The Encampments | Official Trailer

`Remember Lumumba' protest folk song lyrics

An historical protest folk song from 2017 about role of Belgian and U.S. governments, UN and former Columbia University administration officials in eliminating democratically elected Congolese PM Patrice Lumumba, between July 1960 and January 1961.

lyrics

(chorus)
Lumumba
Remember Lumumba
Lumumba, Lumumba
Spoke for freedom. 

(verses)
The Belgians pulled out
The U.S. moved in
They wanted a puppet
Who wouldn't stand firm. (chorus)

Katanga they took
Belgium returned
UN troops came
Then changed their whole mission. (chorus)

Columbia Trustee Burden
Named Lumumba as his foe
And helped by the UN's Cordier
Lumumba was overthrown. (chorus)

He would not submit
They carried out a coup
They threw him in jail
And Patrice Lumumba they slew. (chorus)

They still want their empire
They still want their mines
And they still try to kill
Those who expose their crimes. (chorus)

Lumumba lives!
Lumumba lives!
Lumumba lives!
Lumumba lives!

Lumumba lives!
Lumumba lives!
Lumumba lives!
Lumumba lives!

Columbia University and the Elimination of Patrice Lumumba Revisited--Part 2

“…I would like to refer specifically to the painful case of the Congo, unique in the history of the modern world, which shows how, with absolute impunity, with the most insolent cynicism, the rights of peoples can be flouted. The direct reason for all this is the enormous wealth of the Congo, which the imperialist countries want to keep under their control…How can we forget the betrayal of the hope that Patrice Lumumba placed in the United Nations? How can we forget the machinations and maneuvers that followed in the wake of the occupation of that country by UN troops, under whose auspices the assassins of this great African patriot acted with impunity?...”

--Che Guevara in his Dec. 11, 1964 speech to the UN General Assembly

“…Cordier was part of the Congo Club, a group of senior UN officials intent on making sure that the international organization safeguarded Western interests in the Congo…. “

--Ludo De Witte in his 2001 book, The Assassination of Lumumba

“Lumumba’s fall and assassination were the result of a vast conspiracy involving U.S., Belgian and UN officials…My own research in the United Nations Archives in New York has yielded data on…the anti-Lumumba activities of Andrew Cordier…”

--Howard University Professor Emeritus of African Studies Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja in his 2003 book, The Congo From Leopold to Kabula: A People’s History

“Students for a Democratic Society will hold a rally today to protest the University's expansion policies and the alleged involvement of Acting [Columbia University] President Andrew W. Cordier in the assassination of former Congolese Premier Patrice Lumumba….The radical student organization has…accused President Cordier, who was formerly dean of the School of International Affairs…of helping to plot…the downfall of his government…A leader of the Brooklyn Black Panther Party, known as Captain Ford, is scheduled to speak at this evening's rally…”

--from a Sept. 26, 1968 Columbia Daily Spectator article

“…Mr. Lumumba, the Prime Minister….is completely irresponsible—if not a mad man…He is wildly ambitious, lusting for power and strikes fear into anyone who crosses his path. There is really no such thing as a Congolese Government…There is a cabinet, but Lumumba uses it as his tool. Some members of the Cabinet share his vision and lust for power…The only real solution of the problem is a change of leadership. It will not be easy, however, to remove Lumumba from his position…"

--Former Columbia University President and School of International Affairs [SIPA] Dean and United Nations Under-Secretary General Andrew Cordier in an Aug. 18, 1960 letter to Manchester College in Indiana Emeritus Professor V.F. Schwalm

Columbia University and the Elimination of Patrice Lumumba Revisited—Part 2

In his 2009 book Harlem vs. Columbia University: Black Student Power in the late 1960s, Professor of History and African American Studies Stefan Bradley noted that on Aug. 23, 1968--three months after they had requested on May 22, 1968 that New York City police be used to clear Columbia University’s campus of protesting students for a second time--“Grayson Kirk and David Truman stepped down as the president and vice president” of Columbia University; and “Andrew Cordier, from the School of International Affairs [SIPA]” of Columbia University “took over the reins of the university as acting president.” Cordier then spent two years as Columbia University’s fifteenth president until September 1970, before spending an additional two years as Dean of Columbia’s School of International Affairs [SIPA] prior to his 1975 death--from cirrhosis of the liver--at the age of 74.

Before being appointed as Columbia’s School of International Affairs Dean in 1962 (by a Columbia University board of trustees that included the former U.S. Ambassador to Belgium between 1959 and 1961, Columbia Life Trustee William A.M. Burden), Cordier had worked since 1946 at the United Nations as advisor to the President of the General Assembly and executive assistant to the Secretary General. And, as UN Under-Secretary General, Cordier, coincidentally, “had a large role in the Congo” in the summer of 1960, 57 years ago, according to Professor Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Professor of History Emmanuel Gerard and University of Pennsylvania Professor of History Bruce Kuklick’s 2015 book, Death in the Congo: Murdering Patrice Lumumba.

As Carole Collins observed in an article, titled “The Cold War Comes to Africa: Cordier and the 1960 Congo Crisis,” that appeared in the June 22, 1993 issue of the Journal of International Affairs:

“…In early September 1960, while filling in as the Secretary-General's interim special representative to the Congo... Cordier's decisions effectively…reinforced U.S. and Belgian efforts to oust Lumumba… Some scholars argue that Cordier's actions ultimately served to help abort the Congo's transition to democracy, set in motion a series of events culminating in the murder of Lumumba -- the Congo's first democratically elected prime minister -- and facilitated the rise to power of a young Congolese army officer, Joseph Desire Mobutu...The Zairian [Congolese] people are still grappling to this day with the tragic legacy of these decisions…

“…Several sources, including Madeleine Kalb's study based on declassified diplomatic cable traffic, document the extent to which Cordier continually briefed and was briefed by U.S. diplomats and collaborated with them on Congo policy….

“…Cordier's 15 September [1960] letter to[Manchester College in Indiana Emeritus Professor V.F.] Schwalm reveals that he had advance notice of Kasavubu's intent to dismiss Lumumba, and that he welcomed the move…Cordier notes he met four times with Kasavubu…to discuss the firing of Lumumba… When Kasavubu announced his dismissal of Lumumba from office on the radio on Monday, 5 September, Cordier…made his `two most important decisions:’ to send U.N. troops to close the airport and to seize the radio station.

“These…actions…primarily hurt Lumumba because only Kasavubu enjoyed access to radio facilities in the neighboring state of Congo Brazzaville. Similarly, Kasavubu's allies were allowed to use the ostensibly closed airport to travel into the Congolese interior to mobilize support for the president while Lumumba's supporters were grounded….Near the end of his three-week stay in early September, Cordier …authorized the United Nations to offer food and pay to the Congolese Army… This action…allowed Mobutu -- a one-time Lumumba aide who had been appointed chief-of-staff of the army by Kasavubu just days earlier -- to win credit for paying the soldiers their past-due salaries…and to pave the way for his coup attempt a few days later…. The combination of U.N. and U.S. support was pivotal for Mobutu's subsequent seizure of power.

