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The Tangled Web Icke Weaves: Who is Behind David Icke’s Freedom Foundation?
Mocking David Icke’s judgment has long been the sport of various wags in the mainstream media. Back in 1991, he memorably came to grief on BBC1 when Terry Wogan punctured his seemingly confident façade with a scathing reminder to the savant in the turquoise shellsuit that the studio audience was actually, “laughing at you. They’re not laughing with you.”
Since then Icke has managed to attract ridicule from his fellow conspiracists, most notably when he launched into his reptilian thesis all guns blazing, convinced that he alone had happened onto the truth. The “biggest crock to be foisted on the public in many moons,” declared an incredulous Jim Keith, after reading Icke’s magnum opus on the reptilians, The Biggest Secret (1999).Despite some testiness, Icke insists such criticism has been water off a duck’s back.
Such defenses are definitely an asset as Icke continues to feed perceptions that his judgment is suspect. Mid-way through 2006, Icke announced on his website that he was forced to take legal action against long-time collaborator Royal Adams, who had taken control of all his writings. This was an ironic turn of events, given that Icke had dedicated his most recent book, "Infinite Love is the Only Truth, Everything Else is Illusion" (2006), to Royal Adams for his “magnificent work” in keeping his books “in circulation.” Icke had also dedicated The Biggest Secret, “to Royal, for all his great work in America.” To have misjudged the trustworthiness of a close collaborator for so long is quite a feat, but in his efforts to deal with this thorny legal issue Icke seems to have made another blunder.
The Freedom Foundation
Going to court is costly, even for a man who seems to believe the world we live in is, in fact, a hologram. In February 2007, Icke’s fundraising took an interesting turn with an announcement titled: “The Freedom Foundation: Funding the Truth Instead of the System.” Icke’s website gave U.S. citizens the opportunity to make a “charitable” tax-deductible donation to Icke’s Freedom Foundation through the International Humanities Center (IHC). The donee was offered the chance to, “support someone working full-time for up to 12 hours a day to expose those behind the global conspiracy to enslave us all.”
Tax-exempt foundations were first identified as a tool of New World Order conspirators back in the 1950s by the Congressional Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations (Reece Committee). According to that Committee:
In the international field, foundations, and an interlock among some of them and certain intermediary organizations, have exercised a strong effect upon our foreign policy and upon public education in things international. This has been accomplished by vast propaganda, by supplying executives and advisors to government, and by controlling much research in this area through the power of the purse. The net result of these combined efforts has been to promote ‘internationalism’ in a particular sense; a form directed toward ‘world government’ and a derogation of American ‘nationalism.’
Numerous researchers drew on that report and the book, Foundations: Their Power and Influence (1958), written by the Committee’s general counsel, Rene Wormser, to conclude that such foundations were a problem. John A. Stormer’s path-breaking "None Dare Call It Treason (1964)", for example, devoted an entire chapter to explaining how “the money of American capitalists—Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Guggenheim, etc.—has largely financed those working for the establishment of a ‘new world order’” (Stormer, 173).
Icke, though, appears to have given the IHC his seal of approval. Given his record of opposing the Illuminati, most supporters would be confident that the IHC meets David Icke’s exacting standards. Nevertheless, in lieu of any detailed explanation from Icke assuring us of its suitability, it is surely prudent to ask some questions about the IHC. What are its objectives? Who runs it? What does it do? Where does it get its funding?
See No Evil
According to its website, the mission of the IHC is to “work with other independent non-profit organizations and sponsored projects that are devoted to a vision of ecological and humanitarian stewardship that benefits all of creation.” Ultimately, the IHC seeks to “reverse the current situation of pollution, disease, and disconnection by focusing efforts on creating a civilization that is centered upon love, peace, and natural harmony.”
According to its recently issued Operations Manual, the IHC was established in 1988 as a “fiscal sponsorship program that deploys education, services and ecologically responsible technologies to the benefit of the general public.” The primary function of the IHC is to provide financial and administrative services to “grassroots projects.” As a 501[c](3) non-profit public charity, donors can be sure of retaining their tax-exempt status when they give money to a specific project via the IHC. In return, the IHC levies a “Minimum Annual Fee” of either $200, or 5% of the donations received by a member, whichever is larger.
Looking closer, one discovers a few interesting facts that should have piqued the interest of an analyst of Icke’s calibre. The IHC’s Financial Director, Catherine Carroll, was a co-founding director of the Renaissance Foundation, a “leadership organisation,” according to its website. One of its sub-programs is the “Renaissance Women” a group “whose goal is to give women an alternative voice from radical feminism.” Back in 2000 this was realised as “support for George W. Bush,” though we were assured this support was not given as a collective, but as “individuals” (WorldNetDaily, Aug. 2, 2000).
Board member Katherine O’Flahtery was once a trouble-shooter for Wal-Mart logistics. The IHC Operations Director, Dave Sanders, before going green fifteen years ago, spent seventeen years as a contractor for the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of Defense and GE-Nuclear. IHC Executive Director Steve Sugarman, a professional psychologist, was a former Executive Director of the Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), Co-Founder of the Bolsa Chica Stewardship Group, and author of The Blueprint for Planetary Evolution.
Prepared partly as a response to the events of 9/11, Blueprint is a “holistic picture” of the “fronts of the ecosocial movement … in the context of the present world situation.” That present world situation Sugarman presents as a “catastrophe,” the “sixth extinction crisis” to have hit the Earth; though, in this case, it is “altogether human-caused, and happening at a phenomenal pace.” Sugarman’s solution to this crisis is to embrace the values of “Deep Ecology,” which in practice means creating a “bioregional” society by breaking up cities into “ecovillages.” In this “ecosocial” utopia of “planned communities” the global economy would be supplanted by “regional economies.” Many international institutions, such as the WTO and IMF, would become defunct and the multi-national corporations would be broken down into local entities.
For people who like to throw themselves, or sharp objects, at the barricades that surround most Group of Eight meetings, this “ecosocial” agenda would seem familiar and admirable. Reader’s of Icke’s collected works would also note some similarities: not long ago Icke had entranced readers with his account of the conspiracy hatched by a “Luciferian consciousness.” He offered his solution of “World Cooperation” in which national governments would be eliminated and replaced by a hierarchy of organisations: neighbourhood councils, community councils, community forums, regional governments and finally a “world forum” (Icke, 1994, 276-78). Only eighteen years ago, during his salad days as the national spokesman for the UK Green Party, Icke advocated breaking up the multi-national corporations into “smaller, less powerful units on at least a national and ideally a regional basis” (Icke, 1989, 80-81).
Perhaps the least palatable aspect of Sugarman’s vision is his grim advice on the global population problem. According to Sugarman, a “decrease in global human population is absolutely necessary.” He noted that Thomas Malthus’ warnings about the dangers of overpopulation are “proving to be correct” with “[w]ar, hunger, disease and ecological devastation … the order of the day.” Exactly how this problem is to be resolved, Sugarman does not say, but he insists that a “conscious effort to stabilize the current level of human saturation is necessary,” after which a “steady decrease can be implemented.” Of course, Sugarman warns that he is “not suggesting this will be easy” and is unlikely to be popular, but it must be dealt with.
To sign up to a foundation directed by a man who advances such an agenda would seem courageous, especially if one had warned previously about how the overpopulation crisis owed much to the machinations of the sinister Club of Rome and the Rockefeller-founded and funded Population Council (Icke, 1997, 176-9). But it’s easy if you once publicly embraced that agenda yourself:
Once again humankind has a choice to make. We can be sensible and limit our numbers voluntarily or we can go on until nature does it for us with disease and hunger. That will be deeply unpleasant for those around at the time…and the time isn’t too far off (Icke, 1990, 87).
