A Summary of the Book “The Shadows of Power: The Council on Foreign Relations and the American Decline”

Chapter 1 - A Primer On The CFR

Chapter 2 - Background To The Beginning

Chapter 3 - The Council’s Birth And Early Links To Totalitarianism

Chapter 4 - The CFR And FDR

Chapter 5 - A Global War With Global Ends

Chapter 6 - The Truman Era

Chapter 7 - Between Limited Wars

Chapter 8 - The Establishment’s War In Vietnam

Chapter 9 - The Unknown Nixon

Chapter 10 - Carter And Trilateralism

Chapter 11 - A Second Look At Ronald Reagan

Chapter 12 - The Media Blackout

Chapter 13 - The CFR Today

Chapter 14 - On The Threshold Of A New World Order?

Chapter 15 - Solutions And Hope

About the Author





As a student of Colby College and Boston University during the latter years of the Vietnam War, James Perloff included himself in the new generation that had gone radical left - an outlook he voiced as a school columnist and cartoonist. However, when he probed America’s power structure deeply, he was shocked to learn that he and his fellow students had moved in the precise direction intended by the Establishment - that unofficial ruling entity they thought they had been rebelling against. Several years of research persuaded him that the American Establishment was a far more clever organism than anyone had ever dreamed, and culminated with his writing The Shadows of Power. Mr Perloff is a contributing editor to The New American, the biweekly journal of news and opinion.



Back Cover





Does America have a hidden oligarchy? Is U.S. foreign policy run by a closed shop? What is the Council on Foreign Relations?



It began in 1921 as a front organization for J.P. Morgan and Company. By World War II it had acquired unrivaled influence on American foreign policy. Hundreds of U.S. government administrators and diplomats have been drawn from its ranks - regardless of which party has occupied the White House. But what does the Council on Foreign Relations stand for? Why do the major media avoid discussing it? What has been its impact on America’s past - and what is it planning for the future? These questions and more are answered by James Perloff in The Shadows of Power.







An eye-opening account of a private group that has helped shift American foreign policy away from America’s best interests. Highly recommended.



— David B. Funderburk, Former U.S. Ambassador to Romania





Policies linked to the organization described in this book have helped visit a number of tragedies on the free world. There may be more forthcoming. James Perloff has cut through a litany of myths to bring out the facts. To not read this book is to live dangerously.



— Philip Crane, United States Congressman, [Chicago, Illinois (1969-2005)]





If we want to avoid the disaster of one-world government, if we wish to preserve our priceless national sovereignty and live through all time as free men, then it is imperative that the American people read “The Shadows of Power.”



— Meldrim Thomson, Jr., Governor of New Hampshire (1973-1979)





There have been many books purporting to explain the ‘real’ reasons for what happened to us in Vietnam. Unfortunately, most of these have been part of the same old smokescreen from the actual architect of the war, the American Establishment. Our veterans deserve more than memorials - they deserve the truth. Here at last is a book where they can find it.



— Andrew Gatsis, Brigadier General, U.S. Army (Ret.)



