In The Pay of Foundations: How U.S. power elite foundations fund a `parallel left' media network--Part 25

Schumann Media Center, Inc. and Democracy Now! Funder Bill Moyers

In The Pay of Foundations—Part 25

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

As Robert Arnove and Nadine Pinede observed in a 2007 article, titled “Revisiting The `Big Three’ Foundations,’ that appeared in the Critical Sociology journal:

“It is still the foundations, with the profits that they have derived from the given social system, that determine what issues merit society’s attention, who will study these issues, which results will be disseminated, and which recommendations will be made to shape public policy. Decisions that should be made by publicly elected officials are relegated to a group of institutions and individuals who cannot conceive of changing in any profound way a system from which they derive their profits and power. The United States class system and its worldwide hegemonic power remains…still largely intact…”

And as Inside Philanthropy media site editor David Callahan noted in his book The Givers: Wealth, Power, and Philanthropy In A New Gilded Age in 2017:

“Leaving a foundation to your kids actually gives them more influence in society than passing down the wealth directly…We’re seeing a marked expansion of the kind of sophisticated elite power that so many Americans find unnerving…We’re talking about elites who are born into that power and come to exercise it at considerable expense to U.S. taxpayers, who help foot the bill when the family foundations are created…Most Americans are unaware of the huge power that heirs are coming to wield through philanthropy…

“Giving by the wealthy is amplifying their voice at the expense of ordinary citizens, complementing other tools of upper-class dominance…In a democracy, all powerful institutions that affect our lives need vigilant oversight. Philanthropy is no exception. Right now, it’s one of the last major sectors of U.S. society that gets to basically do as it pleases, answering to no one…Americans are getting nervous about how the wealthy are using philanthropy as a tool of influence in an age of inequality…Most people are in fact clueless about just how much influence philanthropy really does wield in U.S. society…”

Yet in 2013, the parallel left Democracy Now! Productions media firm accepted a $750,000 [equal to over $811,000 in 2018] grant from Bill Moyers’ Schumann Media Center, Inc. foundation, according to the Schumann Media Center, Inc.’s Form 990 financial filing for the year beginning Jan. 1, 2013 and ending Dec. 31, 2013.

The same 2013 Form 990 financial filing also indicated that Moyers’ previously Montclair, New Jersey-based Schumann Media Center, Inc. (which used to operate first under the name “Schumann Foundation” and, subsequently, under the name of “Schumann Center for Media and Democracy” prior to 2011) now had its principal tax-exempt foundation office located in Suite 715 at 250 West 57th Street in Manhattan. And, coincidentally, the office of Democracy Now! Funder and long-time Schumann Foundation/Schumann Center for Media and Democracy/Schumann Media Center, Inc. President Bill Moyers’s Public Affairs Television, Inc. firm was also located at 250 West 57th Street in Suite 718--on the same floor as the Schumann Media Center, Inc.’s principal office.

According to the Schumann Media Center, Inc.’s bylaws that were amended and restated on Nov. 11, 2013, its “Board of Trustees shall authorize and approve all expenditures of money” and its “President” (former CBS and long-time PBS show host/journalist and Public Affairs Television, Inc. Executive Bill Moyers) “shall be the chief executive officer of the Corporation and shall in general supervise and control all of the business and affairs of the Corporation.”

Bill Moyers and  his 1970s PBS show managing editor Charlie Rose in 2006 

Yet as Michael Getler wrote in a July 20, 2009 article, titled "Journalistic Foundations,” that was posted on the internet:

“…Is it not inconsistent with the role of `journalist’ to be the head of a foundation that funds a wide-range of organizations, many of which are linked to public policy positions?...Working journalists usually don't also run foundations that provide financial support to other organizations that, in turn, sometimes provide guests for your own program, or other programs or projects and issues you care about…Is there any other high-profile, or low-profile for that matter, working journalist who is involved in this kind of arrangement?...”

