Did LBJ Know JFK Was To Be Eliminated In 1963?

In his book, The Texas Connection, Craig Zirbel asserted that according to former President Johnson’s “girlfriend of over 20 years, Madeline Brown, Lyndon Baines Johnson told her prior to President Kennedy’s assassination that Kennedy was going to be killed in Dallas” and LBJ “knew in advance but did nothing.” Zirbel also wrote that “according to Johnson’s motorcade seatmate, Democratic Senator Ralph Yarborough (who smelled gunpowder near the grassy knoll), at the exact time of the assassination Johnson had his ear up against a small walkie-talkie held over the back seat listening to the device which was `turned down real low.’”

Coincidentally, in her early 1990s book, JFK: The Last Dissenting Witness, Jean Hill also recalled that a Dallas motorcycle cop who escorted President Kennedy’s car on Nov. 22, 1963—J.B. Marshall—told her the following, after President Johnson was inaugurated:

“According to the guys who were escorting his car in the motorcade, our new president is either one jumpy sonofabitch or he knows something he’s not telling about the Kennedy thing…

“They say he started ducking down in the car a good 30 or 40 seconds before the first shots were fired…I’d say that’s just a little peculiar, wouldn’t you?...

“…One of them told McGuire he saw Johnson duck down even before the car turned onto Houston Street…

“…This guy said it sure looked like he was expecting bullets to be flying…”

(Downtown 2/3/93)

Next: How Did Jack Ruby Enter The Dallas Police Station Basement?

City Planning Commission's Amanda Burden, PBS's Charlie Rose & Columbia Expansion

Because family members of New York City Planning Commission Chairperson Amanda Burden used to sit on the board of trustees of Columbia University, it’s not surprising that Amanda Burden recently pushed the New York City Planning Commission to rubber-stamp Columbia University’s latest campus expansion and land-grabbing real estate development scheme in West Harlem, north of West 125th Street. And since Charlie Rose http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Rose was apparently involved in an on-and-off personal relationship with Amanda Burden, it’s also not surprising that critics of the Burden family, the New York City Planning Commission and Columbia University’s undemocratic attempt to impose its expansion plan on West Harlem neighborhood residents haven’t been given much airtime on Charlie Rose’s boring PBS evening television talk-show.

A former wife of Duke University School of Law graduate Charlie Rose apparently played a key role in helping the former Bankers Trust corporate manager to move from the unglamorous, intellectually dull world of banking into the more glamorous, intellectually dull world of commercial TV broadcasting in 1972. As Current Biography revealed in its January 1995 issue:

“Through his [then] wife, who was doing research for the CBS television show 60 Minutes, Rose became friendly with people employed in broadcasting…After his [then] wife was hired by the BBC (in the United States), he handled some assignments for the British Broadcasting Service on a freelance basis. In 1972, while continuing to work at Bankers Trust, he landed a job as a weekend reporter on WPIX-TV…In 1974, [LBJ’s former press secretary Bill] Moyers telephoned Rose, after Rose’s wife spoke to Moyers about him at a social gathering…Within weeks he began working as the managing editor of the PBS series Bill Moyers’ International Report…"

Channel 13/ WNET-TV’s decision to allow Rose to monopolize its late night TV talk-show time-slot in September 1991 was apparently unilaterally made by former Westinghouse Group W Television Inc. President Bill Baker—after Rose, “acting on a friend’s suggestion,” approached Baker “with a proposal for a new interview show,” according to the January 1995 issue of Current Biography.

(Downtown 2/15/95)

Charlie Rose has been hosting his PBS-syndicated late evening TV talk-show that originated from the “non-commercial” studios of Channel 13/WNET in Midtown Manhattan since the early 1990s. Yet before 1991, Rose was more into commercial TV than public television. Between 1984 and the early 1990s, for instance, Rose worked for the commercially-oriented CBS News organization in Washington, D.C. as the host-interviewer of its CBS News Night Watch program. During the 1970s, Rose also worked in the world of U.S. Establishment commercial TV at Channel 11-WPIX-TV in Manhattan and for NBC News.