The book, written by James Perloff in 1988, chronicles American history during most of the 20th century, examining major national and international events occurring during each of the Presidential administrations by focusing on the activities of the Establishment elite running the secretive and powerful political organization the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).This informative book details world history more accurately than typically taught mainstream accounts, explaining how the most influential political power of the United States has existed in the CFR since its inception in 1921, with members of the group continually shaping the creation of policies which forward secretive globalist agendas at the cost of creating much human suffering throughout the world.The information in the book can be thought of as an important puzzle piece being dropped into place where it was assumed that a space did not exist, adding new meaning to a large number of well-known historical events by showing mainstream history and media accounts as being contrary to what had actually happened.The CFR has been the “unofficial club” of the Establishment power elite, having membership of most of the high ranking members of politics, media, and finance. It is a “front group” that is a secretive organization but not a “secret society,” however many of its members do belong to secret societies.The CFR has always forwarded “Globalist” agendas which include long-term strategies of dissolving national sovereignties and boundaries of Nations in order to eventually form a “one world government” which is controlled by the United Nations via privately owned international banks.Another key aspect of the CFR which is very surprising to most people is its history of covertly implementing and supporting Marxist Communism in nations of the world as a part of its globalist strategy, including installing totalitarian Communism in Russia, China, and Eastern Europe, and more recently in Latin America and Africa, which is a topic that is a major focus of the book as well as this article.This article summarizes major points of each of the chapters of the book.Purchase the book at this link Following are key points from the chapter:The Council holds frequent meetings with high level members of national and international governments while having strict stipulations of the meetings being “off the record.” The Council also publishes an influential journal calledfive times a year.— The CFR has been largely unknown to the public but has been extremely influential in creating foreign policy through supplying personnel for high ranking government jobs such as Presidential cabinet-level positions, and the CFR “unofficially” creates policy directions through the allocation of much influence and resources while at the same time claiming to be “unbiased” and “impartial”.Following are key points from the chapter:— Some saw the corruption of what was being set up through the Federal Reserve and spoke out about it, including the Congressmen Charles Lindburgh and Louis McFadden, with McFadden stating that the Federal Reserve was “A super-state controlled by international bankers and international industrialists acting together to enslave the world for their own pleasure.”— The Federal Reserve is privately owned, it has never received a meaningful independent audit, and its policies are not subject to the President or Congress. It is staffed with the associates of the international bankers who have control over the nation’s money supply and interest rates.— World War One then occurred in 1914 which made the national debt jump from $1 billion to $25 billion. It is often claimed to be a “coincidence” that the implementation of the income tax, Federal Reserve, and World War One all occurred at the same time, but the evidence shows that they were intentionally implemented together.Following are key points from the chapter:— When established, the CFR strove to maintain as low of a profile as possible, and from the onset it had an agenda of promoting the idea of establishing a world government.— The CFR was initially made up of almost exclusively bankers and lawyers associated with J.P. Morgan, and eventually college professors were added to the roster but only those who were from campuses beholden to Morgan for his academic endowments.— The closing information of the section says,J.P. Morgan had influence in drafting the Dawes Plan in 1924 and the Young Plan in 1930, with both being named after CFR member bankers that headed the committees that created them. The Dawes plan called for massive loans to Germany and it was implemented while it “swept statesmen, politicans, and journalists to one side and issued their orders with the imperiousness of absolute monarchs..” as stated by David Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister from 1916 to 1922.Following are key points from the chapter:The key bankers got out of the market shortly before the crash, and then entered immediately afterward, buying up the United States economy for pennies on the dollar. This guaranteed FDR winning the Presidency and a “death sentence” for the Republicans. President Hoover while being a lame duck President had a plan to bail out the banks but it it required Hoover encouraging Congressional support, which FDR did not offer and the banks continued collapsing right up to the inauguration, and Roosevelt then offered Hoover’s plan to the people as his own once he took office.— The Establishment also tried to take control of the Republican party after the crash through their backing the campaign of a former Democrat named Wendell Willkie as the Republican Presidential Nominee against FDR. After a poll it was shown that Willkie had only three percent of Republicans favoring him, but he was then presented as “the” candidate by the mass media. After loosing, Willkie became an international emissary of FDR.Following are key points from the chapter:— Hitler’s troops invaded Poland in 1939, which prompted Britain and France to declare war on Germany, being the start of World War II. The CFR immediately set about aggressively conducting “study groups” with the U.S. Government to formulate wartime policy and postwar planning, with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation.— FDR won reelection on strong pledges to stay out of the war, so a strategy was formulated which was similar to the sinking of thein order to create an excuse for the U.S. to get involved, especially because polls showed over eighty percent of Americans wanted to stay out of the war. Despite the U.S. illegally supplying arms to England and attempting to provoke Germany to attack its ships, the Germans would not attack the U.S. knowing that it would turn the favor of the war against them.