Report from Iron Mountain; Using fear to make people subservient to government.
Barb’s note: Here is the Iron Mountain Report that this article references: Report from Iron Mountain
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© 2002 by G. Edward Griffin
Freedom Force International
This is taken from Chapter 24 of The Creature from Jekyll Island
(When added to The Freedom Manifesto, this material should be expanded to include the concept of deliberate waste. With that included, it will make an excellent chapter.)
The substance of these stratagems [for the weakening of the United States so it can be more easily merged into a global government based on the model of collectivism] can be traced to a think-tank study released in 1966 called the Report from Iron Mountain. Although the origin of the report is highly debated, the document itself hints that it was commissioned by the Department of Defense under Defense Secretary, Robert McNamara and was produced by the Hudson Institute located at the base of Iron Mountain in Croton-on-Hudson, New York. The Hudson Institute was founded and directed by Herman Kahn, formerly of the Rand Corporation. Both McNamara and Kahn were members of the CFR.
The self-proclaimed purpose of the study was to explore various ways to “stabilize society.” Praiseworthy as that may sound, a reading of the Report soon reveals that the word society is used synonymously with the word government. Furthermore, the word stabilize is used as meaning to preserve and to perpetuate. It is clear from the start that the nature of the study was to analyze the different ways a government can perpetuate itself in power, ways to control its citizens and prevent them from rebelling. It was stated at the beginning of the Report that morality was not an issue. The study did not address questions of right or wrong; nor did it deal with such concepts as freedom or human rights. Ideology was not an issue, nor patriotism, nor religious precepts. Its sole concern was how to perpetuate the existing government. The Report said:
Previous studies have taken the desirability of peace, the importance of human life, the superiority of democratic institutions, the greatest “good” for the greatest number, the “dignity” of the individual, the desirability of maximum health and longevity, and other such wishful premises as axiomatic values necessary for the justification of a study of peace issues. We have not found them so. We have attempted to apply the standards of physical science to our thinking, the principal characteristic of which is not quantification, as is popularly believed, but that, in Whitehead’s words, “…it ignores all judgments of value; for instance, all esthetic and moral judgments.” (1)
The major conclusion of the report was that, in the past, war has been the only reliable means to achieve that goal. It contends that only during times of war or the threat of war are the masses compliant enough to carry the yoke of government without complaint. Fear of conquest and pillage by an enemy can make almost any burden seem acceptable by comparison. War can be used to arouse human passion and patriotic feelings of loyalty to the nation’s leaders. No amount of sacrifice in the name of victory will be rejected. Resistance is viewed as treason. But, in times of peace, people become resentful of high taxes, shortages, and bureaucratic intervention. When they become disrespectful of their leaders, they become dangerous. No government has long survived without enemies and armed conflict. War, therefore, has been an indispensable condition for “stabilizing society.” These are the report’s exact words:
The war system not only has been essential to the existence of nations as independent political entities, but has been equally indispensable to their stable political structure. Without it, no government has ever been able to obtain acquiescence in its “legitimacy,” or right to rule its society. The possibility of war provides the sense of external necessity without which no government can long remain in power. The historical record reveals one instance after another where the failure of a regime to maintain the credibility of a war threat led to its dissolution, by the forces of private interest, of reactions to social injustice, or of other disintegrative elements. The organization of society for the possibility of war is its principal political stabilizer…. It has enabled societies to maintain necessary class distinctions, and it has insured the subordination of the citizens to the state by virtue of the residual war powers inherent in the concept of nationhood. (2)
A NEW DEFINITION OF PEACE
The report then explains that we are approaching a point in history where the old formulas may no longer work. Why? Because it may now be possible to create a world government in which all nations will be disarmed and disciplined by a world army, a condition which will be called peace. The report says: “The word peace, as we have used it in the following pages, … implies total and general disarmament.” (3)
Under that scenario, independent nations will no longer exist and governments will not have the capability to wage war. There could be military action by the world army against renegade political subdivisions, but these would be called peace-keeping operations, and soldiers would be called peace keepers. No matter how much property is destroyed or how much blood is spilled, the bullets will be “peaceful” bullets and the bombs – even atomic bombs, if necessary – will be “peaceful” bombs.
The report then raises the question of whether there can ever be a suitable substitute for war. What else could the regional governments use – and what could the world government itself use – to legitimize and perpetuate itself? To provide an answer to that question was the stated purpose of the study.
The Report from Iron Mountain concludes that there can be no substitute for war unless it possesses three properties. It must (1) be economically wasteful, (2) represent a credible threat of great magnitude, and (3) provide a logical excuse for compulsory service to the government.
A SOPHISTICATED FORM OF SLAVERY
On the subject of compulsory service, the Report explains that one of the advantages of standing armies is that they provide a place for the government to put antisocial and dissident elements of society. In the absence of war, these forced-labor battalions would be told they are fighting poverty or cleaning up the planet or bolstering the economy or serving the common good in some other fashion. Every teenager would be required to serve – especially during those years in which young people are most rebellious against authority. Older people, too, would be drafted as a means of working off tax payments and fines. Dissidents would face heavy fines for “hate crimes” and politically incorrect attitudes so, eventually, they would all be in the forced-labor battalions. The Report says:
We will examine … the time-honored use of military institutions to provide anti-social elements with an acceptable role in the social structure. … The current euphemistic clichés – “juvenile delinquency” and “alienation” – have had their counterparts in every age. In earlier days these conditions were dealt with directly by the military without the complications of due process, usually through press gangs or outright enslavement. …
Most proposals that address themselves, explicitly or otherwise, to the postwar problem of controlling the socially alienated turn to some variant of the Peace Corps or the so-called Job Corps for a solution. The socially disaffected, the economically unprepared, the psychologically uncomfortable, the hard-core “delinquents,” the incorrigible “subversives,” and the rest of the unemployable are seen as somehow transformed by the disciplines of a service modeled on military precedent into more or less dedicated social service workers. …
Another possible surrogate for the control of potential enemies of society is the reintroduction, in some form consistent with modern technology and political processes, of slavery. … It is entirely possible that the development of a sophisticated form of slavery may be an absolute prerequisite for social control in a world at peace. As a practical matter, conversion of the code of military discipline to a euphemized form of enslavement would entail surprisingly little revision; the logical first step would be the adoption of some form of “universal” military service. (4)
BLOOD GAMES
The Report considered ways in which the public could be preoccupied with non-important activities so that it would not have time to participate in political debate or resistance. Recreation, trivial game shows, pornography, and situation comedies could play an important role, but blood games were considered to be the most promising of all the options. Blood games are competitive events between individuals or teams that are sufficiently violent in nature to enable the spectators to vicariously work off their frustrations. As a minimum, these events must evoke a passionate team loyalty on the part of the fans and must include the expectation of pain and injury on the part of the players. Even better for their purpose is the spilling of blood and the possibility of death. The common man has a morbid fascination for violence and blood. Crowds gather to chant “Jump! Jump!” at the suicidal figure on a hotel roof. Cars slow to a near stop on the highway to gawk at broken bodies next to a collision.
A schoolyard fight instantly draws a circle of spectators. Boxing matches and football games and hockey games and automobile races are telecast daily, attracting millions of cheering fans who give rapt attention to each moment of danger, each angry blow to the face, each broken bone, each knockout, each carrying away of the unconscious or possibly dying contestant. In this fashion, their anger at “society” is defused and focused, instead, on the opposing team. The emperors of Rome devised the Circuses and gladiator contests and public executions by wild beasts for precisely that purpose.
Before jumping to the conclusion that such concepts are absurd in modern times, recall that during the 1985 European soccer championship in Belgium, the spectators became so emotionally involved in the contest that a bloody riot broke out in the bleachers leaving behind 38 dead and more that 400 injured. U.S. News & World Report gives this account:
The root of the trouble: A tribal loyalty to home teams that surpasses an obsession and, say some experts, has become a substitute religion for many. The worst offenders include members of gangs such as Chelsea’s Anti-Personnel Firm, made up of ill-educated young males who find in soccer rivalry an escape from boredom.
Still, the British do not have a patent on soccer violence. On May 26, eight people were killed and more than 50 injured in Mexico City,… a 1964 stadium riot in Lima, Peru, killed more than 300 – and a hotly disputed 1969 match between El Salvador and Honduras led to a week-long shooting war between the two countries, causing hundreds of casualties.
The U.S. is criticized for the gridiron violence of its favorite sport, football, but outbursts in the bleachers are rare because loyalties are spread among many sports and national pride is not at stake. Said Thomas Tutko, professor of psychology at California’s San Jose State University: “In these other countries, it used to be their armies. Now it’s their competitive teams that stir passions.” (5)
Having considered all the ramifications of blood games, The Report from Iron Mountain concluded that they were not an adequate substitute for war. It is true that violent sports are useful distracters and do, in fact, allow an outlet for boredom and fierce group loyalty, but their effect on the nation’s psyche could not match the intensity of war hysteria. Until a better alternative could be found, world government would have to be postponed so that nations could continue to wage war.
