*This phrase comes from the Plautus play, Miles Gloriosus and translates as "The power of command over good people is easy". The words are spoken by "The Clever Slave", a stock character borrowed from Greek theater. In the scene where this phrase is used, the slave has summoned two co-conspirators in a plot against an enemy of convenience. There is a double edge to the meaning of his words though as, on the one hand, obedience to authority is a valued trait of "good people" - that is, people who unqestioningly do as their superiors tell them. On the other hand, such people are also perfect patsies for deceptive and misleading leaders. "The Clever Slave" notes as well in this scene that what you might think is a good plan is actually a bad one if the enemy finds out about it and uses it against you.
JOHN HAY WHITNEY - EARLY LIFE Born in 1904, the son of William Payne Whitney and a direct descendant of both an original Puritan settler, John Whitney, and William Bradford who had come over on the Mayflower.[1] Whitney graduated from Yale in 1926.[2] where he had joined the Scroll & Key Secret Society. Scroll & Key members were given names mostly based on Greek mythology and theater. Whitney was given the name of a "Clever Slave", perhaps indicative of an early propensity for behind-the-scenes manipulations. Despite his inherited fortune (he would later be named among the richest ten people in the world), he took a job in 1929 as a clerk in the firm of Lee, Higginson & Co, where he met Langbourne Meade Williams, Jr., the son of the founder of Freeport Texas Co. The following year, Whitney became Freeport's Chairman of the Board, and his association with the company continued the rest of his life.[3]
His next venture was into Broadway Theater, followed by the almost inevitable move on Hollywood, getting in on the ground-floor of color film after a chance race track meeting with Technicolor boss, Dr Herbert Kalmus. By 1933, he had set up Pioneer Pictures to take advantage of this new technology.[4] At the invitation of Nelson Rockefeller, Whitney in 1940, accepted the job of running the Motion Picture Division of the newly created Office of Inter-American Affairs (OIAA) housed within the State Department. Behind the Good Neighbor Policy it was supposed to implement however, was the desire to influence Latin America toward American interests, which by definition, (at least after the war) meant disavowing democratic rule if democratic elections should bring Leftist governments into power.[5] That same year, he divorced his first wife, and eventually married Betsy Cushing Roosevelt, the ex-wife of James Roosevelt in March, 1942.[6] Later in 1942, Whitney left the OIAA and joined the Army Air Force as cover for OSS assignments under William J Donovan.[7] Prior to Whitney leaving however, Rockefeller had acquired a new staff member; William Gaudet.[8] Gaudet would later publish the Latin American Report through the sponsorship of the CIA, United Fruit, the Chase Manhattan Bank and several Central American dictators - most notably, Anastasio Somoza Garcia and, following his assassination in 1956, through his sons, Luis Somoza Debayle and Anastasio Somoza Debayle. In fact, many of Gaudet's reports came from intelligence provided by the Somoza's National Guard - a combined civilian police force and army. The National Guard had been set up by US Marines in the late 1920s and early '30s to safeguard democratic rule.[9] In reality however, it was a safeguard for Somoza family rule as both a protector of US interests, and a bulwark against Communism - a situation which would lead to Nicaragua becoming the launch site for the Bay of Pigs invasion force.