“…On 14 September [1960], Mobutu seized power… In the end, Cordier's actions served to fuel the Congolese civil war…. After his dismissal by Kasavubu, Lumumba was placed under virtual house arrest, but even this failed to dampen his popular or legislative support….In January 1961, he was killed through the coordinated efforts of Mobutu, Kasavubu, Tshombe and the CIA…[Connor Cruise] O'Brien – the…Irish diplomat…who had represented the United Nations in Katanga in 1961…believes that Cordier deliberately helped Washington plot Lumumba's ouster…”

Howard University Professor Emeritus of African Studies Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja’s 2003 book,The Congo From Leopold to Kabula: A People’s History, also contains a reference to the role that former Columbia University President Cordier played in Congolese history:

“…The dismissal [of Lumumba] was…clearly a civilian coup and therefore illegal. Both houses of[the Congolese] parliament, where Lumumba still had a working majority, gave him a vote of confidence and rejected Kasa-Vubu’s decisions as null and void…Cordier and U.S. Ambassador [to the Congo] Timberlake worked hand in hand to implement U.S. policy objectives. Acting as a viceroy, Cordier helped engineer and execute the illegal overthrow of Lumumba from power, beginning with his active support of the Kasa-Vubu coup of 5 September [1960]…”

Conor Cruise O’Brien’s 1962 book To Katanga and Back: A UN Case History, also indicated how former Columbia University President Cordier contributed to the illegal overthrow of Patrice Lumumba’s democratically-elected Congolese government in September 1960:

“…Andrew Cordier…had taken a decision which, politically, had broken the back of Lumumba—the Prime Minister who had called in the United Nations [to end Belgian military intervention in support of the illegal Belgium-backed secessionist Tshombe regime in the Congo’s Katanga province]…Had it not been for Mr. Cordier’s…action, there is little doubt that the support Lumumba could have rallied at this crucial moment would have been most formidable…Mr. Cordier’s actions…had played a decisive part in this crucial series of events, as a result of which the Congo no longer possessed a universally recognized Government…”

But as Kwame Nkrumah [the democratically-elected Ghanaian president who was overthrown in a CIA-backed military coup in 1966] argued in his 1967 book Challenge Of The Congo, “how could such action of the United Nations be justified when Lumumba was the lawful Prime Minister?” Nkrumah also noted in the same book that “the executive assistant to the Secretary-General, Andrew Cordier, knew in advance of Kasavubu’s plan to dismiss Lumumba;” and during the period in early September 1960 when former “acting” Columbia University President Cordier was the “acting” head of the UN Congo Mission in Kinshasa[Leopoldville], “press correspondents in Leopoldville at the time were convinced that the UN were helping to oust Lumumba…”

Coincidentally, a now de-classified “Telegram From the Station in the Congo to the Central Intelligence Agency” that was sent from Leopoldville[Kinshasa] on Sept. 5, 1960 also stated:

“…An unimpeachable source…advised [Embassy] that Kasavubu plans to oust Lumumba…As soon as this step taken, he plans to broadcast a message to Congolese people from Radio Congo requesting them to remain calm and accept the new government….Kasavubu plan includes following steps: A. For the UN Operation Congo (UNOC) to guarantee his personal safety with UN troops. B. Request UNOC to guard the radio station, thus guaranteeing his personal safety when he speaks and insuring that Lumumba forces will not be able take control of the radio and mount a propaganda campaign in support of Lumumba. C. Airports Congo would be closed to all departures. 4. Kasavubu’s plan has been coordinated with UNOC at highest levels here. He already has taken the first step, to demand protection by UN troops. The rest of the plan was to be implemented 5 September but timing may well be changed.”

According to Ludo De Witte’s 2001 book The Assassination of Lumumba, as Acting Head of the UN Operation Congo [UNOC] in Kinshasa/Leopoldville during early September 1960, Cordier “did exactly what was expected of him.”

In discussing, at a September 2004 Woodrow Wilson International Center for Cold War Studies conference at Princeton University, what happened in the Congo between July 1960 and the Jan. 17, 1961 murder of the democratically elected, but illegally ousted, Congolese Premier Lumumba and two of Lumumba’s colleagues, CUNY Emeritus Professor of Political Science Herbert Weiss characterized former Columbia President Cordier’s historical role in the following way:

“There is a very important event…that is the closing of the airport and the closing of the radio, without which the dismissal of Lumumba would have had a very different end…The key person there is Andrew Cordier…Cordier was, at the very minimum, a profoundly non-neutral person whose writings suggest that he was a racist…It’s Cordier’s actions that cut the feet from under Lumumba…”

And at the same September 2004 conference, another conference participant, Thomas Kanza, the Congo’s first permanent representative to the UN, said: 

“If I may, I would like to support what Herbert said….Your…points are really correct. When Cordier came to Kinshasa…and Cordier stepped in, as special representative of the Secretary General. Number one, the dismissal of Lumumba…Cordier stepped in and said that he must be dismissed… Cordier was really acting as the number one UN [man] in the Congo...Cordier, as far as I’m concerned, was responsible for many things, including what would happen later….”

According to the Death in the Congo book, in the month before the former Columbia president used his UN power in the Congo to coordinate with Kasa-Vubu’s plan to illegally dismiss Lumumba in early September 1960, Cordier had personally interviewed Lumumba in New York City on Aug. 1, 1960, when “Lumumba made a last visit to the UN;” and the following personal interaction happened during this interview:

“Cordier began his interview with Lumumba with a lengthy and condescending exposition…Ignoring the white man’s speech, Lumumba made his own long reply. He admonished Cordier and expressed disappointment…that the UN had not evicted the Belgians…”

During the same month that Cordier was coordinating with Kasa-Vubu to illegally remove Lumumba from power in a “civilian coup,” the CIA’s Chief of Station in the Congo, Larry Devlin (using illegally the diplomatic cover of “consul” at the U.S. Embassy in Kinshasa/Leopoldville), was also covertly working to overthrow the democratically-elected government of Patrice Lumumba. In his 2007 book Chief of Station, Congo: A Memoir of 1960-67, Devlin (who died in 2008) describes what happened when he visited the Congolese presidential palace shortly after the “civilian coup” of Kasavubu that Cordier backed:

“…[Congolese National Army/ANC] Colonel Mobutu stood in the doorway flanked by two soldiers…`Wait for me outside,’ he said softly to the soldiers. He closed the door and shook hands with me…Finally, he said, `Here is the situation: the army is prepared to overthrow Lumumba. But only on the condition that the United States will recognize the government that would replace Lumumba’s…’

“[CIA Director] Allen Dulles had made it absolutely clear to me that the United States wanted Lumumba removed from power, but I had always thought in terms of a legal or parliamentary change, not an army coup…Yet the more I considered Mobutu’s plan, the better it sounded…

“`I’ve got to get back to my commanders,’ Mobutu said, turning to leave. `I have to give them a `go’ or a `no go’ order. Lumumba doesn’t know they’re here, so they must get back to their bases before he finds out.’…

“…I held out my hand to Mobutu and said with as much conviction as I could muster: `I can assure you the United States government will recognize a temporary government composed of civilian technocrats.’