FINDING A CREDIBLE GLOBAL THREAT
In time of war, most citizens uncomplainingly accept their low quality of life and remain fiercely loyal to their leaders. If a suitable substitute for war is to be found, then it must also elicit that same reaction. Therefore, a new enemy must be found that threatens the entire world, and the prospects of being overcome by that enemy must be just as terrifying as war itself. The Report is emphatic on that point:
Allegiance requires a cause; a cause requires an enemy. This much is obvious; the critical point is that the enemy that defines the cause must seem genuinely formidable. Roughly speaking, the presumed power of the “enemy” sufficient to warrant an individual sense of allegiance to a society must be proportionate to the size and complexity of the society. Today, of course, that power must be one of unprecedented magnitude and frightfulness. (6)
The first consideration in finding a suitable threat to serve as a global enemy was that it did not have to be real. A real one would be better, of course, but an invented one would work just as well, provided the masses could be convinced it was real. The public will more readily believe some fictions than others. Credibility would be more important than truth.
Poverty was examined as a potential global enemy but rejected as not fearful enough. Most of the world was already in poverty. Only those who had never experienced poverty would see it as a global threat. For the rest, it was simply a fact of everyday life.
An invasion by aliens from outer space was given serious consideration. The report said that experiments along those lines already may have been tried. Public reaction, however, was not sufficiently predictable, because the threat was not “credible.” Here is what the report had to say:
Credibility, in fact, lies at the heart of the problem of developing a political substitute for war. This is where the space-race proposals, in many ways so well suited as economic substitutes for war, fall short. The most ambitious and unrealistic space project cannot of itself generate a believable external menace. It has been hotly argued that such a menace would offer the “last best hope of peace,” etc., by uniting mankind against the danger of destruction by “creatures” from other planets or from outer space. Experiments have been proposed to test the credibility of an out-of-our-world invasion threat; it is possible that a few of the more difficult-to-explain “flying saucer” incidents of recent years were in fact early experiments of this kind. If so, they could hardly have been judged encouraging. (7)
This report was released in 1966 when the idea of an alien presence seemed far fetched to the average person. In the ensuing years, however, that perception has changed. A growing segment of the population now believes that intelligent life forms may exist beyond our planet and could be monitoring our own civilization. Whether that belief is right or wrong is not the issue here. The point is that a dramatic encounter with aliens shown on network television – even if it were to be entirely fabricated by high-tech computer graphics or laser shows in the sky – could be used to stampede all nations into world government supposedly to defend the Earth from invasion. On the other hand, if the aliens were perceived to have peaceful intent, an alternative scenario would be to form world government to represent a unified human species speaking with a single voice in some kind of galactic federation. Either scenario would be far more credible today than in 1966.
THE ENVIRONMENTAL-POLLUTION MODEL
The final candidate for a useful global threat was pollution of the environment. This was viewed as the most likely to succeed because it could be related to observable conditions such as smog and water pollution– in other words, it would be based partly on fact and, therefore, be credible. Predictions could be made showing end-of-earth scenarios just as horrible as atomic warfare. Accuracy in these predictions would not be important. Their purpose would be to frighten, not to inform. It might even be necessary to deliberately poison the environment to make the predictions more convincing and to focus the public mind on fighting a new enemy, more fearful than any invader from another nation – or even from outer space. The masses would more willingly accept a falling standard of living, tax increases, and bureaucratic intervention in their lives as simply “the price we must pay to save Mother Earth.” A massive battle against death and destruction from global pollution possibly could replace war as justification for social control.
Did The Report from Iron Mountain really say that? It certainly did – and much more. Here are just a few of the pertinent passages:
When it comes to postulating a credible substitute for war … the “alternate enemy” must imply a more immediate, tangible, and directly felt threat of destruction. It must justify the need for taking and paying a “blood price” in wide areas of human concern. In this respect, the possible substitute enemies noted earlier would be insufficient. One exception might be the environmental-pollution model, if the danger to society it posed was genuinely imminent. The fictive models would have to carry the weight of extraordinary conviction, underscored with a not inconsiderable actual sacrifice of life. … It may be, for instance, that gross pollution of the environment can eventually replace the possibility of mass destruction by nuclear weapons as the principal apparent threat to the survival of the species. Poisoning of the air, and of the principal sources of food and water supply, is already well advanced, and at first glance would seem promising in this respect; it constitutes a threat that can be dealt with only through social organization and political power. …
It is true that the rate of pollution could be increased selectively for this purpose. … But the pollution problem has been so widely publicized in recent years that it seems highly improbable that a program of deliberate environmental poisoning could be implemented in a politically acceptable manner.
However unlikely some of the possible alternative enemies we have mentioned may seem, we must emphasize that one must be found of credible quality and magnitude, if a transition to peace is ever to come about without social disintegration. It is more probable, in our judgment, that such a threat will have to be invented. (8)
AUTHENTICITY OF THE REPORT
The Report from Iron Mountain states that it was produced by a Special Study Group of fifteen men whose identities were to remain secret and that it was not intended to be made public. One member of the group, however, felt the Report was too important to be kept under wraps. He was not in disagreement with its conclusions. He merely believed that more people should read it. He delivered his personal copy to Leonard Lewin, a well-known author and columnist who, in turn, negotiated its publication by Dial Press. It was then reprinted by Dell Publishing.
This was during the Johnson Administration, and the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs was CFR member Walt Rostow. Rostow was quick to announce that the report was a spurious work. Herman Kahn, CFR director of the Hudson Institute, said it was not authentic. The Washington Post – which was owned and run by CFR member Katharine Graham – called it “a delightful satire.” Time magazine, founded by CFR-member Henry Luce, said it was a skillful hoax.
Then, on November 26, 1967, the Report was reviewed in the book section of the Washington Post by Herschel McLandress, which was the pen name for Harvard professor John Kenneth Galbraith. Galbraith, who also had been a member of the CFR, said that he knew firsthand of the Report’s authenticity because he had been invited to participate in it. Although he was unable to be part of the official group, he was consulted from time to time and had been asked to keep the project a secret. Furthermore, while he doubted the wisdom of letting the public know about the Report, he agreed totally with its conclusions. He wrote:
As I would put my personal repute behind the authenticity of this document, so would I testify to the validity of its conclusions. My reservations relate only to the wisdom of releasing it to an obviously unconditioned public. (9)
Six weeks later, in an Associated Press dispatch from London, Galbraith went even further and jokingly admitted that he was “a member of the conspiracy.”(10)
That, however, did not settle the issue. The following day, Galbraith backed off. When asked about his “conspiracy” statement, he replied: “For the first time since Charles II The Times has been guilty of a misquotation. … Nothing shakes my conviction that it was written by either Dean Rusk or Mrs. Clare Booth Luce.” (11)
The reporter who conducted the original interview was embarrassed by the allegation and did further research. Six days later, this is what he reported: Misquoting seems to be a hazard to which Professor Galbraith is prone. The latest edition of the Cambridge newspaper Varsity quotes the following (tape recorded) interchange:
Interviewer: “Are you aware of the identity of the author of Report from Iron Mountain?”
Galbraith: “I was in general a member of the conspiracy but I was not the author. I have always assumed that it was the man who wrote the foreword – Mr. Lewin.” (12)
So, on at least three occasions, Galbraith publicly endorsed the authenticity of the Report but denied that he wrote it. Then who did? Was it Leonard Lewin, after all? In 1967 he said he did not. In 1972 he said that he did. Writing in The New York Times Book Review Lewin explained: “I wrote the ‘Report,” all of it. … What I intended was simply to pose the issues of war and peace in a provocative way.” (13)
But wait! A few years before that, columnist William F. Buckley told the New York Times that he was the author. That statement was undoubtedly made tongue-in-cheek, but who and what are we to believe? Was it written by Herman Kahn, John Kenneth Galbraith, Dean Rusk, Clare Booth Luce, Leonard Lewin, or William F. Buckley?
In the final analysis, it makes little difference. The important point is that The Report from Iron Mountain, whether written as a think-tank study or a political satire, explains the reality that surrounds us. Regardless of its origin, the concepts presented in it are now being implemented in almost every detail. All one has to do is hold the Report in one hand and the daily newspaper in the other to realize that every major trend in American life is conforming to the blueprint. So many things that otherwise are incomprehensible suddenly become clear: foreign aid, wasteful spending, the destruction of American industry, a job corps, gun control, a national police force, the apparent demise of Soviet power, a UN army, disarmament, a world bank, a world money, the surrender of national independence through treaties, and the ecology hysteria. The Report from Iron Mountain is an accurate summary of the plan that has already created our present. It is now shaping our future.