On September 17, 1963, Gaudet obtained Mexico Tourist Card # 24084 from the Mexican Consulate General's office in New Orleans. The person who obtained Mexico Tourist Card # 24085 was Lee Harvey Oswald.[10]
THE NATIONAL RESEARCH CORPORATION A year after the war, Whitney, Richard G Croft, Samuel Park, Malcolm Smith, Webster B Todd and Benno Schmidt, Sr set up the world's first venture capital firm, JH Whitney & Co.[11] During this period, he also became increasingly involved within the Republican Party. One of the first clients of the new firm was the National Research Corporation (NRC) which was looking for venture capital to set up the Minute Maid Corporation.[12] The NRC was based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and had begun in 1940 under the guidance of staunch Republican, Richard Stetson Morse. Another product of the Eastern Establishment, he had become convinced of the industrial potential for high vacuum technology whilst working at Kodak. His orange concentrate was one of the companies early successes, and had been initially developed for the armed forces. By the 1950s, the NRC was doing classified work on both the space program and in the search for chemical, radiological and biological weapons.[13] The NRC was Initially funded to the tune of $50,000 loan, and though a lucrative Navy contract for the coating of lenses gave it impetus,[14] it was the Minute Maid spin-off which set the precedent for the company. Older staff would be moved into administrative positions to make way for young go-getters in the research field who would develop new products and form companies around them using venture capital, before divesting all interest.[15] Morse resigned as president of the NRC in 1959 to take up the position of Director of US Army Research & Development.[16] In February, 1961, Kennedy, in another display of indifference to the political hue, and in this case, outright hostility of a prospective high government official, nominated Morse for the position of Assistant Secretary of the Army - a position which he duly filled.[17] Vocal in his opposition to Kennedy's candidacy during the election, and later, bitter about the USAF gaining control of most military space programs and the delays in the production of Nike Zeus missiles, he resigned his post.[18] The date however, probably tells us what the final straw was for him in making that decision: it was June 1, 1961 - just a month and a half after the failed Bay of Pigs operation.[19] Although not confirmed, there can be little doubt that Whitney and Morse were at least acquaintances extending beyond, and perhaps preceding the Whitney Co - NRC business transactions. The basis for this would lie mainly in a shared passion for entrepreneurship and venture capital. In fact, Morse would launch MIT's first courses in those very subjects through the Alfred P Sloan School of Management after leaving his government post. Certainly, Whitney and Sloan had known each other very well. Another possible link emerged in 1971. In the latter half of the 1960s, Morse started involving himself in the problems of pollution, and as a result, helped organize the US Department of Commerce Technical Advisory Board, becoming an adviser to the Nixon administration and to Congress on innovative solutions to problems involving energy and pollution.[20] Around this same time, the Ash Council, whose members included long-time Whitney friend and director of several Whitney companies, Walter N Thayer, was setting up the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In 1971, the EPA awarded a substantial contract to a small Massachusetts firm for the development of a steam engine. That firm was Steam Engine Systems (SES) and was owned and operated by Morse. Surprisingly, SES was assisted in the development of a prototype by Mobil Oil.[21] In May, 1960, the name "National Research Corporation" was incorporated in Louisiana by Saul and Harold Sonnier and John C Jackson.[22] Jackson had arrived in Dallas in November, 1956 to obtain venture capital for experiments he was conducting on degenerative diseases. This fell through when the venture capitalist who was to provide the backing turned out to be broke. According to his own account, Jackson, stranded and penniless, met Jack Ruby purely by chance in Phil's Delicatessen at 3:00 am. Upon hearing his plight, Ruby promptly gave him his apartment keys and invited him to stay. And stay he did, until the end of 1957. In the intervening period, Ruby provided contacts for Jackson through the Vegas Club as possible sources of financial backing for the experiments.[23]
In May 1958, Ruby and Jackson were arrested in an overdue rental car in Aztec, New Mexico, and were interviewed by the FBI whilst incarcerated. Rumors in Dallas at the time indicated that the arrest had actually involved drugs.[24]