According to Article XIII, Section 13.2, titled “Lobbying and Political Action, of its Nov. 11, 2013 “Amended and Restated” bylaws, “No substantial part of the activities of the” Schumann Media Center, Inc. “Corporation shall be the carrying on of propaganda, or otherwise attempting to influence legislation, and the Corporation shall not participate in, or intervene (including the publishing or distribution of statements) in any political campaign on behalf (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office;” and, according to section 13.1, titled “Exempt Activities,” of the same Article XIII, “No trustee, officer, employee or representative of this Corporation shall take any action or carry on any activity by or on behalf of the Corporation which is not permitted to be taken or carried on (a) by an organization exempt from federal income tax…”

Yet besides giving the parallel left Democracy Now! Productions media firm a $750,000 “charitable grant” between Jan. 1, 2013 and Dec. 31, 2013, Moyers’ Schumann Media Center, Inc. also gave a “charitable grant” of $301,139 [equal to over $325,000 in 2018] to the parallel left “Institute for Public Affairs”/In These Times magazine media firm, a “charitable grant” of $295,000 [equal to over $319,000 in 2018) to the parallel left Nation Institute/The Nation magazine media firm, a “charitable grant” of $93,250 [equal to over $100,000 in 2018] to the parallel left Foundation for National Progress/Mother Jones magazine media firm and a “charitable grant” of $250,000 [equal to over $270,000 in 2018] to help fund the parallel left Common Dreams website, during this same period. In addition, between Jan. 1, 2013 and Dec. 31, 2013 another “future” $103,125 grant to Foundation for National Progress/Mother Jones magazine was also authorized in a vote by the Schumann Media Center, Inc.’s Board of Trustees.

And, like in previous years, the “charitable grant” money that Moyers’ Schumann Media Center, Inc. foundation used in 2013 to help fund politically partisan parallel left media outlets like the Democracy Now! show, In These Times magazine, Mother Jones magazine, The Nation magazine/Nation Institute and Common Dreams was apparently derived from owning stock and investing in corporations that exploit workers and consumers at home and abroad. As Section 12.1 of Article XII, titled “Reinvestment” of the Schumann Media Center, Inc.’s “Amended and Restated” bylaws of Nov. 11, 2013 noted:

“The Corporation shall have the right to retain all or any part of any securities…acquired by it in whatever manner, and to invest and reinvest any funds held by it…without being restricted to the class of investments…”

In 2013, for example, the market value of the Schumann Media Center, Inc.’s investment in the American Growth Funds exceeded $21 million; and in 2014 the portfolio of the American Growth Funds included ownership of corporate stock in corporations like the following: Amazon, Comcast; Goldman Sachs; CBS; Microsoft; Philip Morris; Berkshire Hathaway; Halliburton; Facebook Inc.’ DowDuPont; JP Morgan; Nike; AIG; Starbuck’s; Apple; Wells Fargo; Coca Cola; Sony; Chevron; General Dynamics; Lockheed; Time Warner; Citigroup; Raytheon; Uber; United Technologies; and Royal Dutch Shell. And according to the U.S. News.com website, as of Sept. 10, 2018, the American Growth Funds had “ assets totaling almost $194.79 billion;” and “its portfolio” consisted “primarily of U.S. stocks, which make up more than 80 percent of the portfolio…with Amazon, Gilead Sciences and Comcast rounding out the top three holdings.”

Ex-LBJ Special Assistant/Schumann Media Center Prez Moyers With LBJ

 Long-time Schumann Media Center, Inc. foundation president Moyers used to be Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Special Assistant and White House press secretary during the Vietnam War Era of the 1960s. So, not surprisingly, between Jan. 1, 2016 and Dec. 31, 2016 Democracy Now! funder Moyers’ Schumann Media Center, Inc., besides giving an additional $250,000 “charitable grant” to Democracy Now! Productions, also, according to its 2016 Form 990 financial filing, gave a $100,000 “charitable grant” to the Texas-based Lyndon B. Johnson Foundation—whose board of trustees includes, coincidentally, Luci Baines Johnson, the founder and limited Partner of LBJ Family Wealth Advisers.