(Downtown 8/18/93)

Historically, Charlie Rose’s late-night PBS talk show was subsidized by a foundation whose surplus wealth was derived from its New York City real estate industry investments. In 1994, the Astor Foundation gave a $150,000 grant to Channel 13/WNET “toward production costs for `The Charlie Rose Show'”; and in 1995 an additional $75,000 grant was dished out by the Astor Foundation to Channel 13/WNET to sponsor Charlie Rose’s TV show. An article that appeared in Downtown’s Feb. 17, 1993 issue, “Newsweek Magazine’s CIA Connection,” made the following reference to Vincent Astor and the Astor Foundation:

“Vincent Astor became…Newsweek’s chairman of the board and its principal stockholder between 1937 and his death in 1959…Astor inherited a fortune…which included $63 million worth of real estate, such as the Waldorf-Astoria, the Hotel Astor, the St. Regis, Astor Place and office and apartment buildings in Manhattan. During the 1920s, Astor sold about half of the family’s real estate holdings in New York City for $40 million…By the time he died the estate which he left the Vincent Astor Foundation had an estimated value of $123 million…Astor also built oil drilling barges for off-shore oil ventures in the Southwest, was a director of American Express, Western Union, Chase National Bank and railroad companies…and was the largest shareholder and a director of the United States Line shipping company.”

In the pre-CIA era of U.S. history, Astor also apparently acted as a spy for Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s. As The Astors 1973-1992 by Derek Wilson recalled:

“Roosevelt…set up his own secret intelligence unit headed by Washington journalist John Carter…He dispatched…fact-finding missions…commanded by Vincent Astor. The…cruises of [Astor’s yacht] Nourmahal provided a perfect cover for espionage.”

(Downtown 2/5/97)

In the 21st-century, a corporation that has been the target of a “Stop Killer Coke” global boycott because of its anti-labor policies and environmentally destructive policies, Coca-Cola, has apparently also been involved in helping to fund Charlie Rose’s mainstream media work.

Next: Did LBJ Know JFK Was To Be Eliminated In 1963?

CIA Manipulated Somali Elections In 1967

Many years before former CIA Director Bush I ordered his troops into Somalia in late 1992, the CIA also expressed a special interest in the internal politics of Somalia. According to a 1979 book which Ellen Ray, William Schaap, Karl Van Meter and Louis Wolf edited, titled Dirty Work 2: The CIA In Africa, “CIA agents played a significant role in manipulating the outcome of the 1967 elections in Somalia” and “The rise to power of Prime Minister Muhammed Egal was said to have been `facilitated by’ thousands of dollars in covert support to Egal and other pro-Western elements of the ruling Somali Youth League party prior to the 1967 presidential elections…”

Who Ordered Press Photographers Away From JFK’s Car?

Although “the press car was loaded with photographers and journalists and was supposed to follow directly behind the car carrying the President’s bodyguards, which followed the Presidential limousine,” according to The Texas Connection by Craig Zirbel, on November 22, 1963 in Dallas “shortly before the start of the motorcade” the press car “was deliberately bumped to a rear position for no stated reason.” The same book also noted that “this resulting strange line-up change prevented professional journalists and photographers from witnessing and photographing the slaying” of President Kennedy.

(Downtown 2/3/93)

Next: City Planning Commission’s Amanda Burden, PBS’s Charlie Rose & Columbia Expansion

Human Rights Violations In Turkey Historically

Although the Turkish Establishment that has apparently been bombing Kurdish villages in Northern Iraq in recent weeks is a long-time ally of the U.S. Establishment, its human rights record in Turkey historically apparently hasn’t been too good. The London-based human rights organization, Article 19, reported, for instance, in the May 1991 issue of its Censorship News that the following human rights violations occurred in Turkey in January of 1991:

“1/7/91—Cumburtyet reported that the governor of Ankara had banned a meeting of the Ankara Chamber of Medicine on the subject of the health risks of war.