ENVIRONMENTALISM A SUBSTITUTE FOR WAR
It is beyond the scope of this study to prove that currently accepted predictions of environmental doom are based on exaggerated and fraudulent “scientific studies.” But such proof is easily found if one is willing to look at the raw data and the assumptions upon which the projections are based. More important, however, is the question of why end-of-world scenarios based on phony scientific studies – or no studies at all – are uncritically publicized by the CFR-controlled media; or why radical environmental groups advocating collectivist doctrine and anti-business programs are lavishly funded by CFR-dominated foundations, banks, and corporations, the very groups that would appear to have the most to lose. The Report from Iron Mountain answers those questions.
As the Report pointed out, truth is not important in these matters. It’s what people can be made to believe that counts. “Credibility” is the key, not reality. There is just enough truth in the fact of environmental pollution to make predictions of planetary doom in the year two-thousand-something seem believable. All that is required is media cooperation and repetition. The plan has apparently worked. People of the industrialized nations have been subjected to a barrage of documentaries, dramas, feature films, ballads, poems, bumper stickers, posters, marches, speeches, seminars, conferences, and concerts. The result has been phenomenal. Politicians are now elected to office on platforms consisting of nothing more than an expressed concern for the environment and a promise to clamp down on those nasty industries. No one questions the damage done to the economy or the nation. It makes no difference when the very planet on which we live is sick and dying. Not one in a thousand will question that underlying premise. How could it be false? Look at all the movie celebrities and rock stars who have joined the movement.
While the followers of the environmental movement are preoccupied with visions of planetary doom, let us see what the leaders are thinking. The first Earth Day was proclaimed on April 22, 1970, at a “Summit” meeting in Rio de Janeiro, attended by environmentalists and politicians from all over the world. A publication widely circulated at that meeting was entitled the Environmental Handbook. The main theme of the book was summarized by a quotation from Princeton Professor Richard A. Falk, a member of the CFR. Falk wrote that there are four interconnected threats to the planet – wars of mass destruction, overpopulation, pollution, and the depletion of resources. Then he said: “The basis of all four problems is the inadequacy of the sovereign states to manage the affairs of mankind in the twentieth century.” (14)
The Handbook continued the CFR line by asking these rhetorical questions: “Are nation-states actually feasible, now that they have power to destroy each other in a single afternoon?… What price would most people be willing to pay for a more durable kind of human organization – more taxes, giving up national flags, perhaps the sacrifice of some of our hard-won liberties?” (15)
In 1989, the CFR-owned Washington Post published an article written by CFR member George Kennan in which he said: “We must prepare instead for … an age where the great enemy is not the Soviet Union, but the rapid deterioration of our planet as a supporting structure for civilized life.” (16)
On March 27, 1990, in the CFR-controlled New York Times, CFR member Michael Oppenheimer wrote: “Global warming, ozone depletion, deforestation and overpopulation are the four horsemen of a looming 21st century apocalypse. … as the cold war recedes, the environment is becoming the No. 1 international security concern.” (17)
CFR member, Lester Brown, heads up another think tank called the Worldwatch Institute. In the Institute’s annual report, entitled State of the World 1991, Brown said that “the battle to save the planet will replace the battle over ideology as the organizing theme of the new world order.” (18)
In the official publication of the 1992 Earth Summit, we find this: “The world community now faces together greater risks to our common security through our impacts on the environment than from traditional military conflicts with one another.”
How many times does it have to be explained? The environmental movement was created by the CFR. It is a substitute for war that they hope will become the emotional and psychological foundation for world government.
HUMANITY ITSELF IS THE TARGET
The Club of Rome is a group of global planners who annually release end-of-world scenarios based on predictions of overpopulation and famine. Their membership is international, but the American roster includes such well-known CFR members as Jimmy Carter, Harlan Cleveland, Claiburne Pell, and Sol Linowitz. Their solution to overpopulation? A world government to control birth rates and, if necessary, euthanasia. That is a gentle word for the deliberate killing of the old, the weak, and of course the uncooperative. Following the same reasoning advanced at Iron Mountain, the Club of Rome has concluded that fear of environmental disaster could be used as a substitute enemy for the purpose of unifying the masses behind its program. In its 1991 book entitled The First Global Revolution, we find this:
In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. … All these dangers are caused by human intervention. … The real enemy, then, is humanity itself. (19)
Collectivist theoreticians have always been fascinated by the possibility of controlling population growth. It excites their imaginations because it is the ultimate bureaucratic plan. If the real enemy is humanity itself, as the Club of Rome says, then humanity itself must become the target. Fabian Socialist Bertrand Russell expressed it thus:
I do not pretend that birth control is the only way in which population can be kept from increasing. … War, as I remarked a moment ago, has hitherto been disappointing in this respect, but perhaps bacteriological war may prove more effective. If a Black Death could be spread throughout the world once in every generation, survivors could procreate freely without making the world too full. …
A scientific world society cannot be stable unless there is world government. … It will be necessary to find ways of preventing an increase in world population. If this is to be done otherwise than by wars, pestilences and famines, it will demand a powerful international authority. This authority should deal out the world’s food to the various nations in proportion to their population at the time of the establishments of the authority. If any nation subsequently increased its population, it should not on that account receive any more food. The motive for not increasing population would therefore be very compelling. (21)
Very compelling, indeed. These quiet-spoken collectivists are not kidding around. For example, one of the most visible “environmentalists” and advocate of population control was Jacques Cousteau. Interviewed by the United Nations UNESCO Courier in November of 1991, Cousteau spelled it out. He said:
What should we do to eliminate suffering and disease? It is a wonderful idea but perhaps not altogether a beneficial one in the long run. If we try to implement it we may jeopardize the future of our species. It’s terrible to have to say this. World population must be stabilized, and to do that we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. This is so horrible to contemplate that we shouldn’t even say it, but it is just as bad not to say it. (22)
GORBACHEV BECOMES AN ECOLOGY WARRIOR
We can now understand how Mikhail Gorbachev, formerly the leader of one of the most repressive governments the world has known, became head of a new organization called the International Green Cross, which supposedly is dedicated to environmental issues. Gorbachev has never denounced collectivism, only the label of a particular brand of collectivism called Communism. His real interest is not ecology but world government with himself assured a major position in the collectivist power structure. In a public appearance in Fulton, Missouri, he praised the Club of Rome, of which he is a member, for its position on population control. Then he said:
One of the worst of the new dangers is ecological. … Today, global climatic shifts; the greenhouse effect; the “ozone hole”; acid rain; contamination of the atmosphere, soil and water by industrial and household waste; the destruction of the forests; etc. all threaten the stability of the planet. (23)
Gorbachev proclaimed that global government was the answer to these threats and that the use of government force was essential. He said: “I believe that the new world order will not be fully realized unless the United Nations and its Security Council create structures … authorized to impose sanctions and make use of other measures of compulsion.” (24)
Here is an arch criminal who fought his way up through the ranks of the Soviet Communist Party, became the protégé of Yuri Andropov, head of the dreaded KGB, was a member of the USSR’s ruling Politburo throughout the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and who was selected by the Politburo in 1985 as the supreme leader of world Communism. All of this was during one of the Soviet’s most dismal periods of human-rights violations and subversive activities against the free world. Furthermore, he ruled over a nation with one of the worst possible records of environmental destruction. At no time while he was in power did he ever say or do anything to show concern over planet Earth.
All that is now forgotten. Gorbachev has been transformed by the CFR-dominated media into an ecology warrior. He is calling for world government and telling us that such a government will use environmental issues as justification for sanctions and other “measures of compulsion.” We cannot say that we were not warned.
U.S. BRANDED AS ECOLOGICAL AGGRESSOR
The use of compulsion is an important point in these plans. People in the industrialized nations are not expected to cooperate in their own demise. They will have to be forced. They will not like it when their food is taken for global distribution. They will not approve when they are taxed by a world authority to finance foreign political projects. They will not voluntarily give up their cars or resettle into smaller houses or communal barracks to satisfy the resource-allocation quotas of a UN agency. Club-of-Rome member Maurice Strong states the problem:
In effect, the United States is committing environmental aggression against the rest of the world. … At the military level, the United States is the custodian. At the environmental level, the United States is clearly the greatest risk. … One of the worst problems in the United States is energy prices – they’re too low. …
It is clear that current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class … involving high meat intake, consumption of large amounts of frozen and `convenience’ foods, ownership of motor-vehicles, numerous electric household appliances, home and work-place air-conditioning … expansive suburban housing … are not sustainable. (25)
Mr. Strong’s remarks were enthusiastically received by world environmental leaders, but they prompted this angry editorial response in the Arizona Republic:
Translated from eco-speak, this means two things: (1) a reduction in the standard of living in Western nations through massive new taxes and regulations, and (2) a wholesale transfer of wealth from industrialized to under-developed countries. The dubious premise here is that if the U.S. economy could be reduced to, say, the size of Malaysia’s, the world would be a better place. … Most Americans probably would balk at the idea of the U.N. banning automobiles in the U.S. (26)
Who is this Maurice Strong who sees the United States as the environmental aggressor against the world? Does he live in poverty? Does he come from a backward country that is resentful of American prosperity? Does he himself live in modest circumstances, avoiding consumption in order to preserve our natural resources? None of the above. He is one of the wealthiest men in the world. He lives and travels in great comfort. He is a lavish entertainer. In addition to having great personal wealth derived from the oil industry in Canada – which he helped nationalize – Maurice Strong was the Secretary-General of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio; head of the 1972 UN Conference on Human Environment in Stockholm; the first Secretary-General of the UN Environment Program; president of the World Federation of United Nations; co-chairman of the World Economic Forum; member of the Club of Rome; trustee of the Aspen Institute; and a director of the World Future Society. That is probably more than you wanted to know about this man, but it is necessary in order to appreciate the importance of what follows.