AMBASSADOR WHITNEY, THE HERALD TRIBUNE & OLD FRIENDS In 1954, and again in 1958, Whitney was a key financial supporter of Eisenhower. Eisenhower returned the favor, fulfilling a dream Whitney had harbored since his Yale days of becoming Ambassador to England - a post he would hold from 1957 until the end of the Eisenhower administration.[25] Whilst Whitney provided hard cash for campaigning, it had been long-time Whitney friend, John Reagan "Tex" McCrary who took credit for convincing a reluctant Ike to run at all.[26] "Tex" McCrary is regarded as the father of talk radio and tv shows, and at CBS, he had people like William Safire and Barbara Walters working under him.[27] A Yale graduate, McCray was a Scull & Bonesman.[28] The Suez crisis and De Gaulle's rise to power in 1958 raised the stakes in the US for intelligence gathering and propaganda operations in Europe and the Middle East, and the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square became head-quarters for much CIA activity. The London Station Chief from 1957 to 1959 was Tracy Barnes. Barnes was not only a fellow member of Scroll and Key;[29] he also happened to be a second cousin to Whitney. Moreover, they had become fast friends during their time together at the Army Air Corps' intelligence school in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.[30] Barnes returned to the US in 1960, serving directly under Richard Bissell in the Directorate of Plans (DDP).[31] The nature of the work carried out by the DDP included covert military operations, sabotage, subversion, terrorism and psychological warfare (psyops). Barnes had already had one stint in DDP, having been the field commander of Operation Success (PBSUCCESS) in the efforts to overthrow the Arbenz government in 1954.[32] Working under Barnes on propaganda in that operation was David Atlee Phillips. The Bay of Pigs operation in 1961 would not only draw on the same methods, but many of the same personnel, including Barnes and Phillips.[33] Phillips, under the direction of Barnes, had also commenced sting operations against the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC) juts prior to the Bay of Pigs.[34] Another in this milieu was Frank Wisner. Wisner had known Barnes from their days in the so-called "Georgetown Set". A gathering of politicians, top bureaucrats and journalists, the group also boasted, among others, Richard Bissell, Cord Meyer, Allen Dulles, James Angleton, John McCloy, Felix Frankfurter, and Joseph and Stuart Alsop.[35]
Whilst still Ambassador to England, Whitney received a letter from Eisenhower urging him to buy the troubled Herald Tribune.[36] Whitney quickly organized the purchase, after taking advice from Tex McCrary, through his company Whitney Communications in 1958 - only waiting long enough for it to be transformed into a Delaware corporation, and for the establishment of an editorial advisory board comprising business and Republican Party leaders.[37]
MOCKINGBIRD After the war, Wisner, now an OSS veteran, began lobbying for a new intelligence agency to combat the spread of communism. Given the go-ahead in 1948, he created the Office of Special Projects (OSP) which was later renamed Office of Policy Coordination (OPC) and incorporated into the CIA. In August, 1952, it was merged with the Office of Special Operations to form the DDP.[38] Later that year, Wisner also established what has become popularly known as Operation Mockingbird[39] - a program aimed at influencing the media, recruiting people such as Philip Graham of the Washington Post to run the program from within the industry.[40] By the early 1950s, Mockingbird was being overseen by CIA director Allen Dulles who now had at his disposal, the resources and talent of 25 newspapers and wire agencies. Among those involved at this stage were William Paley of CBS, Henry Luce of Time and Life magazines, Arthur Hays Sulzberger of the New York Times and Joseph Harrison of the Christian Science Monitor.[41]
Then came 1958 and the opportunity for Whitney to step back into the field of propaganda through the New York Herald Tribune and its sister paper in Paris, later renamed the International Herald Tribune. The two brightest stars of the program in fact, worked for the New York Herald Tribune: the brothers Stuart and Joseph Alsop.[42] In his autobiography, I've Seen the Best of It, Joseph Alsop laid claims to having, along with Phil Graham (with whom he now worked at the Post), convinced JFK to offer Johnson the vice-presidency (something, as long time LBJ supporters, they would not have done without being certain that LBJ could not win the top nomination but would accept the V-P role); helped Kennedy choose his "top people", including Rusk, Dillon, Harriman and Kennan and; convinced Kennedy that there was indeed, a missile gap with the Soviets - a claim that, whether Kennedy later realized it or not, was based wholly on manufactured evidence.[43]
