In The Pay of Foundations: How U.S. power elite foundations fund a `parallel left' media network--Part 1

Carnegie Corp.of NY President Gregorian, Afghan President Karzai, James Billington in Jan. 2013 with then- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2013

In The Pay of Foundations

How U.S. power elite and liberal establishment foundations fund a “parallel left” media network of left media journalists and gatekeepers.

If you check out many of the left alternative media radio/tv shows, publications, websites or blogs that receive grants from the U.S. power elite’s liberal foundations, you'll notice that they rarely provide their listeners, viewers or readers with much critical news reporting or unflattering historical information about their foundation funders; and they generally also block U.S. left-wing grassroots anti-war activist viewpoints that are not within the parameters approved by the establishment liberal board members and program managers of their foundation funders from being heard on their shows, printed in their publications or featured on their websites or blogs very often.

Yet as long ago as 1915, a Colorado miners’ representative, John R. Lawson, in a statement before the U.S. Commission on Industrial Relations, noted that a “skillful attempt” was “being made to substitute Philanthropy for Justice” and there was “not one of these foundations, now spreading their millions over the world in showy generosity, that does not draw these millions from some form of industrial injustice,” since their millions represented “the withheld wages of the…working-class.” And as the now-deceased former CounterPunch co-editor Alexander Cockburn wrote on February 5, 2010:

“There are two important reminders about political phenomena...which help explain the decline of the left: first is the financial clout of the `nonprofit’ foundations, tax-exempt bodies formed by rich people to dispense their wealth according to political tastes. Much of the `progressive sector’…now owes its financial survival—salaries, office accommodation, etc.—to the annual disbursements of these foundations which cease abruptly at the first manifestation of radical heterodoxy. In other words, most of the progressive sector is an extrusion of the dominant corporate world, just as are the academics, similarly dependent on corporate endowments. A second important reminder concerns the…collapse of the organized…left which used to provide a training ground for young people…”

According to the code of ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists, U.S. journalists are supposed to:

"Avoid conflicts of interests, real or perceived.

"Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.

"Refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel, and special treatment, and shun secondary employment, political involvement, public office, and service in community organizations if they compromise journalistic integrity.

"Disclose unavoidable conflicts.

"Be vigilant and courageous about holding those with power accountable. [Note: Including those who hold power within the U.S. multi-billion dollar foundation world]

"Deny favored treatment to advertisers and special interests and resist their pressure to influence news coverage.

"Be wary of sources offering information for favors or money."

But during the last 25 years, some U.S. “parallel left” journalists and “parallel left” alternative media organizations have been funding their news operations by accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in “charitable grants” from the tax-exempt foundations of the same U.S. power elite whose undemocratic abuses of power, crimes and immoral policies they claim to be—unlike the corporate-sponsored mainstream media—exposing and holding accountable in their “independent journalism” work and reporting. Take, for example, the foundation-sponsored Democracy Now! Productions radio-tv show which is broadcast on over 1,440  radio and television stations daily around the globe, according to the Democracy Now! Productions website.

 In the early 1950s--when the CIA was using the Ford Foundation to help fund a non-communist "parallel left" as a liberal Establishment alternative to an independent, anti-Establishment revolutionary left--the Pacifica Foundation was given a $150,000 [equivalent to over $1.4 million in 2018] grant in 1951 by the Ford Foundation's Fund for Education, whose “first chief was Alexander Fraser, the president of the Shell Oil Company,” according to James Ledbetter's Made Possible By… book..

Besides subsidizing the Pacifica Foundation in the early 1950s, the Ford Foundation also spent a lot of money subsidizing many other noncommercial radio or television stations in the United States. According to Ledbetter's Made Possible By..., between 1951 and 1976, the Ford Foundation "spent nearly $300 million on noncommercial radio and television."

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Pacifica relied primarily on listener-sponsor contributions to fund the operations of its radio stations. And in the early 1970s, Pacifica also began to accept funds from the U.S. Establishment's government-funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting [CPB], according to Rogue State author William Blum--who worked as a KPFA staffperson in the early 1970s. By the early 1990s, according to the January/February issue of Extra! magazine, Pacifica was accepting nearly $1 million [equivalent to over $1.6 million in 2018 dollars] in "Community Service Grant" program money annually from the CPB to finance about 17 percent of "listener-sponsored" radio stations network's annual operating budget. 

In the early 1990s, some Pacifica administrators also then decided to again seek grants from the Ford Foundation and other U.S. power elite and liberal establishment foundations. As former Pacifica Development Director Dick Bunce wrote in the appendix to the "A Strategy for National Programming" document which was prepared for the Pacifica National Board in September 1992, entitled "Appendix Foundation Grantseeking National Programming Assumptions for Foundation Fundraising":

“The national foundation grantseeking arena has changed enough in recent years to make activity in this arena potentially worthwhile--for organizations prepared to be players and partners in the same field as NPR…Foundation fundraising at this level has extraordinary payoffs... It also requires `venture capital visits' to the foundations to open doors and conversations that lead to partnerships.

“In initiating three top level contacts in April, May and June, and attempting to capitalize on the opportunities apparent to us, we have already been stretched beyond our capacity to really interface effectively with these funders...

“Short-Run Strategies for Developing a Foundation Grantseeking Program

“Seek Development Committee leadership in planning for Foundation grantseeking.

“Pursue 3 `anchor' grants to acquire funding beginning in FY'93 from the Big 3 foundations we've already begun to work with.

“Long-Range Strategies for Developing a Foundation Grantseeking Program

“Initiate an informal `feasibility inquiry' of foundation support for Pacifica's objectives by requesting visits with the dozen top prospects to shape proposals and establish relationships...

“Foundation Grants Summary: Late this spring we began our first efforts in national foundation grantseeking on behalf of national programming. We have a good chance of securing six figure grants in the coming fiscal year from any or all of the 3 foundations we're working with…, The second tier of foundation prospects is more challenging, and will require increased staff resources, a modest feasibility inquiry and active planning with the Board Development Committee.”

By 1995, billionaire speculator George Soros' Open Society Institute foundation had given the Pacifica Foundation’s KPFA radio station in Berkeley, California a $40,000 [equivalent to over $64,000 in 2018] grant. And in 1996, the Carnegie Corporation of New York foundation gave Pacifica a $25,000 [equivalent to over $40,000 in 2018] grant to launch a daily radio news show, Democracy Now!, hosted and produced by long-time WBAI Evening News producer Amy Goodman, that was initially broadcast from Pacifica’s New York City area WBAI radio station in Manhattan on February 19, 1996.

Sitting on the board of trustees of the Carnegie Corporation of New York (whose assets had increased to $3.3 billion by 2017) in 1996, when it provided Democracy Now! with its initial foundation funding, were U.S. power elite-connected Establishment folks like then-Chevron board member and future Bush II administration National Security Advisor and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the managing editor of the Time Warner mainstream media conglomerate’s Time magazine, Henry Muller, and the multi-millionaire wife of then-U.S. Senator and future 2004 Democratic presidential candidate and Obama administration Secretary of State John Kerry, Teresa Heinz.

And in 2017, the Carnegie Corporation of New York board of trustees included former New Jersey Governor and 9/11 Commission Report Chair Thomas Kean, former New York Times Company CEO and president Janet Robinson, PBS NewsHour Co-Anchor/Managing Editor and Duke Endowment Chairperson Judy Woodruff and the former Commander of U.S. Central Command [CENTCOM) from 2013 to 2016, (Ret.) Genaral Lloyd Austin III, who “was responsible for military strategy and joint operations throughout the Middle East and Central and South Asia” during the Obama administration, according to the Carnegie Corporation website. The same website also noted that Carnegie Corporation of New York trustee Austin helped “to spearhead the 2003 invasion of Iraq as the assistant division commander for the 3^rd Infantry Division” and in 2008 “returned to Iraq as the commanding general of the Multi-National Corps-Iraq during the period when the surge forces were drawing down under Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

 But the Democracy Now! Productions show, not surprisingly, has apparently never been very eager to provide its viewers, listeners or website readers with much news reporting that examines how the Carnegie Corporation of New York which initially funded it has, historically and currently, been controlled by members of the U.S. power elite, undemocratically concentrates institutional economic power and accumulates wealth from an economic system that exploits workers and middle-class consumers, and works to perpetuate a militaristic, plutocratic, politically undemocratic society in the United States. (end of part 1)

`George Philanthropist' protest folk song

40 Years After CIA and ITT's 1973 Coup In Chile: A Look At `Democracy Now!''s ITT-Lannan Foundation Connection--Conclusion

One immediate result of the CIA and ITT-promoted September 11, 1973 military coup in Chile was that, “a right-wing military junta took over in Santiago and soon after opened negotiations with ITT regarding compensation for Chiltelco;” and “on December 22 [1973] it was announced that the new Chilean government would pay $125.2 million for ITT’s equity and debt investments in Chiltelco, over a 10-year period,” according to Robert Sobel’s 1982 book "ITT: The Management of Opportunity".