And if you continue to show in your writings and other utterances that you haven’t quite let go of the idea that there’s too many people in the world:
It is plainly true, as the New World Order promoters say, that there is a limit to the number of human beings who can live on this planet. You can’t argue with that because when there is a humanbeing for every square foot of the Earth, there will be clearly too many. (Icke, 1997, 165).
On its website, the IHC makes clear that, “Once your project is reviewed and deemed in alignment with our charter…” support will be provided. Well, Icke’s project was deemed “in alignment” and they’re now helping him out.
In Esteemed Company
Before joining the IHC, Sugarman was Executive Director of Social & Environmental Entrepreneurs. Like the IHC, SEE is a “public charity” that provides start-up guidance and other services to its member groups. SEE describes its mission as being to “empower, encourage and catalyze individuals to facilitate progressive change in areas of social justice and ecological restoration.” The SEE Program was created in September 1994 by the EarthWays Foundation as an affiliate organisation. The Earthways Foundation was established in 1988 by Andrew Beath, a successful corporate real-estate developer, who turned his attention to social justice and environmental philanthropy some twenty years ago. Beath is currently Executive Director of both EarthWays and the SEE.
The objective of EarthWays, according to Beath’s letter on its website, is to “find a deeper understanding of our relationship to the natural world,” and to “restore an appropriate balance” between our economic needs and the environment. At EarthWays, “We are crying for a vision that all living things can share,” claims Beath. “From this inward crying,” he continues, “comes personal awareness that gives direction to our desire to take action. Personal transformation is the first step to global change.” Readers who find these sentiments similar to Icke’s metaphysical ramblings can presumably find more insights in Beath’s book, Consciousness in Action.
In 1998, EarthWays received $50,000 from the Rockefeller Foundation for its role as an organizing partner of the 1999 World Festival of Sacred Music—an event billed by its organizers as a way to “transcend borders of all kinds—linguistic, national, cultural, ideological, racial and religious.” The Rockefeller Foundation gave EarthWays a further $42,837 in 2000 to film the festival; and in 2002 it granted EarthWays $100,000 to help with the costs for the 2002 World Festival of Sacred Music. Additional funds came from Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, which donated “$10,000 or more” to EarthWays between 2002 and 2004 (RPA, 2005, 16-17).
As for the SEE, which granted the IHC $338,689 in 2003 and $143,568 in 2004, where its funds ultimately come from is unknown, and few of its member groups bother to include details of their sponsors. However, among the plethora of seemingly fringe environmental and social justice projects it counts as members, the SEE provides support to groups with strong Establishment connections.
Consider the Truman Security Forum (TSF), an organisation that describes itself as a “non-partisan, national security institute dedicated to creating a strong principled alternative to conservative national security policies.” The Executive Director of the TSF is Rachel Kleinfeld, a Rhodes scholar and former consultant to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and member of the Board of Trustees of the Blue Fund, a body dedicated to securing corporate support for the Democrats. On the TSF’s seven-member Board of Advisers we find former Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) President Leslie Gelb, former Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, and former Secretary of Defense, William Perry.
As for the Rockefeller connection, it appears to have jumped the SEE and landed in the IHC. In its 990 form for 2005, the innocuous Philanthropic Collaborative (New York) is identified as donating $40,000 to the IHC. A search on the internet reveals the Philanthropic Collaborative to be an offshoot of Rockefeller Philanthropic Advisers, itself a non-profit offshoot of Rockefeller Financial Services (Strom 2002). Established in 2002, Rockefeller Philanthropic Advisers (on its board: Clayton Rockefeller, Sharon P. Rockefeller and Steven C. Rockefeller, Jr.) created the Philanthropic Collaborative so its clients can “make gifts inside and outside the United States, participate in funding consortia, and operate non-profit initiatives.”
Icke has previously denounced the Rockefeller family as “reptilian full-bloods” (Icke, 1999, 45) and the “bloodline branch managers in America … who, quite provably, decide who is going to be President” (ibid, 190). Icke is also on record describing the Rockefeller Foundation as a “tax-exempt New World Order front” (Icke, 1997, 133), as well as claiming that it set CIA policy (ibid, 285), and has funded research into computers that can control the human mind (ibid, 374). Icke warned that the Rockefeller Foundation is part of an “endless web of interconnecting groups” that interlocks with the Illuminati and other sinister organisations (1999, 263). In fact, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Rockefeller Family Fund and the Rockefeller-connected Mellon Foundations “poured millions into the environmental campaigns and pressure groups” to create the modern green movement (Icke, 1997, 243).
According to Icke, Rhodes Scholars, such as Kleinfeld, are “selected by the Brotherhood,” in accordance with their “genetic history,” to be “indoctrinated into the ‘world government’ Agenda.” Icke notes that most Rhodes Scholars “return to their own countries and enter positions of overt or covert power” (Icke, 1999, 218). TSF Advisor Madeline Albright is a “Brotherhood initiate” and the “High Priestess of U.S. politics” who “knows about the U.S. government mind-controlled slaves and supports that policy” (Icke, 1999, 340). Her colleague, Leslie Gelb, is easily condemned given that the CFR controls U.S. foreign policy, and its goal is “to introduce world government” (Icke, 1997, 85). Secretary of Defense, William Perry, whom Icke identifies as a Bilderberger (Icke, 1999, 267), belongs to a secretive organisation that is part of “a highly effective network of manipulation which comprises a very significant element of the secret government of the world” (Icke, 1997, 138).
A Scaly Handout
Another donor of interest on the IHC’s 990 Form for 2005 is the Tides Foundation, which donated $55,000. According to its own records, the Tides Foundation actually gave nearly $90,000 in grants to three IHC members: $20,000 to the Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools; $64,000 to Voter Action; and $3,700 to WildPlaces.
Founded in 1976 by former activist Drummond Pike, the Tides Foundation styles itself as a vehicle for “positive social change through philanthropy,” organising donors in the cause of “strengthening community-based non-profit organizations and the progressive movement through innovative grant making.” Critics charge that the Tides Foundation is in the business of enabling big foundations to anonymously fund various radical and controversial groups. As Ben Johnson explains in 57 Varieties of Radical Causes:
Tides allows donors to anonymously contribute money to a variety of causes—and thereby avoid public accountability for their donations. The donor simply makes the check out to Tides and instructs the Foundation where to forward the money. Tides does so, often keeping as much as ten percent of the total amount for “charitable advisory fees.” This allows high-profile individuals to fund extremist organizations by “laundering” their money through Tides, leaving no paper trail (Johnson 2004).
The San Francisco Bay Guardian made a similar observation in a 1997 article: “Wealthy patrons give big chunks of money to Tides—and their names are kept confidential. The Tides donation is completely tax deductible. But the donor can discreetly designate an organization that he or she wants to see receive the money—and Tides will pass the donation along, minus a small administrative fee. Often, the recipient group doesn’t know where the money really came from. And there’s no way for the public to find out either (Cohen 2006, 2).
A look at the top funders of the Tides Foundation gives a sense of this. According to Activist Cash, the top funder was the Pew Charitable Trust, which provided Tides with $118 million between 1990 and 2002. Other key Establishment foundations also contributed: the Ford Foundation provided $36 million between 1989 and 2005; George Soros’ Open Society Institute donated $15.7 million (1997-2003); the Rockefeller Foundation gave $2.9 million (1993-2002); $2.3 million from the Carnegie Corporation (1992-2002); the Rockefeller Brothers Fund gave $1.9 million in 1993-2003, plus a further $250,000 in 2005; Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisers gave $372,300 (1997-2001) and the Rockefeller Family Fund donated $175,000 (1991-2001). Tides also received some $6 million from Heinz Endowments, the foundation run by Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of Senator John Kerry, the Skull & Bones man who ran against George W. Bush in 2004.
