Creature From Jekyll Island by G. Edward

only through social organization and political power....

It is true that the rate of pollution could be increased selectively for this purpose.... But the pollution problem has been so widely publicized in recent years that it seems highly improbable that a p r o g r a m of deliberate environmental poisoning could be implemented in a politically acceptable manner.

However unlikely some of the possible alternative enemies we have mentioned may seem, we must emphasize that one must be found of credible quality and magnitude, if a transition to peace is ever to come about without social disintegration. It is more probable, in our judgment, that such a threat will have to be invented.1

1. Ibid., pp. 66-67, 70-71.

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THE CREATURE FROM JEKYLL ISLAND

AUTHENTICITY OF THE REPORT

The Report from Iron Mountain states that it was produced by a Special Study Group of fifteen men whose identities were to remain secret and that it was not intended to be made public. One member of the group, however, felt the report was too important to be kept under wraps. He was not in disagreement with its conclusions. He merely believed that more people should read it. He delivered his personal copy to Leonard Lewin, a well-known author and columnist who, in turn, negotiated its publication by Dial Press. It was then reprinted by Dell Publishing.

This was during the Johnson Administration, and the President's Special Assistant for National Security Affairs was CFR

member Walt Rostow. Rostow was quick to announce that the report was a spurious work. Herman Kahn, CFR director of the Hudson Institute, said it was not authentic. The Washington Post—

which is owned and run by CFR member Katharine Graham—

called it 'a delightful satire.' Time magazine, founded by CFR-member Henry Luce, said it was a skillful hoax. Then, on November 26, 1967, the report was reviewed in the book section of the Washington Post by Herschel McLandress, which was the pen name for Harvard professor John Kenneth Galbraith. Galbraith, who also had been a member of the CFR, said that he knew

firsthand of the report's authenticity because he had been invited to participate in it. Although he was unable to be part of the official group, he was consulted from time to time and had been asked to keep the project a secret. Furthermore, while he doubted the wisdom of letting the public know about the report, he agreed totally with its conclusions. He wrote:

As I would put my personal repute behind the authenticity of this document, so would I testify to the validity of its conclusions. My reservations relate only to the wisdom of releasing it to an obviously unconditioned public.

Six weeks later, in an Associated Press dispatch from London, Galbraith went even further and jokingly admitted that he was 'a member of the conspiracy.'2

1. 'News of War and Peace You're Not Ready For,' by Herschel McLandress, Book World, in The Washington Post, November 26,1967, p. 5.

2. 'The Times Diary,' London Times, February 5,1968, p. 8.

DOOMSDAY MECHANISMS

525

That, however, did not settle the issue. The following day, Galbraith backed off. When asked about his 'conspiracy' statement, he replied: 'For the first time since Charles II The Times has been guilty of a misquotation.... Nothing shakes my conviction that it was written by either Dean Rusk or Mrs. Clare Booth Luce.'1

The reporter who conducted the original interview was em-

barassed by the allegation and did further research. Six days later, this is what he reported:

Misquoting seems to be a hazard to which Professor Galbraith is prone. The latest edition of the Cambridge newspaper Varsity quotes the following (tape recorded) interchange:

Interviewer: 'Are you aware of the identity of the author of Report from Iron Mountain?'

Galbraith: 'I was in general a member of the conspiracy but I was not the author. I have always assumed that it was the man who wrote the foreword—Mr. Lewin.'

So, on at least three occasions, Galbraith publicly endorsed the authenticity of the report but denied that he wrote it. Then who did? Was it Leonard Lewin, after all? In 1967 he said he did not. In 1972 he said that he did. Writing in the New York Times Book Review Lewin explained: 'I wrote the 'Report/ all of it.... What I intended was simply to pose the issues of war and peace in a provocative

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