A staunch flag-waver for US involvement in the Vietnam War, Alsop would later give the type of support to Nixon he had given LBJ, including passing on "insider" information.[44] He would also become a lifelong friend to Kissinger who had become a frequent source of stories for the columns of Joe as well as brother Stuart.[45] Joe Alsop's Cold War influence was neatly summarized by Eric Alterman in his review of the columnist's autobiography when he said it derived in part from his dinner parties but even more from the civilized manner in which he incorporated the foreign policy world-view of the far right into polite society. He was obsessed with what he saw as the nation's need to prove its collective manhood and was forever wondering whether this or that president was "man enough" to stop the Reds at some critical juncture.[46] How much of this was rooted in being gay in an era of almost institutionalized homophobia is best left to psychologists. What does require examination however, is not that he was gay per se, but that he was caught and photographed in bed with another man by the KGB during a trip to Moscow in 1957. This was the KGB's favored method of recruitment. Alsop, so the story goes, rebuffed any deals in exchange for the photos, and contacted Ambassador Chip Bohlen. Between them, the two old friends from the Georgetown Set" managed to end further attempts.[47] But they did not obtain the photos and negatives. During the Kennedy administration, the photos starting turning up in the mail of some of Alsop's colleagues and at least one noted detractor; humorist, Art Buchwald. What had started as a blackmail attempt had turned to a smear campaign which was only called off when the Soviets were "put on notice through backchannels that the CIA had dirt with which to retaliate."[48]
One more key operative in Mockingbird was Cord Meyer, Jr.[49] Meyer had graduated at Yale in 1942 as another of the Scroll and Key select few.[50] In May, 1947 he was elected president of the United World Federalists; a position he maintained until 1949. In late 1950, Meyer formed the Committee to Frame a World Constitution with Robert Maynard Hutchins and Elizabeth Mann Borgese which brought him into contact with such organizations as the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) and International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. The history is unclear as to the facts, though some authors such as Mark Riebling believe this work to have been secretly carried out for the CIA.[51] Ostensibly the objective would be to instil anti-communist sentiment into such organizations, but a further argument might run that subverting them and shifting them to the right was at the least, a secondary goal. Whatever the case, clearly, Labor parties and trade unions internationally are now mainly being led by right wing factions, and have all but abandoned their founding principles.
There are many threads of interest running through the life of Cord Meyer, Jr. Most are beyond the scope of this article, and in any case, there is a wealth of material readily accessible on him should further information be sought. As a sidebar I will add only that his father, Cord Meyer, Sr was Regional Director of the North-East Region of the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) from Jan 1, 1952 to May 27, 1955 and Regional Commander from May 27, 1955 to May 21, 1956. North-East Region Headquarters was in New York.[52] His home address at 116 East 66th St was only one and a half miles from John Pic's apartment at East 92nd St.
JOHN HAY WHITNEY FOUNDATION Whitney set up the foundation (aka the John Hay Whitney Trust for Charitable Purposes) in 1946 to provide fellowships to the racially and culturally deprived.[53] However, it emerged in 1967 that the CIA was using the fund.[54] Given the stated purpose of the fund, the CIA could only have been interested in using it to develop assets among minority groups. Indeed, the record shows that some [periodic] funding was provided, indicating it was targeted to selected individuals via a trustee of the Fund, Whitney's old friend, Walter N Thayer.[55] One recipient of a Whitney Fellowship was Richard Gibson. Gibson, though African-American, could hardly claim to have been culturally deprived, having come from a "distinguished" Philadelphian family which included renowned artist, Henry Tanner.[56] Gibson skipped out on a debt to Kenyon College when he was granted a years funding in 1951 to attend the American Academy in Rome.[57] The purpose had been to write a book, ultimately titled "A Mirror for Magistrates", but not published until 1958. In the interim, The Whitney Foundation came good with further largesse, allowing him to live the life of the ex-pat in Paris.[58] Here was the first inkling that Gibson was somehow working for the CIA in what became known as "the Gibson Affair". One of the conditions under which the ex-pat African-American colony lived was not to criticize French Foreign policy . However, in 1957, a letter was published in LIFE Magazine under the name of cartoonist, Ollie Harrington which condemned, in no uncertain terms, French policy in Algeria. The problem was that Harrington, an African-American ex-pat with communist sympathies, had not written the letter. Similar letters went to London publications. Facing deportation, Harrington initiated an investigation headed by criminal lawyer, Jacques Mercier. This in turn, led to police finding conclusive evidence showing Gibson had forged the signatures. Faced with the evidence, Gibson confessed. The net result of the affair was the disintegration of trust and morale among the ex-pats (some of whom had been critical of US foreign policy), and a job for Gibson at CBS in London.