CHAPTER THREE


THE POWER STRUCTURE
PART II


Moving up from the lower levels of the Trilateral Commission described in the last chapter, let us now focus on the higher echelons. Organizing and directing the overall activities of the commission itself is a North American executive committee, with yet another and virtually unseen power base behind it. The identity of this Trilateral power base varies according to the observer. Most American observers zero in on the international bank affiliation. While constitutional conservatives focus on the Rockefeller family and Chase Manhattan Bank as the culprits, liberal-leftists focus on bankers in general.

 

A radically different interpretation is that of the U.S. Labor party. The latter considers the Rockefeller label to be a “cover,” that Trilateralism is a “British conspiracy” operation to infiltrate the U. S., using Henry Kissinger as a conduit. Unfortunately, the United States Labor party seems intent on substituting Lyndon LaRouche, Jr., and a “dirigiste” economy for Trilateral authoritarianism and a Trilateral-directed economy, which will leave the average citizen no better off than he was before. Totalitarianism under any label spells loss of freedom.

 

 


 THE NORTH AMERICAN EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE


Let’s first look at the Trilateral North American Executive Committee and its members:

  • I. W. Abel: president, United Steel Workers of America; member, Executive Committee Trilateral Commission: member, War Production Board and War Manpower Commission, 1941-45. Election to the USW A presidency in 1965.

  • Robert W. Bonner (Canadian): chairman, British Columbia Hydro.

  • William T. Coleman Jr.: senior partner, O’Melveny & Myers; former secretary of transportation in the Ford administration; director of Chase Manhattan Bank.

  • Robert S. Ingersoll: director of First Chicago Corporation (and First National Bank of Chicago); Borg Warner, Kraft, Inc.; Weyerhaeuser Company; AtlanticRichfield; Caterpillar Tractor. Also deputy chairman of the University of Chicago Board of Trustees, trustee of Aspen Institute of Humanistic Studies and California Institute of Technology.

  • Resigned from Borg Warner to become U.S. ambassador to Japan, then assistant secretary of state for Far Eastern affairs, then deputy secretary of state, Resigned March 1976. A typical example of “revolving door” elitism and the “closed-shop” nature of U.S. decision making.

  • Henry Kissinger: former secretary of state, now on the International Advisory Board of Chase Manhattan Bank.

  • Bruce K. MacLaury: president of Brookings Institution, formerly president of Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and deputy under secretary of the treasury for monetary affairs.

  • Henry Owen: fellow, Brookings Institution, formerly State Department Intelligence Division.

  • Charles W. Robinson: senior managing director of Kuhn, Loeb & Company and former deputy secretary of state.

  • David Rockefeller: chairman, Chase Manhattan Bank and chairman, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

  • William M. Roth: Matson Navigation, Pacific National Life Assurance Company, Carnegie Institution, Committee for Economic Development.

  • William W. Scranton: former governor of Pennsylvania.

  • Mitchell Sharp (Canadian): former minister for external affairs.

The most startling observation is that three members of this twelve-man executive committee are Chase Manhattan people. (Rockefeller and Coleman are directors and Kissinger is on the International Advisory Committee.) Later we shall explore the Rockefeller-Chase Manhattan connection in more detail -it suffices at this point to note that G. William Miller (chairman, Federal Reserve Board) was also on the Chase International Advisory Committee just before appointment to the Fed. Other Trilaterals on the Chase Manhattan Advisory Committee are the following:

  • Robert Marjolin

  • Giovanni Agnelli (Fiat)

  • Chujiro Fujino (Mitsubishi)

  • Sir Reay Geddes

  • William W. Hewitt (Deere & Company)

In brief, no fewer than eight members of the governing boards of Chase Manhattan Bank are also Trilaterals. One can certainly question this unusual coincidence without being accused of either paranoia or oversimplification.
 

The twelve executive committee members can be further grouped as follows:

a. Two from Brookings Institution, the Carter “think tank” - MacLaury and Owen.
b. Four former ministerial-level appointees - Commissioners Kissinger, Scranton, Sharp (Canada), and Coleman.
c. Two “revolving door” specialists - Commissioners Ingersoll and Robinson, both former deputy Secretaries of state.
d. Two ad hoc industrialists – Commissioners Bonner and Roth.
e. One trade unionist - Commissioner Abel.
f. The founder of the Trilateral Commission, chairman of its executive committee, chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, and chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank - David Rockefeller.