The Chilean people, however, failed to profit as much from the CIA-ITT conspiracy to overthrow the democratically-elected Allende regime as did the corporation on whose board of directors sat the founder of the Lannan Foundation. According to "Nixon, Kissinger and Allende: U.S. Involvement in the 1973 Coup in Chile":

“By the end of 1973, 1,500 Chileans had perished…Judge [Juan] Guzman estimated that 3,500 Chileans were either killed or `disappeared’ during the 17 years of military rule…Indeed, the death toll could have been as high as 4,000…”

But other books have estimated the number of Chileans killed by the U.S. government-supported Pinochet regime during and after the September 11, 1973 military coup as being much higher. For example, according to Samuel Chavkin’s 1989 book "Storm Over Chile: The Junta Under Siege":

“…Immediately after the overthrow of the Allende regime, Washington rejected charges that it had had a hand in the coup, and it disclaimed having had advance knowledge of its imminence…It was only after the fact,…after some 30,000 Chileans had been tortured to death or shot by firing squads, after upwards of 100,000 others were languishing in prisons and concentration camps, that official documentation of this conspiracy came to light before the Senate Select Committee in 1975…”

If the editorial judgments and reporting about the role of the ITT Board of Directors and ITT in promoting the September 11, 1973 military coup in Chile of alternative media/left gatekeeper groups like "Democracy Now!", "The Nation", and "Mother Jones" magazine have been negatively affected as a result of their acceptance of “charitable grant”/blood money from the Lannan Foundation that ITT Director J. Patrick Lannan, Sr. set up, it would not be the first time that a Lannan family-linked organization attempted to influence news reporting and editorial judgments of a media organizations. When ITT Director Lannan’s firm attempted unsuccessfully to win U.S. Justice Department and U.S. court approval for a merger with ABC in the late 1960s, for example, the U.S. Justice Department noted the following in an August 3, 1970 memo:

“…In the course of the ABC-ITT proceeding, ITT exhibited its readiness to interfere with the judgment of reporters of independent news media; specific testimony covered attempts of ITT executives to influence the reporting of the ABC-ITT proceeding by newspaper reporters of the leading dailies. Some of this testimony included statements by ITT officials that reporters should be concerned about potential economic consequences in reporting news and making editorial judgments…The Department argues that the proposed merger was likely to result in significant and substantial detriment to the public interest, including loss of competition…”

Perhaps the “merger” of "Democracy Now!", "The Nation" and "Mother Jones" with ITT Director J. Patrick Lannan, Sr.’s Lannan Foundation in the 21st--century also results “in significant and substantial detriment to the public interest”—40 years after the CIA and ITT’s 1973 coup in Chile?
(end of article)

40 Years After CIA and ITT's 1973 Coup In Chile: A Look At `Democracy Now!''s ITT-Lannan Foundation Connection--Part 8

Lubea Qureshi’s 2009 book "Nixon, Kissinger and Allende: U.S. Involvement in the 1973 Coup in Chile" observed that when the CIA funded and organized strikes by right-wing Chilean truck industry owners in the fall of 1972 and the summer of 1973 in order to attempt to create economic chaos in Chile prior to the September 1973 military coup, “ITT extended $400,000” to the right-wing anti-Allende regime strikers. The same book also noted that “Henry Hecksher, “ the CIA’s “chief of station in Santiago” in 1970, “directed ITT operatives to a Chilean who could serve as a secret channel for” ITT “funds” in the early 1970s; and $1 million traveled from ITT coffers to Chilean recipients,” with right-wing presidential candidate “Jorge Alessandri and his National party” receiving “at least $400,000 of this enormous corporate investment” by ITT.

"The Pinochet File" also recalled that “by the fall of 1971, the CIA Station” in Chile “was conducting a `deception operation’…in order to `arouse the” Chilean `military’ to `move against’ Allende `if necessary’;” and “by early 1972” the CIA’s “Santiago Station began compiling arrest lists, installation targets, and other operational data necessary for coup contingency planning.” Then, according to the same book:

“…On September 27, 1972…a CIA informant, inside Pinochet’s camp reported that…Pinochet now believes `that Allende must be forced to step down or be eliminated;’ these were, in his words, the `only alternatives.’ When Pinochet traveled to Panama that month to negotiate the transfer of U.S. tanks to the Chilean army,…a member of his entourage reported back to a CIA handler. And U.S. army officers at the Southern Command, according to this source, passed an important message along to Pinochet’s delegation: the `U.S. will support coup against Allende’ with whatever means necessary `when the time comes.’”

So, not surprisingly, “in October 1972, a team of `appropriate CIA elements’—officials and analysts” then “gathered at Langley headquarters and `brainstormed the current Chilean situation from every conceivable angle,’ weighing `various courses of action…to accelerate current Chilean events leading toward a coup’ as [then-CIA Western Hemisphere Division Chief Theodore] Shackley reported to the Senior Review Group (SRG) on October 17 [1972],” according to "The Pinochet File."
(end of part 8)

40 Years After CIA and ITT's 1973 Coup In Chile: A Look At `Democracy Now!''s ITT-Lannan Foundation Connection--Part 7

"The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier On Atrocity and Accountability" recalled that there were “some 40 contacts between highest-level CIA and ITT officials on Chile in 1970 and 1971.”

ITT’s involvement in the CIA’s secret funding of the anti-Allende right-wing Chilean newspaper, "El Mercurio", between 1970 and 1973 apparently helped to bring about the September 11, 1973 military coup in Chile which installed Chilean General Pinochet as the Chilean dictator for many years. As "The Pinochet File" noted:

“The covert operation that, according to the CIA’s own internal records, played `a significant role’ in bringing about a coup was clandestine funding for the `El Mercurio' project…After the paper’s owner, Agustin Edwards, came to Washington in September 1970 to lobby Nixon for action against Allende, the CIA used `El Mercurio' as a key outlet for a massive propaganda campaign…Additional secret monies flowed to `El Mercurio' through the CIA’s main corporate collaborator in Chile—the ITT Corporation. A declassified May 15, 1972 memorandum of a conversation between CIA officer Jonathan Hanke and ITT official Hal Hendrix recorded a discussion about $100,000 bank deposits ITT was secretly making to Agustin Edwards. `He had told me money for the Edwards group went through a Swiss account,’ Hanke reported to his superiors…The CIA asserted that the propaganda effort, in which `El Mercurio' was the dominant actor, `played a significant role in setting the stage for the military coup of 11 September 1973.’”…
(end of part 7)

40 Years After CIA and ITT's 1973 Coup In Chile: A Look At `Democracy Now!''s ITT-Lannan Foundation Connection--Part 6

Not all the facts about what the CIA and ITT were covertly up to in Chile between 1970 and 1973 were apparently fully disclosed by CIA officials and ITT executives who testified before U.S. Senator Frank Church’s Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations during the early 1970s. As Peter Kornbluh noted in his 2003 book, "The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier On Atrocity and Accountability":

“Senator Church’s Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations suffered…deceptions…Under the supervision of the [then-] Western Hemisphere chief, Theodore Shackley, the CIA conspired with ITT officers to deceive the Church Committee. In early May 1972, ITT senior vice president Raymond Brittenham traveled to Washington to discuss `with the Agency what ITT might say in the Senate hearings, what the Agency might say, etc.,’ according to one memorandum of conversation. Shackley, according to David Corn’s biography, `Blond Ghost', ordered his deputy Jonathan Hanke to meet with ITT operative Hal Hendrix for further discussions on withholding information…According to Hanke’s summary of the meeting, Hendrix advised him on efforts by ITT executives to keep incriminating documents on the covert transfer of funds in Chile from falling into the hands of the Senate…

“ITT officials, among them CEO Harold Geneen, senior vice president Edward Gerrity, and Southern Cone manager Robert Berrellez, all deceived the subcommittee. Geneen claimed that ITT `did not take any steps to block the election of Salvador Allende.’ Gerrity claimed the $1 million that ITT had offered to the CIA to help block Allende was for `low-cost housing…a farming program.’ And Berrellez repeatedly misled the Church subcommittee by denying any ITT contact with CIA officials in Chile…”

According to the same book, in the early 1970s ITT was “the third largest American conglomerate” in Chile and “certainly ITT was the most interventionist.” As an April 3, 1972 Intercontinental Press article noted:

“What prompted ITT to launch its scheme was fear that it would lose its highly profitable control over the Chile Telephone Company. `The telephone company, the largest in Chile with 360,000 telephones,’ wrote Juan de Onis in the March 24 [1972] `New York Times', `was one of the biggest earners in the ITT world system, regularly earning over $10-million a year.’