[59] By 1960 Gibson, still with CBS, was back in the US working on the late night shift alongside fellow newsmen Robert Taber and Ed Haddad. These three, together with Alan Sagner, Charles Santos-Buch, Waldo Frank and Carleton Beal became the convocation to form the Fair Play Cuba Committee. (FPCC)[60] The official version of how the FPCC was formed runs like this: Robert Taber wrote a defense of the Cuban revolution for The Nation in January, 1960. After reading the piece, Sagner decided something needed to be done to counter US propaganda, and contacted the author at CBS. They met, together with Charles Santos-Buch to discuss Sagner's idea to form a "Fair Play for Cuba Committee" with the support of "prominent names" to launch a counter-propaganda campaign and perhaps send a delegation to Cuba. Sagner further suggested that the announcement proclaiming the formation of the committee should be via an ad in the New York Times. The ad duly appeared in the April 6 edition.[61] If the "ad hoc" appearance of the formation of the FPCC seems to negate any suggestion that the FPCC was a CIA operation from the very outset, consider the following: Alan Sagner was a New Jersey Real Estate developer with close ties to the Democratic Party. From 1977 to 1985, he was Chairman of the New York and New Jersey Port Authority and from 1996 to 1998, he was a Clinton appointee to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting board of directors.[62]
In 1997 Sagner was general chairman of the New Jersey Campaign for a Nuclear Freeze, and saw no inconsistency when, that same year as Port Authority chairman, he lobbied hard to get the nuclear fleet "home-ported" in New York.[63]
He was a long time financial supporter of The Nation.[64]
Robert Taber worked for the Mockingbird connected CBS and wrote the Nation article which "inspired" Sagner. The Nation is long-suspected of "Left-gate-keeping" for the CIA.
Taber and Gibson were considered the real forces behind the FPCC. Gibson had been suspected of being a CIA asset while in France, and had received funding while in Europe through the Whitney Foundation. This Foundation was revealed in 1967 to be a conduit for CIA money - in this case targeted to individuals from minority groups who may prove valuable assets in future.
Whitney owned a string of radio and TV stations through his company, Corinthian Broadcasting Corp. These were all CBS affiliates.[65] Having at least some control over both sides of the propaganda war on Cuba would have had its advantages. And who knows what else that control may be turned to in other operations?
ENDNOTES [1] IMDB.com mini biography of John Hay Whitney
[2] Also graduating that year at Yale was Dmitri von Mohrenschildt (brother of George de Mohrenschildt). See bio details contained in Toward a United States of Russia: Plans and Projects of Federal Reconstruction of Russia in the Nineteenth Century by Dmitri von Mohrenschildt
[3] IMDB.com mini biography of John Hay Whitney
[4] Ibid
[5] The official position of the Good Neighbor Policy leading up to the war was that of joining Latin America together as a neutral Americas in the growing European conflict. However, most Latin American countries sided with, or joined the Allies; a notable exception being Argentina.
[6] Wikipedia entry for John Hay Whitney
[7] David Atlee Phillips, Clay Shaw and Freeport Sulphur by Lisa Pease, Probe vol. 3, no. 3
[8] AJ Weberman, Nodule 15
[9]Spartacus Education Forum page on Nicaragua
[10] Warren Commission Document 75 p 573
[11] Wall Street People: True Stories of Today's Masters and Moguls by Charles D Ellis p 34
[12] Id at p 32
[13] Memorial Tributes: National Academy of Engineering, vol. 5 (1992) p 206[14] MIT Undergraduate Newspaper, The Tech, Dec 12, 1949
[15] Made in America: The Arts in Modern Civilization by John Kouwenhoven, p 234
[16] Memorial Tributes: National Academy of Engineering, vol. 5 (1992) p 206
[17] Production Order Needed to Hurry Nike Zeus System by George Carroll, Hearst Headline Service, November 1, 1961
[18] Memorial Tributes: National Academy of Engineering, vol. 5, 1992, p 207
[19]Production Order Needed to Hurry Nike Zeus System by George Carroll, Hearst Headline Service, November 1, 1961
[20]Memorial Tributes: National Academy of Engineering, vol. 5, 1992, p 207
[21] The Steam Engine That Might, Time Magazine, March 29, 1971
[22] Louisiana Secretary of State, Commercial Division, Corporations Database
[23] Warren Commission Exhibit 1478 [24] Ibid; also see Who Was Jack Ruby? by Seth Kantor, p 110. Note that in Jackson's account to the FBI, he admits the last time he saw Ruby was in May, 1958, but does not mention Ruby as being with him in Aztec. Oddly, Kantor's version has all the same details - place, year, overdue rental car etc, but with one major difference - there is only mention of Ruby being arrested. The absence of Jackson in this account is especially difficult to understand since Kantor quotes from the Jackson FBI report twice in other areas of the book.
