Imperialism, Corruption, and What "They" Didn't Want You To Read?

Professor Carroll Quigley, a Professor of History at the Foreign Service School at Georgetown University who formerly taught at Princeton and Harvard and was an influence on future president Bill Clinton, was the author of "Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time"(1966)---a book of history focusing on economics.  A huge tome totaling about 1,300 pages with chapter titles such as "Finance, Commercial Policy, and Business Activity, 1897-1947," it was doubtless considered a dry read from the standpoint of the average Joe---yet incredible revelations are to be found here and there, nestled within.

Tragedy and Hope was in fact withdrawn by its original New York publisher after attention was drawn to it by the likes of the John Birch Society, according to G. Edward Griffin in The Creature From Jekyll Island, but by then there was an edition put out by a California publisher and the "cat was out of the bag" so to speak.  Now the book may be purchased through amazon.com, where I got my copy.

ROYAL INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS---COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

If you add many of the biggest revelations with which we are here concerned together, the following is what you get "in a nutshell" so to speak:

A secret society with the aim of maintaining and expanding the British Empire was founded in England at the end of the 19th century by Cecil Rhodes---one of the wealthiest men in the world. This secret society extended branches into all countries of the British Commonwealth and the United States.  These national branches, or "Round Table groups," themselves had "front groups" called Royal Institutes of International Affairs---but in America called the Council on Foreign Relations (which became quite powerful).  In short, the existence of  a sort of transnational imperial system is implied.

To assure us he's qualified to write on this, Dr. Quigley states:

"I know of the operations of this network because I have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960's, to examine its papers and secret records.  I have no aversion to it or to most of its aims and have, for much of my life, been close to it and to many of its instruments.  I have objected, both in the past and recently, to a few of its policies... but in general my chief difference of opinion is that it wishes to remain unknown, and I believe its role in history is significant enough to be known." (p. 950)

So we see that the author of "Tragedy and Hope" regards himself as an "insider"---he considers himself to be on the side of the "network" he writes about---but he breaks with them on the issue of secrecy.

In Quigley's words:

There does exist, and has existed for a generation, an international Anglophile network which operates, to some extent, in the way the radical Right believes the Communists act.  In fact, this network, which we may identify as the Round Table Groups, has no aversion to cooperating with the Communists, or any other groups, and frequently does so. (p. 950)

The Round Table Groups were semi-secret discussion and lobbying groups organized... on behalf of Lord Milner, the dominant Trustee of the Rhodes Trust.... The original purpose of these groups was to seek to federate the English-speaking world along lines laid down by Cecil Rhodes...and William T. Stead...and the money for the organizational work came originally from the Rhodes trust.  By 1915 Round Table Groups existed in seven countries, including England...(and) in the United States....Since 1925 there have been substantial contributions from wealthy individuals, and from foundations and firms associated with the international banking fraternity, especially... organizations associated with J.P. Morgan, the Rockefeller and Whitney families, and the associates of Lazard Brothers and of Morgan, Grenfell, and Company. (950-951)

At the end of the war of 1914, it became clear that the organization of this system had to be greatly extended.... Lionel Curtis... established, in England and each dominion, a front organization to the existing local Round Table Group... This front organization, called the Royal Institute of International Affairs, had as its nucleus in each area the existing submerged Round Table Group.  In New York it was known as the Council on Foreign Relations, and was a front for J.P. Morgan and Company in association with the very small American Round Table Group.  The American organizers were dominated by the large number of Morgan 'experts'... who had gone to the Paris Peace Conference and there became close friends with the similar group of English 'experts' which had been recruited by the Milner group.  In fact, the original plans for the Royal Institute of International Affairs and the Council on Foreign Relations were drawn up at Paris.  The Council of the RIIA ... and the board of the Council on Foreign Relations have carried ever since the marks of their origin. (951-952)

INTERNATIONAL BANKERS, THE FEDERAL RESERVE

The reference in the middle quote above to the "international banking fraternity" and the close relationship that it developed with the Round Table Groups is particularly interesting.  There is discussion in Tragedy and Hope concerning the international bankers, from which I will now quote.

