EXAMINING AN ESTABLISHMENT MEMBER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000100300026-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 13, 2000
• Sequence Number: 26
• Publication Date: May 29, 1966
• Content Type: NSPR

0
it
WASHINGTON POST
Approved For Release 2001/07/2l 7Y-00R001 R0M?Q,Q?Q0
MAY 11966
Council on Foreign Relations
' CPYRGHT
Examinina an Establishm "'member
By Flora Lewis
Washington Post Staff Writer
NEW YORK, May 28-"You all have
a certain status in being here," John
;J., McCloy told some 800 bla cidtfiee '~
men a so W New York dinner this
week. He chuckled at his own joke.
!"You all realize that the Council on
Foreign Relations is a mem e
~E'ab"lis~'im~'H ?~''
Silently, with(mt expression, a man
at one of the tables well back from the
!dais pushed a dollar bill towards the
man beside him and paid his bet.
t His neighbor pushed it back between
'them. "I'll make it double or nothing,
he whispered. "I bet you Rusk uses the
word 'Establishment' in the first four
sentences of his speech."
They don't, as a body,
actually decide anything, or',
recommend anything, or
lobby for anything. They
simply listen in private to
I speeches by very important
t. or very knowledgeable peo-
i. ple, attend seminars and'!
j. small dinners, support -the .'
e solemn quarterly "Foreign i,
Affairs" and a series of re
search projects that lead to
scholarly but not too - ab-
struse publications.
"Just highly sophisticated
adult education," is what
David W. Maceachron, the
Council's program director,
called it.
But an elderly banker
whispered as Rusk went on
a Rhodes scholar, just a little more
and he'd be classified as an intellec? i
tual. And then where would he be'
When the Secretary of State stood
tie was eb amiPl'g .?? ~r.!~r&arf:Cljit,dt f ,
up to FOREIGN AFFAIRS-,'
It is a great pleasure for me to meet
once again with the Council on For-
eign Relations," be-began. "By law, I j
ram a member of the Establish-
! ment
."
..
A second dollar bill was immediately
placed beside the first and the winner
scooped them up. "I should have
known,' the loser mouthed.
But Rusk had not finished with the
rpoint. He went on to say that if he
had brougl't fraternal Establishment
greetings from the State Department,!
"I would disappoint the Eatoblishment~
.watchers. The eight highest officials
in our business were born i? . . ." ands
he proceeded to list the non-power!
wielding states, the non-Ivy League
colleges from which his to
asso
i
t
p
c
a
es
had come.
He rattled them all off in the tone
of a bemused society editor deciding!
to read out 'the list at the bottom o~
the column beginning "among those,
'
The ballroom full of men
(three
newspaperwomen had been admitted'
on sufferance because it was one of:
the all-male (Council's rare public,
AM l ML' 1UUAN SJUAK1'ERLs Y RI'3VIEW 1'. t
APRIL 1966
The Faceless Viet Cong . . George A. Carver, Jr. 347.
Rhodesia in the Context of Southern Africa ,uliua K. Nyerere 373
ALLEN W. DULLIS
ALFRED M. GRUENTHER
GEORGE F. KENNA2
Managing Editor
Editorial Advisory Board
HENRY Ai KISSINGER PHILIP E. MOSELr
WILLIAM I,. LANCER, ISIDOR 7. RAH!
JOHN J. MCCLOY HENRY M. WRISTON'
Published quarterly by Council on ForeignRelations, Inc. Editorial and Business Offices,
.... ----- .
appreciatively. Then they settled back ' came from a shared sense ? iectea to compose- A. Mn 1- or i
importantly for the long policy speech that, after all, there might leadership elite in Ameri-
on Vietnam. be something In what Gal. f can foreign affairs.'There Is
It was a remark of John Kenneth I'braith' had said. -a large segment of Wall
Galbraith, former Ambasador to India,
The Council has' 1400' St , some midtown ty.
calling the Council a kind of concealed ti.~ reet
,
foreign policy establishment. that had members-alverage fge 60, coons, the more eminent.
prbvoked all the high-level cracks. But '. average wealth undoubtedly, radio and newspaper execu+
-
;the sensitivity of the, response clearly, sta fives?s sprinkling of of adem?
g -~ Calfully , be-.
. ,.__ ,...:.._..__. _ gger6
n.... people,;dealing vt!ittt reams
with his speech, "Yoi can,
be sure Rusk means it when
he says he's glad to be here.
He feels at home. It was
,McCloy and Robert Lovett
who got him his job.
(President) Kennedy had
never. met Rusk before they
persuaded him,to make the.,,
appointment."
Approved For Release 2001/07/26 : CIA-RDP75-00001 R000100300026-6 CoAt?inned
big foreign Investors.
 Approved For Release 2001/07/26 : CIA-RDP75-00001 R000100300026-6
CPYRGHT
At the head table, 29!1 letter) felt the same way.
heads (13 bald, 10 gray, 6 They tell me the President
brown or sandy) were Listen-~ was quite pleased to hear
Ing to the Secretary. They - it."
all had known him for; It came out that someone
years, from his days as head practically always comes up
of the Rockefeller Founda-V?from Washington for the
tion and because they were, "little dinners"-not to talk
in any case men accustomed 'but to listen as eight o'r ten
to being on intimate terms' ' of the country's biggest bank-
with the American Secre- ers, lawyers, corporation
tary of.,State. heads, chat about the state
Allen Dulles, former' chief of the world'.
i of the Central Intelligence if they have, something to
Agency, seemed to snooze a urge on governmgnt, they
Tittle as the familiar recital do It privately, through the.'
of postwar policy went on. network of friendships and
But he straightened with a long-concerted contacts. In-,; jerk when Rusk mentioned that s e n s.e ,, the Council
is brother, the late John doesn't matter; it is no
ent
,
yr Corporate '
There were questions, po- weight, no organized - hot-
lite ones beginning with line.
"Would you care to com-
r- y But as men of serious
L,
ment on .,"when the l affairs, they like' to have ;
speech was over. Nothing serious-sounding information',
startling happened. No dis without the frills of mass
erect but firm pressures, popularization. The Council
t,were applied. There was, helps provide it in digestible,,
nothing but the, well-known ; form. As men who are con.
heads for the TV camerhs i scious that they matter, they
to catch as a reflection of
~~ n like to have the views of
1behind-scenes power. other men who matter and
r, Afterwards, a few of the see that their own ' are
? men went on to a quiet bar heard. The Council helps
?'
for a drink and an amiable i provide that opportunity in r
ChaThe point is " one said privacy, dignity and com- fd
fort.
"all the rest of the countries In that sense, it Is a mighty
In the area. You have to be club, an Establishment. Theyj
sure to make the circuit! don't make foreign policy;.
every time you go to have, no President since the war,4
it look at Saigon. It's the of-' has been less involved, less ~
feet on the 6thers that real connected with their, club
ly matters. That's where' drawn less on their coterie y
these people, who just talk, for top advisers. Still, they
about Vietnam go, wrong." do exist and they're, ready,]
"Yes," said another. "Wei and twilling to provide, ins
were talking' about that at, fluence.. Above all,. when it
fi.
one ot. our little. Council. comes to.. , providing , tnOu
din fiers l s~ , week:: Davidi once, they, are
able q
?
11er! .1
MAY 2 9 1966
Approved For Release 2001/07/26 : CIA-RDP75-00001 R000100300026-6