“The concession contract ITT signed in 1930 to operate the telephone company guaranteed it a 10 percent annual profit on its investment. ITT, however, in effect sold itself the equipment necessary for maintenance and expansion. According to a `Washington Post' dispatch from Santiago, a spokesman for the company…estimated that `these sales, largely by European plants of ITT, raised the company’s recent annual profits to about 25 percent of its investment.’”
(end of part 6)

40 Years After CIA's and ITT's 1973 Coup In Chile: A Look At `Democracy Now!''s ITT-Lannan Foundation Connection--Part 5

Former ITT Director Felix Rohatyn—who sat next to Lannan Foundation founder J.Patrick Lannan, Sr. on the ITT board of directors before, during and after the CIA and ITT-promoted 1973 military coup in Chile (which was dramatized in Costa Gavras’s 1980s movie "Missing")—apparently uses some of the blood money he accumulated from his many years as an ITT Director to attempt to manipulate the outcome of U.S. elections by funding the campaigns of Democratic Party candidates in a big way. Between 1990 and 2013, for example, over $990,000 in individual campaign contributions to the Democratic National Committee, Democratic Party campaign committees or individual Democratic Party politicians running for federal office were made by former ITT Director Rohatyn, according to the Center for Responsive Politics’ Open Secrets website.

On October 18, 1996, for example, former ITT Director Rohatyn gave a $125,000 campaign contribution to the Democratic National Committee; and as recently as March 31, 2012 a campaign contribution of $30,800 was accepted by the DNC Services Corporation from the former ITT Director. In addition, between July 7, 2008 and March 6, 2012 the campaign committee of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama accepted four campaign contributions, totaling $9,600, from Felix Rohatyn—despite Rohatyn’s past involvement on the ITT board of directors’ executive committee at the time of the bloody 1973 military coup in Chile by Pinochet, which was promoted by ITT and the CIA.
(end of part 5)

40 Years After CIA and ITT's 1973 Coup In Chile: A Look At `Democracy Now!''s ITT-Lannan Foundation Connection--Part 4

According to the 1973 book, "The Anderson Papers" by Jack Anderson:

“There had been a pattern of influence-peddling in ITT’s dealings with the government…Students of tax loopholes pointed out that by manipulating its tax payments, ITT in 1970 paid only 21 percent on its earnings as opposed to the statutory corporate income tax rate of 48 percent…ITT plotted…drastic action against any government that dared to oppose the company’s financial interests. There had been talk in Argentina, for example, of nationalizing the ITT telephone system; the conglomerate immediately began plotting a revolution. In 1968 the governor of Puerto Rico considered taking over ITT’s profitable but poorly serviced telephone company; ITT threw its resources against the governor, who was defeated at the polls….On October 23, 1970, ITT’s Washington vice president, William Merriam, sent a message to Henry Kissinger in the White House. It was stilted, rather ungraceful demand for tough American action to stop Allende.

“Kissinger’s reply, dated November 9 [1970], was a short acknowledgment: `I have read it carefully and I have passed it to those members of my staff who deal with Latin American matters…’”

And as the June 23, 1973 report of U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Member Frank Church’s Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations, that was titled “The International Telephone and Telegraph Company and Chile 1970-73,” recalled:

“The Chilean political situation was discussed at an ITT Board meeting in the spring of 1970 and at the June 1970 board meeting…Mr. John McCone, a former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, at the time a consultant to the Agency and a Director of ITT, held a number of conversations about Chile with Richard Helms, the CIA Director. At least two conversations took place in Langley, Virginia, and one at Mr. McCone’s home in San Marino, California. During these conversations, Mr. McCone told Helms that ITT expected Dr. Allende to win the election. He pointed out that Allende was campaigning on a platform calling for expropriation of American business, including ITT’s properties, and expressed the opinion that the American national interest, as well as business interests were involved…Mr. McCone asked Mr. Helms whether the United States intended to intervene…

“During one of the conversations, Mr. McCone suggested to Mr. Helms that someone on Helms’ staff contact Mr. Geneen [the ITT CEO], and this suggestion led directly to a meeting between Mr. Geneen and Mr. Broe, the [then-] Chief of the CIA’s Clandestine Services (also known as the Directorate of Plans), Western Hemisphere Division, on July 16, 1970, in the Sheraton-Carlton Hotel, Washington, D.C. In response to Mr. McCone’s request, Mr. Helms told Mr. Broe that Mr. Geneen, ITT’s Chief Executive Officer, would be in Washington on July 16, 1970, and that he should get in touch with Geneen to arrange a meeting. Thus it was Mr. McCone, through his suggestion to Helms, who set in motion a series of contacts between the ITT and CIA in connection with Chile.

“Mr. Broe was contacted by William Merriam, head of ITT’s Washington office, who told him that Mr. Geneen wanted to meet late in the evening. Mr. Broe waited for Mr. Geneen in the lobby of the hotel. Mr. Merriam arrived, introduced himself, and then took Mr. Broe up to Mr. Geneen’s suite to wait for him. Mr. Merriam left the suite before the conversation began…Mr. Geneen offered to assemble an election fund…Mr. Geneen said the fund would be `substantial’ and that he wanted the fund controlled and channeled through the CIA…Mr. Geneen…testified that he made a similar offer to the CIA in 1964…Following the meeting, Mr. Geneen told Mr. Broe to contact ITT Vice President Ned Gerrilty if Geneen was out of town.

“Mr. Broe called Mr. Geneen on July 27 [1970]…

“On September 9, 1970, the ITT Board of Directors met for its monthly meeting in New York City. Mr. Geneen expressed his concern to John McCone over the political situation in Chile. In Mr. McCone’s words: `What he told me at that time was that he was prepared to put up as much as a million dollars, in support of any plan that was adopted by the government for the purpose of bringing about a coalition of the opposition to Allende…’ Mr. Geneen asked Mr. McCone to support his proposal. Mr. McCone agreed and came to Washington several days later and met with Henry Kissinger, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, and Richard Helms. He communicated to both Kissinger and Helms Mr. Geneen’s offer of a $1,000,000 fund…to stop Allende. Dr. Kissinger, according to Mr. McCone, thanked him…

“On September 11, 1970, at roughly the same time Mr. McCone was meeting with Dr. Kissinger and Mr. Helms, Jack Neal, the International Relations Director in the ITT Washington office, telephoned Viron P. Vaky, Dr. Kissinger’s assistant for Latin American Affairs. He informed him that Mr. Geneen was willing to come to Washington to discuss his interest and that the company was willing to contribute a sum of money in seven figures…Vaky testified that he understood the officer of funds by Neal to be in the context of blocking Allende from becoming president…

“…Two ex-newspapermen, Hal Hendrix and Robert Berrellez, were responsible for reporting for ITT’s Corporate Relations Department on Chilean political developments…Following the Washington activities of Mr. McCone and Mr. Neal, Mr. Hendrix joined Mr. Berrellez in Santiago. On September 17 [1970] they cabled a joint report to ITT in the United States…The report…contained specific recommendations for supporting Chileans working to block Dr. Allende’s election…These recommendations were the following:

“`1. We and other U.S. firms in Chile pump some advertising into [the anti-Allende right-wing Chilean newspaper] Mercurio (this has been started)

“`2. We help with getting some propagandists working again on radio and television…’

“On September 29 [1970]…Mr. Broe, at the instruction of CIA Director Richard Helms, called Mr. Gerrity in New York and arranged to meet him there on September 29….Mr. Broe proposed a plan to accelerate economic chaos in Chile…As Gerrity summed it up, Broe made suggestions based on recommendations from `our representatives on the scene’…The specific suggestions were the following:…

“`…2. Companies should drag their feet in sending money, in making deliveries, in shipping spare parts, etc…’

“The contacts between ITT and the CIA continued after Mr. Broe’s meeting with Mr. Gerrity. On October 6 [1970], Mr. Broe talked to the deputy head of ITT’s Washington office, John Ryan, about the prospects of stopping Dr. Allende. Mr. Ryan testified…that Mr. Broe had urged ITT to keep the pressure on, and had suggested a run on the banks.

“Mr. Merriam met Mr. Broe for lunch on several occasions after that and when cables arrived from Santiago he called Broe and arranged to have a CIA messenger pick up copies…The company’s thinking is reflected in Mr. Merriam’s October 23 [1970] letter to Dr. Kissinger…The letter and memorandum proposed that the U.S. Government take a number of measures against the Allende government…The only apparent dissent in the company came from Richard Dillenbeck of the ITT Legal Department…The letter was acknowledged by Dr. Kissinger…

“In early 1971, ITT began to follow a two-track strategy with respect to the Allende government…Mr. Merriam invited the Washington representatives of major U..S. corporations having investments in Chile to form an Ad Hoc Committee on Chile. There were several meetings, the first of which took place in early January, 1971, in ITT’s Washington offices…The purpose was described in a memorandum by Mr. Ronald Raddatz, the Bank of America representative: …`ITT,’ said the memo, `believes the place to apply pressure is through the office of Henry Kissinger.’ `That is what we have been doing for the last year or so,’ said Mr. Merriam…

“…ITT’s primary investment in Chile was a 70 percent interest in the Chilean telephone company (Chiltelco). The estimated book value of this ITT investment was placed at approximately $153 million…$92.5 million of ITT’s $153 million interest in Chiltelco was covered by investment guaranty agreements administered by the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) which provided insurance, among other things against expropriation…In addition to the Chiltelco property, ITT had other lesser holdings in Chile, including two hotels, a telephone directory book service, and an international cable company. The estimated book value of ITT’s investment in Chile, including Chiltelco, amounted to approximately $160 million…

“…Mr. Guilfoyle summed up the strategy in a July 9, 1971 note to the ITT Board…On September 29 [1971], the Chilean Government took over the management of Chiltelco…The government alleged that Chiltelco was deliberately allowing service to deteriorate…Shortly after the intervention in Chiltelco by the Chilean Government, Mr. Merriam…requested a meeting for Mr. Geneen with Henry Kissinger and Peter Peterson, Assistant to the President for International Economic Affairs. A luncheon meeting was scheduled.