The following is quoted from his discussion of Britain's ability to dominate much of the world in the 18th and 19th centuries being partly due to the ability of its government to essentially draw on money created from nothing:

Credit had been known to the Italians and Netherlanders long before it became one of the instruments of English world supremacy.  Nevertheless, the founding of the Bank of England by William Paterson and his friends in 1694 is one of the great dates in world history.  For generations, men had sought to avoid the one drawback of gold, its heaviness, by using pieces of paper to represent specific pieces of gold. Today, we call such pieces of paper gold certificates which entitles its bearer to exchange it for its piece of gold on demand, but in view of the convenience of paper, only a small fraction of certificate holders ever did make such demands. It early became clear that gold need be held on hand only to the amount needed to cover the fraction of certificates likely to be presented for payment; accordingly, the rest of the gold could be used for business purposes, or, what amounts to the same thing, a volume of certificates could be issued greater than the volume of gold reserved for payment of demands against them.  Such an excess volume of paper claims against reserves we now call bank notes.

In effect, this creation of paper claims greater than the reserves available means that bankers were creating money out of nothing. The same thing could be done in another way, not by note issuing banks but by deposit banks. Deposit bankers discovered that orders and checks drawn against deposits by depositors and given to third persons were often not cashed by the latter but were deposited to their own accounts. Thus there were no actual movements of funds,
and payments were made simply by bookkeeping transactions on the accounts. Accordingly, it was necessary for the banker to keep on hand in actual money (gold, certificates and notes) no more than the fraction of deposits likely to be drawn upon and cashed; the rest could be used for loans and if these loans were made by creating a deposit for the borrower, who in turn would draw checks upon it rather than withdraw it in money, such "created deposits" or loans could also be covered adequately by retaining reserves to only a fraction of their value. Such created deposits also were a creation of money out of nothing, although bankers usually refused to express their actions, either note issuing or deposit lending, in these terms. William Paterson, on obtaining the charter of the Bank of England, said "the Bank hath benefit of interest on all moneys it creates out of nothing." This was repeated by Sir Edward Holden, founder of the Midland Bank, on December 18, 1907, and is, of course, generally admitted today. (p.48-49)

Moving into the 19th and 20th centuries, Quigley notes the formation of---

... a single financial system on an international scale which manipulated the quantity and flow of money so that [financial institutions] were able to influence, if not control, governments on one side and industries on the other.  The men who did this, looking backward toward the period of dynastic monarchy in which they had their own roots, aspired to establish dynasties of international bankers and were at least as successful at this as were many of the dynastic political rulers.  The greatest of these dynasties, of course, were the descendants of Meyer Amschel Rothschild (1743-1812) of Frankfort.... Rothschild's five sons, established at branches in Vienna, London, Naples, and Paris, as well as Frankfort, cooperated together in ways which other international banking dynasties copied but rarely excelled. (p.51).

Much later in the book is this interesting quote:

... the powers of financial capitalism had (a) far reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole.  This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences....
Each central bank, in the hands of men like Montagu Norman of the Bank of England, Benjamin Strong of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, Charles Rist of the Bank of France, and Hjalmar Schacht of the Reichsbank, sought to dominate its government by its ability to control treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world. (p. 324)

The central bank of the United States, as mentioned in the quote, is called the Federal Reserve.  Murray N. Rothbard, writing in Wall Street, Banks, And American Foreign Policy, notes the significance of how the founding of the Federal Reserve System came just a short time before America's involvement in a major military conflict, World War I:

"The massive U.S. loans to the Allies, and the subsequent American entry into the war, could not have been financed by the relatively hard-money, gold standard system that existed before 1914.  Fortuitously, an institution was established at the end of 1913 that made the loans and war finance possible: the Federal Reserve System.  By centralizing reserves, by providing a government-privileged lender of last resort to the banks, the Fed enabled the banking system to inflate money and credit, finance loans to the Allies, and float massive deficits once the U.S. entered the war.  In addition, the seemingly odd Fed policy of creating an acceptance market out of thin air by standing ready to purchase acceptance at a subsidized rate, enabled the Fed to rediscount acceptance on munitions exports." (p.25 of 2011 edition)

POLITICAL MANIPULATION

I cannot leave this discussion of Tragedy and Hope without reference to Quigley's explanation concerning the function of our electoral process:

"The chief problem of American political life for a long time has been how to make the two Congressional parties more national and international. The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers.  Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can ‘throw the rascals out' at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy" (p.1247-1248, emphasis added).