“…`The coup will take place within a week,’ he said. `But I will need five thousand dollars [equivalent o around $41,000 in 2017 U.S. dollars] to provide for my senior officers…’

“…I assured Mobutu that the money would be available and arranged to meet him in his office…I left the presidential palace without further incident…I arrived at army headquarters at the early hour agreed upon with Mobutu…Mobutu said he had met his area commanders and told them that the coup was on. `I’ll be setting a date and time shortly but it will be within the next week,’ he said. `I’ll take control of the radio station, announce the formation of new government.’…On the evening of Sept. 14 [1960]…at a party…at the home of Alison `Tally’ Palmer, the American vice-consul…I…had a call with the news that Mobutu was on the radio announcing that the army was installing a government of technocrats…Our efforts to remove Lumumba…were at last bearing fruit…”

In a statement at a Dec. 10, 1960 UN Security Council meeting, the Moroccan representative to the UN, Mhamet Boucetta, indicated how the CIA-supported Mobutu used some of the Congolese National Army [ANC] troops (that Cordier had paid with U.S. government-provided UN money)  to “install a government of technocrats” between Sept. 13 (when a joint meeting of the Congolese Chamber of Representatives and Senate restored full power to the illegally “dismissed” Lumumba by 88 votes to 5 with 3 abstentions) and Sept. 14, 1960:

“I should like to tell you something I saw with my own eyes. I was present at the last two meetings held by this [Congolese] Parliament…By an overwhelming majority, the Parliament gave the legitimate Government a vote of confidence and renewed its mandate…

“The next morning, a hundred soldiers with helmets and submachine guns at the ready and an old tank with a rusty gun were stationed in front of the Parliament building. The elected representatives of the people were not allowed to enter…The members of Parliament were rounded up and hustled away, payment of their allowances was stopped…That is what…we saw…”

And less than five months after Mobutu’s first CIA-backed coup in September 1960, the 35- year-old Lumumba was murdered in the Katanga region of the Congo. As The Congo From Leopold To Kabila: A People’s History book observed:

“As it turned out, Mobutu played a critical role in every step leading to Lumumba’s assassination…He did so by the coup of 14 September [1960], Lumumba’s arrest on 1 December [1960], and his incarceration at the elite military garrison of Mbano-Ngungu[Thysville]. And Mobutu was among the…Congolese involved in the…plan of sending Lumumba to his death in Katanga…”

And, according to Death in the Congo:

“CIA turncoats, among others, have testified that in the immediate aftermath of the assassination Devlin boasted to people in the Agency about his role in the murder…In 1960 he persisted in trying to finish off Lumumba and immediately took credit when the African was killed; he later persisted in denying that he tried…Justin O’Donnell, a senior officer from CIA headquarters got to Leopoldville[Kinshasa] on November 3[1960]. O’Donnell would oversee the murder and report to Devlin. In asking for O’Donnell after Washington’s encouragement, Devlin let headquarters know that he still had…poisons, but also wanted a `high-powered foreign make rifle with telescopic and silencer.’…Devlin asked for the rifle in writing a week after an unusual appearance by Lumumba on the balcony of his residents where he spoke to a crowd below…Devlin and those around him in the Congo would not rest until someone finished the job…The Belgians and the American fixated on murder…”

 In a 2010 AllAfrica website column, a former Staff Director of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Subcommittee on Africa, Stephen R. Weissman,  also asserted that “Devlin gave a green light to delivering Lumumba to men who had publicly vowed to kill him” and “shortly before” Lumumba’s “transfer” to where he was murdered, “Mobutu indicated to Devlin that Lumumba `might be executed,’ according to a Church Committee [of the U.S. Senate] interview,” but “Devlin did not suggest that he offered any objection or caution.”

In an Aug. 18, 1960 letter to Manchester College in Indiana Emeritus Professsor V.F. Schwalm, former Columbia University President Cordier wrote the following about the democratically-elected Congolese prime minister that he would help oust from power less than a month later:

“…Mr. Lumumba, the Prime Minister….is completely irresponsible—if not a mad man…He is wildly ambitious, lusting for power and strikes fear into anyone who crosses his path. There is really no such thing as a Congolese Government…There is a cabinet, but Lumumba uses it as his tool. Some members of the Cabinet share his vision and lust for power….The only real solution of the problem is a change of leadership. It will not be easy, however to remove Lumumba from his position…In various ways the Secretary-General has given encouragement to the moderates and they are also receiving encouragement from other powerful political sources…”

Patrice Lumumba, however, presented an alternative historical point of view in the last letter he wrote from the Camp Hardy military prison in Mbano-Ngungu[Thysville]--a letter to his wife--before being assassinated on January 17, 1961:

“My dear wife,

“I am writing these words not knowing whether they will reach you, when they will reach you, and whether I shall still be alive when you read them…What we wished for our country, its right to an honorable life, to unstained dignity, to independence without restrictions, was never desired by the Belgian imperialists and the Western allies, who found direct and indirect support, both deliberate and unintentional, amongst certain high officials of the United Nations, that organization in which we placed all our trust when we called on its assistance. Neither brutal assaults, nor cruel mistreatment, nor torture have ever led me to beg for mercy, for I prefer to die with my head held high, unshakable faith, and the greatest confidence in the destiny of my country rather than live in slavery and contempt for sacred principles. History will one day have its say, but it will not be the history that is taught in Brussels, Paris, Washington or in the United Nations, but the history which will be taught in the countries freed from imperialism and its puppets…   Love live the Congo! Long live Africa!

“Patrice”

(end of article)

Columbia University and the Elimination of Patrice Lumumba Revisited--Part 1

“…I have learned much about William A.M. Burden II from Peggy and I…I was best acquainted with his 20-year tenure…as Chairman of the Board of the Institute for Defense Analyses [IDA] and his contribution to the quality of the output of this `think tank’s serving the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff…His government service reached its apogee during his two years, 1959-61, as Ambassador to Belgium…He has been most responsive over these years also to the needs of Columbia University which he has served as a trustee…”

--General and former IDA President Maxwell Taylor in foreword to Columbia University Life Trustee William A.M. Burden’s 1982 book, Peggy and I: A Life Too Busy For A Dull Moment

“Before I accepted my ambassadorship in Belgium I had been given in 1957…appointment as `a public trustee’ of the Institute for Defense Analyses [IDA]. It became one of the top priorities of my life…I…was elected chairman in May, 1959…One of the unfortunate side-effects of the student protest movement against the Vietnam War was that IDA itself became a target for anti-war protests, and its member universities were subjected to faculty and student pressure to cancel their ties…”

--Columbia University Life Trustee William A.M. Burden in his 1982 book, Peggy and I

“Only prudent, therefore to plan on basis that Lumumba Government threatens our vital interests in Congo and Africa generally. A principal objective of our political and diplomatic action must therefore be to destroy Lumumba government as now constituted…”

--Columbia University Life Trustee and U.S. Ambassador to Belgium William A.M. Burden in a July 19, 1960 cable to the U.S. State Department

“The Belgians were sort of toying with the idea of seeing to it that Lumumba was assassinated. I went beyond my instructions and said, well, I didn’t think it would be a bad idea either, but I naturally never reported this to Washington—but Lumumba was assassinated. I think it was all to the good…”

--Columbia University Life Trustee William A. M. Burden in a 1968 Oral History Interview with Columbia University School of Journalism’s Advanced International Reporting Program Director John Luter

Columbia University and the Elimination of Patrice Lumumba Revisited—Part 1

When Columbia and Barnard students first occupied Hamilton Hall on Columbia University’s campus on Apr. 23, 1968, one of their six demands was “that the university sever all ties with the Institute for Defense Analyses [IDA] and that [then-Columbia] President Kirk and Trustee Burden resign their positions on the Executive Committee of that institution immediately.”