— American Military intelligence knew the radio code Tokyo used to communicate with its embassies, which allowed the U.S. to know that the Japanese were planning to attack the ships docked in Pearl Harbor on or about December 7, and on December 6 it was known that Japanese carriers were stationed 400 miles north of Honolulu.Russia received over $11 billion in lend-lease aid from the U.S. during the war, which included 14,000 aircraft, half a million tanks, trucks and other vehicles, and over 400 combat ships. This facilitated Russia defeating the German Military, which gave rise to the country that the U.S. claimed as its greatest threat during the cold war.— The U.S. Government gave tremendous concessions of the control of Eastern European countries to the Soviets during the post-war “Big Three” conferences which involved Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt. Roosevelt brought his advisor Alger Hiss to the Yalta Conference, who was a CFR member (and also later convicted of being a Soviet spy).The IMF was set up to control international exchange rates and to “stabilize currencies,” and the World Bank was set up to help with postwar reconstruction by being an international lending agency of U.S. Taxpayer money. The World Bank is closely linked to the Rockefeller’s Chase Manhattan Bank, and it is often used to deceptively enrich the bankers controlling it as well as their associates in developing countries who actually exploit those countries.Following are key points from the chapter:— The Marshall Plan was promoted as economic aid to post-war Europe, but in fact it was a scam meant to empower certain U.S. companies at the expense of taxpayers, and the plan was approved due to being sold as a way to “prevent Soviet aggression,” despite the CFR actually being as pro-Communism as always.— The North American Treaty Organization (NATO) was also sold as a way to contain potential Soviet aggression, however the CFR had created it only as a step toward forming a one world government.MacArthur publicly criticized being restrained from taking necessary steps to protect his troops, and was thus fired by Truman, which then destroyed Truman’s popularity in the eyes of the American public.Following are key points from the chapter:In 1955 Eisenhower was the first President to attend a summit with the Soviets, which accomplished nothing but “photos of Eisenhower clinking cocktail glasses with Soviet leaders” which were then used as a tool for demoralizing the captive citizens of Eastern Europe who hoped that they would be liberated by the West. In 1956, the Poles and Hungarians revolted and succeeded in driving out the Soviets, but the U.S. refused to intervene, and thus Soviet rule was bloodily restored and rebellion then died in Europe for many years because they knew the West would not help them. Eisenhower allowed Fidel Castro to transform Cuba into the Soviet’s first outpost in the Western Hemisphere. Castro was a guest speaker at the CFR, and three years later he had nuclear missiles pointing at the USA.— The “Bay of Pigs” invasion in 1961 was an attempt by a group of expatriate Cubans to return to Cuba to liberate it, but Washington intentionally ended the mission in defeat due to the urging of CFR members.— The chapter closes by stating that Kennedy was never really a true “insider”, and it is speculated that he was assasinated for trying to break ranks with the Establishment. The chairman of the CFR John McCloy and the former President of the CFR Allen Dulles both served on the Warren Commission investigating Kennedy’s death.Following are key points from the chapter:— After the Geneva conference, Vietnam was divided into North and South, andDonald Hiss, the brother of the Russian Spy Alger Hiss was the law partner of Acheson. Acheson helped many people who later have been identified as spies or security risks into high positions of the U.S. Government, and it was his clique that helped to give China to Mao Tse-tung. Despite being voted out of the position of Secretary of State in 1950 for his activities, he remained as an unofficial advisor to the Kennedy, Johnson, and the Nixon Administrations.Following are key points from the chapter:— Nixon appointed 110 CFR members to his Administration, which broke all previous records, and his choice for National Security Advisor was Henry Kissinger, who was heavily involved with David Rockefeller and the CFR.He introduced the largest volume of social legislation of any President in history, including building on many previous welfare programs. He also formed increasing associations with China and Russia, and labeled himself a “Keynesian” socialist in economics.Following are key points from the chapter:Rockefeller described it as “a group of concerned citizens interested in fostering greater understanding and cooperation among international allies,” but it was actually a method for overhauling the IMF in order to offer yet another source of credit to nations which were already extremely indebted to Rockefeller’s banks as part of a larger agenda of forcing multinational consolidation.— In 1973 Brzezinski wrote inthat the goals of the TC should be the central priority of U.S. policy, and soon Jimmy Carter, who was a Trilateralist, was made President.Despite a few sources calling Carter out on this deception such asmagazine and Ronald Reagan, the image of Carter being innocent and uncorrupted stuck with him during his campaign.— On January 23, 1979,, the French political and economic weekly, reported the following comments by Mexico’s President Lopez Portillo:— Also when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, Carter’s response was passive.— The CFR had an agenda of opening up trade with Communist China, which was anxious for an infusion of U.S. credit and technology despite members of China’s government such as Vice-Premier Teng Hsiao-ping giving a speech to the Party’s Central Committee in 1977 suggesting a strategy of temporarily exploiting the U.S. for its technology and then telling them to leave, using rhetoric of the West being “enemies.”