(end of part 25 )

In The Pay of Foundations: How U.S. power elite foundations fund a `parallel left' media network--Part 17

Democracy Now! Funder Glaser's RealNetworks Inc. Partnered With Microsoft

In The Pay of Foundations—Part 17

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

Even after Democracy Now! funder Glaser finally left Microsoft in 1993 to establish his own for-profit company which, according to Robert Reid’s Architects of the Web book, he “started ramping up” in 1994, that was initially called “Progressive Networks” (but renamed RealNetworks Inc. in 1997), the former Microsoft VP continued to be connected on a business level to Gates, Microsoft and current or former Microsoft executives in the late 1990s. As Randall Stross’s The Microsoft Way book noted in 1996:

“…Among Gates’s advisors, Rob Glaser made the biggest early bet on the Internet…In late 1993, after 10 years, he left Microsoft as a full-time employee and temporarily continued on a part-time, contractual basis while he founded Progressive Networks…”

According to James Wallace’s 1997 Overdrive: Bill Gates and the Race To Control Cyberspace book:

“[In September 1993]…Gates phoned, and the two met at Gates’s office to talk about Glaser doing some consulting work on the Marvel project headed by Siegelman. Gates said the work would be only for a few months and no more than 10 to 15 hours a week. Glaser accepted the assignment, even though at the time he was busy preparing a business plan for his own company. He had helped recruit …Siegelman to Microsoft…

“But Gates had another assignment for Glaser in addition to the consulting work on what would become the Microsoft Network. He wanted Glaser to work directly for him, helping evaluate whether Microsoft should create an alliance with cable-TV titans Time Warner and Tele-Communications Inc….Now, Gates’s vision of Microsoft’s dominance included the home television using Microsoft’s software, too…Glaser made 2 rounds of recommendations to Gates… At Microsoft’s insistence, Glaser would not be…specific in an interview about his recommendations…Even though Glaser was no longer working at Microsoft, he and Siegelman had talked several times since that day in mid-September when Gates had asked Glaser to evaluate Microsoft’s on-line service and how it fit with the Internet…Glaser…formed his own company, called Progressive Networks. Several of his Microsoft pals…became investors…”

Charles Ferguson’s 1999 High Stakes, No Prisoners book also recalled:

“In August 1995…Rob Glaser, who had just resigned from Microsoft, visited the Electronic Frontier Foundation…Glaser used Mosaic and the Web for the first time and was impressed. A month later, Glaser was hired by Gates as a consultant to advise on Web/Internet issues…Then Rob Glaser founded Progressive Networks to develop `streaming’ audio technology to permit large-scale audio distribution over the Internet. Glaser was a former Microsoft executive who had recently consulted to Gates on precisely these subjects…Microsoft bought an equity stake in RealNetworks…”

And according to the 1997 Architects of the Web book:

“Rob’s vice president of software development was Phil Barrett…Phil…ran `a couple of product development teams’ over at Microsoft…Rob called a compression-expert that he knew from Microsoft days…The core notions behind Real Audio were fixed in no time…Rob settled firmly on the notion that Progressive would be a for-profit company…He decided that the company…would sell the software that served Real Audio files over the Internet (the Real Audio Server)…Real Audio debuted on the Web on April 10, 1995, along with content from ABC News, National Public Radio [NPR] and others…Within 2 days of Real Audio’s launch, Progressive announced that Microsoft…had agreed to distribute the Real Audio Player with their browser software…By the summer of 1996, Real Audio accounted for an extraordinary 85 percent share of the Web’s audio content…

“Rob…works hard to position himself as a partner, not competitor, to…two important companies. Microsoft is in fact one of Progressive’s biggest customers. This, plus its crosstown location and the fact that Rob has 10 years of relationship to draw on there (including one with the Boss), makes it easy for him to keep the lines of communication and diplomacy open…”

Coincidentally, A co-founder of Glaser’s Progressive Networks/RealNetworks Inc. in 1993 and 1994, David Halperin, had previously worked as former Democratic Johnson Administration Defense Secretary Robert McNamara’s research assistant in 1985 and 1986; and, between 1991 and 1993, the co-founder of Glaser’s Real Networks firm worked as a counsel to the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee.  In addition, between 1997 and 2001, Halperin later worked as the special assistant to the president for national security affairs and director for speechwriting at the National Security Council in the Clinton White House.