Coincidentally, besides representing Columbia University—with the (now-deceased) Grayson Kirk—on the Executive Committee of the Pentagon’s IDA weapons research think-tank in 1968, Columbia Life Trustee William A.M. Burden was also the U.S. Ambassador to Belgium who recommended fifty-seven years ago, in July 1960, that “a principal objective” of the Republican administration in Washington, D.C. of former Columbia University President Eisenhower “must therefore be to destroy” the democratically-elected “Lumumba government as now constituted” in Belgium’s former Congo[Zaire] colony. As David Talbot recalled in his 2015 book, The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government:

“Dulles, Doug Dillon (then serving as a State Department undersecretary), and William Burden, the U.S. ambassador to Belgium, led the charge within the Eisenhower administration to first demonize and then dispose of [Patrice] Lumumba. All three men had financial interests in the Congo. The Dillon family’s investment bank handled the Congo’s bond issues. Dulles’s old law firm represented the American Metal Climax (later AMAX), a mining giant with holdings in the Congo…Ambassador Burden was a company director…Ambassador Burden was a Vanderbilt heir…

“Burden, who had acquired his ambassadorship by contributing heavily to the 1956 Eisenhower campaign, spent his days in Brussels attending diplomatic receptions…It was the ambassador who first raised alarms about the rising Patrice Lumumba…Burden began sending agitated cables to Dulles in Washington well before Lumumba’s election…By the…summer [of 1960], Burden was cabling Washington `to destroy Lumumba government’ as a threat to `our vital interest in Congo.’…”

“…At an NSC [National Security Council] meeting in August 1960, Eisenhower gave [CIA Director Allen] Dulles direct approval to `eliminate’ Lumumba. Robert Johnson, the minutes taker at the NSC meeting…said there was nothing ambiguous about Eisenhower’s lethal order. `I was surprised that I would ever hear a president say anything like this in my presence or the presence of a group of people’…

“…Lumumba `would remain a grave danger,’ Dulles told an NSC meeting on Sept. 21, 1960, `as long as he was not yet disposed of.’…”

A Life Trustee of Columbia University since 1956, Burden (who died in 1984) was among the “people in the Eisenhower administration” who “hunted for ways to reduce Lumumba’s influence” and, along with CIA Director Allen Dulles “and the CIA’s man in Leopoldville[Kinshasa],” Larry Devlin, “devised actions,” according to Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Professor of History Emmanuel Gerard and University of Pennsylvania Professor of History Bruce Kuklick’s 2015 book, Death in the Congo: Murdering Patrice Lumumba.

The same book also noted that Devlin, was “a CIA agent from the late 1940s” who “began spying for the CIA in Brussels, where he had a cover position as an attaché’” in 1958 and where he “made contacts with the Congo’s politicians, who came to Belgium for various deliberations.” After his appointment as the CIA’s chief of station in the Congo in “the second part of 1959,” Devlin “went there with Burden” in March 1960, when the Columbia Life Trustee and his wife traveled through the still not-yet independent Belgian Congo. Coincidentally, besides being a Columbia trustee in 1960, Burden was also a trustee of the Farfield Foundation that was utilized by the CIA, during the Cold War Era of the 1950s and 1960s, as a conduit for covertly financing projects and journals, like the American Congress of Cultural Freedom [CCF] and Encounter magazine, which promoted U.S. power elite foreign policy objectives. 

Following his March 1960 trip to the Congo with CIA Station Chief Devlin, “Burden told the Department of State that America could not permit the Congo to go left after independence,” according to Death in the Congo. And after the Congo[Zaire] was granted its formal independence on June 30, 1960, the Columbia Life Trustee--who also “maintained during his ambassadorship, a directorship in American Metal Climax, whose Rhodesian copper interests were to make it the leading corporate defender of a conservative order…in Katanga (where Belgian troops began supporting an illegally-established secessionist regime on July 11, 1960), according to Roger Housen’s 2002 paper “Why Did The US Want To Kill Prime Minister Lumumba Of The Congo?”--began pushing for the removal of the democratically-elected anti-imperialist Lumumba as Congolese Prime Minister in July 1960. As Madeline Kalb observed in her 1982 book, The Congo Cables: The Cold War in Africa:

“The U.S. Embassy in Brussels, replying to the U. State Department’s query on July 19…took a very strong line regarding Lumumba, recommending openly for the first time that the United States try to remove him from office. The U.S. ambassador, William Burden, said he believed the situation called for `urgent measures on various levels.’…Burden concluded by noting that while the U.S. Embassy in Leopoldville[Kinshasa] had the primary responsibility for dealing with the internal political situation in the Congo, the CIA in Brussels would be `reporting separately some specific suggestions.’”

The Death in the Congo book also noted:

“…Burden barraged Washington with memos asking greater sympathy for the [Belgian] imperialists…He understood, he told [then-U.S.] Secretary [of State Christian] Herter, why the United States would look at issues from the point of view of the Congo. Nevertheless, America should instead pressure the UN to support Belgium. At the end of July Burden briefed Dulles when returned to Washington for discussions. From Europe, Burden would continue as a mouthpiece for the more rabid anticommunism guiding Dulles’s report to the NSC [National Security Council]…”

Columbia Trustee Burden also apparently pressured Time magazine’s then-owner, Henry Luce, to not do a Lumumba cover story, with Lumumba’s picture on the front of the magazine, during July 1960 discussions in Paris about the Congolese political situation between Burden and U.S. Ambassador to France Amory Houghton, U.S. Ambassador to the Congo  Clair “Tim” Timberlake and CIA Chief of Station in the Congo Larry Devlin. As Devlin recalled in his 2007 book Chief of Station, Congo: A Memoir of 1960-67:

“We [Devlin and “Tim” Timberlake] moved to Ambassador Houghton’s office where we were joined by Ambassador Burden for more detailed talks concerning the Congo and its problems. We were provided lodging at Ambassador Houghton’s residence and dined there with the two ambassadors. During our discussions, Tim brought up a delicate matter: `Time magazine plans to do a cover story on Lumumba with his picture on the front of the magazine.’ He continued, `Celebrity coverage at home will make him even more difficult to deal with. He’s a first-class headache as it is.’

“`Then why don’t you get the story killed?’ Burden asked. `Or at least modified?’

“`I tried to persuade the Time man in Leopoldville[Kinshasa] until I was blue in the face,’ Tim replied. `But he said there was nothing he could do about it because the story had already been sent to New York.’

“`You can’t expect much from a journalist at that level,’ Burden said pulling out his address book and flipping through the pages. He picked up the phone and put a call through to the personal assistant of Henry Luce, Time’s owner.

“Luce soon returned the call. After a brief, friendly exchange that made clear his personal relationship with Luce, Burden bluntly told him that he would have to change the Lumumba cover story. Luce apparently said that the magazine was about to go to press. `Oh, come on, Henry,’ Burden said, `you must have other cover stories in the can.’ They chatted for a few more minutes before Burden hung up.

“A few days later in the United States we picked up a copy of the magazine with a new and different cover story. Lumumba had been relegated to the international section…”

The Death in the Congo book indicated one reason that Columbia Life Trustee Burden was influential enough in U.S. Establishment circles to be able to stop Time magazine from putting Patrice Lumumba’s picture on the magazine’s front cover in the summer of 1960:

“Burden was born into the colossally rich Vanderbilt family. He had a background in aviation and finance…Burden used his great wealth and the contacts that came from it to secure upper-level governmental experience, socializing with moneyed internationally oriented Republicans…”

In 1973, for example, besides still being both a Columbia trustee and the honorary chairman of the board of the Pentagon’s Institute for Defense Analyses [IDA] weapons research think tank, Burden--a former Assistant for Research and Development to the Secretary of the Air Force--also sat on the board of directors of Lockheed, CBS, Manufacturers Hanover Trust and Allied Chemical and was still a director of American Metal Climax [AMAX], according to a Feb.6, 1973 Columbia Daily Spectator article. In addition, the former U.S. ambassador to Belgium also sat on the board of trustees of the Museum of Modern Art in 1973.