A PLOT FOR ECONOMIC CRISIS
Maurice Strong believes – or says that he believes – the world’s ecosystems can be preserved only if the affluent nations of the world can be disciplined into lowering their standard of living. Production and consumption must be curtailed. To bring that about, those nations must submit to rationing, taxation, and political domination by world government. They will probably not do that voluntarily, he says, so they will have to be forced. To accomplish that, it will be necessary to engineer a global monetary crisis which will destroy their economic systems. Then they will have no choice but to accept assistance and control from the UN.
This strategy was revealed in the May, 1990, issue of West magazine, published in Canada. In an article entitled “The Wizard of Baca Grande,” journalist Daniel Wood described his week-long experience at Strong’s private ranch in southern Colorado. This ranch has been visited by such CFR notables as David Rockefeller, Secretary-of-State Henry Kissinger, founder of the World Bank Robert McNamara, and the presidents of such organizations as IBM, Pan Am, and Harvard.
During Wood’s stay at the ranch, the tycoon talked freely about environmentalism and politics. To express his own world view, he said he was planning to write a novel about a group of world leaders who decided to save the planet. As the plot unfolded, it became obvious that it was based on real people and real events. Wood continues the story:
Each year, he explains as background to the telling of the novel’s plot, the World Economic Forum convenes in Davos, Switzerland. Over a thousand CEOs, prime ministers, finance ministers, and leading academics gather in February to attend meetings and set economic agendas for the year ahead. With this as a setting, he then says: “What if a small group of these world leaders were to conclude that the principal risk to the earth comes from the actions of the rich countries? And if the world is to survive, those rich countries would have to sign an agreement reducing their impact on the environment. Will they do it? … The group’s conclusion is `no.’ the rich countries won’t do it. They won’t change. So, in order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about? …
“This group of world leaders,” he continues, “form a secret society to bring about an economic collapse. It’s February. They’re all at Davos. These aren’t terrorists. They’re world leaders. They have positioned themselves in the world’s commodity and stock markets. They’ve engineered, using their access to stock exchanges and computers and gold supplies, a panic. Then, they prevent the world’s stock markets from closing. They jam the gears. They hire mercenaries who hold the rest of the world leaders at Davos as hostages. The markets can’t close. The rich countries…” And Strong makes a slight motion with his fingers as if he were flicking a cigarette butt out the window.
I sit there spellbound. This is not any storyteller talking, this is Maurice Strong. He knows these world leaders. He is, in fact, co-chairman of the Council of the World Economic Forum. He sits at the fulcrum of power. He is in a position to do it.“I probably shouldn’t be saying things like this,” he says. (27)
Maurice Strong’s fanciful plot probably shouldn’t be taken too seriously, at least in terms of a literal reading of future events. It is unlikely they will unfold in exactly that manner – although it is not impossible. For one thing, it would not be necessary to hold the leaders of the industrialized nations at gun point. They would be the ones engineering this plot. Leaders from Third-World countries do not have the means to cause a global crisis. That would have to come from the money centers in New York, London, or Tokyo. Furthermore, the masterminds behind this thrust for global government have always resided in the industrialized nations. They have come from the ranks of the CFR in America and from other branches of the International Roundtable in England, France, Belgium, Canada, Japan, and elsewhere. They are the ideological descendants of Cecil Rhodes and they are fulfilling his dream.
It is not important whether or not Maurice Strong’s plot for global economic collapse is to be taken literally. What is important is that men like him are thinking along those lines. As Wood pointed out, they are in a position to do it. Or something like it. If it is not this scenario, they will consider another one with similar consequences. If history has proven anything, it is that men with financial and political power are quite capable of heinous plots against their fellow men. They have launched wars, caused depressions, and created famines to suit their personal agendas. We have little reason to believe that the world leaders of today are more saintly than their predecessors.
Furthermore, we must not be fooled by pretended concern for Mother Earth. The call-to-arms for saving the planet is a gigantic ruse. There is just enough truth to environmental pollution to make the show “credible,” as The Report from Iron Mountain phrased it, but the end-of-earth scenarios which drive the movement forward are bogus. The real objective in all of this is world government, the ultimate doomsday mechanism from which there can be no escape. Destruction of the economic strength of the industrialized nations is merely a necessary prerequisite for ensnaring them into the global web. The thrust of the current ecology movement is directed totally to that end.
***********
by G. Edward Griffin.
It may be obtained at www.realityzone.com.
References:
1
Leonard Lewin, ed., Report from Iron Mountain on the possibility and the Desirability of Peace
(New York: Dell Publishing, 1976), pp.13-14.
2
Ibid. pp. 39, 81.
3
Ibid. p. 9. 3
4
Ibid., pp. 41-42,68, 70.
5
“British Soccer’s Day of Shame,” U.S. News & World Report, June 10, 1985, p. 11.
6
Lewin, Report, p. 44. 6
7
Ibid., p. 66. 7
8
Ibid., pp. 66-67, 70-71. When the Report was written, terrorism had not yet been considered as a substitute for war. Since then, it has become the most useful of them all.
9
“News of War and Peace You’re Not Ready For,” by Herschel McLandress, Book World, in The
Washington Post, Nov. 26, 1967, p. 5.
10
“The Times Diary,” London Times, Feb. 5, 1968, p.8.
11
“Galbraith Says He Was Misquoted, “ London Times, Feb. 6, 1968, p. 3.
12
“Touche, Professor,” London Times, Feb. 12, 1968, p, 8. 9
13
“Report from Iron Mountain,” New Your Times, March 19, 1968, p. 8. 10
14
Garrett de Bell, ed., The Environmental Handbook (New York: Ballantine / Friends of the Earth,
1970), p. 138.
15
Ibid., p. 145.
16
A Europe Now Free from A Confining Cold War Vision,” by George Kennan, (Washington Post
syndication, Sacramento Bee, Nov. 14, 1989, p. B7.
17
The New York Times has been one of the principal means by which CFR policies are inserted into
the mainstream of public opinion. The paper was purchased in 1896 by Alfred Ochs, with financial
backing from CFR pioneer J.P. Morgan, Rothchild agent August Belmont, and Jacob Schiff, a partner in Kuhn, Loeb & Co. It is now owned by CFR member Arthur Sulzberger, who is also the
publisher, and it is staffed by numerous CFR editors and columnists. See Shadows of Power by
James Perloff (Appleton, Wisconsin: Western Islands, 1988), p. 181.
18
Lester R. Brown, “The New World Order,” in Lester R. Brown et al., State of the World 1991; A
Worldwatch Institute Report on Progress Toward A Sustainable Society (New York: W.W. Norton,
1991), p. 3.
19
Alexander King and Bertrand Schneider, The First Global Revolution, A Report by the Council of
the Club of Rome, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1991). P. 115.
20
See Martin, Rose, Fabian Freeway; High Road to Socialism in the U.S.A. (Boston: Western
Islands, 1966), pp. 171, 325, 463-69.
21
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, The Impact of Science on Society (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1953), pp. 103-104, 111.
22
Interviewed by Bahgat Eluadi and Adel Rifaat, Courrier de l’Unesco, Nov. 1991, p. 13.
23
Michail Gorbachev, “The River of Time and the Necessity of Action,” 46th John Findley Greed
Foundation Lecture, Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, May 6, 1992, transcript from
Westminster College Department of Press Relations, p. 6.
24
Ibid., p. 9. 14
25
“Ecology Remedy Costly,” (AP), Sacramento Bee, March 12, 1992, p. A8. Also Maurice Strong,
Introduction to Jim MacNeil, Pieter Winsemius, and Taizo Yakushiji, Beyond Interdependence,
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. ix.
26
“Road to Ruin,” Arizona Republic, March 26, 1992.
27
“The Wizard of Baca Grande.” By Daniel Wood, West magazine, May 1990, p. 35.
