Bush Appoints CFR Members
As national attention focuses on President-elect Bush’s initial appointments,
a picture of an administration dominated by Establishment insiders committed
to an internationalist agenda is coming into focus. The selection of retired
General and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell as
secretary of state continues a party-transcending tradition of having a
member of the Council on Foreign Relations in that post. (The outgoing
secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, is also a CFR member.)
General Powell participated in the State of the World Forum 2000 sponsored by
the Gorbachev Foundation at the New York Hilton last September. The thousand
participants discussed "Shaping Globalization" (the theme of the forum) and
took part in sessions to plan our planet’s emerging "new world order."
According to Christopher Story, publisher of the London-based Soviet Analyst,
the Gorbachev Foundation is the secret successor to the International
Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union.
Sharing the media spotlight with Powell is Stanford Professor Condoleeza
Rice, the president-elect’s choice for national security adviser. As with the
position at State, the NSA top slot has often been occupied in recent years
by a CFR member (e.g., Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft, and Zbigniew
Brzezinski), and the appointment of Dr. Rice continues this tradition. In
addition to her CFR credentials, Dr. Rice is a member of the Aspen
Institute’s Strategy Group, a dubious honor she shares with Senator Dianne
Feinstein, former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, and Foreign
Affairs editor Fareed Zakaria. Emeritus members of the Strategy Group include
outgoing Vice President Al Gore, and incoming Veep Richard Cheney. The
feeling that the executive branch of our government, the CFR, the Aspen
Institute, and a few other Establishment think tanks trade staff members
among themselves as frequently as major league baseball teams trade players
is anything but illusory!
Speculations about several other key Bush administration posts were made in
The New York Times for December 18, 2000. The Times reported that two Bush
advisers had mentioned former Senator Daniel R. Coats (R-Ind.) as a likely
candidate for secretary of defense. Paul H. O’Neil, the chairman and chief
executive of Alcoa, was also mentioned by the Times as "the top contender to
become treasury secretary." Other contenders mentioned for Treasury by the
Times included: Walter V. Shipley, former chairman of Chase Manhattan
Corporation; Donald B. Marron, chairman of the Paine Webber Group; and John
M. Hennessy, former chairman of Credit Suisse First Boston. The latter three
are all members of the Establishment’s favorite club — the CFR.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2001/01-15-2001/insider/vo17no02_ins_cfr.htm
