I’ve Got a Secret – Part I

Secret Societies Past and Present

“The world is governed by very different personages from
what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.”
-- Benjamin Disraeli

There are three questions that come to mind immediately when looking at the subject of Secret Societies.

1. Do they exist?
2. If so what are their secrets?
3. What effect do they have on our lives?

In this first article I will deal with only the first question.

I had a friend in the mid 80’s who whenever I mentioned the Trilateral Commission sorted of pooh-poohed the topic and refused to discuss it as if it were such incredible nonsense that it didn’t warrant intelligent consideration. Feeling frustrated about this put-down, since I had read about the group in several places and was pretty sure it existed, I decided to go to the library (yes, people used to do this before the Internet) and do some research. The next time I saw my friend I had books in my hand. One was a book published by the Tri-Lateral Commission, with a Library of Congress number and all. Another was a book with considerable information about the Tri-Lateral Commission. And another had a quote taken from a reputable newspaper were George Bush (papa Bush) said he was ‘no longer’ a member of the Trilateral Commission. My friend refused to look at the books and information and actually got angry. I learned a little about ‘human’ nature from that incident.

I also remember when Gary Allen published ‘None Dare Call in Conspiracy’ in the early 70’s. There was much controversy, and the ‘conspiracy theory’ mantra started to be used a lot. Despite well-documented data, the mainstream for the most part dismissed him as some right-wing wacko. Yet today there is no doubt that the Council on Foreign Relations exist and has existed for a long time. They even have a web site. As does the Trilateral Commission. The CFR has an office in New York and in Washington.

Other groups like The Bilderbergers, meet annually in Europe but are not nearly as open. They have no web site and formal address. They are often considered a steering committee and higher-level group guiding other groups below them. There is much ‘Conspiracy Theory’ data about this group and much disinformation. All that can be said with certainty is that very high-level leaders from around the world meet in secret there every year. A summary data about the group can be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group.

Cecil Rhodes and Lord Alfred Milner also set up high-level control groups called the Round Table Groups. Established in the early 1900’s these groups are said to have influenced many social and political events during the 20th Century, and apparently survive even to today. The Council on Foreign Relations is an offshoot of one of the Round Tables.

So, you say, what’s so secret about them if they have web sites and physical addresses. Well, it wasn’t always this way, that they were so out in the open. The membership list of the CFR for example reads like a Who’s Who of important people in America.

Presidents of the United States. Members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) include: Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, James Carter, George Bush Senior, and William Clinton. John F. Kennedy claimed he was a member, but his name does not appear on former membership lists.

Secretaries of State who were CFR members include: Robert Lansing, Frank Kellogg, Henry Stimpson, Cordell Hull, E.R. Stittinius, George Marshall, Dean Acheson, John Foster Dulles, Christian Herter, Dean Rusk, William Rogers, Henry Kissinger, Cyrus Vance, Edmund Muskie, Alexander Haig, George Schultz, James Baker, Lawrence
Eagelberger, Warren Christopher, William Richardson, Madeleine Albright, and Colin Powell.

Secretaries of Defense who were members of the CFR include James Forrestal, George Marshall, Charles Wilson, Neil McElroy, Robert McNamara, Melvin Laird, Elliot Richardson, James Schlesinger, Harold Brown, Casper Weinberger, Frank Carlucci, Richard Cheney, Les Aspin, William Perry, William Cohen, and Donald Rumsfeld. It is interesting that Rumsfeld has asked that his name be removed from the current list of CFR members. However, you will find his name on previous lists.

CIA Directors who were members of the CFR include Walter Smith, William Colby, Richard Helms, Allen Dulles, John McCone, James Schlesinger, George Bush, Sr., Stansfield Turner, William Casey, William Webster, Robert Gates, James Woolsey, John Deutch, William Studeman, and George Tenet.