“Because of the demands on Dr. Kissinger’s time, General Haig, his deputy, joined Mr. Peterson at lunch with Mr. Geneen…Following the meeting, Mr. Geneen instructed Mr. Merriam to put ITT’s suggestions in writing and forward them to Mr. Peterson. In response to the requrest, Merriam sent a letter to Peterson dated October 1, 1971, which had attached an 18-point action plan. Among other things the plan proposed the following specific measures to see to it that Allende would not `make it through the next six months’:

“`…Discuss with CIA how it can assist the six-month squeeze.

“`Get to reliable sources within the Chilean Military. Delay fuel delivery to Navy and gasoline to Air Force. (This would have to be carefully handled, otherwise would be dangerous. However, a false delay could build up their planned discontent against Allende, thus, bring about necessity of his removal.)…’

“In accordance with the company’s usual distribution procedures, the Merriam letter and 18-point plan were distributed within the company…Felix Rohatyn testified that the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors…was informed in April 1972, of McCone’s and Geneen’s 1970 offer of funds to the CIA…The highest officials of the ITT sought to engage the CIA in a plan covertly to manipulate the outcome of the Chilean presidential election…”
(end of part 4)

40 Years After CIA and ITT's 1973 Coup In Chile: A Look At `Democracy Now!''s ITT-Lannan Foundation Connection--Part 3

According to the "Palm Beach Daily News" (9/26/83), “Lannan was a senior member of the board of ITT;” and, according to the "New York Daily News" (10/18/95), "Lannan, who was running about $2 billion in assets in the 1960s, had assets ranging from the Oakland A's to a majority stake in International Telephone & Telegraph [ITT]" and "upon Lannan's death, his heirs squabbled over control of $100 million in assets that he left to a foundation." In its December 1959 issue, "Fortune" magazine characterized J.Patrick Lannan, Sr. as “an influential investor in enterprises such as International Telephone & Telegraph [ITT];” and according to Robert Schoenberg’s 1985 book "Geneen", during the 1970s “of the outside directors” of ITT “only Pat Lannan had more than two or three thousand shares” of ITT stock. A July 1, 2009 article on the Santafe.com website also observed that “the Lannan Foundation has always been and continues to be a family-run organization” and former ITT Director Lannan’s son, J. Patrick Lannan, Jr., “took over the reins of the Lannan Foundation in 1985.”

In "A People’s History of the United States", Howard Zinn indicated how ITT was apparently able to exercise a special influence in U.S. and foreign political life during the 36 years that Lannan Foundation founder J. Patrick Lannan, Sr. sat on the ITT board of directors:

“International Telephone and Telegraph [ITT] was an old hand at giving money on both sides. In 1960 it had made illegal contributions to Bobby Baker, who worked with Democratic Senators, including Lyndon Johnson. A senior vice-president of ITT was quoted by one of his assistants as saying the board of directors `have it set up to `butter’ both sides so we’ll be in good position whoever wins.’ And in 1970, an ITT director, John McCone, who also had been head of the CIA, told Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State, and Richard Helms, CIA director, that ITT was willing to give $1 million to help the U.S. government in its plans to overthrow the Allende government in Chile…The CIA—with the collusion of a secret Committee of Forty headed by Henry Kissinger—had worked to `destabilize’ the Chilean government headed by Salvador Allende, a Marxist who had been elected president…ITT…played a part in this operation.”
(end of part 3)

40 Years After CIA and ITT's 1973 Coup In Chile: A Look At `Democracy Now!''s ITT-Lannan Foundation Connection--Part 2

On Sept. 28, 1973 the now-defunct Weather Underground anti-imperialist political group sent a letter and communique to various underground newspapers and aboveground U.S. media outlets. The letter from the Weather Underground stated the following:

“Dear Friends,

“We are sending this communique to newspapers and radio stations around the country. Our purpose is to help explain the role of ITT and the U.S. in the overthrow of President Salvador Allende and the popular government of Chile…This communique accompanies the bombing of the Headquarters for Latin America of ITT in New York City, which was carried out today…”

And the Weather Underground’s September 28, 1973 communique included the following text:

“Tonight we attacked the ITT headquarters for America in New York City, in support of the people in Chile, and to add our voice to the international expression of outrage and anger at the involvement of ITT and the U.S. government in the overthrow of socialist Chile…

“Without the machinations of ITT and the U.S. government these events would not have happened. In spite of their insolent denials they stand indicted by their own words and deeds. The blood of thousands of people is on their hands.

“Indictment:

“1. ITT attempted to subvert Chile’s elections and government. The secret ITT memos exposed in March 1972 explicitly state that in 1970 ITT financed Allende’s opponent and cooperated with the CIA to try to create economic chaos in Chile and instigate a military coup. ITT offered the White House a million dollars to finance anti-Allende activities. In 1971 ITT sent to General Alexander Haig, Kissinger’s deputy, an 18-point program which urged that `everything should be done quietly but effectively to see that Allende does not get through the crucial next six months.’

“2. ITT and the two other major investors in Chile, Anacondaa nd Kennecott copper companies, robbed the people of their subsistence. Chile is a country with a great wealth of natural resources but her people are very poor. Her wealth has been extracted by these giant multinational corporations in the form of exorbitant profits. ITT has assets there amounting to more than $200 million…

“ITT is a symbol to the whole world of U.S. greed and ruthlessness the way Dow Chemical Corporation, the manufacturers of napalm, came to symbolize the Vietnam war makers. ITT can be understood by millions of people as an international enemy. They have offices in every major U.S. city and in seventy countries. They recruit on college campuses. They own the telephone company in Puerto Rico. They created the electronic battlefield in Vietnam. They made the avionics system that guided Nixon’s bombs to the hospitals of Hanoi. They should be attacked throughout this country. This is one way to show support for Chile…”

Yet, ironically, some of the blood money that the now-deceased J. Patrick Lannan, Sr. collected from owning stock in ITT and sitting on the ITT board of directors--before and after the CIA and ITT-promoted military coup in Chile overthrew the democratically-elected Allende regime in Chile in September 1973--was used to set up the Lannan family’s Lannan Foundation that provides hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in operating funds for alternative media/left gatekeeper groups like "Democracy Now!", "The Nation", and "Mother Jones" magazine. Between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2011, for example, the producers of "Democracy Now!" accepted $1.4 million in “charitable grant”/blood money from the foundation that former ITT Director and ITT stockholder Lannan established: $375,000 in 2008; $350,000 in 2009; $375,000 in 2010; and $300,000 in 2011.

As the Lannan Foundation’s website notes, “in 1960 J. Patrick Lannan, Sr., entrepreneur and financier, established Lannan Foundation” and “died in 1983 at the age of 78; and “in 1986 Lannan Foundation received a substantial endowment from his estate.” And as the "New York Times" observed in an obituary of J. Patrick Lannan, Sr. which it published in its September 27, 1983 issue, “Mr. Lannan was a director of the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation [ITT] for 36 years” and “retired as director emeritus” of ITT in May of 1983.
(end of part 2)

40 Years After CIA and ITT's 1973 Coup In Chile: A Look At `Democracy Now!''s ITT-Lannan Foundation Connection--Part 1

“Not only do we suffer the financial blockade, we are also the victims of clear aggression. Two firms that are part of the central nucleus of the large transnational companies that sunk their claws into my country, the International Telegraph and Telephone Company and the Kennecott Copper Corporation, tried to run our political life.

“ITT, a huge corporation whose capital is greater than the budget of several Latin American nations put together and greater than that of some industrialized countries, began, from the very moment that the people's movement was victorious in the elections of September 1970, a sinister action to keep me from taking office as President.

“Between September and November of 1970, terrorist actions that were planned outside of my country took place there, with the aid of internal fascist groups. All this led to the murder of General Rene Schneider Chereau, Commander in Chief of the Army, a just man and a great soldier who symbolized the constitutionalism of the armed forces of Chile….ITT…has admitted that in 1970 it even made suggestions to the Government of the United States that it intervene in political events in Chile….

“Last July the world learned with amazement of different aspects of a new plan of action that ITT had presented to the US Government in order to overthrow my Government in a period of six months. I have with me the document, dated in October 1971, that contains the 18-point plan that was talked about. They wanted to strangle us economically, carry out diplomatic sabotage, create panic among the population and cause social disorder so that when the Government lost control, the armed forces would be driven to eliminate the democratic regime and impose a dictatorship.