1/13/91—Cumburtyet reported that a 22-year-old woman, Yadigar Coskun, was killed when police opened fire on a 50,000-strong anti-war rally in Istanbul, addressed by Erdal Inonu, leader of the Social Democratic People’s Party. Thirteen people were injured as police tried to break up the rally.

1/19/91—Two successive issues of an Istanbul magazine, Yent Ulhe, were seized for printing the slogan `No to War.’

1/23/91—Gunes reported that police prevented 30 actors and artists from placing an anti-war placard in front of the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul and subsequently destroyed the placard.

1/25/91—Macid Kaplan was shot dead and Aziz Coban and Kazin Karaca were wounded when police opened fire on an anti-war march in Tatran.

1/25/91—74 people were detained and held for three days in Batman, southeast Turkey, when thousands of anti-war demonstrators were dispersed by police. The following day, two people were wounded and 40 others were detained during a pro-Iraq demonstration in the same town.

1/28/91—11 people were detained, including Ercan Kanar, president of the Istanbul branch of the Human Rights Association, after 100 members of the organization were dispersed for protesting against the banning of a peace rally…”

In 1992, the human rights situation in Turkey got even worse, according to Article 19. In an introduction to its September 1992 Censorship News, entitled “Turkey: Censorship By The Bullet—Shocking Statistics and Official Silence,” the London-based human rights organization noted that “the most serious form of censorship—murder—is being practiced with frightening regularity in Turkey: eight journalists have been assassinated in 1992 for exercising their right to freedom of expression.”

Although the U.S. Establishment’s Big Media in the early 1990s rarely mentioned human rights violations that occurred in Turkey, Article 19 also described the following 1992 human rights violations in Turkey:

“On 2/25/92 Huseyin Akyol, publisher of Yent Ulke, and 10 other journalists were injured in an attack by Turkish soldiers and special police team members in Diyarbakir when returning from the funeral of murdered journalist Gengiz Altun;

“Yent Ulke photographers Yakya Orban and Naif Yasar were beaten by Turkish police during their arrests for taking pictures at authorized demonstrations in March 1992.

“It is estimated that between 1/1/92 and 6/30/92, at least 57 journalists were detained once or more by the Turkish police.

“Irfan Ucar of Gundem, arrested on 5/6/92 at the office of his lawyer, reported that he was tortured during his week in detention.

“Since its launch in June 1992, with a particular focus on investigating human rights abuses by security forces in southeast Turkey, the daily Oxgur Gundem has seen the assassination of three of its correspondents and others have been briefly detained.

“In the first six months of 1992, Turkish police, acting on court orders, confiscated at least 41 issues of newspapers and magazines.

Ismail Pelbivan, editor-in-chief of the satirical journal, Girgir, was sentenced to 16 months imprisonment on June 10, 1992 for having `insulted President Turgu Ozal.’”

(Downtown 2/17/93)

Next: CIA Manipulated Somali Elections In 1967

Columbia University Gave Brent Scowcroft Award In 2005

“Brent Scowcroft, who is among Columbia’s most eminent alumni, was the obvious choice this year for the Andrew Wellington Cordier Award, our honor for superior and distinguished public service. Deeply loyal to his country, he spent over three decades in the military service working under three U.S. presidents. We also recognize his valuable contributions as a national leader in both the government and the private sector.”

Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs Dean Lisa Anderson in 2005

“Mr. Kissinger worked on a number of other Government advisory bodies, including a 1983 Presidential commission on strategic forces headed by Mr. Scowcroft. At the time, Mr. Scowcroft was president of Kissinger Associates, as well as a personal consultant on general arms control and military issues for the Lockheed Corporation…Mr. Scowcroft’s ties to Lockheed, a major military contractor, were not publicly known, but were disclosed in a confidential statement to the Pentagon…The commission’s final report, however, contains a number of…recommendations, including `continued development and the deployment of the Trident II (D-5) missile as rapidly as possible.’ Lockheed has long been the manager of the Trident missile program, including the D-5…Mr. Scowcroft declines to respond to written questions about the Lockheed situation or any other matters.”

The New York Times on April 30, 1989

Besides giving former Kissinger Associates Vice-Chairman Brent Scowcroft its Andrew Wellington Cordier Award in 2005 http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/05/04/global_leaders.html , the Columbia University Administration also gave the former board member of the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation’s Santa Fe International subsidiary a Columbia University honorary degree at Columbia’s 2005 Commencement ceremonies. As a U.S. Air Force officer, Scowcroft first attended Columbia University in the early 1950s, where he picked up a Master’s Degree in International Relations from one of its graduate schools. While working in the planning and operations section of Air Force headquarters at the Pentagon during the Vietnam War Era in the mid-1960s, Scowcroft also was able to return to Uptown Manhattan to work on his PhD at Columbia. In 1967, Columbia gave a PhD in International Relations to U.S. Air Force officer Scowcroft without too much on-campus publicity.

In a 1991 telephone interview, Downtown asked Columbia University’s then-spokesperson Lonnie Lippsett if Scowcroft was the only U.S. military officer to be awarded a PhD by Columbia’s School of International Affairs while working at the Pentagon in the 1960s; and if U.S. military officers were attending Columbia’s School of International Affairs in the 1990s?

“In general, it is not unusual for PhD candidates to be working at other occupations. And we don’t keep records of the occupations of PhD candidates. The occupation of military officers is treated like any other occupation by Columbia,” the Columbia University spokesperson replied in 1991.

According to Lippsett, “no figures are kept” on the number of Pentagon military officers who are currently enrolled at Columbia and, even if such figures were kept, they wouldn’t be released.” Lippsett indicated in 1991 that Columbia University’s institutional policy was to still accept all applicants to its PhD programs who met its academic qualifications and were willing to pay tuition—even if an applicant was involved at the highest level in Pentagon war-making decisions, like Scowcroft was in the 1960s. Columbia’s 1991 institutional policy was apparently not to make any value-judgments which would keep U.S. military officers in civilian disguise off its Uptown Manhattan campus.

After moving into his White House National Security Advisor office in 1989, Scowcroft apparently maintained contact with Henry Kissinger. Like Bush I’s White House Chief of Staff John Sununu, Scowcroft was “authorized to use military planes on non-government business,” according to the April 24, 1991 issue of the New York Times. In addition to making “classified trips that were not listed”, Scowcroft also used U.S. government planes to fly “about 45 times” between January 1990 and April 23, 1991, according to the Times. And one of these U.S. government plane trips was used by Scowcroft for “an official trip to New York for a dinner at which the host was Henry A. Kissinger,” according to the Times.

Scowcroft’s former business partner, Kissinger, was not too pleased when some Times reporters decided to write an investigative article about Kissinger Associates’ clients and their past links to then-U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, who was the Kissinger Associates president before he moved into this State Department office in 1989. On April 14, 1989, the Wall Street Journal reported that Kissinger was “annoyed” at the Times for its “investigation of Kissinger Associates’ clients” and was “threatening a lawsuit against the paper for harassing clients.”

The results of this Times investigation of Kissinger Associates were published on April 30, 1989, in an article entitled “Kissinger And Friends And Revolving Doors” by Jeff Gerth and Sarah Bartlett. The article noted that, initially, Scowcroft “told the White House he was merely a consultant to Kissinger Inc.” and only “later amended his financial disclosure statement to reflect his position as vice-chairman.”