Comparing the October 1977 executive committee to that of March 1975 we find some significant differences: four members had quit to take highest level positions in the Carter administration:

  • Harold Brown became secretary of defense

  • Zbigniew Brzezinski became national security advisor to President Carter (Brzezinski had been executive director of the Trilateral Commission from its inception)

  • Gerard C. Smith became ambassador-at-large for non-proliferation matters

  • Paul C. Warnke became director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency

As we have noted, many other commissioners moved into the Carter administration (including, of course, James Earl Carter and Walter Mondale); but it is significant that no fewer than one-third of the executive committee moved into the top security slots in the new administration.


In brief, we can note two outstanding characteristics:

a. The Chase Manhattan Bank dominates the Trilateral Commission
b. The Trilateral Commission dominates the U.S. executive branch. In the words of the Washington Post (16 January 1977)

At last count, 13 Trilatera1ists had gone into top positions in the administration, not to mention six other Tri1ateralists who are established as policy advisers, some of whom may also get jobs. This is extraordinary when you consider that the Trilateral Commission only has about 65 American members.

 

 

THE TRILATERAL POWER BASE


Run your eye down the list of executive committee members. Who is the most powerful individual among them? There is no doubt that David Rockefeller dominates the executive committee, and thus the commission itself. Even if we are generous (or naive) and see the executive members as equals, then David would surely be primus inter pares. It is, however, naive to see David Rockefeller as an omnipotent dictator or the Rockefeller family as an all-powerful monarchy. This is a trap for the unwary. Our world is much more complex. We are looking at a family of families, a collective of power holders with at least several hundred, perhaps several thousand, members, who collectively aim to divert the world, not just the United States, to their own collective objectives.


Let’s start at the beginning. The Trilateral Commission was David Rockefeller’s idea and promoted with David’s funds. (Leave aside for the time being the U.S. Labor party theory that Trilateralism uses the Rockefellers as a “cover” for a “British conspiracy.”)


An interview with George S. Franklin, commission coordinator, by Michael Lloyd Chadwick, editor of The Freemen Digest, published in Provo, Utah, is the most authentic version of the founding process which has yet surfaced. This portion of the interview follows:

MR. CHADWICK: Mr. Franklin… you were a participant with Mr. David Rockefeller, Robert Bowie, Zbigniew
Brzezinski and Henry Owen in forming the Trilateral Commission. Would you provide us with a brief history of how it came into existence?
MR. FRANKLIN: David Rockefeller, in the winter and spring of 1972, gave several speeches to the Chase Bank forums in London, Brussels, Montreal and Paris. He recommended the establishment of an international commission on peace and prosperity which in fact is now the Trilateral Commission. He didn’t receive an enthusiastic response in these meetings and he dropped the idea. He thought, If the Chase Bank Forums don’t respond favorably to my suggestion then it’s probably a lousy idea.”

He then went to a Bilderberger meeting. Mike Blumenthal was there (now Treasury Secretary), and he said, You know,
I’m very disturbed...Cooperation between these three areas - Japan, the United States and Western Europe - is really falling
apart, and I foresee all sorts of disaster for the world if this continues. Isn’t there anything to be done about it?” David then thought, I’ll present the idea once more,” which he did, and he aroused great enthusiasm. The next eight speakers said that this was a marvelous idea; by all means, somebody get it launched.


David wasn’t quite sure whether these were all his friends. He wasn’t quite sure if they were being polite or if they really thought it was a good idea. So he took Zbig Brzezinski back on the plane with him. Zbig thought it was a very good idea and had done some writing on it. Bob Bowie had done some writing on it too. When he got back, David asked me if I would go back to Europe and talk to some people more at leisure and see if they really thought this was a good idea. They truly did.
David and I went to Japan in June of 1972 and he talked to a lot of people there. They thought it was a good idea, so we had a meeting of 13-15 people at his place in Tarrytown (ed: New York).


It was decided to go ahead and try to organize and form it.

. There is no reason to doubt that formation came about in any other way -at least we have no evidence that Franklin is hiding anything.