[25] Yale Alumni Magazine, April, 2002
[26] Standing Up for Tex by Barry Farber, NewsMax, August 6, 2003
[27] Ibid
[28] Bush, Kerry Share Tippy-Top Secret by Don Oldenburg, Washington Post, April 4, 2004
[29] Wikipedia entry for Scroll & Key
[30]David Atlee Phillips, Clay Shaw and Freeport Sulphur by Lisa Pease, Probe vol. 3, no. 3.
[31] Spartacus Education Forum page on Tracy Barnes
[32] Arlington National Cemetery Website - Frank Gardiner Wisner page
[33] Web article, Guatemala -- 1954: Behind the CIA's Coup by Kate Doyle
[34] Education Forum discussion with author, Larry Hancock, June 2, 2007
[35] Arlington National Cemetery Website - Frank Gardiner Wisner page
[36] Trials of the Trib by David Shaw, New York Times, October 26, 1986
[37] New Tonic for the Trib, Time Magazine, September 23, 1957
[38] You are a Mind Control Subject by Hari Heath, the Idaho Observer, April, 2007
[39] According to Wikipedia, there is no evidence the CIA had given it this code-name. It further states that according to Cord Meyer, it was so secret it had not been given any name at all.
[40] Arlington National Cemetery Website - Frank Gardiner Wisner page
[41] Ibid
[42] Whitney also owned Kern House Enterprises which ran Forum World Features - a news wire service that served CIA goals and was mainly funded through the Congress for Cultural Freedom - a CIA brainchild aimed at "defending freedom and democracy against the new tyranny sweeping the world" - namely Communism. The CCF was "outed" as a CIA operation at the same time as the Whitney Foundation was exposed
[43] Monster with a Commitment by Eric Alterman, Columbia Journalism Review, May/June, 1992
[44] Nixon Papers Portray Fear Of News Plot by George Lardner Jr, Washington Post, March 19, 1998
[45] Political Pundits, Conventional Wisdom, and Presidential Reputation, 1945-1963 by Stephen K Tootle, a dissertation presented to the faculty of the College of Arts & Sciences of Ohio University, August, 2004
[46] Monster with a Commitment by Eric Alterman, Columbia Journalism Review, May/June, 1992. Note that Alsop's "right wing" views were probably limited to foreign policy. Elsewhere, he is sometimes referred to in terms of being a liberal Republican in the Rockefeller mold.
[47] Notable Names Database (NNDB) entry for Joseph Alsop
[48] Not Just a Socialite, but a Gritty Survivor by By Edwin M. Yoder Jr, Salon, June 14, 2007. What is not explained is where the photos were posted from. Mail from Russia to such notable figures would surely have been subject to opening under one of the existing programs monitoring such mail. What "dirt" the CIA had to retaliate with also remains unknown.
[49] Katharine the Great by Deborah Davis, p 226
[50] Wikipedia entry for Cord Meyer, Jr
[51] Spartacus bio of Cord Meyer, Jr
[52] CAP North-East Region website history page
[53] IMDB.com mini biography of John Hay Whitney
[54] Pandora's Cash-box, Time Magazine, March 3, 1967
[55] Namebase excerpt from NACLA's Who Rules Columbia?
[56] From Harlem to Paris: Black American Writers in France, 1840 - 1980 by Michel J Fabre, p 244
[57] John Hay Whitney Foundation: A Report on the First 25 Years by Esther Raushenbush, Daniel Powell, John Hay Whitney Foundation p 121
[58] The Unfinished Quest of Richard Wright by Michel J Fabre p 461
[59] Id at 462
[60] Where the Boys Are: Cuba, Cold War America and the Making of the New Left by Van Gosse, p 140
[61] Ibid
[62] Current.org, Who's on the CPB Board (in 1997)?
[63] Coalitions and Political Movements: The Lessons of the Nuclear Freeze by Thomas R Rochan & David S Meyer, p120
[64] Current.org, Who's on the CPB Board (in 1997)?
