by John F. McManus

Reprinted with permission from The Birch Log, May 29, 1975

Belmont, Massachusetts—An average American assessing what has happened in South Vietnam might be heard to remark:

It seems as though nothing we could have done would have changed the outcome. After all, the best available minds under both Democratic and Republican Administrations —stretching over almost twenty years—were not able to stop the Communists. Maybe Communism can’t be beaten. It begins to look like we’ll have to try to live with them and hope for the best. Who can fault President Ford for not wanting to fix the blame on anyone? There just wasn’t anything else that anyone could do.

One effect of such an attitude is a virtual guarantee that those policies which have already stripped America of much of its greatness will continue. Another effect is the spreading of a belief expressed by the slogan “Better Red than dead!”—which certainly does not represent the only alternatives available to us. Such defeatism can never be acceptable to an American worthy of the name. These effects, however, like them or not, are directly traceable to the fall of South Vietnam, the latest of our long series of foreign policy failures.

But there is nothing inevitable about Communism. And by no means have the best minds in America been directing our foreign affairs. The awful truth is that many of the managers, coaches, and players on our team have been throwing the game! Had there been honest-to-goodness Americans in many of the key positions over the past few decades, the setbacks, defeats, and no-win wars that have so drained our nation would never have been permitted.

Looking over the list of those Americans whose America-last policies have reached their logical conclusion in Vietnam, we note an amazing affinity for membership in the Council on Foreign Relations. Begun in 1921, the CFR is a private organization whose board chairman is David Rockefeller. Based on a careful study of its publications and its members, we feel secure in stating that a basic CFR goal is the establishment of a one-world socialist system—which is certainly consistent with Communist goals. In its latest Annual Report the CFR boasts that 175 of its 1600 members are U.S. Government officials and another 150 are representatives of the news media.

For a look at the overwhelming involvement of CFR members in the conduct of the war in Vietnam, we offer the following list of high government officials from just a few areas of government. All of those listed are now or have been members of the CFR.

Presidents: Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon (plus Vice President Humphrey)

Secretaries of State: Dulles, Herter, Rusk, Kissinger

Secretaries of Defense: Gates, McNamara, Laird, Richardson

Ambassadors to South Vietnam: Nolting, Lodge (twice), Taylor, Bunker

“Peace Talks” Negotiators: Lodge, Harriman, Bruce, Kissinger

Foreign Policy Advisors: Vance, Ball, Katzenbach, E. Rostow, W. Rostow, Cleveland, Gilpatrick, W. Bundy, M. Bundy, McCloy, Dillon, Nitze, Thompson, Kohler, and many more.

Any honest investigation of the fall of South Vietnam would have to show such a domination of our nation’s affairs by the members of one small organization. President Ford himself has appointed a number of CFR members to high government posts—not the least of whom was Vice President Nelson Rockefeller.

In the absence of any official investigation, and in the face of a presidential refusal to seek out who was responsible for this latest American defeat, we have conducted our own investigation and have determined that the CFR’s stranglehold on our government, which is certainly leading us into that one-world socialist system, must cease. We therefore strongly urge the American people to demand that all appointees who hold CFR membership be removed from government. Not to remove these individuals is to ask for more defeats for America.