Ex-Clinton White House Staff Assistant David Halperin: Co-founded RealNetworks

According to an Aug. 1, 1999 Wired magazine article by Randall Rothenberg:  

“The product of a suburban New York prep school favored by…liberals… Glaser may have seemed like an atypical Microsoftie…. In 1993, after rising to become the company's youngest vice president and gaining a reputation as a demanding boss, Glaser lost a bureaucratic tussle over control of the company's multimedia operations to Nathan Myhrvold, prompting Glaser to resign.

“With a Yale friend, David Halperin, Glaser hatched vague plans for a company that would link television to the nascent Internet...Glaser, with some of his Microsoft millions, quickly hired a trio of engineers to develop the software…. Not long after, the two demonstrated the system to an informal group of liberal advisers at a Washington, DC, hotel…. his friends convinced him to drop the politics, focus on streaming, and donate the resulting profits to their favored causes….Lotus founder Mitch Kapor and Mike Slade, who'd left Microsoft…were early investors. Kapor also introduced Glaser to the venture capital firm Accel Partners. Glaser, who retains 40 percent of his company (currently valued in excess of $1.5 billion [in 1999]), sold more than 10 percent to Accel for $5 million….Shares …have risen almost tenfold since the public offering in late 1997… In fiscal 1998, software licensing fees - primarily from server software - were $47 million. Eighty-five percent of streaming media broadcasts, Real says, use its technology [in 1999]…” 

In a Sept. 4, 2000 Fortune magazine article, Amy Kovner indicated how Glaser’s RealNetworks Inc. firm made some big money in the late 1990s (when its co-founder, David Halperin, was working as a special assistant to Democratic President Clinton for national security affairs):
   
“…Glaser has been expanding RealNetworks' reach into every nook and cranny of the digital-media terrain….Real firmly dominates the $900 million streaming-media business. Over 85% of the streaming content on the Web comes in Real's format. The company has at least four revenue sources, ranging from digital-media players to content-delivery networks. Its sales have grown 135% a year, reaching $131 million in 1999, when Real managed the undot-commy feat of turning a $7 million profit….

“If you're wondering how RealNetworks makes any money at all, you're not alone. … First off, more than 1% of the people who download the RealPlayer…actually buy a souped-up version known as the RealPlayerPlus. At $29.99 a pop, Real has raked in about $40 million from that tiny sliver of users. Real also makes money from the Websites whose songs you listen to….About 600,000 Websites use Real to deliver their audio and video content, accounting for about a quarter of Real's revenues…Last quarter, Real's ad revenues…increased by 350%, to more than $14 million. …`We've really benefited from being able to show streaming-media ads,’ says Lucy Mohl, the head of programming for RealNetworks and a former movie critic for NBC…So Real is rolling in dough. …CNN.com and ABC are both major buyers of Real technology….”

But Randall Rothenberg’s Wired magazine article by Randall Rothenberg article also contained the following reference in 1999 to the RealNetworks Inc. CEO whose tax-exempt Glaser Progress Foundation has been funding the parallel left Democracy Now!  show since 2001:

“Here's what else Glaser knows: The downloadable revolution isn't simply about music…Anything so disruptive is, ultimately, about power, and Glaser is perfectly comfortable with that: His goal is nothing less than ruling the multibillion-dollar future of broadband…. Rob Glaser built his streaming empire...in no small part upon a mastery of the politics necessary…”

And, as David Postman’s July 26, 2004 Seattle Times article, titled “RealNetworks CEO Donates Big Bucks To Politics,” observed in 2004:

 “…So far this year, Glaser has given more than $1 million…making him the top donor in Washington state and one of the most generous givers of any political persuasion in the nation...Through his representatives, Glaser declined to be interviewed for this story….Glaser was an early supporter of America Coming Together (ACT), one of the biggest of the new independent political groups allying themselves with Democrats this year. Glaser has donated $750,000 to ACT and persuaded friends to give as well. When Bill Clinton visited town to promote his book, he had dinner with Glaser...His friends work for the State Department — or did during the Clinton-Gore years…Glaser met with Soros at his Long Island home to discuss funding America Coming Together...RealNetworks has been a political incubator of sorts. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., worked there between her 1994 loss of a congressional seat and her 2000 Senate victory. She largely financed her campaign using money she made at RealNetworks… In 2000, Glaser began to give more serious money — about $95,000, including $50,000 to the Democratic National Committee….He has helped fund Democracy Now…” (end of part 17)