(Visited 16,422 times, 3 visits today) Tags: chaos, freedom force, g edward griffin, iron mountain, new world government, new world order, order, poisioning the environment, police state, population control
***************
© 2002 by G. Edward Griffin
Freedom Force International
This is taken from Chapter 24 of The Creature from Jekyll Island
(When added to The Freedom Manifesto, this material should be expanded to include the concept of deliberate waste. With that included, it will make an excellent chapter.)
The substance of these stratagems [for the weakening of the United States so it can be more easily merged into a global government based on the model of collectivism] can be traced to a think-tank study released in 1966 called the Report from Iron Mountain. Although the origin of the report is highly debated, the document itself hints that it was commissioned by the Department of Defense under Defense Secretary, Robert McNamara and was produced by the Hudson Institute located at the base of Iron Mountain in Croton-on-Hudson, New York. The Hudson Institute was founded and directed by Herman Kahn, formerly of the Rand Corporation. Both McNamara and Kahn were members of the CFR.
The self-proclaimed purpose of the study was to explore various ways to “stabilize society.” Praiseworthy as that may sound, a reading of the Report soon reveals that the word society is used synonymously with the word government. Furthermore, the word stabilize is used as meaning to preserve and to perpetuate. It is clear from the start that the nature of the study was to analyze the different ways a government can perpetuate itself in power, ways to control its citizens and prevent them from rebelling. It was stated at the beginning of the Report that morality was not an issue. The study did not address questions of right or wrong; nor did it deal with such concepts as freedom or human rights. Ideology was not an issue, nor patriotism, nor religious precepts. Its sole concern was how to perpetuate the existing government. The Report said:
Previous studies have taken the desirability of peace, the importance of human life, the superiority of democratic institutions, the greatest “good” for the greatest number, the “dignity” of the individual, the desirability of maximum health and longevity, and other such wishful premises as axiomatic values necessary for the justification of a study of peace issues. We have not found them so. We have attempted to apply the standards of physical science to our thinking, the principal characteristic of which is not quantification, as is popularly believed, but that, in Whitehead’s words, “…it ignores all judgments of value; for instance, all esthetic and moral judgments.” (1)
The major conclusion of the report was that, in the past, war has been the only reliable means to achieve that goal. It contends that only during times of war or the threat of war are the masses compliant enough to carry the yoke of government without complaint. Fear of conquest and pillage by an enemy can make almost any burden seem acceptable by comparison. War can be used to arouse human passion and patriotic feelings of loyalty to the nation’s leaders. No amount of sacrifice in the name of victory will be rejected. Resistance is viewed as treason. But, in times of peace, people become resentful of high taxes, shortages, and bureaucratic intervention. When they become disrespectful of their leaders, they become dangerous. No government has long survived without enemies and armed conflict. War, therefore, has been an indispensable condition for “stabilizing society.” These are the report’s exact words:
The war system not only has been essential to the existence of nations as independent political entities, but has been equally indispensable to their stable political structure. Without it, no government has ever been able to obtain acquiescence in its “legitimacy,” or right to rule its society. The possibility of war provides the sense of external necessity without which no government can long remain in power. The historical record reveals one instance after another where the failure of a regime to maintain the credibility of a war threat led to its dissolution, by the forces of private interest, of reactions to social injustice, or of other disintegrative elements. The organization of society for the possibility of war is its principal political stabilizer…. It has enabled societies to maintain necessary class distinctions, and it has insured the subordination of the citizens to the state by virtue of the residual war powers inherent in the concept of nationhood. (2)
A NEW DEFINITION OF PEACE
The report then explains that we are approaching a point in history where the old formulas may no longer work. Why? Because it may now be possible to create a world government in which all nations will be disarmed and disciplined by a world army, a condition which will be called peace. The report says: “The word peace, as we have used it in the following pages, … implies total and general disarmament.” (3)
Under that scenario, independent nations will no longer exist and governments will not have the capability to wage war. There could be military action by the world army against renegade political subdivisions, but these would be called peace-keeping operations, and soldiers would be called peace keepers. No matter how much property is destroyed or how much blood is spilled, the bullets will be “peaceful” bullets and the bombs – even atomic bombs, if necessary – will be “peaceful” bombs.
The report then raises the question of whether there can ever be a suitable substitute for war. What else could the regional governments use – and what could the world government itself use – to legitimize and perpetuate itself? To provide an answer to that question was the stated purpose of the study.
The Report from Iron Mountain concludes that there can be no substitute for war unless it possesses three properties. It must (1) be economically wasteful, (2) represent a credible threat of great magnitude, and (3) provide a logical excuse for compulsory service to the government.
A SOPHISTICATED FORM OF SLAVERY
On the subject of compulsory service, the Report explains that one of the advantages of standing armies is that they provide a place for the government to put antisocial and dissident elements of society. In the absence of war, these forced-labor battalions would be told they are fighting poverty or cleaning up the planet or bolstering the economy or serving the common good in some other fashion. Every teenager would be required to serve – especially during those years in which young people are most rebellious against authority. Older people, too, would be drafted as a means of working off tax payments and fines. Dissidents would face heavy fines for “hate crimes” and politically incorrect attitudes so, eventually, they would all be in the forced-labor battalions. The Report says:
We will examine … the time-honored use of military institutions to provide anti-social elements with an acceptable role in the social structure. … The current euphemistic clichés – “juvenile delinquency” and “alienation” – have had their counterparts in every age. In earlier days these conditions were dealt with directly by the military without the complications of due process, usually through press gangs or outright enslavement. …
Most proposals that address themselves, explicitly or otherwise, to the postwar problem of controlling the socially alienated turn to some variant of the Peace Corps or the so-called Job Corps for a solution. The socially disaffected, the economically unprepared, the psychologically uncomfortable, the hard-core “delinquents,” the incorrigible “subversives,” and the rest of the unemployable are seen as somehow transformed by the disciplines of a service modeled on military precedent into more or less dedicated social service workers. …
Another possible surrogate for the control of potential enemies of society is the reintroduction, in some form consistent with modern technology and political processes, of slavery. … It is entirely possible that the development of a sophisticated form of slavery may be an absolute prerequisite for social control in a world at peace. As a practical matter, conversion of the code of military discipline to a euphemized form of enslavement would entail surprisingly little revision; the logical first step would be the adoption of some form of “universal” military service. (4)
BLOOD GAMES
The Report considered ways in which the public could be preoccupied with non-important activities so that it would not have time to participate in political debate or resistance. Recreation, trivial game shows, pornography, and situation comedies could play an important role, but blood games were considered to be the most promising of all the options. Blood games are competitive events between individuals or teams that are sufficiently violent in nature to enable the spectators to vicariously work off their frustrations. As a minimum, these events must evoke a passionate team loyalty on the part of the fans and must include the expectation of pain and injury on the part of the players. Even better for their purpose is the spilling of blood and the possibility of death. The common man has a morbid fascination for violence and blood. Crowds gather to chant “Jump! Jump!” at the suicidal figure on a hotel roof. Cars slow to a near stop on the highway to gawk at broken bodies next to a collision.
A schoolyard fight instantly draws a circle of spectators. Boxing matches and football games and hockey games and automobile races are telecast daily, attracting millions of cheering fans who give rapt attention to each moment of danger, each angry blow to the face, each broken bone, each knockout, each carrying away of the unconscious or possibly dying contestant. In this fashion, their anger at “society” is defused and focused, instead, on the opposing team. The emperors of Rome devised the Circuses and gladiator contests and public executions by wild beasts for precisely that purpose.
Before jumping to the conclusion that such concepts are absurd in modern times, recall that during the 1985 European soccer championship in Belgium, the spectators became so emotionally involved in the contest that a bloody riot broke out in the bleachers leaving behind 38 dead and more that 400 injured. U.S. News & World Report gives this account:
The root of the trouble: A tribal loyalty to home teams that surpasses an obsession and, say some experts, has become a substitute religion for many. The worst offenders include members of gangs such as Chelsea’s Anti-Personnel Firm, made up of ill-educated young males who find in soccer rivalry an escape from boredom.
Still, the British do not have a patent on soccer violence. On May 26, eight people were killed and more than 50 injured in Mexico City,… a 1964 stadium riot in Lima, Peru, killed more than 300 – and a hotly disputed 1969 match between El Salvador and Honduras led to a week-long shooting war between the two countries, causing hundreds of casualties.
The U.S. is criticized for the gridiron violence of its favorite sport, football, but outbursts in the bleachers are rare because loyalties are spread among many sports and national pride is not at stake. Said Thomas Tutko, professor of psychology at California’s San Jose State University: “In these other countries, it used to be their armies. Now it’s their competitive teams that stir passions.” (5)
Having considered all the ramifications of blood games, The Report from Iron Mountain concluded that they were not an adequate substitute for war. It is true that violent sports are useful distracters and do, in fact, allow an outlet for boredom and fierce group loyalty, but their effect on the nation’s psyche could not match the intensity of war hysteria. Until a better alternative could be found, world government would have to be postponed so that nations could continue to wage war.