“While the ITT was working out this plan, its representatives went through the motions of negotiating a formula for the Chilean state to take over ITT's share in the Chilean telephone company. From the first days of my administration, we had started talks to purchase the telephone company that ITT controlled, for reasons of national security.

“On two occasions I received high officials of the firm. My Government acted in good faith in the discussions. On the other hand, ITT refused to accept payment at prices that had been set in keeping with the verdict of international experts. It posed difficulties for a rapid and fair solution, while clandestinely it was trying to unleash chaos in my country.

“ITT's refusal to accept a direct agreement and knowledge of its sneaky maneuvers has forced us to send to Congress a bill calling for its nationalization….

“Distinguished representatives, before the conscience of the World I accuse ITT of trying to provoke a civil war in my country -the supreme state of disintegration for a country. This is what we call imperialist intervention….”

--from Chilean President Salvador Allende’s December 4, 1972 speech to the United Nations General Assembly

“In 1970, a democratic election in Chile had voted in a leftist government led by Dr. Salvador Allende…American companies, including International Telephone and Telegraph , had spent their money in the South American nation, and the CIA was determined to protect their investments. Years of meddling followed…ITT was the focus of outrage worldwide. Its offices were bombed in Italy and Switzerland.

“At 2 a.m., September 28 [1973], the night telephone supervisor at the New York Times received a call. `Take this down because I’m only going to say this once,’ a man told her. `I am the Weatherman Underground. At the ITT-American building, a bomb is going to go off in 15 minutes. This is in retaliation of the ITT crimes they committed against Chile.’

“Nineteen minutes later, a dynamite bomb detonated on the ninth floor of ITT’s 50th Street office. Window panes crashed down to the sidewalk below, which was deserted.”

--from "Sing a Battle Song: The Revolutionary Poetry, Statements and Communiques of the Weather Underground, 1970-1974"

“…In 1947, a group of rich stockholders decided to organize a revolt—led by Clendennin Ryan—who with his family and friends owned a sixth of the ITT shares…After a dramatic proxy fight, a compromise was agreed on with the help of another very tough customer, J. Patrick Lannan, a tall, cold Irishman from Minnesota. Seven new directors would join the board, including Ryan and Lannan (who is still a director today)…”

--from Anthony Sampson’s 1973 book, "The Sovereign State of ITT"

“Patrick Lannan Jr., 70, heads the foundation his financier father founded in 1960. With $222 million in assets, it is Santa Fe’s biggest by far…”

--the Santa Fe Reporter on September 8, 2009
(end of part 1)

John Swinton: On U.S. Press and Role of U.S. Newspaper Editors

In a 1901 speech to a banquet of New York City newspaper editors, a late 19th-century U.S. newspaper editor and journalist named John Swinton characterized the U.S. press and the role of U.S. newspaper editors in the following way:

"There is no such thing in America as an independent press.

"You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write his honest opinions, and if you did you know beforehand that it would never appear in print.

"I am paid $150,000 a week [in late 19th and early 20th-century money] for keeping my honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with--others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things--and any of you who would be so foolish as to write his honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job.

"The business of the New York journalist is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell his race and his country for his daily bread.

"You know this and I know it, and what folly is this to be toasting an `Independent Press.'

"We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping-jacks; they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."

 

`CounterPunch' and ISO's Lannan Foundation Connection--Part 2

“The Lannan Foundation was formed in 1960 by the late J. Patrick Lannan, entrepreneur and ITT director….When the foundation received $100 million from the Lannan estate in 1986, trustees vowed to concentrate on support for the contemporary visual arts….Directors who have input are Sharon A. Ferrill, John R. Lannan, Michael J. Lannan, Frank Lawler, Patricia Lawler, John J. Lannan, Tscheng S. Feng and Mark Hampton."

--the Los Angeles Times (10/16/86)

“…Defendant Lannan received a direct financial benefit by ignoring the numerous red flags raised by the China Trust Bank participation loans, approving them regardless, and then accepting a $75,000 referral fee on the very loans he approved…”

--from the “Complaint for Negligence, Gross Negligence and Breach of Fiduciary Duty” filed on April 20, 2012 by the FDIC as Receiver for First Bank of Beverly Hills (case 2:12-CV-034480DDP-CW)

CounterPunch and ISO’s Lannan Foundation Connection—Part 2

Following the failure of the First Bank of Beverly Hills, the California Department of Financial Institutions closed the First Bank of Beverly Hills on April 24, 2009 and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation [FDIC] was appointed as its Receiver. The FDIC was then compelled to spend around $349 million to reimburse the First Bank of Beverly Hills customers whose deposits had been insured by the FDIC; and those First Bank of Beverly Hills depositors whose accounts contained more than the maximum amount covered by FDIC insurance also lost around $179,000 in uninsured bank deposits.

On April 20, 2012, the FDIC then filed in court a legal “Complaint for Negligence, Gross Negligence and Breach of Fiduciary Duty” against the First Bank of Beverly Hills’s former executive officers and directors which stated the following:

“…The FDIC as Receiver [for First Bank of Beverly Hills] seeks to recover losses of at least $100.6 million the Bank suffered…In derogation of their duty to engage in `safe and sound’ banking practices, Defendants recklessly implemented an unsustainable business model pursuing rapid asset growth concentrated in large high-risk loans without having adequate loan underwriting policies and practices to manage the risk. In addition, Defendants routinely violated the Bank’s Loan Policy, thereby improperly approving loans that had little chance of repayment…

“Defendants’ abdication of responsibility rose to a new level of willful blindness when, shortly after receiving significant regulatory criticism concerning the Bank’s poor underwriting practices, Defendants approved two large Loss Loans containing the exact same deficiencies the regulators had just criticized.

“By approving the Loss Loans despite their myriad obvious deficiencies, the Defendants lined their own pockets when First Bank of Beverly Hills dividends, boosted by false profits on large problematic loans that were unlikely to be repaid, were upstreamed to the Bank’s parent company—of which numerous Defendants were shareholders….Defendants…voted to approve nine loans in the total amount of $143.5 million in disregard of sound banking principles and the bank’s own lending policy…”

The FDIC’s April 20, 2012 legal complaint also contained the following references and allegations with respect to a former First Bank of Beverly Hills director named John Lannan:

“John Lannan was a director from June 2003 until June 2008…The China Trust Bank loans were part of a $117.1 million package of eight loan participations with China Trust Bank…Lannan voted to approve the purchase of the China Trust Bank loan participations, despite the fact that he stood to benefit personally from the approval of the loan. In fact, Lannan received a $75,000 referral fee from the Bank for referring the participations to the Bank…Defendant Lannan owed to First Bank of Beverly Hills the duty to not approve loans for which he would obtain financial benefit…

“Defendant Lannan was negligent in affirmatively voting in favor of approving the China Trust Bank loans and then accepting financial benefit in connection with those same loans, in the form of referral fees for bringing the China Trust Bank loans to First Bank of Beverly Hills…As a direct and proximate result of Defendant Lannan’s negligence, the FDIC-Receivership suffered damages in an amount to be proven at trial in excess of $52 million…”

Coincidentally, according to an October 16, 1986 article in the Los Angeles Times, a “John R. Lannan” and a “John J. Lannan” were members of the Lannan Foundation board of directors during the 1980s; and according to the Lannan Foundation’s Form 990 financial filing for 2006, a “John J. Lannan” was an assistant treasurer of the Lannan Foundation at that time.

According to its Form 990 financial filing for 2011, the tax-exempt, “non-profit” Lannan Foundation paid its president—former Federal Signal Corporation board member J. Patrick Lannan, Jr.—an annual salary of over $260,000, earned over $5 million in interest and dividends, and took in over $5 million from its sale of assets in 2011. In addition, between the beginning and end of 2011, the value of the “non-profit” Lannan Foundation’s total assets increased from over $199.7 million to over $213.1 million.

The Lannan Foundation earns its dividends and interest—and obtains much of its money for “charitable” grants—from investing in the stocks and bonds investment portfolios of funds like Prime Global Assets Fund, FPA New Global Allocations, Crescent Fund and Blackrock Global Allocation—whose portfolios include stock in transnational corporations that exploit workers and consumers in the United States and foreign countries. According to its Form 990 financial filing for 2006, the Lannan Foundation owned, for example, $124 million worth of corporate stock—including big chunks of stock in the following corporations: Wal-Mart Stores ($3.5 million worth of stock); Goldman Sachs ($3.5 million worth of stock); Wells Fargo ($3.9 million worth of stock); AIG ($3.1 million worth of stock); Berkshire Hathaway ($6 million worth of stock); Coca-Cola ($2.8 million worth of stock); Walt Disney-ABC ($1.3 million worth of stock); Gannet Inc/USA Today ($2.5 million worth of stock); General Electric ($3.8 million worth of stock); Johnson and Johnson ($3.1 million worth of stock); IBM ($3.9 million worth of stock); Microsoft ($2.4 million worth of stock); Pepsico ($2.9 million worth of stock); Procter and Gamble ($1.8 million worth of stock); and Manpower Inc. ($861,000 worth of stock).