In The Pay of Foundations: How U.S. power elite foundations fund a `parallel left' media network--Part 16

Democracy Now! Funder/Ex-Microsoft VP Glaser Partnered With IBM

In The Pay of Foundations—Part 16

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

Multi-billionaire Bill Gates and Democracy Now! Productions funder Rob Glaser’s Microsoft had personally enriched both businessmen during the 1980s period, when Microsoft partnered with the transnational corporation, IBM, for 9 years; and when Microsoft apparently also engaged in monopolistic business practices. According to Gary Rivlin’s 1999 The Plot To Get Bill Gates book:

“IBM and Microsoft weren’t that different. At Microsoft they were still company men…IBM…had taken Gates’s measure and deemed him…its kind of man…The chairman of IBM knew Gates’s mother because both served on the national board of United Way…So eager was Gates to remain on good terms with IBM that in 1985 or 1987 he offered Big Blue a 30 percent stake in Microsoft. Executives at IBM brushed aside the offer…”

James Wallace and Jim Erickson’s 1992 book, Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire also recalled: 

“…IBM chief executive John Opel…knew Mary Gates, having served with her on the national board of United Way…Whether this United Way connection helped Microsoft get the IBM deal is not clear. Opel…won’t talk…In early November of 1980, the corporate…couple officially signed the paperwork. Microsoft would develop the `software for IBM’s first personal computer and supply the vital disk operating system or DOS…Chairman Bill sold 5 percent of Microsoft for a million dollars to Technology Venture Investors, a venture capital firm in Menlo, California…David Marquardt, a general partner in TVI, was made a director of Microsoft’s new board…The company went public…in 1986…As the IBM PC gained in popularity, more and more programmers wrote software for that machine and for the operating system Gates had acquired…”

And according to Randall E. Stross’s 1996 The Microsoft Way book:

“The great stroke of luck that provided Microsoft with 10 very good years came in 1980 when it signed a contract with IBM to provide the operating system that would be used on the IBM Personal Computer, introduced the next year…Microsoft, which itself did not have an operating system to offer, bought another, still smaller company’s operating system software to adapt for the project. The contract…worked greatly in Microsoft’s favor. The terms permitted Microsoft to sell the operating system to other companies and to consumers, but IBM, effectively could not…Microsoft’s rivals have raised questions of monopoly that staff members of the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department have largely accepted…Gates is remembered as the precociously outspoken advocate for commercializing the distribution of software.”

James Wallace’s Overdrive: Bill Gates and the Race To Control Cyberspace book also noted in 1997:

“…Microsoft and IBM…in August of 1985…signed a long-term joint agreement that guaranteed the continuation of DOS and IBM…At the time, Gates said it was `the biggest contract’ Microsoft had ever signed…Microsoft had become the computer industry’s Standard Oil in the late 20th century…During…November 1989…Microsoft and IBM had jointly issued a…news release, titled `IBM and Microsoft expand partnership…’…FTC staff believed that the agreement between IBM and Microsoft smacked of anti-competitive collusion, and the investigation was on…”

The Microsoft Way book provided an example of how Democracy Now! Productions funder Glaser worked with IBM during his 10 years as a Microsoft “company man” and as Multi-Billionaire Gates’ “trusted lieutenant” during the 1980s:

“In late 1988, IBM executives told Microsoft they wanted to try once again to crack the home personal computer market…Gates suggested that the machine be equipped with an integrated CD-ROM drive and sound card…IBM accepted the suggestion…Gates assigned a team of Microsoft software engineers to work with IBM…Gates had assigned Rob Glaser to be his principal multimedia advisor…He was given senior responsibility by Gates soon after joining the company…Glaser suggested to Gates that Microsoft should launch what Glaser called a `virtual standard’ for multimedia that could be used in all-IBM compatible personal computers…Gates gave his approval…Gates…sent Rob Glaser…off on assignments to learn about new strategic problems--go figure it out’ was the injunction Gates would use—and then report back to him…”

