Historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. has called the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) a "front organization" for "the heart of the American Establishment." David Halberstam, in his book, The Best and the Brightest, called it "the Establishment's unofficial club." Newsweek [Sept. 6, 1971] calls CFR's leaders "the foreign-policy establishment of the U.S." Richard Rovere, writing in Esquire [May, 1962] saw them as "a sort of Presidium for that part of the Establishment that guides our destiny as a nation."

The Council describes itself as a "nonprofit and nonpartisan membership organization dedicated to improved understanding of American foreign policy and international affairs." It is headquartered in the Pratt House at 58 East 68th St. in New York City. They have approximately 3,000 members consisting of prominent personalities in business, government, law, and the mass media. They have at least one prominent minister, a certain Rick Warren. [See Apr/Jun 2007 Trumpet]. Membership is by invitation only.

The Council holds frequent meetings and dinners which feature a speech by a guest who is usually a high ranking statesman from Washington or a foreign country, followed by a discussion time. These meetings are not recorded and are off the record. Violation of this rule is considered grounds for dismissal from the organization.

The CFR explains that its code of silence is to encourage openness, but economist John Kenneth Galbraith, himself a former member, has called it "a scandal." He asks why businessmen should be briefed by Government officials on information not available to the general public, especially since it can be financially advantageous.

Besides conducting 15 to 20 study groups every year on foreign policy topics which are published in a book, the Council publishes a Journal called Foreign Affairs which has been called by Time magazine "the most influential periodical in print." It also has a "Corporate Program" that indoctrinates businessmen in international matters. The Council's annual budget is around $10 million, which is funded by foundation grants, member's dues, contributions and publication revenue.

The Council has exercised decisive impact on U.S. policy, especially foreign policy, for many decades. This is done primarily in two ways. First, by supplying personnel for upper government jobs; and secondly, by influencing U.S. foreign policy toward Globalism through propaganda.

Few Americans know how a President chooses his administrators. Pulitzer Prize winner Theodore White said that the Council's "roster of members has for a generation, under Republican and Democratic administrations alike, been the chief recruiting ground for cabinet-level officials in Washington." [The Making of the President, New York: Atheneum, 1965]. The Christian Science Monitor said "there is a constant flow of its members from private life to public service." [Sept. 1, 1961]. They went on to say that almost half of the CFR members had been invited to assume official government positions or to act as consultants at one time or another.

Joseph Kraft, writing in Harpers, called the Council a "school for statesmen." [July 1958] David Halberstam puts it even more bluntly by saying, "They walk in one door as acquisitive businessmen and come out the other door as statesmen-figures." [The Death Rattle of the American Establishment - New York - Sept. 20, 1971].

Perloff says that the historical record speaks even louder. Through early 1988, fourteen secretaries of state, fourteen treasury secretaries, eleven defense secretaries, and scores of other federal department heads have been CFR members. This count doesn't include the many Supreme Court Justices. Every Secretary of State since 1949 has been a member, and one joined after his appointment. According to the CFR itself, as of June 1987, 318 of its members were current U.S. government officials under supposedly the most conservative contemporary president that America has ever had, Ronald Wilson Reagan.

According to the N.Y. Times, there are 3,605 jobs at the Federal level in Washington, D.C. Under President George H.W. Bush, who was a member, the CFR gladly filled 492 of those. Most of the leaders of both administrations, Republican and Democrat, over the past several decades have been supplied their leaders from the CFR -- including cabinet members such as Secretaries of States William J. Perry, Henry Kissinger and George Shultz; Secretaries of Defense Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld; National Security Directors Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Skowcroft, along with Federal Reserve Chairmen Paul Volker and Alan Greenspan.

Democratic Presidential nominee John Kerry was a member. The present Bush administration has much fewer at a modest 95, but they fill some of the most important offices, such as Vice-President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice.

Many government officials are beginning to hide their association with the CFR, the Tri-lateral Commission and the Club of Rome, which are the other two like minded groups with the same One World globalist goals. To continue to name others would be an exercise in ad nauseaum.

One of the most famous of the all time Council Converts was one President William Jefferson Clinton. He admitted that he was greatly influenced by his history professor at Georgetown University, Carroll Quigley, who authored Tragedy and Hope. In this amazingly dull book, Quigly admits that there is a conspiracy to create a One World Government, and encourages the conspirators to come out openly and declare victory because it is too late for any organized opposition. He also sets forth his political model for the two-party system with these words. "The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to the doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can 'throw the rascals out' at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy."

So even if John McCain, who is also a member of the CFR, and his bombshell Conservative, Pro-life, easy-on-the-eyes Sarah Louise Palin pull an upset and defeat the Barack/Biden, both CFer’s, ticket in the fall elections it really won’t make any difference because the CFR will be ready in the wings to supply their ready-made political pawns to man or woman the key places in their administration and the goals of the one world internationalists will continue unabated. As my old theology professor and editor of the Baptist Bible Tribune, the late Dr. Noel Smith always said, “Turn the Republicans and Democrats wrong side out and they both look the same.” And the Religious Right keeps falling for the same old line every election.

In the next Trumpet, we will deal with the second way the CFR influences America and the world, and that is, as Orwell put it in his book 1984, through its "Ministry of Truth." We will also be dealing with how the International money elite has brought the U.S. and the world to the present financial crisis.

(To read Part I, II, III and IV of this series, see the July-September 2007 , October-December 2007 , April-June 2008 and July-September 2008 Trumpets.)