According to the Times, Scowcroft also “told the White House he had to disclose only the name of Kissinger Associates, not the specific clients he worked with, because he was merely a consultant to the firm.” Scowcroft only amended the financial disclosure statement he had filed on Feb. 21, 1989 (to indicate that he was actually the Kissinger Associates vice-chairman) on March 17, 1989, “one day after a reporter aasked him why he had not reported” his true Kissinger Associates post on his original financial disclosure form.

Unlike Bush I’s cabinet appointments, the Scowcroft appointment to the National Security Advisor slot did not have to be confirmed by Congress, so no confirmation hearings were held in 1989 to investigate the reasons why Scowcroft apparently had felt the need to conceal both his early 1980s employment by Lockheed and his actual position at Kissinger Associates.

On his public disclosure form, according to the Times, Scowcroft indicated that he would “disqualify himself from specific matters involving companies he holds stock in and former clients such as Kissinger Associates, but not from matters involving the firm’s clients.” The Times also reported in 1989 that “among those willing to pay $200,000 or more to be clients of Kissinger Associates are ITT, American Express, Anheuser-Busch, Coca Cola, H.J. Heinz, Fiat-Volvo, LM Ericsson, Daewoo and Midland Bank.” As Downtown revealed in its March 27, 1991 issue (“ A Look At Henry Kissinger’s Kuwaiti Connection”), the government of Kuwait Inc. owned 10.5 percent of the stock of Kissinger Associates’ Midland Bank client in 1990 and then-Midland Bank Director Cunningham was also then a director of Kissinger Associates.

The “Kissinger And Friends And Revolving Doors” article also reported in April 1989 that “Mr. Scowcroft belatedly disclosed that he held stock in Kissinger Associates and, according to Mr. Kissinger and public documents, he arranged” in March 1989 “to have Mr. Kissinger buy it back for nine times its estimated worth” and that Scowcroft’s Kissinger Associates salary exceeded $293,000 per year in the 1980s. According to the April 30, 1989 Times article, “a number of current and former government officials, none of whom would allow themselves to be identified, have questions about potential conflicts of interests involving Kissinger Associates.”

In his 1991 book, The Commanders, Bob Woodward wrote that for Columbia University Honorary Degree Recipient Brent Scowcroft in the early 1990s. “War was an instrument of foreign policy, pure and simple.” According to Woodward, prior to the start of the Pentagon’s high-technology bombing blitz of Iraq in January 1991, then-National Security Advisor Scowcroft “was substantially more willing to go to war than” then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell.

After Saddam Hussein marched some of his troops into Kuwait in 1990, the former director of the Kuwaiti-owned Santa Fe International and former Kissinger Associates vice-chairman, Scowcroft, “returned to the White House…and informed Bush,” according to The Commanders. Scowcroft then “called an emergency meeting of the deputies committee by securing video links and chaired it himself from the Situation Room.”

At the emergency meeting, according to The Commanders, Scowcroft “pressed for more action,” proposed that a squadron of 24 Air Force F-15 fighters be offered to Saudi Arabia immediately and “called a National Security Council [NSC] meeting for first thing in the morning.” He then went to sleep in his White House office at 4 a.m., awoke 45 minutes later and “by 5 a.m. was at Bush I’s bedroom door” with an executive order to be signed that freezed Kuwait Inc.’s foreign assets. This executive order insured that little of the Al-Sabah family’s foreign wealth would end up in the hands of the Iraqi government while Kuwait was occupied.

After the initial White House National Security Council meeting of Thursday, Aug. 2, 1990 was held, according to Woodward, “Scowcroft was alarmed” because no immediate military response was agreed upon. A second NSC meeting was held in the White House the following morning, on Friday, Aug. 3. At the second NSC meeting, according to Woodward, the following happened:

“Scowcroft stated that there had to be two tracks. First, he believed the United States had to be willing to use force. Second, he said that Saddam had to be toppled. That had to be done covertly through the CIA, and be unclear to the world.”