Yet, ironically, some U.S. alternative media groups and U.S. left groups and columnists who claim to be opposed to the exploitation of U.S. working-class and middle-class people by ultra-rich families like the Lannan family--and the transnational corporations which the ultra-rich families and their foundations own-- apparently accepted “charitable grants” in 2011 from the Lannan Foundation that former ITT Director and major ITT stockholder J. Patrick Lannan, Sr. originally set up in 1960.

Besides giving the Institute for the Advancement of Journalistic Clarity/CounterPunch alternative media group a $2,000 charitable grant for “support of CounterPunch” and $117,000 in charitable grant money plus a $200,000 interest-free loan to the International Socialist Organization [ISO]-affiliated Center for Economic Research and Social Change in 2011, the Lannan Foundation--according to its Form 990 financial filing--gave the following other grants to U.S. alternative media and U.S. left or left-liberal groups or individual journalists in 2011:

1. A $300,000 “charitable grant” to the Democracy Now! “Foundation"’/Democracy Now! “for general operating support;.

2. A $180,000 “charitable grant” to The Nation magazine/The Nation Institute;.

3. A $150,000 individual “Cultural Freedom Award” charitable grant to then-Salon columnist Glenn Greenwald;.

4. A $100,000 “charitable grant” to Mother Jones magazine/Foundation for National Progress; and

5. A $2,000 “charitable grant” to Common Dreams.

So don’t expect much critical investigative reporting about current ultra-rich Lannan family members, J. Patrick Lannan, Sr., the Federal Signal Corporation or the Lannan Foundation and its special economic interests to be provided by CounterPunch, Democracy Now!, The Nation magazine, Glenn Greenwald, Mother Jones magazine, Common Dreams, Haymarket Books or any ISO-affiliated publication during the next few years. (end of article)

Ford Foundation, The CIA and U.S. Establishment Conspiracy--Conclusion

“Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick…has a history of ethically questionable connections to financial firms…Patrick, who followed Romney as governor of the Bay State, praised Bain in two separate TV appearances on Thursday.

“`I've got a lot of friends there,’ he said on MSNBC's `Morning Joe,` calling Bain `a perfectly fine company’ with `a role to play in the private economy.’…

“Patrick's close relationship with Ameriquest, once one of the largest subprime lenders in the country, was widely criticized during his first campaign for governor in 2006. As head of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division in the 1990s, he had settled a discriminatory lending complaint against Ameriquest for $4 million -- a relatively small amount for the lender. Patrick later landed on Ameriquest's board, where he made $360,000 a year, according to a report in the Boston Globe. While serving on the board, Patrick personally lobbied the U.S. Senate to grant Ameriquest’s CEO an ambassadorship, as reported by the Los Angeles Times.

“Patrick -- who has also worked for Coca-Cola and the Ford Foundation -- stayed on the subprime lender's board during the housing bubble from 2004 to 2006, even as the embattled lender began settling several high-profile predatory lending lawsuits. He resigned from Ameriquest's board during his first run for governor, just prior to the company's financial collapse, but not before he asked Citigroup executive and former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin to provide Ameriquest with emergency financial assistance, according to the Globe. Citigroup acquired Ameriquest in 2008…”

--Zach Carter in The Huntington Post on May 31, 2012

Ford Foundation, The CIA and U.S. Establishment Conspiracy—Conclusion

(Note: The following historical article was written in 2002.)

The Ford Foundation's Vice-President for Media in recent years, Alison Bernstein, was an associate dean at Princeton University between 1990 and 1992. But for most of the last twenty years she has been on the Ford Foundation payroll. [A poster to the WBAI Listener's Bulletin Board a few months ago remembered Ford Foundation Vice-President for Media Bernstein as being a family relation of the now-deceased former conductor of the New York Philharmonic orchestra, Leonard Bernstein; and as someone who, as a college student, claimed to be anti-Establishment in her politics. But the accuracy of the WBAI listener's memory of Alison Bernstein could not be confirmed.]

As the Ford Foundation's Vice-President for Media, Bernstein implements the media policy priorities that are determined by committees of the Ford Foundation board of trustees and authorized by the Ford Foundation president. In the 1990s and early 21st-century the Ford Foundation board of trustees has included two former CEOs and former board chairmen of the Xerox Corporation, the CEO and board chairman of ALCOA, an executive vice-president and general counsel of Coca Cola Company, the chairman and CEO of Levi Strauss & Co., the chairman of Reuters Holdings, PLC, the senior partner of the Akin, Gump,Straus Hauser & Feld lobbying firm, and the president of Vassar College. Other corporations with directors who sat on the Ford Foundation board of trustees in the late 1990s or after 2000 included Time Warner, Chase Manhattan Bank, Ryder Systems, CBS, AT & T, Adolph Coors Company, Dayton-Hudson, the Bank of England, J.P. Morgan, Marine Midland Bank, Southern California Edison, KRCX Radio, the Central Gas & Electric Corp. DuPont, Citicorp and the New York Stock Exchange. A vice-president and general counsel of Texaco Inc. named Deval Laurdine Patrick [who subsequently was shifted into the governor’s office of Massachusetts in 2007 by the Massachusetts Democratic Party and corporate establishment] has also sat on the Ford Foundation board of trustees in recent years.

The Ford Foundation's Board of Trustees' Education, Media, Arts and Culture Committee in the late 1990s, for instance, included the president of Vassar College, the chairman of Reuters Holdings PLC, the former chairman and CEO of Xerox and Clinton crony Vernon Jordan--also a director of Revlon, American Express, J.C. Penney, Sara Lee, Xerox, Bankers Trust, Dow Jones, Union Carbide and Ryder Systems. Clinton crony Jordan also was the chair of the Ford Foundation Board of Trustee's Audit and Management Committee in the late 1990s.

In 2002, the wife of the Bush II White House's presidential historian (Michael Beschloss] sat on the Ford Foundation board of trustees. Ford Foundation Trustee Afsaneh Mashayetkhi Beschloss, a former World Bank managing officer, also was the CEO/president of the Carlyle Asset Management Group. President Bush II's father George Herbert Walker Bush, former Secretary of Defense and former Deputy CIA Director Frank Carlucci, former Secretary of State James Baker and Billionaire Speculator George Soros are also involved in the Carlyle Group that Ford Foundation Trustee Mashayetkhi Beschloss managed. The Ford Foundation board-linked Carlyle Group received $1.3 billion in Pentagon war contracts in 1999, was the 11th-largest recipient of Pentagon war contracts in 2000 and invested heavily in war stock.

A former member of the board of directors of Chase Manhattan Bank, Susan Berresford, was the Ford Foundation president in the early 21st century. Ford Foundation President Berresford was also then a member of the North American Committee of David Rockefeller's Trilateral Commission--sitting next to other U.S. Establishment figures, such as Zbigniew Brzezinski and Madeline Albright.

Ford Foundation President Berresford was also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, to which the Ford Foundation gave a grant of $100,000 "for the development of a Council Task Force on Terrorism" in 2002. Featured on the Council on Foreign Relations web site at www.cfr.org on 9/26/02 was an advertisement for "a New Council book," which stated "Invasion Is The Only Realistic Option to Head off the Threat from Iraq, Argues Kenneth Pollack in The Threatening Storm." In recent years, the vice-chairman of the board of directors of the Council on Foreign Relations, Carla Hill, has sat on the board of directors of Chevron (as has National Security Affairs Adviser and former Carnegie Corporation of NY Trustee Condoleezza Rice). Other members of the Council on Foreign Relations include former CIA Director John Deutch, former CIA Consultant/MacArthur Foundation Consultant and current Northwestern University President Henry Bienen, Richard Holbrooke, Billionaire Speculator George Soros and former MacArthur Foundation Director Laura D'Andreas Tyson. A few years ago, the Ford Foundation also gave a $701,130 grant to the Council on Foreign Relations for "core support for the activities of the Program on Alternative Future for Southern Asia, its Energy and United States Policy."

In a 2000 interview with Philanthropy Magazine, Trilateral Commission member Susan Berresford gave the official version of how the Ford Foundation operates:

“We have a senior management team that meets every Monday morning in my office...I approve all grants over $100,000. Grants up to $100,000 can be made by staff at various levels. We budget on a two-year basis, and we work with our board...Every grantmaker writes what we call a program office memo. That is ultimately approved by his or her immediate supervisor and then by someone at a vice-presidential program level. Then, all grants that they make under $100,000 pursuant to that memo, they and their immediate supervisors approve. And anything over that needs my approval. We meet every other week for an entire morning; and all the grants over $100,000 that have been recommended in the prior two-week period are on a list and we talk about them.

“I get a write-up on every single grant. There may be 50 on the list, or ten on the list. I read them all, think about them all, and we discuss some of them...The meeting is really a group discussion. I lead it, and I have to put my signature on the grant in the end, but all the officers of the foundation are there, and any program officer or any staff member who wants to attend can attend and participate.