Tides has used this money to help fund a variety of organisations, ranging from violent anarchists such as the Ruckus Society, to the Council for American Islamic Relations, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Greenpeace, and now three projects under the wing of the International Humanities Center.
Any reader of David Icke’s books would know the origins of the Tides Foundation’s money alone would make it a suspect institution. Most of these foundations, claims Icke, form part of the “network of so-called tax-exempt foundations started by the Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Ford families, which help to fund the New World Order plan” (Icke, 1997, 67). To make matters more interesting, sitting on the Tides Foundation’s Board of Directors is Joanie Bronfman.
Bronfman is described in glowing terms on the Tides website and in its Annual Reports as a “long-time advocate for social justice and donor activism.” Bronfman has been identified by various sources as an “heiress to the Seagram whiskey fortune” (Noah 2001) and as a member of the “Old Money … Bronfman family” (Marcus, 1989, 266). A professional “wealth counsellor,” Joanie Bronfman has established herself as an expert helping the rich overcome the malicious social practice of “wealthism.” She explained this hitherto undiagnosed condition her 1987 PhD thesis, The Experience of Inherited Wealth: A Social-Psychological Perspective: “Wealthism includes those actions or attitudes that dehumanize or objectify wealthy people, simply because they are wealthy. The main attitudes of wealthism are envy, awe and resentment. . . . Wealthism differs from the other ‘isms’ in that racism and sexism are perpetrated by those who have power, whereas wealthism is directed at those who have power.”
Bronfman has devoted a lot of time to convincing the wealthy that being rich can be positive experience. The Tides Foundation website notes that Joanie Bronfman had previously “served on the boards of Tides Canada and the Threshold Foundation, where she was a founder of Threshold’s Social Justice Committee.” Tides Canada has made its contribution to our future by distributing copies of Al Gore’s doom-laden presentation on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, to schools in Canada.
The co-founder of the Threshold Foundation—which describes itself as “a progressive foundation and a community of individuals united through wealth, who mobilize money, people and power to create a more just, joyful and sustainable world”—was Jeffrey Bronfman. According to the Vancouver Sun (Feb. 10, 2001), Jeffrey is the “second cousin to Edgar Bronfman Jr. and grandnephew to Seagram’s dynasty founder Samuel Bronfman.”
All of this would seem to be a trivial matter, except that David Icke has repeatedly attacked the Bronfman family of Canada, the founders of the same Seagrams liquor company, as respectively: an “underworld family” (Icke 1997, 290); “a reptilian bloodline and very close to the Rothschilds” (Icke, 2001, 387); one of the Illuminati’s “key bloodlines” (Icke, 2001, 410); and as the “Illuminati Bronfman family” (Icke, 2003, 411). More significantly Icke has claimed that it was “the Bronfmans, through various front organizations and stooges,” who were behind a global campaign to suppress his books and speaking tours (Icke 2001, 387). But now he has teamed up with an organization that receives money from a foundation with a Bronfman on its board.
Tangled Web
David Icke is not the first researcher to warn of the insidious influence of the tax-exempt foundations. The pioneering work on this issue was done by the Reece Committee in the 1950s and brought to a larger audience from the 1960s onward by a diverse range of authors including, Kent and Phoebe Courtney (1962, 19-26); Allan Stang (1968, 115-123); William P. Hoar (1984, 74); Gurudas (1996, 21-22); and Jim Marrs (2000, 53). Researchers, such as Bob Feldman and Left Gatekeepers.com, have established links between the leading foundations and environmentalist / progressive movements in the U.S., from The Nation to Noam Chomsky.
Icke must be the first of the much-maligned members of the conspiracist camp, if not one of its most radical thinkers, to actually go from attacking that network to joining it. The question for Icke’s many admirers is why has this happened? It would be tempting to attribute this to an oversight on his part, perhaps attributable to the stress of his recent court case; except that this is not the first time Icke has worked with the IHC. In 2004, there was the David Icke/Metta Arts project, the funding of which was controlled by the IHC. It is alleged by one source that Icke was informed by one of his concerned fans that the IHC had a Rockefeller connection. In response, Icke reportedly insisted that the connection was of little consequence and that he was not longer dealing with the IHC.
If true, this alleged dismissal of the IHC’s Rockefeller connection by Icke would be heartening to all those individuals Icke has smeared over the years due to their supposed links to the Illuminati. For example, Icke’s long-time antagonist, Richard Warman, was once maligned as a Bronfman “stooge” because he was a member of the Ontario Green Party of Toronto, “one of the global centres of the Illuminati and one of its key bloodlines, the Bronfmans.” According to Icke, Warman worked closely with the Canadian Jewish Congress, which was “founded and funded by the Bronfman family” (Icke, 2001, 410. 411). Not surprisingly, Warman took legal action against Icke, the results of which have gone unreported.
This leaves open other, less palatable explanations for Icke’s current arrangement with the IHC. Is Icke now in the pay of the very forces he now claims to oppose? Has he been co-opted? Or do Icke’s actions prove that he does not believe what he says? Given Icke’s record of publicly opposing the “Illuminati” in its innumerable guises (and disguises), such suggestions may seem outrageous. But through the act of seeking assistance from the IHC, seemingly without regard to its “reptilian” connections, Icke does much to foster such conspiracy theories.
Mocking David Icke’s judgment has long been the sport of various wags in the mainstream media. Back in 1991, he memorably came to grief on BBC1 when Terry Wogan punctured his seemingly confident façade with a scathing reminder to the savant in the turquoise shellsuit that the studio audience was actually, “laughing at you. They’re not laughing with you.”
Since then Icke has managed to attract ridicule from his fellow conspiracists, most notably when he launched into his reptilian thesis all guns blazing, convinced that he alone had happened onto the truth. The “biggest crock to be foisted on the public in many moons,” declared an incredulous Jim Keith, after reading Icke’s magnum opus on the reptilians, The Biggest Secret (1999).Despite some testiness, Icke insists such criticism has been water off a duck’s back.
Such defenses are definitely an asset as Icke continues to feed perceptions that his judgment is suspect. Mid-way through 2006, Icke announced on his website that he was forced to take legal action against long-time collaborator Royal Adams, who had taken control of all his writings. This was an ironic turn of events, given that Icke had dedicated his most recent book, "Infinite Love is the Only Truth, Everything Else is Illusion" (2006), to Royal Adams for his “magnificent work” in keeping his books “in circulation.” Icke had also dedicated The Biggest Secret, “to Royal, for all his great work in America.” To have misjudged the trustworthiness of a close collaborator for so long is quite a feat, but in his efforts to deal with this thorny legal issue Icke seems to have made another blunder.
The Freedom Foundation
Going to court is costly, even for a man who seems to believe the world we live in is, in fact, a hologram. In February 2007, Icke’s fundraising took an interesting turn with an announcement titled: “The Freedom Foundation: Funding the Truth Instead of the System.” Icke’s website gave U.S. citizens the opportunity to make a “charitable” tax-deductible donation to Icke’s Freedom Foundation through the International Humanities Center (IHC). The donee was offered the chance to, “support someone working full-time for up to 12 hours a day to expose those behind the global conspiracy to enslave us all.”
Tax-exempt foundations were first identified as a tool of New World Order conspirators back in the 1950s by the Congressional Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations (Reece Committee). According to that Committee:
In the international field, foundations, and an interlock among some of them and certain intermediary organizations, have exercised a strong effect upon our foreign policy and upon public education in things international. This has been accomplished by vast propaganda, by supplying executives and advisors to government, and by controlling much research in this area through the power of the purse. The net result of these combined efforts has been to promote ‘internationalism’ in a particular sense; a form directed toward ‘world government’ and a derogation of American ‘nationalism.’