— The chapter closes with the statement:Following are key points from the chapter:George Bush was also the director of the CFR and a member of the Trilateral Commission, but he resigned from those organizations before embarking on his Presidential campaign.However, his Hollywood stardom, rhetoric, and speaking abilities made him extremely popular. Robert Scheer reported in the August 1980magazine that David Rockefeller held a secret meeting with other Republicans to form a strategy of stopping Reagan and supporting Bush, with Gerald Ford being a backup candidate.During his Administration he increased deficits from Jimmy Carter’s $80 Billion to as much as $220 Billion in 1986, which exceeded even Lyndon Johnson’s deficit during the Vietnam War. His deficits were greater than all other presidental Administrations combined. While claiming to be an enemy of taxation, Reagan pushed through the largest tax increase in history, as well as increasing the size of the civilian work force in the executive branch by 100,000 between 1981 and 1986.After initially criticizing Jimmy Carter for being involved with the Salt II Treaty, he abided by its terms despite numerous Soviet violations. Also defense spending increased only minimally or not at all during his Administration, and in fact he dismantled many previous weapons systems such as a number of submarines, refusing deployment of new Minuteman missiles despite their being authorized by Congress, he deactivated many strategic B-52 Bombers, reduced MX missile planned deployment, and cancelled production of submarine launched ballistic missiles, among other reductions.In 1982 he bailed out Communist Polish Banks with U.S. taxpayer money rather than pressuring them to pay; his Administration channeled money into El Salvador to support socialists and Marxists overtaking the Democratically elected government; he did not seek to reestablish ties with Taiwan and greatly multiplied trade with Communist China; much money had been sent to the Communist regimes in Africa through a “back door” of the Import-Export bank while Reagan publicly gave the appearance of supporting anti-Communist forces; he lifted Jimmy Carter’s embargo of wheat and equipment to Russia that was associated with their invasion of Afghanistan; and he pledged to cut off aid to the Afghanistan Mujahideen who were battling the Soviet forces.Following are key points from the chapter:After World War II, the Establishment moved to block information that was published critical of the war via the Rockefeller Foundation, with CFR associates publishing “official” accounts while independent authors were blacklisted and ignored by the media. Only a few small independent book publishers were willing to publish books talking about the truth of World War II, and major book clubs and retailers were controlled by pressure groups who sought to suppress the truth.. Thewas purchased in 1896 by Alfred Ochs with the backing from J.P. Morgan and agents of Rothschild, and it has been passed down to CFR members starting with Ochs’ son-in-law Arthur Hays Sulzberger. Many reporters and editors of the newspaper are CFR members as well. Thewas purchased by CFR member Eugene Meyer in 1933, and his first action was to fire its editor for his refusal to support U.S. recognition of the Soviet Union. Thealso ownsmagazine, whose editors and many contributors belong to the CFR.magazine was also founded by and is run by CFR members such as Henry Grundwald, andalso publishes, and. The CFR is also closely associated with PBS and all other major news sources.Following are key points from the chapter:— Over the time the CFR has shifted its methods to achieving its long term objectives due to increasing public exposure of its activities. In 1974, Richard Gardner wrote an April 1974article entitled “The Hard Road to World Order,” explaining that long term globalist objectives will need to be built from the “bottom up rather than the top down,” explaining that direct expansion of the UN is not feasible due to public resistance, and he laid out “ten commandments” as a guide for action. In following years the phrase “New World Order” fell out of disuse in the Journal, and the organization’s globalist bias has become less pronounced in its official writings. It is described as becoming more of a “club” where people of culture get to meet people from Wall Street to become consultants.— A number of propaganda books have been published during the 1980s including, and, which congratulate many members of the CFR as being exceptionally intelligent men of integrity while concealing issues of corruption, as well as slandering people and organizations whose views are not in line with the organization’s goals.Following are key points from the chapter:— MacGregor Burns was also on the board of another group which proposed drastic changes to the Constitution called the Committee on the Constitutional System (CCS), which was made up of many CFR members and Rockefeller associates.Those proposals have roots in aarticle that was written in 1980 by Carter Counsel Lloyd N. Cutler after the Senate refused to ratify the Salt II Treaty... for culminating a national dialogue on the relevance of existing arrangements, the workings of the representative process, and the desirability of imitating the various European regionalization reforms and of streamlining the administrative structure. ...”A very big possibility exists of a worldwide economic crash and depression being engineered in order to usher in World Government which would merge free world countries and Communist states. For decades the Council on Foreign Relations has advocated regional alliances against the Soviet Union, but with the plan of the Soviets being eventually brought into “the Community of Nations” including the fusion of Eastern and Western Europe.Gorbachev has staged a campaign of “Glastnost”, where a few prominent dissidents are released from Gulags to much U.S. media hype, while millions of others still languish in those prisons. Russia is filled with economic hardships and people are required to stand in line for entire days to receive basic food supplies such as milk, but more importantly Russia is a totalitarian state without civil liberties, where it is against the law to even own a mimeograph machine! More than sixty million people have died in its slave labor camps.— History often appears to be a collection of random and chaotic coincidences, but the reality is that most major historical events have been planned far in advance, such as rapprochement with the Communist Chinese which every President since Roosevelt has been advancing.Following are key points from the chapter:— It would be beneficial to call for a Congressional investigation into the CFR and Trilateral Commission as the American Legion did in 1980.— The U.S. Communist party issued a directive to its members in 1943 stating, “When certain obstructionists become too irritating, label them, after suitable build-ups, as Facist or Nazi or Anti-Semitic, and use the prestige of anti-Facist and tolerance organizations to discredit them. In the public mind constantly associate those who oppose us with those names which already have a bad smell.”— Hitler’s regime and Communism are bothforms of government, despite being enemies of each other during World War II. The John Birch Society proposes, nonetheless the John Birch Society has often been falsely attacked as being a “Fascist, anti-semitic, paranoid organization” by the Establishment media.— The book closes with: