
use moralistic talk of peace and world order as a cover for their
own profit.
(7) “Mocking at the Spirit of Easter” (banned 15 April 1976)
comments critically on Citibank’s proposal for a thirty year
rearmament program against Soviet imperialism. One can understand
Citibank sensitivity. Not only has Henry Wriston publically made
known his dislike of such freewheeling commentary, but Citibank is
one of the international banks responsible for the need for
rearmament. These bankers financed and subsidized the Soviet Union
to its present military prowess. Heaven forbid that any journalist
should publicly discuss that story of greed and amorality.
(8) “Those Roosting Chickens” (banned 10 May 1976) continued
Tether’s anti-EEC commentary.
(9) The final article in our random selection, “Losing Ground in
Battle of Ideas” (banned 5 July1976), the most important theme is
that the IMF is an engine of world inflation and that reform of the
world’s monetary system must begin with phasing out the key role of
the U.S. dollar.
What can we say about the overall thrust of these nine banned
articles?
. All the articles in some way are critical of “the powers
behind the Establishment,” that quasi-secret world rarely,
if ever, reported in the U.S. or European media. 7 . Six of the nine banned articles zeroed in on the
internationalist banking establishment and their power
games. Tether’s rather mild view is that their globalist
antics may not be healthy for our world. . Tether names names - Rockefeller, Citibank, Prince
Bernhard, Bilderbergers - and it is notable that the context in
which these names were reported, that is, as having met in secret
conclaves, is rarely, if ever, mentioned in the U.S.
In recent years
an exposure of these groups has been made by independent academics
in the U.S. One of the best is a series of books by G. William Domhoff, professor of sociology at University of California, Santa
Cruz. Domhoff explores the American ruling class, its operations, 8
functions, and meeting grounds in The Higher Circles (1970), Who
Rules America? (1967), and The Bohemian Grove and Other Retreats
(1974.) These books also portray the background of Trilateral
Commission operations and the sensitivity of the ruling elite when
its more nefarious activities are exposed to public view.
That is,
after Domhoff’s careful exploration of the heavy drinking and
prostitution in the Bohemian Grove retreat, for example, we are left
with an explanation of the ineptness and lack of moral fiber
displayed by the elite in international affairs.
After such exposes
we might accurately view the elite as a group of naughty little
boys, rather than the far-sighted statesmen of their own
self-portraits.
GORDON TETHER AND THE MISSING GOLD
While this surfacing of suppressed information is quite sufficient
to turn Establishment heat onto Tether he may have sinned further by
refusing to accept the party line for the condition of the U.S. gold
reserves - although Tether’s Fort Knox articles were not banned.
Tether was probing the “Fort Knox gold mystery,” that is, the
possibility that U.S. gold reserves are not as reported.
On 11
February 1975 Tether wrote an article raising questions on the
quality and quantity of U.S. gold reserves, and he presented his
grounds for believing that a gigantic “cover-up” is in progress -
that the U.S. gold (if any) is at least of inferior quality (and
Washington acts as if an inventory might reveal some unpleasant
secrets).
There is no doubt that the Establishment is sensitive on this issue.
In
November 1977 this author made the observation (at the Monetary
Conference in New Orleans) that four-fifths of the gold in U.S.
stocks
is .85 coin melt, not acceptable for “good delivery.” Commodities
Journal picked this up and asked pro-Establishment Charles R. Stahl
of
Greens Commodity Reports about this statement. Stahl immediately, as
if stung by a bee, responded, “This is nonsense.” Yet a telephone
call to the Treasury Department will confirm the coin melt nature of
U.S. stocks. On the other hand, the alloy-grade quality of the
reserves is a fact that the elite wishes to be kept invisible.
In brief, we know there is a knee-jerk reaction to hide two facts:
a. The quantity of
inventoried gold in U.S. reserves b.
The quality of this gold, Le. 80 percent is alloy “coin
melt”
The assault on Tether may well stem in part from his willingness to
tackle this potentially explosive scandal.
ELITIST INFLUENCE IN BOOK PUBLISHING
This raises the question of the extent to which the book publishing
industry has been dominated by elitist themes and concepts. While
this must be balanced by the observation that Harper & Row published
The Bohemian Grove, and Hawthorn, The Plot to Seize the White House,
on balance it is usually difficult to publish anti-Establishment
books in the U.S.
How pervasive is Trilateral censorship in the U.S.? Potentially,
there is an unhealthy penetration by Trilateralism of the book
publishing industry. This may give you an idea of the scope:
1. CBS (Commissioner Henry B. Schacht is a director)
owns Holt, Rinehart & Winston, Popular Library and Fawcet (about 15 to 20 percent of mass paperback market),
plus seven monthly and 60 annual magazines 2.
TIMES-MIRROR (Commissioner H. Brown is a director)
owns: Harry N. Abrams (art publisher), New American
Library (mass paperback) and Los Angeles Times 3.
TIME, Inc. (Commissioner Hedley Donovan is editor-in-Chief and Sol
Linowitz, is a director) owns: Little, Brown;
New York Graphic Society; Time/ Life Books; Book of the Month Club
plus Time, Fortune, Money, and People. In practice, elitist
dominance of book publishing does not stop books from being
published; however, it does inhibit widespread distribution.
Book publishing has low barriers to entry: the capital and skill
requirements are relatively low. The essential requirement for
success
is the marketing skill of obtaining distribution; and in recent
decades, a
flood of anti-Establishment books demonstrates that increased
distribution is possible. On the other hand, there are curious
events to suggest elitist intervention at some point in the book
distribution channels. A personal example will make the point. In
1974 this author published Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution
with a New York publishing house (Arlington House.) Given the
esoteric nature of the topic, sales were quite respectable
-something over 25,000 in hardback. Yet, distribution of the book
through regular channels was effectively strangled.
The trade journal Publishers Weekly (5 August 1974) selected the
book for its leading entry under “nonfiction” with a healthy four
inch review. Most books receive a couple of lines and, of course,
only one book leads off each section. Obviously, the reviewers at
Publishers Weekly took the material at face value.
The review read
as follows:
NONFICTION WALL STREET AND THE BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION
Anthony (Sic) C. Sutton. Arlington House, $7.95. Professor
Sutton, affiliated with the Hoover Institution at Stanford and
author of “National Suicide” (1973), uses State Department
files, private papers of Wall Street figures and other sources
(biographies, etc.) to document his astonishing thesis that Wall
Street, notably the J.P. Morgan interests, played money games
with both the Kerensky regime and the Bolsheviks in 1917.
Among
other things he notes the preponderance of U.S. financiers rather
than humanitarian personnel on the American Red Cross Mission to
war-torn Russia at that time; he suggests too that the American
writer John Reed (“Ten Days That Shook the World”) was secretly
supported by the Morgan people.
At least by association Sutton
demonstrates an eyebrow-raising interest on the part of Wall Street
powers in making hay with their archenemies some 50-odd years ago.
Conservative Book Club selection. (September 3, 1974)
The above report is objective and adequate. It appears that
Publishers Weekly plays no favorites.
Then “something” happened. Not
a single bookstore in the U.S. known to the author carried the book.
A few ordered the book for customers by special request. Not a
single review of the book was published in the Establishment press
nor the left-liberal press. The book was effectively made
“invisible.” Sales were made through a book club and by mail order
for the most part. Why? Obviously, because of the extreme
sensitivity of the topic, no bookseller would stick his neck out.
Certainly, there is potential for massive intervention into freedom
of expression by elitist suppression. Currently the Authors’ Guild
is pressing the Department of Justice to institute a Clayton Act
case against publishing mammoths, fearing that authors’ freedoms
have already been infringed upon. Yet, the problem is much more than
mere financial control of the press and publishing.
A greater
roadblock to public comprehension has been expressed by Trilateralists themselves:
...the ruling elite and the educated audience play a major role as
an important screen. They constitute the primary audience of the
highbrow publications, which in turn tend to structure the problems
that will finally reach the broader audience. Public relations of a
public figure will be conditioned by the existence of these two
levels. This means that there is a very serious buffer against too
immediate reactions.” 9
In brief, problems and solutions are already
“structured” before they reach the general public.
About 1984 when the Trilaterals meet to review progress, or lack of
progress, in the past decade, they will find a fundamental error in
their strategy. From the start, it has been known that the
Trilateral thrust is in conflict with the Constitution of the United
States. Efforts have been made - by the Fund for the Republic and
others – to amend the U.S. Constitution. This was an impossible
objective.
American citizens like the protections of the
Constitution, especially protection from those ambitious persons who
would rule the world. So an elitist decision was made to go it
without changing the Constitution - to meet the problems as and when
they arose, trusting that the cement of the New World Order would
harden before enough citizens were aroused to protest the violence
to the Constitutional order. This will prove to be the crowning
error.
In any event, English journalist Gordon Tether may have the last
laugh yet: Financial Time’s circulation is slowly shrinking - down
7.2 percent from 1973 - and readers don’t take kindly to the idea
that their daily newspaper may be filtering news. Yet Gordon
Tether’s case is a warning to us. Tether has appealed to the London
Industrial Tribunal for arbitration in the dispute; and it is
already the longest such hearing in the history of the Tribunal. In
England there is no constitution, only a convention to define
freedom of expression. There is, on the other hand, the First
Amendment in the United States.
So we would do well to sharpen our
awareness and be watchful for any intrusion upon freedom of the
press from whatever quarter it may come.
ENDNOTES: CHAPTER SEVEN
1. Michael J. Crozier, Samuel P. Huntington. Joji Watanuki. The
Crisis of Democracy (New York: University Press. 1975) p. 35. 2. Ibid.. p. 35
3. Ibid. 4. Ibid.. p. 181 5. Ibid.. p. 35 6. If you believe the random selection process is unfair or biased.
then purchase “The Banned Articles” and read all fifty-six. Copies
may be obtained from The Trilateral Observer, Box 4775. Scottsdale,
AZ 85258. Enclose $3.50 please. 7. The only English language newspaper in recent times to run an
exposure series on this behind-the-scenes power has been The Citizen
(Pretoria. South Africa). understandably peeved at U.S. interference
in internal South African affairs. The Citizen. no doubt. decided to
blow a small whistle. Reprints available from ACSA Foundation. P.O.
Box 4335. Scottsdale. AZ 85258. 8. On this. see G William Domhoff’s The Bohemian Grove and Other
Retreats. (New York: Harper & Row. 1974). 9. Michael J. Crozier et aI.. Crisis of Democracy. p. 36
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