Numerous researchers drew on that report and the book, Foundations: Their Power and Influence (1958), written by the Committee’s general counsel, Rene Wormser, to conclude that such foundations were a problem. John A. Stormer’s path-breaking "None Dare Call It Treason (1964)", for example, devoted an entire chapter to explaining how “the money of American capitalists—Ford, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Guggenheim, etc.—has largely financed those working for the establishment of a ‘new world order’” (Stormer, 173).
Icke, though, appears to have given the IHC his seal of approval. Given his record of opposing the Illuminati, most supporters would be confident that the IHC meets David Icke’s exacting standards. Nevertheless, in lieu of any detailed explanation from Icke assuring us of its suitability, it is surely prudent to ask some questions about the IHC. What are its objectives? Who runs it? What does it do? Where does it get its funding?
See No Evil
According to its website, the mission of the IHC is to “work with other independent non-profit organizations and sponsored projects that are devoted to a vision of ecological and humanitarian stewardship that benefits all of creation.” Ultimately, the IHC seeks to “reverse the current situation of pollution, disease, and disconnection by focusing efforts on creating a civilization that is centered upon love, peace, and natural harmony.”
According to its recently issued Operations Manual, the IHC was established in 1988 as a “fiscal sponsorship program that deploys education, services and ecologically responsible technologies to the benefit of the general public.” The primary function of the IHC is to provide financial and administrative services to “grassroots projects.” As a 501[c](3) non-profit public charity, donors can be sure of retaining their tax-exempt status when they give money to a specific project via the IHC. In return, the IHC levies a “Minimum Annual Fee” of either $200, or 5% of the donations received by a member, whichever is larger.
Looking closer, one discovers a few interesting facts that should have piqued the interest of an analyst of Icke’s calibre. The IHC’s Financial Director, Catherine Carroll, was a co-founding director of the Renaissance Foundation, a “leadership organisation,” according to its website. One of its sub-programs is the “Renaissance Women” a group “whose goal is to give women an alternative voice from radical feminism.” Back in 2000 this was realised as “support for George W. Bush,” though we were assured this support was not given as a collective, but as “individuals” (WorldNetDaily, Aug. 2, 2000).
Board member Katherine O’Flahtery was once a trouble-shooter for Wal-Mart logistics. The IHC Operations Director, Dave Sanders, before going green fifteen years ago, spent seventeen years as a contractor for the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of Defense and GE-Nuclear. IHC Executive Director Steve Sugarman, a professional psychologist, was a former Executive Director of the Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (SEE), Co-Founder of the Bolsa Chica Stewardship Group, and author of The Blueprint for Planetary Evolution.
Prepared partly as a response to the events of 9/11, Blueprint is a “holistic picture” of the “fronts of the ecosocial movement … in the context of the present world situation.” That present world situation Sugarman presents as a “catastrophe,” the “sixth extinction crisis” to have hit the Earth; though, in this case, it is “altogether human-caused, and happening at a phenomenal pace.” Sugarman’s solution to this crisis is to embrace the values of “Deep Ecology,” which in practice means creating a “bioregional” society by breaking up cities into “ecovillages.” In this “ecosocial” utopia of “planned communities” the global economy would be supplanted by “regional economies.” Many international institutions, such as the WTO and IMF, would become defunct and the multi-national corporations would be broken down into local entities.
For people who like to throw themselves, or sharp objects, at the barricades that surround most Group of Eight meetings, this “ecosocial” agenda would seem familiar and admirable. Reader’s of Icke’s collected works would also note some similarities: not long ago Icke had entranced readers with his account of the conspiracy hatched by a “Luciferian consciousness.” He offered his solution of “World Cooperation” in which national governments would be eliminated and replaced by a hierarchy of organisations: neighbourhood councils, community councils, community forums, regional governments and finally a “world forum” (Icke, 1994, 276-78). Only eighteen years ago, during his salad days as the national spokesman for the UK Green Party, Icke advocated breaking up the multi-national corporations into “smaller, less powerful units on at least a national and ideally a regional basis” (Icke, 1989, 80-81).
Perhaps the least palatable aspect of Sugarman’s vision is his grim advice on the global population problem. According to Sugarman, a “decrease in global human population is absolutely necessary.” He noted that Thomas Malthus’ warnings about the dangers of overpopulation are “proving to be correct” with “[w]ar, hunger, disease and ecological devastation … the order of the day.” Exactly how this problem is to be resolved, Sugarman does not say, but he insists that a “conscious effort to stabilize the current level of human saturation is necessary,” after which a “steady decrease can be implemented.” Of course, Sugarman warns that he is “not suggesting this will be easy” and is unlikely to be popular, but it must be dealt with.
To sign up to a foundation directed by a man who advances such an agenda would seem courageous, especially if one had warned previously about how the overpopulation crisis owed much to the machinations of the sinister Club of Rome and the Rockefeller-founded and funded Population Council (Icke, 1997, 176-9). But it’s easy if you once publicly embraced that agenda yourself:
Once again humankind has a choice to make. We can be sensible and limit our numbers voluntarily or we can go on until nature does it for us with disease and hunger. That will be deeply unpleasant for those around at the time…and the time isn’t too far off (Icke, 1990, 87).
And if you continue to show in your writings and other utterances that you haven’t quite let go of the idea that there’s too many people in the world:
It is plainly true, as the New World Order promoters say, that there is a limit to the number of human beings who can live on this planet. You can’t argue with that because when there is a humanbeing for every square foot of the Earth, there will be clearly too many. (Icke, 1997, 165).
On its website, the IHC makes clear that, “Once your project is reviewed and deemed in alignment with our charter…” support will be provided. Well, Icke’s project was deemed “in alignment” and they’re now helping him out.
In Esteemed Company
Before joining the IHC, Sugarman was Executive Director of Social & Environmental Entrepreneurs. Like the IHC, SEE is a “public charity” that provides start-up guidance and other services to its member groups. SEE describes its mission as being to “empower, encourage and catalyze individuals to facilitate progressive change in areas of social justice and ecological restoration.” The SEE Program was created in September 1994 by the EarthWays Foundation as an affiliate organisation. The Earthways Foundation was established in 1988 by Andrew Beath, a successful corporate real-estate developer, who turned his attention to social justice and environmental philanthropy some twenty years ago. Beath is currently Executive Director of both EarthWays and the SEE.
The objective of EarthWays, according to Beath’s letter on its website, is to “find a deeper understanding of our relationship to the natural world,” and to “restore an appropriate balance” between our economic needs and the environment. At EarthWays, “We are crying for a vision that all living things can share,” claims Beath. “From this inward crying,” he continues, “comes personal awareness that gives direction to our desire to take action. Personal transformation is the first step to global change.” Readers who find these sentiments similar to Icke’s metaphysical ramblings can presumably find more insights in Beath’s book, Consciousness in Action.
In 1998, EarthWays received $50,000 from the Rockefeller Foundation for its role as an organizing partner of the 1999 World Festival of Sacred Music—an event billed by its organizers as a way to “transcend borders of all kinds—linguistic, national, cultural, ideological, racial and religious.” The Rockefeller Foundation gave EarthWays a further $42,837 in 2000 to film the festival; and in 2002 it granted EarthWays $100,000 to help with the costs for the 2002 World Festival of Sacred Music. Additional funds came from Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, which donated “$10,000 or more” to EarthWays between 2002 and 2004 (RPA, 2005, 16-17).
As for the SEE, which granted the IHC $338,689 in 2003 and $143,568 in 2004, where its funds ultimately come from is unknown, and few of its member groups bother to include details of their sponsors. However, among the plethora of seemingly fringe environmental and social justice projects it counts as members, the SEE provides support to groups with strong Establishment connections.