By August of 1960, former Columbia University President Eisenhower’s administration in Washington, D.C. “feared that Lumumba’s oratorical talent would make him a thorn in their side even if he were maneuvered out of power” and “decided it made more sense to kill him,” according to Mark Zepezauer’s 1994 book, The CIA’s Greatest Hits. After CIA Chief of Station in the Congo Devlin met with CIA Director Dulles at CIA headquarters and then returned to the Congo in August 1960, Eisenhower called for the elimination of Lumumba at an Aug. 18, 1960 meeting of the National Security Council, and the following happened, according to Death in the Congo:

“Project Wizard had come into being. It grew out of Devlin’s ideas but also out of proposals of the Brussels CIA…The next day the CIA cabled Devlin to move forward with various ramped-up dirty tricks…Ultimate formal approval of the government’s most unpleasant jobs came through a standing four-person subcommittee of the National Security Council, the `Special Group.’ In addition to a note-taker, it consisted of a top man of the Department of State and of Defense; Dulles; and [White House National Security Adviser] Gordon Gray, who spoke for the president. On August 25 [1960],  Dulles had his regular meeting with the Special Group. He outlined the mounting anti-Lumumba exercises of Project Wizard…After some discussion, the Special Group agreed not to `rule out’ consideration…of `any particular kind of activity which might contribute to getting rid of Lumumba.’

“The next day Dulles himself wired Devlin about the `removal’ of Lumumba as `an urgent and prime objective.’ With a State Department nod, Dulles allowed Devlin some freedom of operation and stipulated `more aggressive action if it can remain covert.’ The CIA also awarded …an additional $100,000 [equivalent to over $821,000 in 2017 US dollars] to accomplish these goals should a `target of opportunity’ present itself and should Devlin not have time to sound out either the embassy in the Congo or the CIA at home…”

As the now-deceased Devlin recalled in his 2007 book Chief of Station, Congo:

“…To the best of my knowledge, no other station chief had ever been given such latitude…If further evidence was required that Washington supported our own conclusion about replacing Lumumba, that was it…We were already monitoring parliament and encouraging and guiding the actions of various parliamentary opposition groups that we had penetrated…We were also using [a Belgian citizen and CIA agent named] Jacque to insert anti-Lumumba articles in the country’s leading newspaper…

“With the full backing of Headquarters, the station began to work on a plan to remove Lumumba from power. One of our early operations, organized by Jacque who provided…financial support, was an anti-Lumumba demonstration when the latter spoke at meeting of African foreign ministers held in Leopldville[Kinshasa] on Aug. 25 [1960]. On his arrival, hostile demonstrators shouted `a bas Lumumba’ (`down with Lumumba’), and when he began to speak to the delegates, the mob drowned him out shouting anti-Lumumba slogans.”

Then, according to Death in the Congo, “on the evening of Sept. 3 [1960], Congolese President Joseph Kasa-Vubu summoned” the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative in Leopoldville[Kinshasha] during the first two weeks of September1960, Andrew Cordier, for a meeting. Coincidentally, the Columbia University board of trustees (that included by-then former U.S. ambassador to the Congo Burden), would later appoint Cordier to be the Dean of its School of International Affairs [School of International and Public Affairs] between 1962 and 1968, to be the Columbia President who succeeded Grayson Kirk between August 1968 and September 1970 and to again be School of International Affairs Dean between September 1970 and 1972. The same book also observed:

“Cordier and Kasa-Vubu had more meetings over the next two days, Sept. 4 and 5 [1960]…A few minutes before 8 p.m. on Sept. 5, Kasa-Vubu sent his Belgian adviser Jef Van Bilsen to Cordier with a formal written exhortation. Cordier should close the airports and monitor the Leopoldville radio station. Then, at 8:12, Kasa-Vubu appeared at the station…He nervously asserted that he was sacking Lumumba…Cordier immediately implemented Kasa-Vubu’s written solicitations…The firing was invalid…Lumumba made the illegality of Kasavubu’s ploy clear in a letter…delivered to Cordier at 4 a.m. on Sept. 6 [1960]…On Wednesday afternoon, Sept. 7 [1960], in the Congo’s house of representatives Lumumba yet again explained the illegality of Kasa-Vubu’s acts…For 5 days Cordier took instructions from politicians who had no justifiable authority. He had closed the radio station and shut the airports because Kasa-Vubu asked him…When Kasa-Vubu pitched Lumumba out [as Congolese prime minister], the Congo’s [ceremonial] president had the help of Belgian and UN authorities...and also the goodwill of the CIA. At this time the Americans put Joseph Ileo, Kasa-Vubu’s choice for prime minister, on the payroll, although he had already been funded to secure his election as president of the Congo’s senate…”

According to Professor of Political Science George Nzongola-Ntalaja’s 2003 book, The Congo from Leopold to Kabila: A People’s History, however, “both houses of” the Congo’s “parliament, where Lumumba still had a working majority gave him a vote of confidence and rejected Kasa-Vubu’s decision as null and void.” But on Sept. 14, 1960, future Congolese/Zairean dictator Mobutu “pulled off his first military coup with the help of the CIA.” Prior to Mobutu’s Sept. 14, 1960 military coup, CIA Director Dulles had flown to Brussels to brief Burden “on the recent decisions of the National Security Council” and told Burden that “he believed the leader we could depend on in a showdown with Lumumba was young Colonel Joseph Mobutu, second in command of the Congolese army,” according to Burden’s Peggy and I book.

Back in the United States on Sept. 19, 1960, “Dulles and his immediate subordinates launched a top-secret communication channel to Devlin called PROP, which would only discuss assassination” of Lumumba, according to Death in the Congo;” while “in a document signed in October 1960, the then-Belgian minister for African Affairs, Count Harold d’Aspremot Lyden, stated explicitly that Belgian interests “required `the final elimination of Lumumba,’ according to The Congo from Leopold to Kabila. And by the end of January 1961, the democratically-elected and illegally ousted Congolese prime minister had been physically “eliminated.”