Responding immediately to the policy recommendation of the nonelected, nonconfirmed former Kissinger Associates vice-chairman, “Bush I ordered the CIA to begin planning for a covert operation that would destabilize the regime and, he hoped, remove Saddam from power,” according to The Commanders.

After Scowcroft’s proposal to respond to the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait by sending a few hundred thousand troops to Saudi Arabia had been implemented in August and September of 1990, the Emir of Kuwait visited Bush I in the Oval Office of the White House on Friday, Sept. 28, 1990. According to Woodward, “Scowcroft joined them for the hour-long meeting” and “though the Emir did not directly ask for military intervention to liberate his country Scowcroft could see that that was his subliminal message.”

According to The Commanders, by Fall 1990 “Scowcroft had become the First Companion and all-purpose playmate to the President on golf, fishing and weekend outings” and by early October 1990 “Scowcroft told Cheney that Bush [I] wanted a briefing right away on what an offensive against Saddam’s forces in Kuwait might look like.”

On Oct. 11, 1990, the Pentagon plans to launch a military offensive against Iraq were given to Bush I. And, at a 3:30 afternoon meeting on Oct. 29, 1990, Bush I met with Baker, Cheney, Scowcroft and Powell in the White House Situation Room were, according to Woodward, “Bush and Scowcroft seemed primed to go ahead with the development of the offensive option.”

The Commanders also reported that by Dec. 17, 1990 Scowcroft was eager to begin the bombing blitz of Iraq, despite all the pre-January 16, 1991 Bush I Administration talk of how eager it was to have its Secretary of State Baker talk face-to-face with the Iraqi foreign minister in order to avert Gulf War I:

“It was obvious to [Congressional Representative] Aspin that Scowcroft had lost his patience with diplomacy…Saddam was jerking everyone around. There was no reason to deal with him, Scowcroft said. War would take less time…Scowcroft said. Hew was now convinced that war would be a two-to-three week solution…”

That same week in December 1990, Scowcroft told the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar, that “Basically the President had made up his mind” and that the diplomatic efforts to avoid war undertaken by the Bush [I] Administration were `all exercises.’”

Nearly a month later, on Jan. 16, 1991, the militaristic U.S. Establishment began an endless war against the people of Iraq that is still going on nearly 17 years later; and, during Gulf War I, between 100,000 and 300,000 Iraqis were killed by the U.S. war machine. In addition, 150 U.S. troops lost their lives during Gulf War I, before the Bush I Administration finally ordered an end to its early 1991 high-technology bombing blitz of Iraq.

(Downtown 9/25/91)

Next: Human Rights Violations In Turkey Historically

`George Philanthropist'

(chorus)
“I may be a plutocrat
But I believe in philanthropy
It lowers my tax rate
When I give you my blood money.

(verses)
“My name is George Philanthropist and here’s a grant for you
To fund your media project and sponsor your protests, too
I invest heavily in Carlyle, which makes weapons for war
And if you don’t disclose this fact, you never will be poor. (chorus)

“My name is George Philanthropist and here’s a grant for you
To fund your anti-war work and your indymedia, too
I speculate in currency, making billions when I score
And if you don’t disclose this fact, I’ll give you grants some more. (chorus)

“My name is George Philanthropist and here’s a grant for you
To fund your own dance company and theatre in the street
I brought human rights to Europe by working with the CIA
And created a free market where my artists are well-paid. (chorus)

“My name is George Philanthropist and I’m building a world empire
Of NGO grant-hustlers, to put out the rebel fires
My billions from stock investment, I’m using to manage change
And if you call me `Plutocrat,’ my cops will put you in chains.” (chorus)

The George Philanthropist protest folk song was written in the early 21st-century, as the forces of foundation-sponsored “NGOism” continued to marginalize within the dissident U.S. anti-war left sub-culture those grassroots anti-war revolutionary leftists who refused to accept U.S. Establishment foundation grants.