According to Quigley, Wall Street long ago took to supporting both "right" and "left."

To Morgan all political parties were simply organizations to be used, and the firm always was careful to keep a foot in all camps. Morgan himself, Dwight Morrow and other partners were allied with the Republicans; Russell C. Lewffingwell was allied with the Democrats; Grayson Murphy was allied with the extreme Right; and Thomas W. Lamont was allied with the Left. (945)

The Lamont family was

sponsors and financial angels to almost a score of extreme Left organizations including the Communist Party itself. (945)

This notion of the control of our political system is echoed and connected to the above-mentioned Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), albeit non-approvingly, by Senator Barry Goldwater in his book With No Apologies, pp. 277-78 where he asserts it as an actuality:

"When we change presidents, it is understood to mean that the voters are ordering a change in national policy. Since 1945, three different Republicans have occupied the White House for 16 years, and four Democrats have held this most powerful post for 17 years. With the exception of the first seven years of the Eisenhower administration, there has been no appreciable change in foreign or domestic policy direction. When a new President comes on board, there is a great turnover in personnel but no change in policy. Example: During the Nixon years Henry Kissinger, CFR member and Nelson Rockefeller's protege, was in charge of foreign policy. When Jimmy Carter was elected, Kissinger was replaced by Zbigniew Brzezinski, CFR member and David Rockefeller's protege."

This same sort of manipulation in the political sphere also seems to operate in the international field as well, according to the research of the late Antony C. Sutton, former fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.  Sutton authored a three-volume study of the links of Wall Street to the twentieth-century rise of particular state socialistic regimes: Wall Street and The Bolshevik Revolution (1974), Wall Street and FDR (1975), and Wall Street and The Rise of Hitler (1976). Note that the Soviet Communists of Russia that came to power in the Bolshevik revolution and Hitler's Nazis are supposed to be ideological opposites.

This definitely does not address all the significant things that can be said about Quigley's book, but I think it may show why such a book may have faced the threat of suppression.

W. Cleon Skousen, in his 1970 review and commentary on Quigley's book, wrote:

"As I see it, the great contribution which Dr. Carroll Quigley unintentionally made by writing Tragedy And Hope was to help the ordinary American realize the utter contempt which the network leaders have for ordinary people. Human beings are treated en masse as helpless puppets on an international chess board where giants of economic and political power subject them to wars, revolution, civil strife, confiscation, subversion, indoctrination, manipulation and outright deception as it suits their fancy and their concocted schemes for world domination.

But, as we have previously mentioned, this MASS of world humanity is precisely the source of latent power which terrifies the Establishment. There is the constant fear that the masses might awaken and frustrate their gigantic schemes, particularly where they have acquired an education and accumulated a little property (which gives them a highly significant degree of independence).

That is what has happened to the mass of humanity in America. They now constitute the great and overwhelming majority of the people, called the middle class. And Dr. Quigley, as we have already seen, leaves no doubt as to the menace which middle-class Americans are believed to represent insofar as the Establishment is concerned.

It was once the great American dream to make as many people as possible a part of the great middle class because it was recognized to be the backbone of our society and the most important segment of the population in maintaining a progressive, self-governing, secure, and freedom-loving people. But, obviously, if you are trying to set up a virtual dictatorship, this group is an enemy. This group will resist a dictatorship. At least, it will do so if it knows what is happening.

So this is the fact of life which the super-rich collectivists of the Establishment face today. Everything they do must be accomplished in an atmosphere of propaganda and deception. Otherwise they keep running into a groundswell of resentment and resistance as they try to compel middle class Americans to give up their independence, their property, and their constitutional prerogatives." (W. Cleon Skousen, The Naked Capitalist, 1970, pgs. 112, 113).