“...We make grants of $1,000 and we make $50 million grants. We make endowment grants and project grants and general support grants...

“It's a policy-making board instead of a grantmaking board...

“In our foundation we draw our board members from all over the world...It makes more sense for the board to set foundation policy.

“They set the budget level and broad allocations...We set our budget at 5.8 percent of a three-year rolling average of our portfolio value. Then, depending on our judgment about the stock market and other things, we may move around a little bit from that...

“We convene groups of our grantees with groups of our staff who make grants to them...

“...Linda Strumpf is the vice president for investment at the foundation. We have an investment committee of the board. They are in touch regularly and Linda and I talk frequently. We all think hard about asset allocation and the broad investment choices we make...In recent years, we have put a significant amount of money into venture capital and a lot of that in technology, and have done very, very well with those investments.

“...We do not, other than in a very few cases, screen investments.

Besides managing the Ford Foundation's multi-billion dollar unscreened investment portfolio and the rest of the Ford Foundation's $10.7 billion in assets, Ford Foundation Vice-President for Investments Linda Strumpf also has been a member of the investment committee of the Ms. Foundation for Women—which has received millions of dollars in grants from the Ford Foundation in recent years. In addition, Ford Foundation Vice-President for Investments Strumpf is a member of the investment committee of Penn State University—which received over $58 million in war research contracts from the Pentagon in 1999. That same year, the "non-profit," tax-exempt Ford Foundation paid Linda Strumpt, its vice-president for investments, an annual salary of $852,911.

In the December 1988 issue of Multinational Monitor, Jim Donahue reported, in an article entitled "The Foundations of Apartheid and The Nuclear Industry," that in 1988, during the apartheid era, the Ford Foundation had $1.32 billion invested in companies doing business in South Africa, accounting for 43 percent of its total investment value at that time. The Multinational Monitor also noted that in 1988, "eighteen million dollars" of the MacArthur Foundation's investments were in apartheid South Africa-tied companies and "the Rockefeller Foundation held $233 million in corporations doing business in or with South Africa" during the apartheid era.

Multinational Monitor also observed in 1988 that "Nuclear Weapons-Linked Investment Corporations that receive government contracts to build components for nuclear weapons are popular among leading foundations" and "the Ford Foundation...holdings account for 16 percent of Ford's total investment value, or $496 million, with the largest holding being in nuclear-contract-linked IBM and General Electric."

Although the Ford Foundation posts a list of its recent grants on its web site, it's not that easy to locate on the Internet a list of all the current corporate stocks that are currently contained in the Ford Foundation's unscreened stock portfolio. Establishment foundations have a long tradition of not being eager to make it easy for the U.S. public to know which corporate stocks they own. As Ferdinand Lundberg observed in his America’s 60 Families book long ago: "E.C. Lindeman, the outstanding authority on the internal functioning of foundations, states in his monumental Wealth and Culture, published in 1936, that his `first surprise was to discover that those who managed foundations and trusts did not wish to have these instruments investigated. Had it occurred to me then,' he continued, `that it would require eight years of persistent inquiry at a wholly disproportionate cost to disclose even the basic quantitative facts desired, I am sure that the study would have been promptly abandoned."

What can be easily discovered on the Internet is that over $4 billion of the Ford Foundation's $10.7 billion in assets in 2001 was invested in U.S. corporate stock and over $1.3 billion in foreign corporate stock. From its billions of dollars in corporate stockholdings in 2001, the "non-profit" Ford Foundation received $343 million in dividends and interest income and earned an additional capital gains income of $992 million. Yet on its 2001 annual income, the "non-profit" Ford Foundation only paid a 1% excise tax.

But despite the great power that control over such excess wealth gives to Establishment foundations like the Ford Foundation to influence world history and manage social change on behalf of Ultra-Rich power elite interests, the foundation-subsidized alternative media groups rarely report critically on the world of Big Foundations--or on the U.S. Establishment conspiracies that may be hatched in either the foundation, corporate or national security state apparatus boardrooms. Yet without an understanding of the political economic and cultural role that Big Foundations and Ultra-Rich power elite conspiracy plays in global politics, one can't really understand how the System operates or how world history is determined. And one's political and intellectual consciousness and analysis is going to remain incomplete and partial, in a significant way.

In his article, entitled "Getting Behind the Media: What are the subtle tradeoffs of foundation support for journalists?", Rick Edmunds characterized the ethical issues that develops when journalists--even alternative media journalists--begin to rely on subsidies from the Big Foundation to fund their alternative media work:

“In research published...by the Poynter Institute on the rising number, scope, and dollar amounts of foundation grants for journalism, I found that media recipients are becoming ever more comfortable--and perhaps less reflective--about taking the money...When they show up with much-needed funding for an investigative series or pay the freight for a reporter working on an underreported beat, foundations don't receive the same due-diligence scrutiny for hidden subtext that journalists apply to a corporaet press release or a politician's statement. The effect that foundation money may have on the news business is subtle but real, and increasingly troubling on the ethical front...In public television and radio and at certain serious magazines, foundation funding has become a way of life, and grants can run to seven figures...The percentage of public broadcasting revenue coming from foundations has doubled in the past two decades. And in the world of nonprofit media, a few million a year goes a long way...

“...The lack of overt editorial should not blind us to the more subtle, one might say cultural, ties that bind these news organizations to their funders. There are, for example, any number of opportunities for grant makers to shape the editorial product as it is developed...If the foundations' and recipients' goals have been properly `aligned' not much more may be needed to see that the intent is carried out...

“Lost in the benevolent fog that surrounds most foundations is the notion that they may have more of an agenda, not less, than a sponsoring corporation...Cultural affinity can sometimes make it difficult for editors and journalists to draw the distinction between accepting a grant and accepting a funder's point of view...

“National Public Radio is the heavyweight champion in harvesting these grants...Its income is pushing $100 million, about 40 percent of that from corporations and foundations. NPR consistently declines to say what share of the grants that it receives are restricted to specific content areas...Also, for several years, NPR's reporting unit on money and politics has been supported by a grant from the...Schumann Foundation...”

Speaking of the Schumann Foundation/Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, a KPFA listener and 9/11 conspiracy journalist recently discovered that its President, Public Affairs TV Inc. Executive Director Bill Moyers, also now sits on the board of directors of Billionaire Speculator George Soros' Open Society Institute. But since the former publisher of the Schumann Foundation-subsidized Columbia Journalism Review, Joan Konner, is both a board member of Open Society Institute board member Moyers' Schumann Foundation and the president of Open Society Institute board member Moyers' Public Affairs TV Inc., don't expect the Columbia Journalism Review to question too much the ethical appropriateness of this Schumann Foundation/Open Society Institute board interlocking directorate. And certainly don't expect too much questioning of such institutional relationships by the Schumann Foundation-subsidized FAIR group or by the Open Society Institute-subsidized Pacifica/Democracy Now! or The Nation/Radio Nation.

And if, by some chance, the Ford Foundation's publicity shield ever gets penetrated in a "parallel left" alternative media world which it has been heavily subsidizing in recent years, it still can move quickly to neutralize any negative publicity—by calling upon a "counter-cultural" public relations firm that used to represent the Pacifica Foundation, called Fenton Communications. In addition to having the Ford Foundation as one of its clients during the 1990s, the Ford Foundation web site now indicates that Fenton Communications was apparently given a $300,000 grant "for communications activities designed to promote informed dialogue in response to the September 11 activity, with an emphasis on protecting civil liberties and preventing discrimination"--by a Ford Foundation on whose board sits the wife of the Bush White House presidential historian.

(conclusion of 2002-written historical article)

Alternative Media Censorship: Sponsored By CIA's Ford Foundation?--Part 6

"The Progressive Media Project is an affiliate of The Progressive, Inc., the nonprofit educational institution that also publishes The Progressive magazine….In 1993, Allen Hunter, then of the Havens Center at the University of Wisconsin, and Matthew Rothschild of The Progressive, came up with the idea for the Progressive Media Project….With crucial…help from the MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Progressive Media Project began to assign, edit, and distribute 200 op-ed commentaries every year….”

--from the Progressive Media Project website

(Note: The following historical article about the hidden financial history of the U.S. alternative media and its historical left gatekeepers was written in 2002. So in 2012, some of the left gatekeepers mentioned in this 2002 historical article may have moved on to other positions within the U.S. alternative media/left subculture or mainstream U.S. media or academic world during the last 10 years.)

Progressive

The editor of Progressive magazine, Matthew Rothschild, also attempted to marginalize 9/11 conspiracy journalists and researchers a few months ago. Coincidentally, the Madison, Wisconsin-based Progressive enterprise has also been receiving a lot of money from the foundations of a politically unprogressive U.S. Establishment since the 1990s.

In 1992, for instance, a $50,000 grant was given to Progressive by the MacArthur Foundation (on whose board ABC News radio commentator Paul Harvey and Enron Global Power & Pipelines director Thomas Theobald sat for many years) "to solicit and disseminate opinion pieces relevant to U.S. foreign policy and international security." That same year, "several MacArthur staff members" were "called to consult with staff members of Bill Clinton's presidential campaign," according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy. And, during the late 1990s, one of the top Clinton Administration economic policymakers, Laura Tyson, became a member of the MacArthur Foundation board of directors.

