exempt foundations, universities, and government agencies that the international financiers have been able to dominate the domestic and foreign policies of the United States ever since.
We shall have more to say about the CFR, but our focal point for now is Great Britain and, in particular, the help given to Communism in Russia by Lord Alfred Milner and his web of secret societies.
ROUND TABLE AGENTS IN RUSSIA
In Russia, prior to and during the revolution, there were many local observers, tourists, and newsmen who reported that British and American agents were everywhere, particularly in Petrograd, providing money for insurrection. One report said, for example, that British agents were seen handing out 25-rouble notes to the men at the Pavlovski regiment just a few hours before it mutinied against its officers and sided with the revolution. The subsequent publication of various memoirs and documents made it clear that this funding was provided by Milner and channeled through Sir George Buchanan who was the British Ambassador to Russia at that time.1 It was a repeat of the ploy that had worked so well for the cabal many times in the past. Round Table members were once again working
The Round Table agents from America did not have the
advantage of using the diplomatic service as a cover and, therefore, had to be considerably more ingenious. They came, not as diplomats or even as interested businessmen, but disguised as Red Cross officials on a humanitarian mission. The group consisted almost entirely of financiers, lawyers, and accountants from New York banks and investment houses. They simply had overpowered the American Red Cross organization with large contributions and, in 1. See de Goulevitch, p. 230.
MASQUERADE IN MOSCOW
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effect, purchased a franchise to operate in its name. Professor Sutton tells us:
The 1910 [Red Cross] fund-raising campaign for $2 million, for example, was successful only because it was supported by these wealthy residents of New York City. J.P. Morgan himself contributed $100,000.... Heriry P. Davison [a Morgan partner] was chairman of the 1910 New York Fund-Raising Committee and later became chairman of the War Council of the American Red Cross.... The Red Cross was unable to cope with the demands of World War I and in effect was taken over by these New York bankers.1
For the duration of the war, the Red Cross had been made, nominally, a part of the armed forces and subject to orders from the proper military authorities. It was not clear who these authorities were and, in fact, there were never any orders, but the arrangement made it possible for the participants to receive military commissions and wear the uniform of American army officers. The entire expense of the Red Cross Mission in Russia, including the purchase of uniforms, was paid for by the man who was appointed by President Wilson to become its head, 'Colonel' William Boyce Thompson.
Thompson was a classical specimen of the Round Table net-
work. Having begun his career as a speculator in copper mines, he soon moved into the world of high finance. He refinanced the American Woolen Company and the Tobacco Products Company; launched the Cuban Cane Sugar Company; purchased controlling interest in the Pierce Arrow Motor Car Company; organized the Submarine Boat Corporation and the Wright-Martin Aeroplane Company; became a director of the Chicago Rock Island & Pacific Railway, the Magma Arizona Railroad, and the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company; was one of the heaviest stockholders in the Chase National Bank; was the agent for J.P. Morgan's British securities operation; became the first full-time director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the most important bank in the Federal Reserve System; and, of course, contributed a quarter-million dollars to the Red Cross.
When Thompson arrived in Russia, he made it clear that he was not your typical Red Cross representative. According to Hermann Hagedorn, Thompson's biographer:
1. Sutton,
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THE CREATURE FROM JEKYLL ISLAND
He deliberately created the kind of setting which would be expected of an American magnate: established himself in a suite in the Hotel de l'Europe, bought a French limousine, went dutifully to receptions and teas and evinced an interest in objects of art. Society and the diplomats, noting that here was a man of parts and power, began to flock about him. He was entertained at the embassies, at the houses of Kerensky's ministers. It was discovered that he was a collector, and those with antiques to sell fluttered around him, offering him miniatures, Dresden china, tapestries, even a palace or two.1
When Thompson attended the opera, he was given the imperial box. People on the street called him the American Tsar. And it is not surprising that, according to George Kennan, 'He was viewed by the Kerensky authorities as the 'real' ambassador of the United States.'2
It is now a matter of record that Thompson syndicated the purchase on Wall Street of Russian bonds in the amount of ten-million roubles. In addition, he gave over two-million roubles to Aleksandr Kerensky for propaganda purposes inside Russia and, with J.P. Morgan, gave the rouble equivalent of one-million dollars to the Bolsheviks for the spreading of revolutionary propaganda outside of Russia, particularly in Germany and Austria. A photograph of the cablegram from Morgan to Thompson advising that the money had been transferred to the National City Bank branch in Petrograd is included in this book.
AN OBJECT LESSON IN SOUTH AFRICA
At first it may seem incongruous that the Morgan group would provide funding for both Kerensky and Lenin. These men may have both been socialist revolutionaries, but they were miles apart in their plans for the future and, in fact, were bitter competitors for control of the new government. But the tactic of funding
2. George F. Kennan,