But note that the way the Trilateral Commission was founded suggests a loose power coalition, sometimes in competition, sometimes in cooperation, rather than a small, tight, iron-fisted conspiracy run by the Rockefellers.1

 

 


 SOURCE OF TRILATERAL FUNDS


Where did the funding come from? The source of funds is always a reliable clue to the source of power. Again to quote the Chadwick article: In the meantime David Rockefeller and the Kettering Foundation had provided transitional funding.

In January of 1973 Gerald Smith, Max Kohnstamn, Zbigniew Brzezinski and George Franklin held consultations with Takeshi Watanabe and the Japanese planning group members in Tokyo. It was during this time period that approval of the highest political and financial circles was obtained.


In February of 1973 a formal proposal was submitted to the Ford Foundation to support the majority of the intellectual and research projects of the Commission. The funds were also to provide for administrative and promotional activities.
 

In February additional support was also obtained from several other foundations.

What is The Kettering Foundation? There are three “Kettering Foundations.” This citation almost certainly refers to the Charles F. Kettering Foundation, Dayton, Ohio. Charles F. Kettering, the donor, was with General Motors for twenty-seven years and held among other positions, director-ships of Ethyl Corporation (important for transfer of petroleum technology to Hitler pre-World War II) and Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research (in mounting trouble over credibility of its cancer research programs). The assets on the early 1970s were about $93 million, with no grants to individuals, only to “high-risk programs” to “support the forces for world order and peace.” 2


Better known than the Kettering Foundation is the Ford Foundation with McGeorge Bundy as president and among the trustees Robert S. McNamara and J. Irwin Miller, both of whom have a long history of promotion of globalist interventionist projects.


Once again we have evidence of a widespread and rather loose coalition: “approval of the highest political and financial circles was obtained,” including the trustees of maybe half a dozen foundations.


We can thus conclude that the Trilateral Commission

1. Originated with David Rockefeller
2. Was chosen by David Rockefeller and a small group of four assistants
3. Was financed in great part by David Rockefeller, the Kettering Foundation, and the Ford Foundation.

Without being accused of hastiness or bias, one can reasonably conclude that David Rockefeller is the power behind The Trilateral Commission, and. presumably stands to gain most from its activities.


A mistake made by many analysts is to assume that because the Rockefellers exercise immense corporate power and demonstrably dominate Trilateralism and similar vehicles that they are the only holders of such power and therefore control a “conspiracy.” Whether there is, or is not, a conspiracy is really irrelevant. If it is a conspiracy, it is the most open conspiracy in world history. What is important is intention. Obviously, the trustees of the Kettering Foundation and Ford Foundation, with immense resources at the ready to promote “world order,” are right there with David. Analysis needs to push further into the forest than the Rockefeller family group.


What are the practical levers of power? Political influence is not created in a vacuum: it comes largely from financial backing. Who provides most financial backing? Who has the power to finance or not to finance? And who gains? In our society it is the major institutions such as labor unions, multinational corporations (MNCs), foundations, and international banks.

 

Obviously, Trilateralism was not founded by labor unions or any group of ambitious academics. The first step in our analysis then is to portray the links of Trilateralists with international banking and MNCs. Such links are complex because bank interlocks are complex. Banks are interwoven into a network, controlling the U.S. economy in a large part through stock voting, debt holding, and interlocking directorships.


The diagram that follows is a highly simplified portrayal of this network (for all the criss-crossing lines) based on information released by congressional committees. It is drawn to highlight several facets of the power base:

. There is an interlock between major banks mostly oriented overseas
. This interlock is measured by the stockholding rank that one bank holds in another, Trilateral commissioners are plotted onto the bank interlocks
. The end result is a reflection of the political financial power network based on international banks, identifying the location of Trilateral representatives in the network

Don’t be concerned about the complexity of this diagram. Focus attention on the top one-third. The two large triangles represent two potential financial power bases: the Rockefeller family group on the left and the Kirby-Allegheny group on the right. Why is the Kirby- Allegheny group important? Only because in terms of financial power as measured by stock voting it is right up there with the Rockefellers. Yet an interesting and fundamental comparison can be made between the two financial groups. Note the following (reading from the diagram):

