Nexus - 0228 - New Times Magazine-pages

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The Council on Foreign Relations Right Arm of the Secret Government? The Council Relations Foreign Relations Right Arm of the Secret Government? With the CFR's history of obsessive secrecy, dubious connections and questionable policies, is it any wonder that ‘patriot’ groups are paranoid about the ‘New World Order'? ong before the catastrophic bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, USA, on 19th April 1995, and its attendant frenzy over "militia" groups, one fact was evident. President Bill Clinton and many of his associ- ates—along with some of the most prominent media personalities in the world— had one thing in common: membership in the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Clinton is joined as a CFR member by Secretary of State Warren Christopher; the Pentagon's former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Colin Powell; and financier David Rockefeller. The brightest and richest media celebrities also dot the CFR roster: * Roone Arledge of ABC, architect of many Olympic telecasts as former executive pro- ducer of ABC Sports. * Diane Sawyer, the former 60 Minutes reporter who jumped ship from CBS to ABC, buoyed by a US$6 million-per-year contract drafted by Mr Arledge. + Dan Rather, long-time anchor for CBS News. * Robert L. MacNeil and Jim Lehrer, whose acclaimed MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour has long been a PBS fixture. * Tom Brokaw, NBC News anchor. ¢ David Brinkley, long-time NBC News commentator and host of his own Sunday news program. * Katharine Graham, publisher of The Washington Post. CFR involvement in media reaches to the highest levels of academia as well. At the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) conventions the last two years in Atlanta, GA, and Washington, D.C. respectively, CFR member Everette E. Dennis has chaired and monitored several crucial panels and discussion groups. Dennis heads the Freedom Forum's Media Studies Center in New York. The Freedom Forum is the ‘charitable’ arm of Gannett Corp. which publishes the controversial national newspaper, USA Today. Esteemed statesmen and women have long been CFR members. Dr Henry Kissinger, the breakthrough Secretary of State for the Nixon administration in the late 1960s and ‘70s, and former United States delegate to the United Nations, Jeane Kirkpatrick, are listed as key CFR players. This is not to mention the current US representative to the UN, Madeleine Albright, whose arrogant push for a women's conference in China this year has resulted in turmoil between many women of the world and the Chinese government. It appears, then, that membership in the Council on Foreign Relations can definitely enhance one's career, whether it be in academia, politics, high finance or media. However, most people do not even know the CFR exists. Even fewer know about the organisation's secretive policies and dubious history. It might be a good idea for cvery American to own a copy of the CFR's latest annual report, which contains within it many contradictions and much misleading information about the CFR's actual role in formulat- ing American and international foreign policies. For example, at the 1994 overpopulation conference in Cairo, Egypt, leader of the US delegation was CFR member and Deputy Secretary of State Timothy E. Wirth, whose group championed the near-militant pro-abortion population-control program backed by the Clinton administration and heatedly challenged by the Vatican. Population control has long been a CFR priority, and a pet project of the Rockefeller family. Many pro- choice groups in the US are heavily backed by the Rockefellers—who also control the CFR—and this fact was trumpeted over National Public Radio (NPR) by the few women at the conference who did not back the US-led abortion coalition. © 1995 by Gerald A. Carroll School of Journalism and Mass Communication University of lowa, USA Fax: +1 (319) 335 5210 E-mail: gerald-carroll@uiowa.edu NEXUS © 21 OCTOBER - NOVEMBER 1995