CIA-Funded Foundation Grants (Downtown 3/17/93)

Although most U.S. foundations pose as being free of any CIA connection, during the 1960s many U.S. foundations were actually used by the CIA to grant CIA money to recipients of U.S. foundation grants. According to Secrecy and Democracy: The CIA In Transition by former Rhodes Scholar and former CIA Director Stanfield Turner, “Excluding grants from the three largest U.S. foundations—Ford, Rockefeller, and Carnegie—nearly half of the grants made in the field of international affairs by U.S. foundations between 1963 and 1967 involved CIA money, as did one-third of the grants in the physical, life, and social sciences.” Not surprisingly, few U.S. foundation grant-recipients do any critical research on the CIA’s role in 20th-Century U.S. history and world history, or the CIA’s role in U.S. scientific research.

(Downtown 3/17/93)

Did Ford Foundation Have CIA Connection? (Downtown/Aquarian 1/8/97)

During the Cold War era, a Ford Foundation executive who later became the CIA Deputy Director for Plans responsible for the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba and the President of the Columbia University-affiliated Institute for Defense Analyses [IDA], Richard Bissell, simultaneously worked as a CIA consultant. As the now-deceased Bissell recalled in his book Reflections Of A Cold Warrior:

“In January 1952 I joined the Ford Foundation…I worked out of a small office in Washington…The arrangement allowed me to work for the foundation while engaging in outside consulting assignments…Working in Washington…enabled me to maintain my close professional relationships…with people like Frank Wisner, Sherman Kent, Desmond Fitzgerald, Tracy Barnes, and Max Milliken, all of whom were in the CIA and close to Allen Dulles…

“In the fall of 1952, I became part of the CIA’s Princeton Group of consultants (so named because it met on the university’s campus)…In late 1952…Max Milliken resigned as an assistant director of the CIA…to become director of MIT’s Center for International Studies [CENIS]…I was able to get the trustees of the Ford Foundation to fund research at CENIS.”

(Downtown/Aquarian 1/8/97)

Why Ford Foundation Was Set Up (Downtown/Aquarian 2/5/97)

The Ford Foundation was originally set up by the ultra-rich Ford Dynasty as a tax avoidance scheme. As Charity USA: An Investigation Into The Hidden World Of The Multi-Billion Dollar Charity Industry by Carl Bakal recalled in 1979:

“By setting up the foundation and bequeathing 90 percent of their Ford Motor Company stock to it, the noncharitable Henry Ford and his son, Edsel, enabled their heirs to avoid an inheritance tax that would have come to $321 million…All the stock that was given to the foundation was nonvoting. The 10 percent retained by the family had total voting power, maintaining the family domination of the company. Moreover, the voting stock passed to the family tax free, saving another $42 million, because the wills of Henry and Edsel provided that the taxes on the bequest be paid by the foundation.”

(Downtown/Aquarian 2/5/97)

Carnegie Trustees Gave Grants To Own Institutions (Downtown/Aquarian 11/27/96)

During the 1990s, U.S. Secretary of State Condi Rice and Time magazine’s then-editorial director, Henry Muller were both affiliated to Stanford University. U.S. Secretary of State Condi Rice was then Stanford University’s Provost and Muller was a member of Stanford University’s board of trustees. At the same time, U.S. Secretary of State Rice and Muller were also both trustees of the Carnegie Corporation of New York during the 1990s. Coincidentally, the Carnegie Corp. of New York gave five grants, worth over $2.7 million to Stanford University in 1994-95, according to its 1995 Annual Report.

WNYC Foundation Trustee Wilma Tisch was also a Carnegie Corp. trustee in the 1990s. Coincidentally, the Carnegie Corp. gave a $200,000 grant to the WNYC Foundation in 1994-95.