An additional $150,000 grant was also given to Progressive by the MacArthur Foundation in 1994. And in 2002, the MacArthur Foundation gave $120,000 more in grant money to the Progressive enterprise, whose magazine anti-conspiracy theorist Matthew Rothschild edits.

Like FAIR/CounterSpin and Pacifica/Democracy Now!, the Progressive enterprise has also been receiving a lot of money from the Ford Foundation since the 1990s. In 1998, for instance, Progressive was given a $200,000 grant by the Ford Foundation (on whose board of trustees sat Clinton crony Vernon Jordan). And in 2000, two more grants, totalling $250,000, were given to Progressive by the Ford Foundation.

Besides receiving grants from the MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation, Progressive has also obtained funds from The Rockefeller Foundation in recent years. In 1998, for instance, a $50,000 grant was given to Progressive by The Rockefeller Foundation.

In 2000, Progressive Inc. took in an annual income of $1.7 million, including $69,727 from its sale of advertising space. And its editor, Matthew Rothschild, has apparently been paid an annual salary of $44,468 in recent years--for putting out a Democratic Party-oriented magazine that rarely mentions the Ford Foundation's historic relation to the CIA and rarely publishes articles written by 9/11 conspiracy journalists or researchers.

(end of part 6 of 2002-written historical article)

Alternative Media Censorship: Sponsored By CIA's Ford Foundation (and Billionaire Pritzker Family/Hyatt Hotels Dynasty)?--Part 5

“Although Susan and Nicholas Pritzker purchased their $2.5-million ranch several years ago, it was not until they disclosed plans to build a 10-structure family compound totaling 54,000 square feet that residents learned of the renowned hotelier's desire to go rural -- very rural.


“An hour's drive north of San Francisco, Nicasio's population of 589 could fit into just one of the Pritzker family's 212 Hyatt hotels.


“Yet this is the community in which Nicholas Pritzker, chairman and president of Hyatt Development Corp. and president of Hyatt Equities, and his wife, Susan, a part-time philanthropist and full-time mother, want to settle.


“A privately held company, Hyatt manages and owns hotels, resorts, apartment complexes, casinos, senior citizen housing and health care businesses. The large Pritzker family is among the wealthiest in the nation.


“Not all of Nicasio embraces the Pritzker plan. That the Pritzkers want to build a complex of oversized houses, critics say, despoils the very beauty that drew them to Nicasio…


“Initial plans for the Pritzkers' 845-acre ranch call for a 12,000-square-foot main ranch house, a caretaker's residence and an agricultural building. The pool house, garages, farming facilities and other houses, for their four children and two grandchildren, would be built over the course of many years…

--from a March 16, 2003 article in the Los Angeles Times

“Susan [Pritzker] has…has been a on the board of Pitzer College since 1990 and the chair since 2001. ..Susan is also chair of the board of directors of the Chicago Foundation for Women…Susan is married to Nick Pritzker, whose family are owners of the Hyatt Hotel chain.”

--from the Mother Jones/motherjones.com/ Foundation for National Progress website’s board of directors’ biographies page

“This week, Hyatt hotel workers and their allies are holding demonstrations in London and cities across the United States, marking the launch of a global boycott of Hyatt hotels. The far-reaching boycott is a response to the hotel company’s extensive abuse of its workers and low wages…Hyatt has singled itself out as the worst employer in the hotel industry. Hyatt has abused its housekeepers and other hotel workers, replacing longtime employees with minimum wage temporary workers and imposing dangerous workloads on those who remain…”
--from the Hyatt Hurts website on July 24, 2012

(Note: The following historical article about the hidden financial history of the U.S. alternative media and its historical left gatekeepers was written in 2002. So in 2012, some of the left gatekeepers mentioned in this 2002 historical article may have moved on to other positions within the U.S. alternative media/left subculture or mainstream U.S. media or academic world during the last 10 years.)

Mother Jones/ Foundation for National Progress

Like FAIR/CounterSpin/IPA, Mother Jones/Foundation for National Progress received a lot of money from Public Affairs TV Inc. Executive Director Bill Moyers' Schumann Foundation[Schumann Center for Media and Democracy] in the 1990s. In 1995, for instance, Mother Jones/Foundation for National Progress was given a $500,000 grant by Moyers' Schumann Foundation "to support Mother Jones magazine." A second grant of $150,000 was given to Mother Jones/Foundation for National Progress in 1996 "to support the hiring of a new senior editor at Mother Jones magazine." And an additional grant of $100,000 was given to Mother Jones/Foundation for National Progress in 1997 "to promote money in politics investigation by Mother Jones magazine." As Rick Edmunds noted in an early 21st century essay on the internet (entitled "Getting Behind the Media: What are the subtle tradeoffs of foundation support for journalism?"): "Though it is often buried in the fine print of the masthead...many journals of opinion are themselves nonprofit, the better to attract foundation funding. That is true of Mother Jones."

Mother Jones magazine claims to be a non-profit "Foundation for National Progress." Yet Mother Jones magazine took in nearly $6 million in annual revenues in 2000, including $822,358 from the sale of advertising space and $176,140 from renting out its subscriber list. From this gross income of $6 million in 2000, Mother Jones/Foundation for National Progress then paid out the following salaries to its top alternative media executives:

1. Mother Jones magazine Editor-in-Chief Roger Cohn was paid an annual salary of $144,670;

2. Mother Jones magazine Publisher and Foundation for National Progress Board President Jay Harris--a former general manager of the Washington Post Company's Newsweek magazine's Pacific operations--was paid an annual salary of $144,379;

3. Mother Jones magazine Director of Sales & Marketing Eric Weiss was paid an annual salary of $105,004;

4. Mother Jones magazine Creative Director Jane Palecek was paid an annual salary of $88,197;

5. Foundation for National Progress Secretary/Treasurer and CEO Joan Catherine Braun was paid an annual salary of $85,453;

6. Mother Jones magazine Editor Eric Bates was paid an annual salary of $74,716;

7. Mother Jones magazine Advertising Manager Eileen Ellis was paid an annual salary of $67,233; and

8. Mother Jones Art Director Caroline Joy was paid an annual salary of $61,187.

Mother Jones/Foundation for National Progress also spent $247,000 on fund-raising in 2000; and its board of directors included [now-deceased] Anita Roddick of the Body Shop, Kadima Foundation Chair Chara Schreyer, HKH Foundation director Harriet Barlow and Mother Jones magazine founder Adam Hochschild. Hochschild also has set up the Adam Hochschild Charitable Trust/Sequoia Fund, whose stated tax-exempt purpose is to "promote the charitable literary and educational purposes of Foundation for National Progress." According to its 2000 report, the Adam Hochschild Charitable Trust/Sequoia Fund apparently did this by contributing $2.4 million worth of stock to Mother Jones/Foundation for National Progress. As a result, $1,176,617 worth of Wal Mart Stores stock (19,082 shares) was apparently owned by Mother Jones/Foundation for National Progress in 2001. [In recent years, Susan Prtizker, the wife of a member of the billionaire Pritzker family of Chicago that both controls Hyatt Hotels and played a leading role in raising campaign funds for the 2008 Democratic presidential campaign of Barack Obama, has also been a member of the Mother Jones/Foundation for National Progress board of directors.]

Besides receiving money from Bill Moyers' Schumann Foundation and the Hochschild Charitable Trust/Sequoia Fund of one its own board members, another interesting connection to the world of Establishment foundations exists at Mother Jones magazine. In 1997, the wife of Mother Jones/Foundation for National Progress board member Adam Hochschild--University of California-Berkeley Professor of Sociology Arlie Russell Hochschild--was given a $3 million grant by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation "to establish a Center for Working Families" at UC-Berkeley, which she now directs. Among the Establishment folks who presently sit on the board of trustees of the Sloan Foundation which funds UC-Berkeley Professor Arlie Russell Hochschild's center is former Secretary of the Air Force Sheila Widnall--who represented MIT on the board of trustess of the Pentagon's weapons research think-tank: the Institute for Defense Analyses (www.ida.org). Other members of the Sloan Foundation board include former chairmen of the General Motors, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley corporate boards and two other MIT professors. In 1991, the wife of Mother Jones/Foundation for National Progress board member Hochschild also was apparently given a grant by the Ford Foundation.

So it's probably not likely that many muckraking articles about either the Ford Foundation's historic relationship to the CIA, Bill Moyers' Schumann Foundation and Public Affairs TV Inc., the Sloan Foundation, the Institute for Defense Analyses, MIT or UC-Berkeley [or the Pritzker Family and Hyatt Hotels]--or on what evidence has been dug up by 9/11 conspiracy journalists and researchers--will be published much by the Mother Jones magazine alternative media gatekeepers/censors.

(end of part 5 of 2002-written historical article)