. The Rockefellers are the Number 1 stockholder in Chase Manhattan Corporation with 591,533 votes, while Kirby- Allegheny Corporation (Number 3) has 300,000 votes. (The Number 2 stockholder is California Employees Retirement System.)
. The Rockefeller family group has no direct holdings in Citicorp (although Chase Manhattan Corporation is Number 11 holder with 1,001,000 votes), but Kirby-Allegheny group is Number 6 holder in Citicorp with 1,661,000 votes.
. The Kirby family group controls Investors Diversified Services with interests in numerous multinationals:
Northwest Airlines; Pepsico, Inc.; Atlantic Richfield, Inc.; and so on.

Look at the diagram again, at the smaller black triangles which represent Trilateral members. The Rockefeller-dominated bank influence in the commission can now be followed precisely:

. Two Trilaterals are in the Rockefeller family group (David and John D. Rockefeller IV, governor of West Virginia,) . The Rockefeller family group is Number 1 shareholder in Chase Manhattan Corporation. Six Trilaterals are on the board of Chase Manhattan Corporation.
. In turn, Chase Manhattan Corporation is Number 1 stockholder in First Chicago Corporation. Three Trilaterals are on the board of First Chicago Corporation. (The reader can trace the other influences from the diagram.)
. Seven Trilaterals are on the Chase International Advisory Board.
. The Kirby-Allegheny group has no Trilaterals at all.

What is the vital difference between the Rockefeller family group and the Kirby family group? There is one all-important distinction between the two financial groups. Rockefellers are politicized. Kirbys are not. Rockefellers apparently subvert the political process to gain their objectives. Kirbys apparently do not.


An interesting historical note is that (today) no families directly control J. P. Morgan and its subsidiary, Morgan Guaranty. The onetime fiefdom of J. P. Morgan and the Morgan family was the power behind the creation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913 and the power behind the throne of Woodrow Wilson. Today Number 1 stockholder in J. P. Morgan is Citibank and Number 2 stockholder is Chase Manhattan Corporation. Moreover, J. P. Morgan controls Morgan Guaranty which, in turn, is Number 1 stockholder in Citicorp.
 

What does this picture add up to? It is like a snake swallowing its own tail, or a nest of snakes swallowing each other’s tails. The essential point to hold in mind, however, is that a global multinational corporation (Chase Manhattan) is in control of a power vehicle that controls the U.S. government. In 1976 the American voter thought he had elected Jimmy Carter; in fact, he has elected Chase Manhattan. And the ideology of the global corporation is entirely different from the philosophy on which the Constitution of the United States is based. For example, Citicorp Chairman Walter Wriston phrases it this way:

The development of the World Corporation into a truly multinational organization has produced a group of managers of many nationalities whose perception of the needs and wants of the human race know no boundaries. They really believe in One World. 3

These would-be global managers have rejected the United States. As Richard J. Barnet comments in Global Reach:

The global corporation is the ideal instrument for integrating the planet, the World Managers contend, because it is the only human organization that has managed to free itself from the bonds of nationalism. 4

The economic clout of these “World Managers” must be offset by a tunnel vision endemic to globalists. This is not a paradox. Global aspirations are induced by greed, the ruthless drive for profit and power; and trampling on anyone in the way to achieve the globalist goal is not discouraged. Their own ambitions are openly placed above human welfare. As Wriston states:

In this dialogue, the role of the world corporation as an agent of change may well be even more important than its demonstrated capacity to raise living standards. 5

The illusions suffered by the global corporatists are strange indeed.


Bank of America President A. W. Clauson states:

The expansion of our consciousness to the global level offers mankind perhaps the last real chance to build a world order less coercive than that offered by the nation-state. 6

We have to suppose Clauson is serious and doesn’t see the humor of this statement: large corporations are notorious for their authoritarian structures, the Bank of America not excluded. How an authoritarian attitude can create a “less coercive” world is beyond understanding.
 