In the Media there are past or present members of the CFR holding key management or control positions – not just working down the line – but in top management and control positions of The Army Times, American Publishers, American Spectator, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Associated Press, Association of American Publishers, Boston Globe, Business Week, Christian-Science Monitor, Dallas Morning News, Detroit Free Press,
Detroit News, Forbes, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Dow Jones News Service, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, New York Post, New York Times, San Diego Union-Tribune, Times Mirror, Random House, W.W. Norton & Co., Warner Books, Atlantic, Harper’s, Industry Week, Naval War College Review, Farm Journal, Financial
World, Insight, Washington Times, Medical Tribune, National Geographic, National Review, New Republic, New Yorker, New York Review of Books, Newsday, News Max, Newsweek, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Political Science Quarterly, The Progressive, Public Interest, Reader’s Digest, Rolling Stone, Scientific American, Time-Warner, Time, U.S. News & World Report, Washington Post, The Washingtonian, Weekly Standard, World Policy Journal, Worldwatch, ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, NBC, PBS, RCA, and the Walt Disney Company.

CFR media personalities include David Brinkley, Tom Brokaw, William Buckley, Dan Rather, Diane Sawyer, Barbara Walters, and Katie Couric, and Andrea Mitchell wife of CFR member Alan Greenspan. (Peter Jennings and Bill Moyer, although not members of the CFR, are members of the Bilderberg Group, which has the same ideological orientation as the CFR but functions at the international level as a kind of steering committee to coordinate the activities of similar groups in other countries.)

In the universities, the number of past or present CFR members who are professors, department chairman, presidents, or members of the board of directors is 563.

In financial institutions, such as banks, the Federal Reserve System, the stock exchanges, and brokerage houses the total number of CFR members in controlling positions is 284.

In tax exempt foundations and think tanks, the number of CFR members in controlling positions is 443. Some of the better known names are: The American Civil Liberties Union, Aspen Institute, Atlantic Council, Bilderberg Group, Brookings Institute, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Carnegie Foundation, Ford Foundation,
Guggenheim Foundation, Hudson Institute, John D. & Catherine T. MacArther Foundation, Mellon Foundation, RAND Corp., Rhodes Scholarship Selection Commission, Sloan and Kettering Foundations, Rockefeller Foundation and Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Trilateral Commission, and the UN Association.

Some of the better known corporations controlled by past or present members of the CFR include The Atlantic Richfield Oil Co., AT&T, Avon Products, Bechtel (construction) Group, Boeing Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Chevron. Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola, Consolidated Edison of New York, EXXON, Dow Chemical, du Pont Chemical,
Eastman Kodak, Enron, Estee Lauder, Ford Motor, General Electric, General Foods, Hewlett-Packard, Hughes Aircraft, IBM, International Paper, Johnson & Johnson, Levi Strauss & Co., Lockheed Aerospace, Lucent Technologies, Mobil Oil, Monsanto, Northrop, Pacific Gas & Electric, Phillips Petroleum, Procter & Gamble, Quaker Oats, Yahoo, Shell Oil, Smith Kline Beecham (pharmaceuticals), Sprint Corp., Texaco, Santa Fe Southern-
Pacific Railroad, Teledyne, TRW, Southern California Edison, Unocal, United Technologies, Verizon Communications, Warner-Lambert, Weyerhauser, and Xerox.

Labor Unions that are dominated by past or present members of the CFR include the AFL-CIO, United Steel Workers of America, United Auto Workers, American Federation of Teachers, Bricklayers and Allied Craft, Communications Workers of America, Union of Needletrades, and Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers.

This information concerning membership is publicly available. As the Information Age has bloomed, more and more information has surfaced concerning these organizations and their activities. Currently, the CFR does not consider itself secret but only ‘semi-secret’.

But this begs the question, with all these important people and world leaders in these organizations, why don’t we hear more about their meetings and activities in the press?

So far I have only touched up secret societies which we hear about in modern times. There have been secret societies throughout history, and many think the modern ones are linked to the ones of old. Of course it is well known that most of our founding fathers were Freemasons. The Freemasons go way back into European history. Many feel the umbrella group with many layered tiers is the Illuminati. The Knights Templar was a secret organization which gained tremendous power at one point in European history and was the wealthiest group in Europe, establishing a banking system and much commerce. Yet very little was mentioned about this group when I studied history. The Da Vinci Code has brought attention to the secrets of the Roman Catholic Church and to groups like the Priory of Sion. And of course what we call ‘Ancient’ history is full of mysterious groups and secret organizations going all the way back to Sumer. For further information on these earlier groups, there are many books, but one I might suggest is “Rule by Secrecy” by Jim Marrs.

So, the answer to the first question, ‘Do they exist?’ is a definite yes. It is easy to show through current data and historical records.

The next question is “What are their secrets?”