FINDING A CREDIBLE GLOBAL THREAT
In time of war, most citizens uncomplainingly accept their low quality of life and remain fiercely loyal to their leaders. If a suitable substitute for war is to be found, then it must also elicit that same reaction. Therefore, a new enemy must be found that threatens the entire world, and the prospects of being overcome by that enemy must be just as terrifying as war itself. The Report is emphatic on that point:
Allegiance requires a cause; a cause requires an enemy. This much is obvious; the critical point is that the enemy that defines the cause must seem genuinely formidable. Roughly speaking, the presumed power of the “enemy” sufficient to warrant an individual sense of allegiance to a society must be proportionate to the size and complexity of the society. Today, of course, that power must be one of unprecedented magnitude and frightfulness. (6)
The first consideration in finding a suitable threat to serve as a global enemy was that it did not have to be real. A real one would be better, of course, but an invented one would work just as well, provided the masses could be convinced it was real. The public will more readily believe some fictions than others. Credibility would be more important than truth.
Poverty was examined as a potential global enemy but rejected as not fearful enough. Most of the world was already in poverty. Only those who had never experienced poverty would see it as a global threat. For the rest, it was simply a fact of everyday life.
An invasion by aliens from outer space was given serious consideration. The report said that experiments along those lines already may have been tried. Public reaction, however, was not sufficiently predictable, because the threat was not “credible.” Here is what the report had to say:
Credibility, in fact, lies at the heart of the problem of developing a political substitute for war. This is where the space-race proposals, in many ways so well suited as economic substitutes for war, fall short. The most ambitious and unrealistic space project cannot of itself generate a believable external menace. It has been hotly argued that such a menace would offer the “last best hope of peace,” etc., by uniting mankind against the danger of destruction by “creatures” from other planets or from outer space. Experiments have been proposed to test the credibility of an out-of-our-world invasion threat; it is possible that a few of the more difficult-to-explain “flying saucer” incidents of recent years were in fact early experiments of this kind. If so, they could hardly have been judged encouraging. (7)
This report was released in 1966 when the idea of an alien presence seemed far fetched to the average person. In the ensuing years, however, that perception has changed. A growing segment of the population now believes that intelligent life forms may exist beyond our planet and could be monitoring our own civilization. Whether that belief is right or wrong is not the issue here. The point is that a dramatic encounter with aliens shown on network television – even if it were to be entirely fabricated by high-tech computer graphics or laser shows in the sky – could be used to stampede all nations into world government supposedly to defend the Earth from invasion. On the other hand, if the aliens were perceived to have peaceful intent, an alternative scenario would be to form world government to represent a unified human species speaking with a single voice in some kind of galactic federation. Either scenario would be far more credible today than in 1966.
THE ENVIRONMENTAL-POLLUTION MODEL
The final candidate for a useful global threat was pollution of the environment. This was viewed as the most likely to succeed because it could be related to observable conditions such as smog and water pollution– in other words, it would be based partly on fact and, therefore, be credible. Predictions could be made showing end-of-earth scenarios just as horrible as atomic warfare. Accuracy in these predictions would not be important. Their purpose would be to frighten, not to inform. It might even be necessary to deliberately poison the environment to make the predictions more convincing and to focus the public mind on fighting a new enemy, more fearful than any invader from another nation – or even from outer space. The masses would more willingly accept a falling standard of living, tax increases, and bureaucratic intervention in their lives as simply “the price we must pay to save Mother Earth.” A massive battle against death and destruction from global pollution possibly could replace war as justification for social control.
Did The Report from Iron Mountain really say that? It certainly did – and much more. Here are just a few of the pertinent passages:
When it comes to postulating a credible substitute for war … the “alternate enemy” must imply a more immediate, tangible, and directly felt threat of destruction. It must justify the need for taking and paying a “blood price” in wide areas of human concern. In this respect, the possible substitute enemies noted earlier would be insufficient. One exception might be the environmental-pollution model, if the danger to society it posed was genuinely imminent. The fictive models would have to carry the weight of extraordinary conviction, underscored with a not inconsiderable actual sacrifice of life. … It may be, for instance, that gross pollution of the environment can eventually replace the possibility of mass destruction by nuclear weapons as the principal apparent threat to the survival of the species. Poisoning of the air, and of the principal sources of food and water supply, is already well advanced, and at first glance would seem promising in this respect; it constitutes a threat that can be dealt with only through social organization and political power. …
It is true that the rate of pollution could be increased selectively for this purpose. … But the pollution problem has been so widely publicized in recent years that it seems highly improbable that a program of deliberate environmental poisoning could be implemented in a politically acceptable manner.
However unlikely some of the possible alternative enemies we have mentioned may seem, we must emphasize that one must be found of credible quality and magnitude, if a transition to peace is ever to come about without social disintegration. It is more probable, in our judgment, that such a threat will have to be invented. (8)
AUTHENTICITY OF THE REPORT
The Report from Iron Mountain states that it was produced by a Special Study Group of fifteen men whose identities were to remain secret and that it was not intended to be made public. One member of the group, however, felt the Report was too important to be kept under wraps. He was not in disagreement with its conclusions. He merely believed that more people should read it. He delivered his personal copy to Leonard Lewin, a well-known author and columnist who, in turn, negotiated its publication by Dial Press. It was then reprinted by Dell Publishing.
This was during the Johnson Administration, and the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs was CFR member Walt Rostow. Rostow was quick to announce that the report was a spurious work. Herman Kahn, CFR director of the Hudson Institute, said it was not authentic. The Washington Post – which was owned and run by CFR member Katharine Graham – called it “a delightful satire.” Time magazine, founded by CFR-member Henry Luce, said it was a skillful hoax.
Then, on November 26, 1967, the Report was reviewed in the book section of the Washington Post by Herschel McLandress, which was the pen name for Harvard professor John Kenneth Galbraith. Galbraith, who also had been a member of the CFR, said that he knew firsthand of the Report’s authenticity because he had been invited to participate in it. Although he was unable to be part of the official group, he was consulted from time to time and had been asked to keep the project a secret. Furthermore, while he doubted the wisdom of letting the public know about the Report, he agreed totally with its conclusions. He wrote:
As I would put my personal repute behind the authenticity of this document, so would I testify to the validity of its conclusions. My reservations relate only to the wisdom of releasing it to an obviously unconditioned public. (9)
Six weeks later, in an Associated Press dispatch from London, Galbraith went even further and jokingly admitted that he was “a member of the conspiracy.”(10)
That, however, did not settle the issue. The following day, Galbraith backed off. When asked about his “conspiracy” statement, he replied: “For the first time since Charles II The Times has been guilty of a misquotation. … Nothing shakes my conviction that it was written by either Dean Rusk or Mrs. Clare Booth Luce.” (11)
The reporter who conducted the original interview was embarrassed by the allegation and did further research. Six days later, this is what he reported: Misquoting seems to be a hazard to which Professor Galbraith is prone. The latest edition of the Cambridge newspaper Varsity quotes the following (tape recorded) interchange:
Interviewer: “Are you aware of the identity of the author of Report from Iron Mountain?”
Galbraith: “I was in general a member of the conspiracy but I was not the author. I have always assumed that it was the man who wrote the foreword – Mr. Lewin.” (12)
So, on at least three occasions, Galbraith publicly endorsed the authenticity of the Report but denied that he wrote it. Then who did? Was it Leonard Lewin, after all? In 1967 he said he did not. In 1972 he said that he did. Writing in The New York Times Book Review Lewin explained: “I wrote the ‘Report,” all of it. … What I intended was simply to pose the issues of war and peace in a provocative way.” (13)
But wait! A few years before that, columnist William F. Buckley told the New York Times that he was the author. That statement was undoubtedly made tongue-in-cheek, but who and what are we to believe? Was it written by Herman Kahn, John Kenneth Galbraith, Dean Rusk, Clare Booth Luce, Leonard Lewin, or William F. Buckley?
In the final analysis, it makes little difference. The important point is that The Report from Iron Mountain, whether written as a think-tank study or a political satire, explains the reality that surrounds us. Regardless of its origin, the concepts presented in it are now being implemented in almost every detail. All one has to do is hold the Report in one hand and the daily newspaper in the other to realize that every major trend in American life is conforming to the blueprint. So many things that otherwise are incomprehensible suddenly become clear: foreign aid, wasteful spending, the destruction of American industry, a job corps, gun control, a national police force, the apparent demise of Soviet power, a UN army, disarmament, a world bank, a world money, the surrender of national independence through treaties, and the ecology hysteria. The Report from Iron Mountain is an accurate summary of the plan that has already created our present. It is now shaping our future.