Consider the Truman Security Forum (TSF), an organisation that describes itself as a “non-partisan, national security institute dedicated to creating a strong principled alternative to conservative national security policies.” The Executive Director of the TSF is Rachel Kleinfeld, a Rhodes scholar and former consultant to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and member of the Board of Trustees of the Blue Fund, a body dedicated to securing corporate support for the Democrats. On the TSF’s seven-member Board of Advisers we find former Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) President Leslie Gelb, former Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, and former Secretary of Defense, William Perry.
As for the Rockefeller connection, it appears to have jumped the SEE and landed in the IHC. In its 990 form for 2005, the innocuous Philanthropic Collaborative (New York) is identified as donating $40,000 to the IHC. A search on the internet reveals the Philanthropic Collaborative to be an offshoot of Rockefeller Philanthropic Advisers, itself a non-profit offshoot of Rockefeller Financial Services (Strom 2002). Established in 2002, Rockefeller Philanthropic Advisers (on its board: Clayton Rockefeller, Sharon P. Rockefeller and Steven C. Rockefeller, Jr.) created the Philanthropic Collaborative so its clients can “make gifts inside and outside the United States, participate in funding consortia, and operate non-profit initiatives.”
Icke has previously denounced the Rockefeller family as “reptilian full-bloods” (Icke, 1999, 45) and the “bloodline branch managers in America … who, quite provably, decide who is going to be President” (ibid, 190). Icke is also on record describing the Rockefeller Foundation as a “tax-exempt New World Order front” (Icke, 1997, 133), as well as claiming that it set CIA policy (ibid, 285), and has funded research into computers that can control the human mind (ibid, 374). Icke warned that the Rockefeller Foundation is part of an “endless web of interconnecting groups” that interlocks with the Illuminati and other sinister organisations (1999, 263). In fact, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Rockefeller Family Fund and the Rockefeller-connected Mellon Foundations “poured millions into the environmental campaigns and pressure groups” to create the modern green movement (Icke, 1997, 243).
According to Icke, Rhodes Scholars, such as Kleinfeld, are “selected by the Brotherhood,” in accordance with their “genetic history,” to be “indoctrinated into the ‘world government’ Agenda.” Icke notes that most Rhodes Scholars “return to their own countries and enter positions of overt or covert power” (Icke, 1999, 218). TSF Advisor Madeline Albright is a “Brotherhood initiate” and the “High Priestess of U.S. politics” who “knows about the U.S. government mind-controlled slaves and supports that policy” (Icke, 1999, 340). Her colleague, Leslie Gelb, is easily condemned given that the CFR controls U.S. foreign policy, and its goal is “to introduce world government” (Icke, 1997, 85). Secretary of Defense, William Perry, whom Icke identifies as a Bilderberger (Icke, 1999, 267), belongs to a secretive organisation that is part of “a highly effective network of manipulation which comprises a very significant element of the secret government of the world” (Icke, 1997, 138).
A Scaly Handout
Another donor of interest on the IHC’s 990 Form for 2005 is the Tides Foundation, which donated $55,000. According to its own records, the Tides Foundation actually gave nearly $90,000 in grants to three IHC members: $20,000 to the Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools; $64,000 to Voter Action; and $3,700 to WildPlaces.
Founded in 1976 by former activist Drummond Pike, the Tides Foundation styles itself as a vehicle for “positive social change through philanthropy,” organising donors in the cause of “strengthening community-based non-profit organizations and the progressive movement through innovative grant making.” Critics charge that the Tides Foundation is in the business of enabling big foundations to anonymously fund various radical and controversial groups. As Ben Johnson explains in 57 Varieties of Radical Causes:
Tides allows donors to anonymously contribute money to a variety of causes—and thereby avoid public accountability for their donations. The donor simply makes the check out to Tides and instructs the Foundation where to forward the money. Tides does so, often keeping as much as ten percent of the total amount for “charitable advisory fees.” This allows high-profile individuals to fund extremist organizations by “laundering” their money through Tides, leaving no paper trail (Johnson 2004).
The San Francisco Bay Guardian made a similar observation in a 1997 article: “Wealthy patrons give big chunks of money to Tides—and their names are kept confidential. The Tides donation is completely tax deductible. But the donor can discreetly designate an organization that he or she wants to see receive the money—and Tides will pass the donation along, minus a small administrative fee. Often, the recipient group doesn’t know where the money really came from. And there’s no way for the public to find out either (Cohen 2006, 2).
A look at the top funders of the Tides Foundation gives a sense of this. According to Activist Cash, the top funder was the Pew Charitable Trust, which provided Tides with $118 million between 1990 and 2002. Other key Establishment foundations also contributed: the Ford Foundation provided $36 million between 1989 and 2005; George Soros’ Open Society Institute donated $15.7 million (1997-2003); the Rockefeller Foundation gave $2.9 million (1993-2002); $2.3 million from the Carnegie Corporation (1992-2002); the Rockefeller Brothers Fund gave $1.9 million in 1993-2003, plus a further $250,000 in 2005; Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisers gave $372,300 (1997-2001) and the Rockefeller Family Fund donated $175,000 (1991-2001). Tides also received some $6 million from Heinz Endowments, the foundation run by Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of Senator John Kerry, the Skull & Bones man who ran against George W. Bush in 2004.
Tides has used this money to help fund a variety of organisations, ranging from violent anarchists such as the Ruckus Society, to the Council for American Islamic Relations, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Greenpeace, and now three projects under the wing of the International Humanities Center.
Any reader of David Icke’s books would know the origins of the Tides Foundation’s money alone would make it a suspect institution. Most of these foundations, claims Icke, form part of the “network of so-called tax-exempt foundations started by the Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Ford families, which help to fund the New World Order plan” (Icke, 1997, 67). To make matters more interesting, sitting on the Tides Foundation’s Board of Directors is Joanie Bronfman.
Bronfman is described in glowing terms on the Tides website and in its Annual Reports as a “long-time advocate for social justice and donor activism.” Bronfman has been identified by various sources as an “heiress to the Seagram whiskey fortune” (Noah 2001) and as a member of the “Old Money … Bronfman family” (Marcus, 1989, 266). A professional “wealth counsellor,” Joanie Bronfman has established herself as an expert helping the rich overcome the malicious social practice of “wealthism.” She explained this hitherto undiagnosed condition her 1987 PhD thesis, The Experience of Inherited Wealth: A Social-Psychological Perspective: “Wealthism includes those actions or attitudes that dehumanize or objectify wealthy people, simply because they are wealthy. The main attitudes of wealthism are envy, awe and resentment. . . . Wealthism differs from the other ‘isms’ in that racism and sexism are perpetrated by those who have power, whereas wealthism is directed at those who have power.”
Bronfman has devoted a lot of time to convincing the wealthy that being rich can be positive experience. The Tides Foundation website notes that Joanie Bronfman had previously “served on the boards of Tides Canada and the Threshold Foundation, where she was a founder of Threshold’s Social Justice Committee.” Tides Canada has made its contribution to our future by distributing copies of Al Gore’s doom-laden presentation on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, to schools in Canada.
The co-founder of the Threshold Foundation—which describes itself as “a progressive foundation and a community of individuals united through wealth, who mobilize money, people and power to create a more just, joyful and sustainable world”—was Jeffrey Bronfman. According to the Vancouver Sun (Feb. 10, 2001), Jeffrey is the “second cousin to Edgar Bronfman Jr. and grandnephew to Seagram’s dynasty founder Samuel Bronfman.”
