Simple question, on our lilly white foundations, you guys need to check an old vignette called Operation Mockingbird
It is a known fact that certain corporate-funded foundations employ their resources for one overt and the other covert reasons.
The overt is to give us the philathropic view of the foundations as promoters of humanitarian causes and ideals,while the second is used to channel funds to clandentine causes which further American Foreign Policy, of course it looks even better if they are seen as being funded by a charitable organisation. Prior to founding the Rockefeller Foundation Ivy Lee (public relations consultant) adviced JD Rockefeller to use the foundation not only to evade income tax but to also use it as tool to influence academic circles through research grants. By way of funding academic studies into sociology and other research projects and the re-doing Rockefeller's own biography (Collier-Horowitz version refers to this) given the flak originally fired by Ida Tarbell on Rockefeller's monopolitistic practices.
Worth noting, are that board members of tax free foundations interock with American Government at Federal Level and corporate leaders. Hence McGeorge Bundy, bios would evince presence in the Presidential Cabinet, President of such and such Corp, member or director of such and such foundation. Take for example Robert McNamara his pattern is not an isolated case either.
Please read the book Foundations:Their Power and Influence by Rene Wormser, which belong to a series of congressional investigations into the activities of tax free foundations.
May be is it me or is that people with power and wealth will tend to abuse it? Perhaps I am just conspiratorial? For those who always doubt the orthodox view.
Bias? For those people who doubt the established doctrine would do well to read Gary Allen's None Dare Call It Conspiracy and the Rockefeller File available from amazon. Let's be clear though I do not subscribe to the conspiratorial/religion view, it is a question of simply getting power, keeping and expanding it. Simply view Power elite for these cross-linkages May be Wiki.org fears potential litigation eh? What's your take guys? --203.61.147.2 13:49, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Um, okay, not that I'm necessarily saying you're wrong, but PLEASE provide some documentation for this charge, before we have an entry that says NOTHING but that they're a CIA front?!? Graft 15:27 Sep 26, 2002 (UTC)
- Nice edit with the "stated". You're right, the evidence that its a CIA front is -- erm -- not great (I'd like one article that didn't read like it'd been written by a conspiracy theorist -- User:GWO
Gareth, he's the prosecutor for the Nuremberg trials... fallacy of authority, fine, but you're writing away all testimonials completely if you say this. I think 'war criminal' was adequately qualified (or, we can do that if you like), but the fact that someone intimately involved with the prosecution of war criminals thinks this man could probably be one surely has SOME weight worthy of putting it in the article? Graft
- So, Scott Ritter was an inspector for UNSCOM. That doesn't make his "we found 95%" claim any more valid than anyone else's guess. However, if someone wants to accuse a person of war crimes, I wouldn't want to censor that accusation just because I personally disagree with it. --Ed Poor
By the way, I think the stuff on Bundy should go in a companion article. Any objection? --Ed Poor 14:22 Sep 27, 2002 (UTC)
- Nope but I dont like this -
McGeorge Bundy (1919-1996) was Special Assistant to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson? for National Security Affairs from 1961-1966, and then headed the Ford Foundation from 1966-1979. His brother, William Bundy, worked for the CIA for 10 years, suggesting that the Ford Foundation may not have been independent of US government foreign policy during that period.
- His brother working for the CIA does not suggest the Ford Foundation are tied with the CIA. Its another unsubstianted link (although it does appear to be a close tie-in) Greg Godwin 14:31 Sep 27, 2002 (UTC)
The "front" stuff needs more work.
relationship with government, secret services and war crimes
It is considered by some to be a front organisation for the CIA, claiming to distribute funds for the development of democracy and human rights in countries where US interests are threatened by local groups struggling for human rights and democracy. By making donations and then putting conditions on how funds are spent, or by obtaining personal information on human rights activists, its critics allege that the Ford Foundation and CIA together often succeed in diverting intellectual and organising energy of human rights activists into useless or ineffective avenues, or in dividing different human rights activist groups from one another.
The above paragraph raises more questions than it answers:
- considered a front by whom?
- e.g. by Frances Stonor Saunders (The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters, New Press, 2001, ISBN 1565846648). The author says, for instance, that "[a]t times it seemed as if the Ford Foundation was simply an extension of government in the area of international cultural propaganda. The foundation had a record of close involvement in covert actions in Europe, working closely with Marshall Plan and CIA officials on specific projects".
- explain how funds for human rights conflict with US interests. One example should suffice.
- Of course, it is not just "funds for human rights", but "funds for the development of democracy and human rights in countries where US interests are threatened by them". I presume that you are familiar with the cases of Guatemala, Nicaragua or Cuba, and that therefore you are capable of understanding how for US planners the rise of democratic socialist governments, with their emphasis in social and economic human rights, posed a threat to Washington interests. These governments, they said, were like a "virus", that would "infect" the whole region by serving as a model for other countries to follow.
- Another specific case would be the West Papua situation where either human rights or democracy funds could undermine the Freeport license signed with the invading Indonesian government two years before the so called "Act of Free Choice"; it is note worthy that only independantly funded groups (the Robert Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, and the US Department of State) have dared mention the on-going genocide since Indonesian occupation; given that the Ford Foundation is extremely likely to have been a major advisor to JFK to support the Indonesian invasion, the Ford Foundation has two (fiscal & PR) reasons to keep world attention on minor issues like Israel and its 20,000 free settlers rather than the IMF funded 6 million Indonesian Islamic settlers in non-Islamic countries like West Papua.
- If you read the short external link http://www.cia-on-campus.org/internat/indo.html you will see the Foundation does have dirty pro-Islamic business it would rather keep quiet; there have been a number of journalist reports about it founding anti-Israel NGOs. It is also worth noting Ford created the Foundation while he was involved in & impressed by Nazi Germany, two years before he receives his award; remember Ford also had a factory in Empirial Japan, and for some unexplained reason in Mar 1945 Japan sent orders for a pro-Independance committee to be formed (see History of Indonesia); the Foundation is in Indonesia supporting this group by the years end... it would be excellent if someone were to one day research the Japanese records to discover who requested the 'independance' committee.
- What does "diverting ... energy" mean?
- Former Ford Foundation President Richard Bisell acknowledged that the purpose of the Foundation was not "so much to defeat the leftist intellectuals in dialectical combat as to lure them away from their positions". In other words, you make them work in "harmless" activities, and not in those that may eventually pose a threat to the interests of the US government.
Don't get me wrong: I don't want any sort of whitewash or cover-up. Please fix up the text and then put it back. --Ed Poor
- I'm going to put back an updated version. Please let me know if you agree with the final result, or if you have any further questions that you would like to see answered. --Sir Paul
I find "nothing more than" still emotive, and "the foundation actively works against its stated aims" is a very serious accusation, which should either be toned down or backed up.
while we can mention such charges, i don't think critiques of the Foundation as a "CIA front" should dominate the article. i personally was unaware of this charge until reading this, and i don't think it's very widely known or alleged. J. Parker Stone 04:32, 10 July 2005 (UTC)