Coincidentally, in a 1968 oral history interview with former Newsweek editor and Columbia University Journalism School faculty member Joel Luter, less than 8 years later, Columbia Life Trustee and then-IDA Executive Committee member and chairman of the IDA board of trustees Burden made the following comment about the murder of Lumumba and two colleagues, Congolese Senate Vice-President Joseph Okito and Congolese Youth and Sports Minister Maurice Mpolo, on Jan. 17, 1961 in the Katanga area of the Congo[Zaire]:

“The Belgians were sort of toying with the idea of seeing to it that Lumumba was assassinated. I went beyond my instructions and said, well, I didn’t think it would be a bad idea either, but I naturally never reported this to Washington—but Lumumba was assassinated. I think it was all to the good…”

Bur in his 1967 book, Challenge of the Congo, Kwame Nkrumah (the democratically-elected Ghanaian head of state who was forced out of office in a 1966 CIA-orchestrated military coup) wrote the following about what happened in the Congo during Columbia Life Trustee Burden’s term as U.S. Ambassador to Belgium and during the period when former Columbia University President Cordier was the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative in the Congo:

“Somewhere in Katanga in the Congo…three of our brother freedom fighters have been done to death…They have been killed because the United Nations…denied to the lawful Government of the Congo…means of self-protection…The murder of Patrice Lumumba and of his two colleagues…is unique in that it is the first time in history that the legal ruler of a country has been done to death with the open connivance of a world organization in whom that ruler put his trust...Kasa-Vubu illegally tried to remove Patrice Lumumba from office and to substitute another Government. When Lumumba wished to broadcast to the people, explaining what had happened, the United Nations…prevented him by force from speaking…

“…The United Nations, which could exert its authority to prevent Patrice Lumumba from broadcasting, was, so it pleaded, quite unable to prevent his arrest by mutineers or his transfer, through the use of airfields under United Nations control…The United Nations would not effectively intervene to save the life of the Prime Minister or his colleagues…Our dear brothers Patrice Lumumba, Maurice Mpolo and Joseph Okito are dead…”.

And as Ludo De Witte recalled in his 2001 preface to the English edition of his book The Assassination of Lumumba:

“…Without the steps taken by Washington and the United Nations during the preceding months, the assassination could never have been carried out. In July 1960, after Belgium intervened in the Congo and after the rich copper state of Katanga seceded, the United States went into action…U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower had instructed his aides to liquidate Lumumba and a top secret CIA unit was given the task of eliminating him…Lumumba’s transfer to Katanga, delivering him into the hands of his worst enemies, was done with the full knowledge of Lawrence Devlin, the CIA station chief…UN complicity is demonstrated by the help given to Mobutu’s soldiers in capturing Lumumba…The assassination of Lumumba and tens of thousands of other Congolese nationalists, from 1960 to 1965, was the West’s ultimate attempt to destroy the continent’s authentic independent development…”

(end of part 1)

Columbia University's CIA Connection In 2014--Part 1

"The Central Intelligence Agency has become a killing machine, an organization consumed with man hunting...After President Bush signed a secret order to escalate the CIA's war in Pakistan, Abu Khabib al-Masri was killed in a CIA drone strike, just 12 miles from the CIA base...During his first year in office, President Obama ordered a review of the roughly one dozen covert-action programs the CIA was carrying out at the time, from the drone strikes to a campaign to sabotage Iran's nuclear work...The summer 2009 meetings effectively rubber-stamped all of the CIA's secret ventures...By the time a `principals committee' meeting was scheduled for the fall, when President Obama's top national security advisers would make final decisions on the covert-action programs, not one of them was under consideration for cancellation...The Obama administration approved every one of the covert-action programs that had been handed down by President Bush...

--from New York Times National Security Correspondent Mark Mazzetti's 2013 book, The Way of The Knife

"Peter Clement, who recently began a two-year term as a visiting professor, joins SIPA from the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence, where he spent the last eight years as deputy director for intelligence for analytic programs..."

--from a Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs [SIPA] website article on September 9, 2013

Columbia University's CIA Connection In 2014--Part 1

Most people who live in Manhattan opposed both the Bush-Cheney Administration's decision to attack Iraq in 2003 and the Obama Administration's decision to escalate the CIA's covert drone war in Pakistan and other foreign countries after 2009.

Yet in 2013 the Columbia University administration's School of International and Public Affairs [SIPA] hired a 35-year veteran of the CIA--CIA Deputy Director for Intelligence Peter Clement--to be Columbia University's CIA Officer In Residence between 2013 and 2015.

In an interview that was posted on the Columbia University SIPA website on September 9, 2013, CIA Deputy Director for Intelligence Clement indicated how he came to be Columbia University's CIA Officer In Residence in 2014:

"The Agency's Officers in Residence program goes back several decades. Over the years the CIA has had people teach at different schools around the country--including Georgetown, MIT, Harvard, and Princeton--in departments of international affairs and related subjects...

"...Coming to SIPA was largely my idea...I knew Professors [Robert] Jervis and [Richard] Betts. I broached the OIR idea with Jervis, who consults for the CIA and he and Betts were both positive. And then, as I understand it, the appointment was reviewed and finalized...There are a healthy number of SIPA graduates in our workforce...I've spent much of my career at the nexus [of intelligence and foreign policy]. Attending White House meetings, you can see firsthand how senior policymakers use the product...If anyone has questions about the intelligence business, my door is open. I'm just really excited to be here, it's a great opportunity..."

According to New York Times National Security Correspondent Michael Mazzetti's 2013 book The Way Of The Knife, "targeted killings have made the CIA the indispensable  agency for the Obama administration."

Columbia University's Rockefeller-Trimble Military and Advanced Systems' Connection: Trilateral Commission's Merit Janow Named Columbia SIPA Dean--Conclusion

“In his 1976 book, The Control of Oil, the former Chief Economist of the Senate Subcommittee on Anti-Trust and Monopoly, John Blair, noted that in 1938 the Rockefeller family held directly or indirectly, 20 percent of Exxon’s stock, 16 percent of Mobil’s stock, 11 percent of Standard Oil of Indiana/Amoco’s stock and 12 percent of Standard Oil of California (SOCAL)/Chevron’s stock. In 1974, according to the book Everybody’s Business, the Rockefeller family still owned 1 percent of all Exxon stock (worth $156.7 million), 1.7 percent of Mobil’s stock (worth $63.6 million), .2 percent of Standard Oil of Indiana/Amoco stock (worth $11.7 million) and 2 percent of Standard Oil of California (SOCAL)/Chevron stock (worth $$85.3 million). In addition, Trilateral Commission Founder David Rockefeller’s Chase Manhattan Bank owned 1.5 percent of SOCAL/Chevron’s stock in 1980.”

--Downtown (l2/12/90)

“…The Rockefeller clan – there are 242 of them, including spouses and minors – has endured as a powerful force…ExxonMobil stock is the single biggest holding of some family members…”

--from a May 2, 2008 Financial Times article by Chrystia Freeland


“One area of Rockefeller & Co. know-how has been built out of the Rockefeller family's 50-year record of integrating environmental, social, and governance concerns into its portfolio and investment decisions...Rockefeller targets families with $30 million; new clients are generally subject to a minimum $100,000 annual fee…”

--from a September 15, 2012 Barron’s.com article by Richard C. Morais

“In 1978, the year Charles Trimble founded Trimble Navigation, the original NAVSTAR satellite was launched, giving the U.S. government its first reference point for a worldwide radio-navigation system that became known as GPS, or Global Positioning System…GPS was developed to meet military needs…The U.S. government invested $12 billion in the project...GPS first earned its admirers during the Persian Gulf War, a time when, not coincidentally, Trimble Navigation captured the interest of industry observers….During Operation Desert Storm, Trimble Navigation provided troops with Trimpacks, devices that enabled soldiers to pinpoint their location. The hand-held receivers performed admirably, earning praise from military commanders and making Trimble Navigation an attractive prospect for investors...When sales in 1990 reached $63.3 million, the announcement fanned investor interest in the company. The figure exceeded Wall Street analysts' expectations by roughly 25 percent, prompting investors to look closer at the Sunnyvale, California-based enterprise. What they saw was a company controlling 60 percent of a market whose revenue volume was more than doubling annually….They saw a company whose orders for Trimpack receivers totaled $40 million between October 1990 and March 1991. Trimble Navigation's stock value soared as a result...Military sales…had fueled the company's meteoric rise in 1990 and 1991…”
--from the Gale Directory of Company Histories

“GPS…is a crucial wartime technology for U.S. forces in Iraq.
“The military relies on the Global Positioning System to direct the kind of precision-guided "smart bombs" that were used in the opening air assault on Iraq…GPS receivers also are widely deployed among ground forces, allowing them to better navigate the desert terrain and track their precise locations, even during blinding sandstorms.