Walter Wriston of Citibank offers the same illusion:

The World Corporation has become a new weight in an old balance and must playa constructive role in moving the world toward the freer exchange of both ideas and the means of production so that the people of our planet may one day enjoy the fruits of a truly global society. This is a goal worthy of us all. 7

Despite the illusions and inconsistencies, the globalist would-be World Managers, are getting ready for their revolution: changing corporate names to non-American, internationally neutral titles. Some examples are these:

. Standard Oil of New Jersey is now EXXON neutral in almost any language and without the geographical attachment of “New Jersey.”
. City Bank of New York, an old-time New York bank is now, under Henry Wriston, neutral Citibank or Citicorp. . U.S. Rubber is now Uniroyal.
. Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing is now just plain 3M.
. American Metal Climax is AMAX.

We can suppose the next move will be for the budding World Managers to neutralize their own names: Rockefeller will become “Rokafela”; Clauson will become “Klorson.”


One of these global corporations, Caterpillar Tractor, has no fewer than three Trilateralists (Ingersoll, Morgan and Packard) on its board of directors; and David Rockefeller tells how he was prompted to conceive the original Trilateral idea when he visited World Headquarters of Caterpillar Tractor in Peoria. Illinois. Caterpillar lives and breathes globalism. Its 1976 annual report, for instance, has a map of the world on the front cover with the Caterpillar logo superimposed:

The corporate address is “World Headquarters. Peoria. Illinois.” The introductory pages are full of globalist gobbledygook: “world forums,” “world-wide respect” and “positive contributions of multinational business enterprise.”

What these World Managers do not see is that their philosophy is pure totalitarianism, removed only infinitesimally from the Hegelian philosophies of Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin. In practice, in their own corporations these globalists are ruthless authoritarians - and outside impartial observers remain unconvinced that the expansion of the budding World Managers’ corporate horizons to globalism will allow them to understand the values of individual freedom.

 

 


 TOTALITARIAN TAKEOVER OF THE U.S. EXECUTIVE BRANCH


A straightforward and reasonable conclusion is that there has apparently been a covert fascist (national socialist) takeover of the United States government. By fascist we mean a corporate socialist state of the type established by socialist Mussolini in Italy in the 1920s. All forms of socialism derive from the .same philosophical bases. Mussolini was editor of a Marxist socialist newspaper before developing his own brand of corporate socialism based on Marxist ideology. Corporate socialism was later promoted in the United States by General Electric Chairman Gerard Swope and became Roosevelt’s New Deal (i.e., “Swope’s Plan”). Herbert Hoover described the New Deal in this way:

Among the early Roosevelt fascist measures was the National Industry Recovery Act (NRA) of June 16, 1933. The origins of this scheme are worth repeating. These ideas were first suggested by Gerard Swope of the General Electric Company...following this they were adopted by the United States Chamber of Commerce...8

It is socialist revolution by stealth: rather than by blood in the streets, but revolution just the same. Trilateralism is the current operational vehicle for a corporate socialist takeover. The bitter joke is that Roosevelt and Carter have been mainly supported by “liberals” and “do-gooders” who would have us believe they are horrified by fascism and corporate socialism!

 

 


 ENDNOTES: CHAPTER THREE

1. Send $1.00 to Freemen Institute, 1331 South State Street, Box G, Provo, UT 84601, for full text on the interview. Ask for vol. VI, no. 7, 15 January 1978.
2. Trustees: Harrison Scott Brown, Norman Cousins, John Sloan Dickey, George H. Gallup, Samuel B. Gould, Carroll A. Hochwalt, Frederick J. Hoover, Robert A. Kerr, Charles F. Kettering II, Richard D. Lombard, Walter Orr Roberts, Howard E. Skipper, and James M. Stewart.
3. Walter Wriston, “The World Corporation -A New Weight in an Old Balance” (address before International Industrial Conference, San Francisco, Ca., September 17-21, 1973), p.17. .
4. Richard J. Barnet, Global Beach: The Power of Multinational Corporations (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974). Barnet is an interesting character in the establishment lineup. Cofounder (with Marcus Raskin) of the Institute for Policy Studies (an Establishment think-tank/action vehicle), Barnet is pure elitist.
5. Ibid., p.16.
6. Ibid., p.56.
7. Wriston, “The World Corporation,” p.19.
8. Herbert Hoover, The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: The Great Depression, 19291941 (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1952), p. 420. See also Antony C. Sutton, Wall Street and FDR (New York: Arlington House, 1975).

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