All of this would seem to be a trivial matter, except that David Icke has repeatedly attacked the Bronfman family of Canada, the founders of the same Seagrams liquor company, as respectively: an “underworld family” (Icke 1997, 290); “a reptilian bloodline and very close to the Rothschilds” (Icke, 2001, 387); one of the Illuminati’s “key bloodlines” (Icke, 2001, 410); and as the “Illuminati Bronfman family” (Icke, 2003, 411). More significantly Icke has claimed that it was “the Bronfmans, through various front organizations and stooges,” who were behind a global campaign to suppress his books and speaking tours (Icke 2001, 387). But now he has teamed up with an organization that receives money from a foundation with a Bronfman on its board.
Tangled Web
David Icke is not the first researcher to warn of the insidious influence of the tax-exempt foundations. The pioneering work on this issue was done by the Reece Committee in the 1950s and brought to a larger audience from the 1960s onward by a diverse range of authors including, Kent and Phoebe Courtney (1962, 19-26); Allan Stang (1968, 115-123); William P. Hoar (1984, 74); Gurudas (1996, 21-22); and Jim Marrs (2000, 53). Researchers, such as Bob Feldman and Left Gatekeepers.com, have established links between the leading foundations and environmentalist / progressive movements in the U.S., from The Nation to Noam Chomsky.
Icke must be the first of the much-maligned members of the conspiracist camp, if not one of its most radical thinkers, to actually go from attacking that network to joining it. The question for Icke’s many admirers is why has this happened? It would be tempting to attribute this to an oversight on his part, perhaps attributable to the stress of his recent court case; except that this is not the first time Icke has worked with the IHC. In 2004, there was the David Icke/Metta Arts project, the funding of which was controlled by the IHC. It is alleged by one source that Icke was informed by one of his concerned fans that the IHC had a Rockefeller connection. In response, Icke reportedly insisted that the connection was of little consequence and that he was not longer dealing with the IHC.
If true, this alleged dismissal of the IHC’s Rockefeller connection by Icke would be heartening to all those individuals Icke has smeared over the years due to their supposed links to the Illuminati. For example, Icke’s long-time antagonist, Richard Warman, was once maligned as a Bronfman “stooge” because he was a member of the Ontario Green Party of Toronto, “one of the global centres of the Illuminati and one of its key bloodlines, the Bronfmans.” According to Icke, Warman worked closely with the Canadian Jewish Congress, which was “founded and funded by the Bronfman family” (Icke, 2001, 410. 411). Not surprisingly, Warman took legal action against Icke, the results of which have gone unreported.
This leaves open other, less palatable explanations for Icke’s current arrangement with the IHC. Is Icke now in the pay of the very forces he now claims to oppose? Has he been co-opted? Or do Icke’s actions prove that he does not believe what he says? Given Icke’s record of publicly opposing the “Illuminati” in its innumerable guises (and disguises), such suggestions may seem outrageous. But through the act of seeking assistance from the IHC, seemingly without regard to its “reptilian” connections, Icke does much to foster such conspiracy theories.
Last of the Big-Time Rockefellers
IT has been a rough year for the standard-bearer of one of the most fabled families in American history.
Just
as David Rockefeller was solidifying his role as the business dynasty's
third-generation patriarch, two of the proudest symbols of the
Rockefeller name suffered embarrassing blows to their prestige.
First,
Rockefeller Center filed for bankruptcy protection in May, despite Mr.
Rockefeller's intense effort to avert that humiliation. Three months
later, the Chase Manhattan Bank, known for years as the "Rockefeller
Bank" and the crucible where Mr. Rockefeller forged his reputation as
America's premier capitalist and business statesman, was gobbled up by
Chemical Bank, its decidedly more plebeian competitor.
To
top it all off, the 80-year-old Mr. Rockefeller broke his leg on a trip
to Tokyo in February to negotiate with the Mitsubishi Estate Company
about keeping Rockefeller Center out of its creditors' hands.
"There
have been some episodes, yes, that were unhappy and difficult, breaking
my leg not the least of them," he said in an interview on Nov. 30 at
his unimposing office on the 56th floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the
nerve center of the family's activities.
But
it will take more than a few disappointments to sidetrack the grandson
of John D. Rockefeller, the 19th-century oil magnate, from his mission
as caretaker of the family legacy. It is a role that in a sense has been
thrust on him; of John D. Jr.'s five sons, only David and Laurance, 85,
survive, and Laurance has made it clear that he prefers to keep out of
the limelight.
Moreover,
none of the Cousins, as the 22 members of the fourth generation are
known, have emerged with the experience and connections to take on the
mantle of leadership. Only in this generation have the women assumed
senior roles in the family's affairs, though a fair number have
abandoned the Rockefeller name.
And
so, David Rockefeller carries on, the one force capable of uniting the
growing number of heirs to the multibillion-dollar family fortune.
Despite his age, he maintains an extremely busy schedule. He continues
to update a card file containing 100,000 names of most of the people he
has ever met. And he always strives to put the best light on the
shifting Rockefeller fortunes.
Thanks
to his efforts, the family is poised to regain a stake in Rockefeller
Center, albeit a much smaller one than it held before the bankruptcy.
And while confessing to a certain melancholy over Chase's absorption by
Chemical, he takes the stoic view that some sort of merger was
inevitable, given the rapid consolidation of the American banking
industry. Even though the combined bank will clearly be dominated by
Chemical executives and their culture, he likes to point out that it
will carry Chase's name and its "beveled bagel" logo.
His
fractured femur has barely slowed him. Just three weeks after doctors
inserted two pins into his leg, he presented an award to King Hussein of
Jordan on behalf of the American Committee for Foreign Policy, and in
another month or so, was back doing his morning workouts. "I only have a
little more difficulty riding on horseback, because I can't quite get
my leg up over the saddle easily," he said.
His
upbeat attitude hardly surprises his associates. "The past year has
been fraught with frustrations and challenges for him, but he's made of
steel, you know," said Joseph Verner Reed, an undersecretary general at
the United Nations and an old friend.
Mr.
Rockefeller is more apt to describe himself as a plodder. "When things
happen, you just have to try to find the best way of working them out
that you can," he said.
Even
within the family, there is the sense that David Rockefeller represents
the end of an era. As others take possession of the Rockefeller crown
jewels and the clan itself becomes bigger and more dispersed, it becomes
increasingly uncertain whether the Rockefeller name will much longer
retain its cachet as a passport to the centers of political and economic
power.
Today,
some 110 Rockefellers are direct descendants of John D., the feisty
founder of the Standard Oil empire and America's first billionaire. His
brother, William, produced an even bigger brood that now numbers more
than 300, although they do not benefit from the web of trusts
established by John D. Jr. that have preserved the family wealth,
estimated at between $4 billion and $5 billion.
David
Rockefeller Jr., Mr. Rockefeller's son and the current head of the
family enterprises, Rockefeller & Company, has volunteered to
represent the family and oversee the management of its money and
collective affairs. And most of John D.'s other descendants are busy in
the Rockefeller tradition of hard work and philanthropy.
David's
daughter Peggy Dulany, for example, has built strong ties to leaders
in emerging countries and works to help them put together social and
economic development projects, while her sister Neva Goodwin, a
professor at Tufts, is completing a textbook on elementary economics for
Russia. Rodman Rockefeller, the oldest son of the late Nelson
Rockefeller, is an astute business man, while John D. 4th, known as
Jay, is a Senator.
None
of these younger Rockefellers, however, seem equipped or inclined to
follow in David Rockefeller Sr.'s footsteps. "No one can step into his
shoes," said Warren T. Lindquist, a longtime friend. "Not because they
aren't good, smart, talented people but because it's just a different
world, and they have different interests."
David
Jr. agrees. "We're no longer just a New York City family," he said. "My
guess is that there will be multiple leaders and patriarchs and perhaps
matriarchs." And the elder Mr. Rockefeller himself reluctantly
recognizes that he probably represents the last of a breed. "When a
family multiplies the way ours has, it's hard to maintain the identity
over time," he said.