Charles Ferguson’s 1999 book, High Stakes, No Prisoners, described how Microsoft had apparently increased its profitability and power during the 1980s and early 1990s, when Democracy Now! funder Glaser was a Microsoft vice-president:

“The ultimate source of Microsoft power is its monopoly control of the software platform used by PC applications—Windows… Microsoft even owns an equity stake in Apple, has rights to all of Apple’s intellectual property…and holds at least 50 percent market share in application software for the MAC…Microsoft…exploits its monopoly positions ruthlessly…Microsoft’s predatory behavior…, false dealings, and strategic use of monopoly power are integral to its ability to create further monopolies…”

And James Wallace and Jim Erickson’s Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire book had noted in 1992:

“…By mid-April of 1991, Microsoft was forced to acknowledge…that the FTC was looking into allegations that the company `has monopolized or attempted to monopolize the market for operating systems, operating environment, computer software and consumer peripherals for personal computers’…Microsoft has become notorious…not just for capitalizing on the technological advances of others, but, as some claim, for predatory pilfering. They complain that Microsoft repeatedly approaches small companies promising new products, ostensibly to talk about a partnership. After Microsoft is given a glimpse of how the software works, it suddenly loses interest in the deal—only to announce later that it has been working on surprisingly similar, but competing software…At the heart of the FTC probe is…whether or not Microsoft’s dominant position has chilled competition and thus hurt consumers…” (end of part 16)

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)

`Democracy Now!' Host/Producer's Amy Goodman's Total Annual Compensation: $176,000 in 2015

In 2015, the majority of people who work at straight jobs in the United States were paid annual salaries of less than $50,000. Yet according to its Form 990 financial filing for 2015, the co-host and president of the Lannan Foundation and Park Foundation-subsidized Democracy Now! Productions Inc. alternative media group, Amy Goodman, apparently took home a base salary of $150,000 and $26,632 in speaking fees income, for a total annual compensation of $176,632 in 2015. 

Although Goodman's Democracy Now! Productions Inc. alternative media firm is a tax-exempt, "non-profit" organization, in 2015 its total revenues of over $8.1 million exceeded its total expenses of $6.2 million by nearly $1.9 million, according to its Form 990 financial filing; and the Democracy Now! Production Inc. firm's total assets increased from over $18 million to over $19.9 million between the beginning and end of 2015.

Of the $8.1 million that Democracy Now! Productions Inc. took in during 2015, a significant percentage of money came from the "charitable grants" of tax-exempt foundations like the Santa Fe, New Mexico-based Lannan Foundation. According to the "non-profit" and tax-exempt Lannan Foundation's Form 990 financial filing for 2015, for example, in 2015 two charitable grants, totalling $400,000, were given to "Democracy Now! Productions" for "general operating support" and "internship support."

And, coincidentally, the "philanthropic" Lannan Foundation's Form 990 financial filing also indicated that the Lannan family's "non-profit" Lannan Foundation--whose board of directors currently includes Patrick Lannan, John R. Lannan and Lawrence P. Lannan Jr.--also paid the Lannan Foundation president--"J. Patrick Lannan"--an annual salary of $298,358 in 2015--despite the post-2008 endless economic recession for working-class people in the United States.

Between 2015 and 2017, Democracy Now! Productions has also received, for example, some additional grant money from the following other tax-exempt foundations:

1. A $25,000 grant from the Park Foundation in 2015;
2. Six grants, totalling $302,000, from the Tides Foundation in 2016;
3. A $30,000 grant from the Park Foundation in 2016; and
4. A $30,000 grant from the Park Foundation in 2017.

In 2015, the Lannan Foundation also gave another left gatekeeper/alternative media group, The Nation magazine/Nation Institute, a $75,000 "charitable" grant. In addition,in 2015 and 2016, The Nation/Nation Institute also received, for example, grant money from the following other tax-exempt foundations:

1. A $50,000 grant from the Ford Foundation in 2015;
2. Two grants, totalling $58,000, from the Park Foundation in 2015; and
3. A $750,000 grant from the MacArthur Foundation in 2016. 

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)

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)