Of the $55 million in grants dished out by the Carnegie Corp. of NY in 1994-95, none of the major grants apparently went to NYC groups involved in either providing services for people with AIDS or for AIDS research. On Sept. 30, 1995, the market value of the “non-profit” Carnegie Corp.’s investments exceeded $1.2 billion; and then-Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin was a Carnegie Corp. trustee before he moved into a D.C. government office.

Downtown/Aquarian asked then-Time magazine editorial director Muller to comment in 1996 on whether there was a conflict-of interest in him then sitting on a foundation board whose past and present trustees and activities were being reported on by Time magazine; and whether he thought it was ethical for Carnegie Corp. trustees to give grants to institutions, like Stanford University, with which they were personally affiliated. But the then-Stanford University/Carnegie Corporation trustee and then-Time magazine editorial director did not return our calls.

(Downtown/Aquarian 11/27/96)

In his 1975 book, The Rockefeller Syndrome, Ferdinand Lundberg summarized how the Ultra-Rich Rockefeller Dynasty has tended to historically operate:

“Spelling it all out, so that even…professors can understand, the Rockefeller Operation boils down to the following:…A huge fortune, illicitly amassed, is doled out in part over a span of many years in a variety of projects…A…sympathetic chord is struck with some part of the public for each project, appeasing discontent with the way the fortune was acquired…Managerial…elements benefiting personally from each project naturally become Rockefeller boosters…The Rockefellers avoid taxes…A further gain in funding tax-deductible projects…is that…one has…the privilege of…decreeing what shall and what shall not be…supported…A vast fortune is retained through the generations and is so managed as to confer great…economic clout from one generation to the next…Anyone who presumes to criticize the operation is countered by the technique of…public relations officers and the outcries of the immediate beneficiaries, the tax-exempt project administrators.”

Next: Columbia University Gave Award To Brent Scrowcroft In 2005

Kissinger Associates In The 1990s: The Confidential Consultants

Scowcroft’s old firm, Kissinger Associates ( http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Kissinger_McLarty_Associates ), had an office in Manhattan at 350 Park Avenue in 1991. According to a spokesperson at that time, Scowcroft ended his connection to Kissinger Associates “when he re-entered government service” as President Bush I’s National Security Affairs advisor. When asked by Downtown in early 1991 who some of Kissinger Associates clients were, the spokesperson replied: “That’s all confidential.”

Downtown then asked the spokesperson if there was anything the public could be told about what kind of work Kissinger Associates did.

“We’re an international consulting firm,” she replied. She then suggested that Downtown speak to another employee of the firm, named L. Paul Bremer [who was subsequently appointed to be George W. Bush II’s Presidential Envoy to Iraq on May 6, 2003], if we had any more “technical questions.” The spokesperson then added that she didn’t “see any connection” between Kuwait and the work of Kissinger Associates.

When Downtown telephoned later in the afternoon to speak to Bremer in early 1991, we were told by an English-accented spokesperson named Penny that “Ambassador Bremer left for Washington 15 minutes ago” but perhaps she “could help.” When asked who some of the clients of Kissinger Associates were in early 1991, Penny also replied that such information was “not given out” and “was confidential” but that “We don’t service any governments.”

Downtown then asked Penny why information about Kissinger Associates’ clients was not given out. “Most companies don’t give out this kind of information,” Penny answered. “I don’t really know who our clients are, myself.”

When Downtown expressed skepticism that Penny could work a few years for Kissinger Associates without knowing who its clients were, Penny replied in 1991: “Well, basically, all I do is set up appointments with the press and arrange press interviews.”

In the late 1990s, former Clinton White House Chief of Staff McLarty became a partner in Kissinger Associates and the firm’s name was changed to Kissinger McLarty Associates. ( http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Kissinger_McLarty_Associates )
One of the 2008 Democratic Party presidential candidates, Bill Richardson, was also employed by Kissinger McLarty Associates in the 21st-century.

(Downtown 1/23/91)

Next: George Philanthropist protest folk song lyrics