"I
don't think it's fair to judge what the next generation is doing by
comparing them and their activities to what I and my siblings have
accomplished at the end of our lives," he added. "I think it's fair to
say that 20 or 25 years ago, I was less well-known than now." EVEN
so, the Rockefellers have shown remarkable staying power compared with
the other American family empires. Who remembers any one member of the
third generation of the Kelloggs, the Carnegies or the Vanderbilts, for
example, other than for lavish home-decorating or scandal? Even more
impressive, the Rockefellers produced not one but two third-generation
luminaries: first Nelson, four-time Governor of New York and Vice
President during the Ford Administration, who died in 1979; and now
David.
The
Brothers, as the third generation of Rockefellers is known (even though
the oldest of the brood was a woman, Abby, who died in 1976), were
determined to avoid the fate of the other business clans. "There is an
old saying: 'Shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in three generations,' " one
of the brothers told the biographer Joe Alex Morris shortly after the
end of World War II. "Well, we have to avoid a third-generation
anticlimax."
For
all the accolades, David Rockefeller isn't without his detractors.
While few doubt his seriousness of purpose, for example, some say he
was a bit like an absentee manager when he ran Chase Manhattan, once the
world's largest bank.
As
its chairman and chief executive in the 1970's, Mr. Rockefeller spent a
good deal of his time traveling the world in search of new customers
and business opportunities. Mr. Reed, the United Nations official,
recalls that he made 78 trips in the 12 years that he worked as Mr.
Rockefeller's assistant at the bank -- and not quick jaunts, but long
excursions. The Rockefeller name worked magic in opening doors, not only
in the free world, but in the Communist bloc as well. Chase was the
first Western bank to open branches in Moscow and Beijing and was the
primary lender to many of their satellites in Africa, the Far East and
Latin America.
Critics,
however, said that his globe-trotting led him to neglect Chase's
business at home. After all, it was during his watch that Citibank,
Chase's longtime rival, overtook "David's bank" as the No. 1 bank in the
country. And in the late 1970's, souring loans in real-estate and Latin
America threatened further deterioration.
Others
took Mr. Rockefeller to task for meeting with some of the world's most
notorious dictators. He defends these contacts as quiet diplomacy. "The
fact that I met with them doesn't mean I agree with them," he said. "My
feeling is that one has a much better chance of getting people to make
changes if you're talking to them."
Such
willingness to hobnob with the leaders of undemocratic regimes can
still stir up trouble for Mr. Rockefeller. When Ms. Dulany, his
daughter, learned that Fidel Castro, whom she had met through her work
in developing countries, was coming to New York for the United Nations'
50th anniversary celebrations this fall, she asked her father to hold a
dinner for the Cuban dictator. Fearful that such an event would set off
Rockefeller-bashing of the sort he had managed to avoid for years, he
declined, but suggested that Ms. Dulany hold her own dinner party for
Mr. Castro, which she did.
It
was not so easy to sidestep the land mines of unfavorable publicity,
however. Mr. Rockefeller was in a car on his way to a dinner that Mayor
Rudolph W. Guiliani of New York was having for visiting dignitaries
when he heard WCBS radio announce that he was at that very moment giving
a party for Mr. Castro.
The
next day at the United Nations, Mr. Castro strode across a room packed
with diplomats and world leaders to shake Mr. Rockefeller's hand, a
gesture captured in pictures that appeared in newspapers nationwide. "I
must have shaken the hands of 50 people that day, but of course, the
only picture that made it into the papers was the one with Castro," he
said with a smile. IN a brief meeting later with Mr. Castro, he
continued his efforts at pragmatic bridge-building. "I told him the
world has changed, and I thought it was time our two countries tried to
find a way to see if they could get together," Mr. Rockefeller recalled.
"He said he'd think about it."
He
left Chase at its zenith, having disposed of its troubled loans and
given it global reach. But some critics, including even some of his
close friends, say that his preoccupation with foreign affairs had in
fact sown the seeds of the bank's future frailty. In their view, his
worst sin was a failure to cultivate strong subordinates, creating a
leadership void.
Banking
analysts say that that flaw was compounded by a clouded judgment. They
say it is now clear that neither Willard C. Butcher, who succeeded Mr.
Rockfeller at Chase, nor Thomas G. LaBrecque, the current chairman who
was one of Mr. Rockefeller's fair-haired boys 20 years ago, had the
ability to lead such a large and multifaceted institution.
His
supporters note that in fact, Mr. Rockefeller axed the successor he had
chosen, Herbert P. Patterson, reluctantly agreeing with Chase board
members that Mr. Patterson lacked the aggressiveness to keep the bank
competitive, a trait that unfortunately permeated the Chase culture.
Mr.
Rockefeller brushes off such sniping. "Bill deserves much of the credit
for the turnaround at the Chase that I was given credit for when I
left," he said. "There was no doubt in my mind that he was qualified and
entitled to succeed me."
Some
note that Mr. Rockefeller, who retired from Chase in 1981, had no role
in selecting Mr. LaBrecque for the bank's top job in 1990. And Mr.
Rockefeller argues that Mr. LaBrecque performed admirably, even in
selling what many regarded as a Rockefeller institution (though the
family's stake in Chase was never more than about 5 percent). "I think
this is the best solution for the Chase," he said. "I doubt that the
Chase would have been able to, quickly enough, raise the capital to keep
itself competitive as a world-class bank."
His
supporters say his backing for Mr. LaBrecque is a manifestation of the
fierce loyalty that he has always extended to his friends and associates
-- a trait that can create havoc if it is misplaced. It certainly
roiled Rockefeller University, one of the world's pre-eminent medical
research institutions that enjoys the financial support of the
Rockefeller fortune. In late 1989, Mr. Rockefeller backed the
appointment of Dr. David Baltimore, winner of a Nobel Prize for
biomedical research, to the presidency of the university, in spite of
widespread opposition by many professors who objected to the scientist's
role in a dispute over whether a colleague committed fraud in a paper
that Dr. Baltimore had helped write.
The
university's board, which Mr. Rockefeller headed, pushed through Dr.
Baltimore's appointment, and he served a tumultuous year-and-a-half
reign that saw the departure of at least three prominent faculty members
who opposed his leadership.
"It's
easy in hindsight to say he should have left earlier, but I don't
believe in turning against someone the moment they get in trouble," Mr.
Rockefeller said. "It may be the truth that in the end I err on the side
of giving people the benefit of the doubt, but I don't think that's
such a terrible thing to do."
After
his retirement from Chase, Mr. Rockefeller took over his family's
affairs just as the family was beginning to grapple with its increasing
diversity and size. The wealth that trickled out of the Rockefeller
trusts was being spread increasingly thin, and many of the family's
assets were in real estate that generated a low return.
Rockefeller
Center was one of the family's biggest assets, but with its high
maintenance costs and long-term leases, it made very little money. The
family, led by Laurance, began agitating to cash out of the center and
put the proceeds in more lucrative and liquid investments. In 1985, the
trusts, which were the actual owners of Rockefeller Center through the
family holding company, the Rockefeller Group, sold a mortgage on a
portion of the center to the public, realizing $1.3 billion, $250
million of which was put to work earning hefty returns for the family.
Four
years later, the trusts decided to sell the property outright, offering
the Mitsubishi Estate Company an 80 percent stake in Rockefeller Group
for $1.4 billion.
From
the family's vantage point, their timing was impeccable. "The trustees
were shouldering a heavy responsibility: was it prudent to have so much
of the family's wealth invested in real estate and in New York City real
estate at that," David Rockefeller Jr. said. "Their move to sell the
center turns out to have been quite good, especially in terms of timing
when you consider that the bottom fell out of New York City real estate
shortly thereafter.