ENVIRONMENTALISM A SUBSTITUTE FOR WAR
It is beyond the scope of this study to prove that currently accepted predictions of environmental doom are based on exaggerated and fraudulent “scientific studies.” But such proof is easily found if one is willing to look at the raw data and the assumptions upon which the projections are based. More important, however, is the question of why end-of-world scenarios based on phony scientific studies – or no studies at all – are uncritically publicized by the CFR-controlled media; or why radical environmental groups advocating collectivist doctrine and anti-business programs are lavishly funded by CFR-dominated foundations, banks, and corporations, the very groups that would appear to have the most to lose. The Report from Iron Mountain answers those questions.
As the Report pointed out, truth is not important in these matters. It’s what people can be made to believe that counts. “Credibility” is the key, not reality. There is just enough truth in the fact of environmental pollution to make predictions of planetary doom in the year two-thousand-something seem believable. All that is required is media cooperation and repetition. The plan has apparently worked. People of the industrialized nations have been subjected to a barrage of documentaries, dramas, feature films, ballads, poems, bumper stickers, posters, marches, speeches, seminars, conferences, and concerts. The result has been phenomenal. Politicians are now elected to office on platforms consisting of nothing more than an expressed concern for the environment and a promise to clamp down on those nasty industries. No one questions the damage done to the economy or the nation. It makes no difference when the very planet on which we live is sick and dying. Not one in a thousand will question that underlying premise. How could it be false? Look at all the movie celebrities and rock stars who have joined the movement.
While the followers of the environmental movement are preoccupied with visions of planetary doom, let us see what the leaders are thinking. The first Earth Day was proclaimed on April 22, 1970, at a “Summit” meeting in Rio de Janeiro, attended by environmentalists and politicians from all over the world. A publication widely circulated at that meeting was entitled the Environmental Handbook. The main theme of the book was summarized by a quotation from Princeton Professor Richard A. Falk, a member of the CFR. Falk wrote that there are four interconnected threats to the planet – wars of mass destruction, overpopulation, pollution, and the depletion of resources. Then he said: “The basis of all four problems is the inadequacy of the sovereign states to manage the affairs of mankind in the twentieth century.” (14)
The Handbook continued the CFR line by asking these rhetorical questions: “Are nation-states actually feasible, now that they have power to destroy each other in a single afternoon?… What price would most people be willing to pay for a more durable kind of human organization – more taxes, giving up national flags, perhaps the sacrifice of some of our hard-won liberties?” (15)
In 1989, the CFR-owned Washington Post published an article written by CFR member George Kennan in which he said: “We must prepare instead for … an age where the great enemy is not the Soviet Union, but the rapid deterioration of our planet as a supporting structure for civilized life.” (16)
On March 27, 1990, in the CFR-controlled New York Times, CFR member Michael Oppenheimer wrote: “Global warming, ozone depletion, deforestation and overpopulation are the four horsemen of a looming 21st century apocalypse. … as the cold war recedes, the environment is becoming the No. 1 international security concern.” (17)
CFR member, Lester Brown, heads up another think tank called the Worldwatch Institute. In the Institute’s annual report, entitled State of the World 1991, Brown said that “the battle to save the planet will replace the battle over ideology as the organizing theme of the new world order.” (18)
In the official publication of the 1992 Earth Summit, we find this: “The world community now faces together greater risks to our common security through our impacts on the environment than from traditional military conflicts with one another.”
How many times does it have to be explained? The environmental movement was created by the CFR. It is a substitute for war that they hope will become the emotional and psychological foundation for world government.
HUMANITY ITSELF IS THE TARGET
The Club of Rome is a group of global planners who annually release end-of-world scenarios based on predictions of overpopulation and famine. Their membership is international, but the American roster includes such well-known CFR members as Jimmy Carter, Harlan Cleveland, Claiburne Pell, and Sol Linowitz. Their solution to overpopulation? A world government to control birth rates and, if necessary, euthanasia. That is a gentle word for the deliberate killing of the old, the weak, and of course the uncooperative. Following the same reasoning advanced at Iron Mountain, the Club of Rome has concluded that fear of environmental disaster could be used as a substitute enemy for the purpose of unifying the masses behind its program. In its 1991 book entitled The First Global Revolution, we find this:
In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. … All these dangers are caused by human intervention. … The real enemy, then, is humanity itself. (19)
Collectivist theoreticians have always been fascinated by the possibility of controlling population growth. It excites their imaginations because it is the ultimate bureaucratic plan. If the real enemy is humanity itself, as the Club of Rome says, then humanity itself must become the target. Fabian Socialist Bertrand Russell expressed it thus:
I do not pretend that birth control is the only way in which population can be kept from increasing. … War, as I remarked a moment ago, has hitherto been disappointing in this respect, but perhaps bacteriological war may prove more effective. If a Black Death could be spread throughout the world once in every generation, survivors could procreate freely without making the world too full. …
A scientific world society cannot be stable unless there is world government. … It will be necessary to find ways of preventing an increase in world population. If this is to be done otherwise than by wars, pestilences and famines, it will demand a powerful international authority. This authority should deal out the world’s food to the various nations in proportion to their population at the time of the establishments of the authority. If any nation subsequently increased its population, it should not on that account receive any more food. The motive for not increasing population would therefore be very compelling. (21)
Very compelling, indeed. These quiet-spoken collectivists are not kidding around. For example, one of the most visible “environmentalists” and advocate of population control was Jacques Cousteau. Interviewed by the United Nations UNESCO Courier in November of 1991, Cousteau spelled it out. He said:
What should we do to eliminate suffering and disease? It is a wonderful idea but perhaps not altogether a beneficial one in the long run. If we try to implement it we may jeopardize the future of our species. It’s terrible to have to say this. World population must be stabilized, and to do that we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. This is so horrible to contemplate that we shouldn’t even say it, but it is just as bad not to say it. (22)
GORBACHEV BECOMES AN ECOLOGY WARRIOR
We can now understand how Mikhail Gorbachev, formerly the leader of one of the most repressive governments the world has known, became head of a new organization called the International Green Cross, which supposedly is dedicated to environmental issues. Gorbachev has never denounced collectivism, only the label of a particular brand of collectivism called Communism. His real interest is not ecology but world government with himself assured a major position in the collectivist power structure. In a public appearance in Fulton, Missouri, he praised the Club of Rome, of which he is a member, for its position on population control. Then he said:
One of the worst of the new dangers is ecological. … Today, global climatic shifts; the greenhouse effect; the “ozone hole”; acid rain; contamination of the atmosphere, soil and water by industrial and household waste; the destruction of the forests; etc. all threaten the stability of the planet. (23)
Gorbachev proclaimed that global government was the answer to these threats and that the use of government force was essential. He said: “I believe that the new world order will not be fully realized unless the United Nations and its Security Council create structures … authorized to impose sanctions and make use of other measures of compulsion.” (24)
Here is an arch criminal who fought his way up through the ranks of the Soviet Communist Party, became the protégé of Yuri Andropov, head of the dreaded KGB, was a member of the USSR’s ruling Politburo throughout the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and who was selected by the Politburo in 1985 as the supreme leader of world Communism. All of this was during one of the Soviet’s most dismal periods of human-rights violations and subversive activities against the free world. Furthermore, he ruled over a nation with one of the worst possible records of environmental destruction. At no time while he was in power did he ever say or do anything to show concern over planet Earth.
All that is now forgotten. Gorbachev has been transformed by the CFR-dominated media into an ecology warrior. He is calling for world government and telling us that such a government will use environmental issues as justification for sanctions and other “measures of compulsion.” We cannot say that we were not warned.
U.S. BRANDED AS ECOLOGICAL AGGRESSOR
The use of compulsion is an important point in these plans. People in the industrialized nations are not expected to cooperate in their own demise. They will have to be forced. They will not like it when their food is taken for global distribution. They will not approve when they are taxed by a world authority to finance foreign political projects. They will not voluntarily give up their cars or resettle into smaller houses or communal barracks to satisfy the resource-allocation quotas of a UN agency. Club-of-Rome member Maurice Strong states the problem:
In effect, the United States is committing environmental aggression against the rest of the world. … At the military level, the United States is the custodian. At the environmental level, the United States is clearly the greatest risk. … One of the worst problems in the United States is energy prices – they’re too low. …
It is clear that current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class … involving high meat intake, consumption of large amounts of frozen and `convenience’ foods, ownership of motor-vehicles, numerous electric household appliances, home and work-place air-conditioning … expansive suburban housing … are not sustainable. (25)
Mr. Strong’s remarks were enthusiastically received by world environmental leaders, but they prompted this angry editorial response in the Arizona Republic:
Translated from eco-speak, this means two things: (1) a reduction in the standard of living in Western nations through massive new taxes and regulations, and (2) a wholesale transfer of wealth from industrialized to under-developed countries. The dubious premise here is that if the U.S. economy could be reduced to, say, the size of Malaysia’s, the world would be a better place. … Most Americans probably would balk at the idea of the U.N. banning automobiles in the U.S. (26)
Who is this Maurice Strong who sees the United States as the environmental aggressor against the world? Does he live in poverty? Does he come from a backward country that is resentful of American prosperity? Does he himself live in modest circumstances, avoiding consumption in order to preserve our natural resources? None of the above. He is one of the wealthiest men in the world. He lives and travels in great comfort. He is a lavish entertainer. In addition to having great personal wealth derived from the oil industry in Canada – which he helped nationalize – Maurice Strong was the Secretary-General of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio; head of the 1972 UN Conference on Human Environment in Stockholm; the first Secretary-General of the UN Environment Program; president of the World Federation of United Nations; co-chairman of the World Economic Forum; member of the Club of Rome; trustee of the Aspen Institute; and a director of the World Future Society. That is probably more than you wanted to know about this man, but it is necessary in order to appreciate the importance of what follows.