“…Before the full GPS system was operational, the United States used laser-guided bombs that were affected by rain, clouds and sandstorms. But in Kosovo in 1999 and Afghanistan in 2002, the United States deployed a new generation of GPS-guided bombs…”

--from a March 20, 2003 San Francisco Chronicle article

“Trimble Military and Advanced Systems Inc., Sunnyvale, Calif., (FA8807-13-D-0017) is being awarded a $6,712,500 indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract for acquisition of Trimble GPS receivers. The location of the performance is Sunnyvale, Calif. Work is expected to be completed by December 2017. The contracting activity is SMC/GPK, Los Angeles Air Force Base, Calif. Contract involves Foreign Military Sales. (Air Force Contract).”

– from a Dec. 10, 2012 U.S. Department of Defense press release

“The School of International Affairs (SIA) has become, in the space of a. few years, one of Columbia's largest, and most important divisions….In 1967, the School listed a Faculty and staff of over 150 members, which included some of the most prestigious -- and powerful -- figures in the Columbia community….. The purpose of the SIA has never been in doubt: to train experts in international affairs and foreign areas for administrative positions in America's expanding overseas empire…. “



--from NACLA’s 1968 pamphlet, Who Rules Columbia?

Columbia University’s Rockefeller-Trimble Military and Advanced Systems’ Connection: Trilateral Commission’s Merit Janow Named Columbia SIPA Dean—Conclusion

For nearly 100 years, Trilateral Commission founder David Rockefeller Sr. and other members of the Rockefeller Dynasty have obtained and retained much wealth and special influence in the world of U.S. business, politics, culture and higher education as a result of their family ownership—or control via their various “non-profit” foundations, banks or family investment firms—of stock in U.S.-based transnational oil/energy corporations like ExxonMobil and Chevron/Texaco/Unocal.

And according to a 13 FHR filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission [SEC] for the period ending March 31, 2013 made by the Rockefeller & Co./Rockefeller Financial Services firm on whose board of directors the new Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs [SIPA] dean—Trilateral Commission member Merit Janow—has sat in recent years, over $173 million worth of Chevron/Texaco/Unocal stock and over $92 million worth of ExxonMobil stock are currently owned or controlled by Rockefeller & Co./Rockefeller Financial Services.

In addition, the stock portfolio of Rockefeller & Co./Rockefeller Financial Services includes large chunks of stock in corporations such as Google, Microsoft, JP Morgan Chase, Apache Corporation, Apple, Boeing, BP, Coca-Cola, Comcast, Con Edison, General Electric, Goldman Sachs, Halliburton, IBM, Merck, Royal Dutch Shell, Wells Fargo, Wal-Mart and Trimble Navigation Limited/Trimble Military and Advanced Systems (on whose board of directors Columbia SIPA Dean Janow has also sat in recent years).

Coincidentally, Trimble Military and Advanced Systems has apparently manufactured weapons that were used by the U.S. military to wage war overseas since 2001 on behalf of the special corporate interests of transnational oil/energy corporations such as Chevron/Texaco/Unocal and ExxonMobil, in countries like Afghanistan and Iraq. On May 13, 2002, for example, Trimble Navigation/Trimble Military and Advanced Systems was awarded a $2.1 million military development contract to supply GPS technology for Raytheon’s Miniature Airborne GPS Receiver MAGR 2000 for use in a variety of U.S. and Allied military aircraft including the MG-53E Sea Dragon, F016 Fighting Falcon, and E-2c Hawkeye. And on September 26, 2002, Trimble was also awarded a contract from Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR), Special Missions Branch. (end of article)

Columbia University's Rockefeller-Trimble Military and Advanced Systems' Connection: Trilateral Commission's Merit Janow Named Columbia SIPA Dean--Part 2

“[Former Democratic President] Carter’s close ties with David Rockefeller, the Eastern Establishment and Trilateral Commission—certainly known to many New York Times writers—were also never reported, although the story was certainly important. In fact, the absence of reporting on Carter’s connections led one distinguished panel of judges to label `Jimmy Carter and the Trilateral Commission’ to be the best censored story of 1976, the most important story during that year that the entire American media systematically failed to cover…

“The Trilateral Commissioners were—and still are—a very elite group, members by invitation only, with a majority composed of multinational businessmen and corporate lawyers. All were chosen directly or indirectly by Rockefeller…”

--from Lawrence Shoup’s 1980 book, The Carter Presidency and Beyond

“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…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.”

--from Ferdinand Lundberg’s 1975 book, The Rockefeller Syndrome

“When I congratulated George [H.W.] Bush on his election as vice-president in 1980, I said I hoped he didn’t mind receiving correspondence from a member of the Trilateral Commission, to which he belonged. He scrawled a card of thanks, and said, `”Sh-sh-sh” about the Trilateral stuff.’ I have kept this exchange secret until now.”

--from then-Trilateral Commission Member Hedley Donovan’s 1989 book, The Right Place, The Right Time

“…Any new clients will be dealing with Rockefeller Financial Services, the trade name of Rockefeller & Co.. Some $7 billion of Rockefeller Financial's $35 billion pile are "assets under management"; the rest are assets under advisement or administration. Rockefeller provides its 298 clients…service through its portfolio-tracking product for wealthy families, Rockit Solutions.

“Rockefeller…still believes in running its own funds in 10 core areas, such as global equities and fixed income. David Harris, Rockefeller's chief investment officer, says large multinationals with their triple-A ratings and mountains of cash need to be viewed as `the new sovereigns’…The firm claims that its global funds are stars, but it keeps a lid on details…Rockefeller reluctantly produced a `confidential’ performance sheet on its 10 core funds but barred us from publishing the results…”

 
--from a September 15, 2012 Barron’s.com article by Richard C. Morais

“Trimble's Force 22E… provides military integrators of munitions, unmanned vehicles, and mobile communications systems with a small, light weight solution for GPS-based navigation and timing… The Force 22E is backward compatible with its predecessor, the proven Force 22 receiver. The addition of a massive fast acquisition correlator and an ICD-167 SHCI interface, makes the Force 22E the most powerful military receiver available in this small size….”

--from the Trimble Navigation Limited/Trimble Military and Advanced Systems, Inc. website

Columbia University’s Rockefeller-Trimble Military and Advanced Systems’ Connection: Trilateral Commission’s Merit Janow Named Columbia SIPA Dean—Part 2

Columbia University’s new School of International and Public Affairs[SIPA] dean—Trilateral Commission member and Rockefeller & Co. corporate board member Merit Janow—may not be eager to encourage many Columbia students or members of the public to study how the Rockefeller Dynasty has obtained, increased and preserved its excessive wealth, historically. Nor will Columbia’s new SIPA dean likely be eager to fully disclose to either the academic community at Columbia or the public too many details about Rockefeller & Co./Rockefeller Financial Service’s 10 core global funds.