"If I could roll back time, however, maybe I would give up some of the profits to avoid the outcome of the deal," he added.
Friends
say Mr. Rockefeller was loath to sell Rockefeller Group and the center,
but he was outvoted by his brother Laurance and many of the other
family members, who were lobbying the trust committee to turn it into
more liquid assets. "It pained him to see the family so willing to
abandon it," said one longtime friend, who spoke on condition of
anonymity.
The
notion that the family abandoned Rockefeller Center and, by extension,
New York City, was raised in articles and editorials after the property
went bankrupt. The accusation outrages many family members. After all,
they point out, one is hard put to find a corner of New York where they
have not left their mark. Without the Rockefellers, the city's financial
district would have evaporated, and the United Nations would have ended
up in San Francisco. Morningside Heights would have remained a slum,
the World Trade Center would not have been built and the Museum of
Modern Art, erected on the site of their parents' mansion, and Lincoln
Center, built with the support of John D. 3d, would be vastly different
places.
Mr.
Rockefeller and David Jr. both stressed the family's commitment to the
center and to the city. The impression that the Rockefellers no longer
cared about the city because they did not ride in on a white horse made
of money to save the center, they say, is a mistaken one. They note that
the final decision on family finances lies in the hands of the five
trustees -- including mutual-fund giant George Putnam and the former
Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker -- who administer the trusts.
The
family is often blamed for decisions made by the trustees, over whom
they have little if any control, they say. "We can give advice and so
forth, but it is the holders of the shares of the trusts, the trustees,
who make the decisions," said David Rockefeller Jr., speaking of
Rockefeller Center's recent travails. Some say that in the aftermath of
the Rockefeller Center debacle, some members of the family feel that
Mr. Bowen allowed an opportunity to save the property from bankruptcy to
slip away by trying to secure a few extra points of interests for the
family's investment in a joint rescue plan with Mitsubishi Estate.
Mr.
Bowen, who did not return calls to his office seeking comment, had
previously said that his fiduciary responsibilities to beneficiaries of
the trusts forced him to drive a hard bargain. And Mr. Rockefeller, who,
friends say, does not have the warmest feelings for Mr. Bowen, said
there was more at issue than a few points of interest.
But
Mr. Rockefeller doesn't find fault with the trustees. Rather, he lays
the blame for the debacle at the feet of Mitsubishi, which, he said,
spurned the trust's offer to lend money to a rescue package at
well-below market returns.
Nonetheless,
the trusts also did not come to Mr. Rockefeller's aid when he began
working as part of a group led by Goldman, Sachs & Company to buy
the property out of bankruptcy. Instead, two other wealthy families
whose patriarchs are friends of Mr. Rockefeller, the Agnellis of Italy
and the Niarchoses of Greece, put up more than $180 million while he
contributed $20 million.
Mr. Rockefeller and his friends plan to use the money to buy a 45.45 percent stake in the property.
Both
Mr. Rockefeller and his son bristle at the suggestion that the family
did not back him up in his fight to keep at least a piece of the center
in the Rockefeller fold.
But
if the Rockefellers are putting on a show of public unity about the
outcome of the Rockefeller Center drama, some shareholders in the
company that holds the mortgage on the center, Rockefeller Center
Properties, are not so unforgiving.
Mr.
Rockefeller and his fellow investors will gain control of the property
by buying up all the shares of Rockefeller Center Properties, which is
slated to take ownership of the center in what will be an effective
foreclosure on its mortgage. The investors will pay shareholders $8
apiece for their shares, or about $12 less than the shares were worth a
decade ago when the Rockefeller trusts sold the mortgage. The upshot of
their complaint is that they ended up taking the hit for the decline in
New York City real-estate values over the last 10 years, while the
Rockefellers cashed out in the late 1980's for more than $2 billion and
are now getting a big chunk of ownership back for a song.
Mr.
Rockefeller declined to discuss any aspect of the pending deal to buy
the property out of bankruptcy while it is awaiting the review of the
Securities and Exchange Commission.
But
it is clear he feels his character has been unfairly questioned, and
his friends say he is troubled by that. "He's annoyed as anyone would
be when somethings get about that are really untrue or unfair," said Mr.
Lindquist, his longtime friend. "People are very apt to, on little or
no information, make up motives or intentions that are completely
unrelated to the truth, and anyone saying David Rockefeller is only
looking out for his self-interest and the interests of his family is
just wrong."
Mr.
Lindquist met Mr. Rockefeller in Paris after World War II, when they
both worked for the American military attache there. "I didn't quite
know what to expect," Mr. Lindquist recalled. "I had been briefed at the
Pentagon and told I would be working with David Rockefeller. I asked
whether he was one of the Rockefellers, and they said yes. I thought
about it a minute and then said, well, so what?"
If
Mr. Lindquist was at all concerned a Rockefeller might make a less than
ideal colleague, Mr. Rockefeller put him at ease from the start, as he
does with most people. "The general and David met me when I got off the
bus from Orly in front of the Ritz," Mr. Lindquist recalled. "Captain
Rockefeller shook my hand and picked up my bag and began carrying it."
His
easygoing manner has helped Mr. Rockefeller collect an impressive
network of contacts, all of whom he calls friends. Asked how many
"friends" he has, Mr. Rockefeller said it would depend on how the word
was defined. "If you include all the people I've shaken hands with over
the years, well, then it would be quite a few," he said. "My card file
records about 100,000 names that I update with each new meeting, but a
certain percent -- and more and more now, I have to say -- are in the
morgue."
On
a recent morning, he was jotting down notes from a recent trip to
"places where I have friends" on behalf of Chase so that his
secretaries could update the card file. Asked which friend he met in
Thailand, Mr. Rockefeller smiled a little apologetically. "Well, in
Thailand, surprise, surprise, it was the King and Queen," he said.
That
friendship dates back to the early 1960's, when Mr. Rockefeller helped
the Thais set up the National Institute for Development Administration.
"It
was just one of those fortunate moments when he asked for something,
and I was able to help," Mr. Rockefeller said. He did so by tapping an
economist who was working for his brother Nelson; the economist
conducted an exhaustive study of the Thai economic system and suggested
a development plan.
Despite
his modesty on the subject, it is for his efforts to use private means
to influence public policy that Mr. Rockefeller would like to be
remembered. "I would like to be thought of as having seen that there was
an important role for the private sector in world affairs and
cooperating with governments for the benefit of both parties," he said.
"That's what I've tried to demonstrate with my activities on behalf of
the Chase and with things like the Council of the Americas and the
Trilateral Commission," two public service organizations he helped
establish.
George
Ames, a partner at Lazard Freres & Company who was involved in some
of Mr. Rockefeller's real-estate deals, said his sense of public
obligation usually outweighed the profit motive.
"I
believe they all inherited a very strong sense of public responsibility
from their father," Mr. Ames said. "The whole Rockefeller Center
development was created with that in mind. I doubt it ever turned a
significant profit until after World War II. It was more that this was a
place in the middle of a city that everyone could enjoy and be proud of
and, in some way, feel an ownership in it."
Today,
at an age when most men might be content to relax in the memory of
their achievements, Mr. Rockefeller attends numerous functions each
week, travels frequently and continues to seek out new business
opportunities. "I'm enjoying what I'm doing," he said, perplexed by a
question about why he keeps pushing on. "I like what I do. It's fun."
And there's no indication that he intends to slow down, extending an invitation to "come back and see me in 20 years."
Correction: December 17, 1995
An article last Sunday about David Rockefeller misidentified the organization on whose behalf he presented an award to King Hussein of Jordan. It is the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, not the American Committee for Foreign Policy.
An article last Sunday about David Rockefeller misidentified the organization on whose behalf he presented an award to King Hussein of Jordan. It is the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, not the American Committee for Foreign Policy.
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