A PLOT FOR ECONOMIC CRISIS
Maurice Strong believes – or says that he believes – the world’s ecosystems can be preserved only if the affluent nations of the world can be disciplined into lowering their standard of living. Production and consumption must be curtailed. To bring that about, those nations must submit to rationing, taxation, and political domination by world government. They will probably not do that voluntarily, he says, so they will have to be forced. To accomplish that, it will be necessary to engineer a global monetary crisis which will destroy their economic systems. Then they will have no choice but to accept assistance and control from the UN.
This strategy was revealed in the May, 1990, issue of West magazine, published in Canada. In an article entitled “The Wizard of Baca Grande,” journalist Daniel Wood described his week-long experience at Strong’s private ranch in southern Colorado. This ranch has been visited by such CFR notables as David Rockefeller, Secretary-of-State Henry Kissinger, founder of the World Bank Robert McNamara, and the presidents of such organizations as IBM, Pan Am, and Harvard.
During Wood’s stay at the ranch, the tycoon talked freely about environmentalism and politics. To express his own world view, he said he was planning to write a novel about a group of world leaders who decided to save the planet. As the plot unfolded, it became obvious that it was based on real people and real events. Wood continues the story:
Each year, he explains as background to the telling of the novel’s plot, the World Economic Forum convenes in Davos, Switzerland. Over a thousand CEOs, prime ministers, finance ministers, and leading academics gather in February to attend meetings and set economic agendas for the year ahead. With this as a setting, he then says: “What if a small group of these world leaders were to conclude that the principal risk to the earth comes from the actions of the rich countries? And if the world is to survive, those rich countries would have to sign an agreement reducing their impact on the environment. Will they do it? … The group’s conclusion is `no.’ the rich countries won’t do it. They won’t change. So, in order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about? …
“This group of world leaders,” he continues, “form a secret society to bring about an economic collapse. It’s February. They’re all at Davos. These aren’t terrorists. They’re world leaders. They have positioned themselves in the world’s commodity and stock markets. They’ve engineered, using their access to stock exchanges and computers and gold supplies, a panic. Then, they prevent the world’s stock markets from closing. They jam the gears. They hire mercenaries who hold the rest of the world leaders at Davos as hostages. The markets can’t close. The rich countries…” And Strong makes a slight motion with his fingers as if he were flicking a cigarette butt out the window.
I sit there spellbound. This is not any storyteller talking, this is Maurice Strong. He knows these world leaders. He is, in fact, co-chairman of the Council of the World Economic Forum. He sits at the fulcrum of power. He is in a position to do it.“I probably shouldn’t be saying things like this,” he says. (27)
Maurice Strong’s fanciful plot probably shouldn’t be taken too seriously, at least in terms of a literal reading of future events. It is unlikely they will unfold in exactly that manner – although it is not impossible. For one thing, it would not be necessary to hold the leaders of the industrialized nations at gun point. They would be the ones engineering this plot. Leaders from Third-World countries do not have the means to cause a global crisis. That would have to come from the money centers in New York, London, or Tokyo. Furthermore, the masterminds behind this thrust for global government have always resided in the industrialized nations. They have come from the ranks of the CFR in America and from other branches of the International Roundtable in England, France, Belgium, Canada, Japan, and elsewhere. They are the ideological descendants of Cecil Rhodes and they are fulfilling his dream.
It is not important whether or not Maurice Strong’s plot for global economic collapse is to be taken literally. What is important is that men like him are thinking along those lines. As Wood pointed out, they are in a position to do it. Or something like it. If it is not this scenario, they will consider another one with similar consequences. If history has proven anything, it is that men with financial and political power are quite capable of heinous plots against their fellow men. They have launched wars, caused depressions, and created famines to suit their personal agendas. We have little reason to believe that the world leaders of today are more saintly than their predecessors.
Furthermore, we must not be fooled by pretended concern for Mother Earth. The call-to-arms for saving the planet is a gigantic ruse. There is just enough truth to environmental pollution to make the show “credible,” as The Report from Iron Mountain phrased it, but the end-of-earth scenarios which drive the movement forward are bogus. The real objective in all of this is world government, the ultimate doomsday mechanism from which there can be no escape. Destruction of the economic strength of the industrialized nations is merely a necessary prerequisite for ensnaring them into the global web. The thrust of the current ecology movement is directed totally to that end.
***********
by G. Edward Griffin.
It may be obtained at www.realityzone.com.
References:
1
Leonard Lewin, ed., Report from Iron Mountain on the possibility and the Desirability of Peace
(New York: Dell Publishing, 1976), pp.13-14.
2
Ibid. pp. 39, 81.
3
Ibid. p. 9. 3
4
Ibid., pp. 41-42,68, 70.
5
“British Soccer’s Day of Shame,” U.S. News & World Report, June 10, 1985, p. 11.
6
Lewin, Report, p. 44. 6
7
Ibid., p. 66. 7
8
Ibid., pp. 66-67, 70-71. When the Report was written, terrorism had not yet been considered as a substitute for war. Since then, it has become the most useful of them all.
9
“News of War and Peace You’re Not Ready For,” by Herschel McLandress, Book World, in The
Washington Post, Nov. 26, 1967, p. 5.
10
“The Times Diary,” London Times, Feb. 5, 1968, p.8.
11
“Galbraith Says He Was Misquoted, “ London Times, Feb. 6, 1968, p. 3.
12
“Touche, Professor,” London Times, Feb. 12, 1968, p, 8. 9
13
“Report from Iron Mountain,” New Your Times, March 19, 1968, p. 8. 10
14
Garrett de Bell, ed., The Environmental Handbook (New York: Ballantine / Friends of the Earth,
1970), p. 138.
15
Ibid., p. 145.
16
A Europe Now Free from A Confining Cold War Vision,” by George Kennan, (Washington Post
syndication, Sacramento Bee, Nov. 14, 1989, p. B7.
17
The New York Times has been one of the principal means by which CFR policies are inserted into
the mainstream of public opinion. The paper was purchased in 1896 by Alfred Ochs, with financial
backing from CFR pioneer J.P. Morgan, Rothchild agent August Belmont, and Jacob Schiff, a partner in Kuhn, Loeb & Co. It is now owned by CFR member Arthur Sulzberger, who is also the
publisher, and it is staffed by numerous CFR editors and columnists. See Shadows of Power by
James Perloff (Appleton, Wisconsin: Western Islands, 1988), p. 181.
18
Lester R. Brown, “The New World Order,” in Lester R. Brown et al., State of the World 1991; A
Worldwatch Institute Report on Progress Toward A Sustainable Society (New York: W.W. Norton,
1991), p. 3.
19
Alexander King and Bertrand Schneider, The First Global Revolution, A Report by the Council of
the Club of Rome, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1991). P. 115.
20
See Martin, Rose, Fabian Freeway; High Road to Socialism in the U.S.A. (Boston: Western
Islands, 1966), pp. 171, 325, 463-69.
21
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, The Impact of Science on Society (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1953), pp. 103-104, 111.
22
Interviewed by Bahgat Eluadi and Adel Rifaat, Courrier de l’Unesco, Nov. 1991, p. 13.
23
Michail Gorbachev, “The River of Time and the Necessity of Action,” 46th John Findley Greed
Foundation Lecture, Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, May 6, 1992, transcript from
Westminster College Department of Press Relations, p. 6.
24
Ibid., p. 9. 14
25
“Ecology Remedy Costly,” (AP), Sacramento Bee, March 12, 1992, p. A8. Also Maurice Strong,
Introduction to Jim MacNeil, Pieter Winsemius, and Taizo Yakushiji, Beyond Interdependence,
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. ix.
26
“Road to Ruin,” Arizona Republic, March 26, 1992.
27
“The Wizard of Baca Grande.” By Daniel Wood, West magazine, May 1990, p. 35.
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