But according to an article by Richard Morais, titled “Rock of Ages”, that was posted on the Barron’s.com website on September 15, 2012, since the start of the endless U.S. economic recession in 2008, “Rockefeller’s assets under advisement and administration actually rose 52%, to $35 billion, in the three years through this past June [2012];” and “seven global-equity and small-cap funds” of Rockefeller & Co./Rockefeller Financial Services “have consistently outperformed indexes over long periods of time.”

During this same U.S. economic recession another corporation on whose board of directors Columbia’s new SIPA dean has sat in recent years—Trimble Navigation Limited/Trimble Military and Advanced Systems [TMAS]—has also apparently been making a lot of money by manufacturing weapons for the Pentagon’s endless drone war in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other foreign countries.

Between 2008 and early 2012, for example, the TMAS firm—that is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Trimble Navigation Limited corporation on whose corporate Columbia SIPA Dean Janow has sat since 2008—apparently accepted 50 contracts from the U.S. Department of Defense—whose total worth exceeded $6.6 million—to produce military weaponry-related products. (end of part 2)

Columbia University's Rockefeller-Trimble Military and Advanced Systems' Connection: Trilateral Commision's Merit Janow Named Columbia SIPA Dean--Part 1

“In 1973 the Trilateral Commission was founded by David Rockefeller, Chase Manhattan Bank chairman, [former Columbia University Professor] Zbignew Brzezinski…and other like-minded `eminent private citizens.'… Members…are drawn from international business and banking, government, academia, media, and conservative labor. The Commission's purpose is to engineer an enduring partnership among the ruling classes of North America, Western Europe, and Japan-hence the term `trilateral'-in order to safeguard the interests of Western capitalism in an explosive world. The private Trilateral Commission is attempting to mold public policy…Trilateralists are saying: (1) the people, governments, and economies of all nations must serve the needs of multinational banks and corporations; (2) control over economic resources spells power in modern politics (of course, good citizens are supposed to believe as they are taught; namely, that political equality exists in Western democracies whatever the degree of economic inequality); and (3) the leaders of capitalist democracies-systems where economic control and profit, and thus political power, rest with the few-must resist movement toward a truly popular democracy….”

--Holly Sklar in 1980

“Barack Obama appointed eleven members of…Trilateral Commission to top-level… positions in his administration within his first ten days in office… Within two weeks of his inauguration, Obama’s appointments encompassed more than 12 percent of Commission’s entire US membership…Since the Carter administration, Trilateralists have held these very influential positions: Six of the last eight World Bank Presidents; Presidents and Vice-Presidents of the United States (except for Obama and Biden); over half of all US Secretaries of State; and three quarters of the Secretaries of Defense….”

--the Project Censored website

“John D. Rockefeller's family office, Rockefeller & Co., was founded in 1882. It began selling its expertise to other families in 1980, and by mid-2008 it had $28 billion of clients' assets under its hood….In September 2009, as the financial crisis raged, Rockefeller's chief executive, James S. McDonald, shot himself behind a car dealership in Dartmouth, Mass.

“While world markets continued their downward spiral, it took a year for the Rockefeller Family Trust, which owns 100% of the multifamily office's voting rights, to get McDonald's successor in place….”

--from a September 15, 2012 Barron’s com article by Richard C. Morais

“As the Under Secretary for Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs, Reuben Jeffery III, serves as the senior economic official at the State Department. Mr. Jeffery advises the Secretary of State on international economic policy…He also serves as the State Department's Coordinator for International Energy Affairs.

 
“Nominated by President Bush on April 16, 2007, and confirmed by the Senate on June 21, 2007, Mr. Jeffery was sworn into office by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on June 27….Mr. Jeffery previously served as the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for International Economic Affairs at the National Security Council. Mr. Jeffery also acted as the Representative and Executive Director of the Coalition Provisional Authority Office (CPA) at the Pentagon, after having served as an advisor to Ambassador Bremer in Iraq…’

--from a biography of Rockefeller & Co. CEO and board member Reuben Jeffery III that was posted on the U.S. State Department website in 2007

“TMAS is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Trimble Navigation Limited, which develops advanced GPS solutions for the defense aerospace industry. TMAS products incorporate a common 24-Channel GPS engine that is capable of simultaneously tracking all signals from all GPS satellites in view.

“High-performance products, innovative technology, and proven experience in the field make Trimble a trusted supplier for US and Allied military GPS users worldwide. Over the last decade, armed forces around the world have procured more than 50,000 military receivers from Trimble.”

--from the Trimble Navigation Limited/Trimble Military and Advanced Systems, Inc. website


“Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger has appointed Merit E. Janow as the next dean of the University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), effective July 1."

—from the Columbia University website on May 17, 2013

Columbia University’s Rockefeller-Trimble Military and Advanced Systems’ Connection: Trilateral Commission’s Merit Janow Named Columbia SIPA Dean—Part 1

Like a former Special Assistant to former Republican President George W. Bush and a former advisor to U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Paul Bremer named Reuben Jeffery III, Columbia University’s new School of International and Public Affairs [SIPA] Dean Merit Janow is a member of the undemocratically selected Trilateral Commission elite group that David Rockefeller founded in 1973.

And like Bush and Bremer’s former advisor Jeffery, Trilateral Commission member Janow also sits next to David Rockefeller, David Rockefeller Jr., Mark Rockefeller and Michael Rockefeller on the board of directors of the Rockefeller Dynasty’s Rockefeller & Co.; which, according to its website, apparently seeks to increase both the Rockefeller family’s wealth and the wealth of “select investors outside of the Rockefeller family,” by investing and managing “approximately $35 billion in assets.”

Besides being a member of David Rockefeller’s Trilateral Commission and the corporate board of Rockefeller & Co., Columbia University’s new SIPA dean has also been a member in recent years of the corporate boards of Nasdaq Exchange LLC, the Capital Income Building Fund, the World Growth and Income Fund, the American Fund Insurance Series and the American Fund Target Date Retirement Fund. In addition, SIPA Dean Janow has, since 2008, sat on the board of directors of the Sunnyvale, California-based Trimble Navigation Limited/Trimble Military and Advanced Systems [TMAS], Inc corporation (that has produced weapons for the endless U.S. military’s drone war in Afghanistan and other countries in recent years). As a February 7, 2008 press release of Trimble Navigation Limited/Trimble Military and Advanced Systems noted:

“Trimble (NASDAQ: TRMB) announced today it has appointed Merit E. Janow to serve on its Board of Directors effective March 1, 2008….

“`We are pleased to welcome Merit to Trimble's Board of Directors,’ said Steven W. Berglund, president and CEO of Trimble. `The aggressive development of our international markets is core to Trimble's strategy in all of our segments. Merit's demonstrated global expertise, experience and insight will enable her to make a significant contribution to the Board.’…”

 
According to the Forbes magazine website, in 2011, Columbia’s new SIPA dean was apparently paid $54,000 in compensation and $228,000 in stock as compensation for sitting on the board of directors of Trimble Navigation Limited/Trimble Military and Advanced Systems. And, according to the Center for Responsive Politics' Open Secrets website, SIPA Dean Janow apparently made a campaign contribution of $1,000 to GOP presidential candidate George W. Bush's campaign on June 30, 1999 and a campaign contribution of $2,000 to former Republican President George W. Bush's re-election campaign on August 12, 2003. (end of part 1)