THE

By VICTOR PERLO

€

Whe State Department is in eclipse.

Foreign Affairs are run by Presi-

Nixon and his special foreign po-

5 advisor, Henry Kissinger. That well-

wn fact is stressed in the excellent

WY York Times series on the foreign
} i, of the Nixon Administration.

‘his partnership might.seem puzzling
William P. Rogers, the Secretary of
ate, 1S an old friend of Nixon’s; Nix-

» Never knew Kissinger before, and

Ssinger was a political opponent of

in 1968. Kissinger, according to the °

es, had a “tart ; F ”
rd Nixon. , partisan bitterness
here did Nixon find him? Why did

ive him such supreme power?

Heine those controlling military pro-
S, Strategic Arms Limitation talks
faze Vietnam operations, and the
Bet ton Special Actions group—
might be called the brink-of-war
Bee: He also chairs the “40 Com-
hich or Covert Action, a secret bunch
a ny pets all the dirty tricks of im-
ism, from the Bay of Pigs and

mi "3 re .
ilar sneak attacks to assassination

Political opponents.

ne basis of Kissinger’s position is
E ormity of his politics to Nixon’s.
n born, and very conscious of it,

in aes
Ser has’ ~the revenge-seeker’s

: =e at the Soviet Union: No few re-,
E rom Hitler Germany, as, well as

a taken prisoner by U.S. forces, be-
eigeenale lets active servants of

Ae s attempt to take over
2 He er left. off in trying to. de-
tf Ommunism and conquer the

sernher von Braun and his team of
oe makers put the United

Eos the missile-space race with
Comparable job in foreign policy.
ere is no

™MParison on the grounds that Kissin-

O

py

© 1S a Jew. He represents those Ger-
apitalists whose only cri-

an Jewish ¢
ae of Hitler was that he. was anti-

i, 'SSinger came to, this country. at.

git 48 of 15, in 1938. His well-to-do

ly sent him to Harvard, his brother

D MAGAZINE

et Union. Kissinger is trying to’

need to qualify the:

Oe NIX NGER”’

to Princeton. While Henry became a
big political wheel, his brother W. B.

became an armament oriented manu- .

facturer. After Henry Kissinger made it
with Nixon, W. B. was made president
and chief executive officer of Allen
Electric and Equipment Corp. of Chicago.

Henry Kissinger graduated from Har-
vard summa. cum laude in 1950 and
immediately got jobs as government
consultant on military and foreign pol-
icy issues. With his PhD. degree in
1954, he was made director of nuclear
weapons and foreign policy research
for. the Council on Foreign Relations.
This is the top private foreign policy

_ group of America’s most powerful ty-

‘coons: In 1956 he became director of
the Rockefeller Brothers’ Special Studies
project. This project worked out the
Rockefeller Group’s basic cold war
policy manifestos, which in large part
were*adopted by successive administra-
tions in Washington. ;

On every issue Kissinger is on the
side of aggression, confrontation and
war. He opposes withdrawal of U.S.
troops from Western Europe. He inspired
the campaign against the easing of re-
lations between the USSR and West
Germany. He is the author of N.S.S.M.
Memo. 99 on American objectives in
Southeast Asia and Vietnam over the
next five years—prepared for discussion
with the Pentagon. . :

In-short, he envisages a permanent
war of conquest in Southeast Asia. He
is an advocate of. the notorious ‘‘posi-
tions of strength’’ policy, and denounces
the proposal for: a rapid withdrawal
from Vietnam as ‘‘an elegant bugout.”’

Hard line’cold warriors are no rari-
ty in academic and political circles.
But Kissinger was picked as especially
hard-line, energetic, and able. He was
picked by the Rockefellers—three of
them. are overseer§: of Harvard and
they are a leading force in the Council
of Foreign Relations. And ever since
1956, Kissinger has been the family’s
chief foreign policy adviser. He was
right-hand man to Rockefeller during
-the 1968 Republican nomination cam-
paign, when Nixon won out. :
"Why did Nixon then pick his chief

' rival’s key man as his own key man

“after Kissinger had let the world know
how little he thought of Nixon?
“We do not know the mechanics. of
“how it was arranged. But we do know.
that Rockefeller men. have been in
charge of the foreign policy of the Unit-
-ed.. States; cgntinuously for 18 years—
Dulles, Herter, Rusk, .and now Kissin-
ger. C. Wright Mills explained the prin-.

~ ond

v2

NN

ciple of selection of key government
officials in this way: :
“As in the private corporation, the

rule is the co-optation of one’s own

kind by those who have taken over the
command posts.”’ :

The Wall Street Establishment fin-
ances the major candidates—Nixon as
well as Eisenhower as well as Kennedy
as well as Johnson. No man can be
elected, within Establishment-controlled
parties, without its approval, without
certain commitments and deals. And
the most influential single force in the
Wall Street Establishment these days is
the Rockefeller-Standard Oil-Chase Man-
hattan Bank group. Apparently itis un-
derstood that they are to have foreign
affairs, regardless wko wins out in pri-
mary and final election skirmishing, and:
regardless of the personal fate of an in-
dividual Rockefeller running for office.

But what about Secretary of State
Rogers? Isn’t he Establishment? Cer-
tainly. But his law firm, his corporate
connections, his clients,-are on the sec-
level of importance. Kissinger
worked for the top circle. One may say
that this arrogant, dangerous man is the
choice of the bigwigs of the oligarchy,
the Wall Street Establishment, to be

their instrument on the spot for direc- -

tion of the foreign policy of the United
States. To be more exact, he represents
the most reactionary groupings within
that oligarchy, and especially the Roc-
kefeller-Standard Oil-Chase Manhattan
Bank group. :

Rogers isn’t even No. 2 man to Kis-
singer on crucial foreign policy ques-
tions. That’s Undersecretary of State
John N. Irwin II. He is in charge of
second rank foreign policy committees.
that Kissinger doesn’t have time to
handle. He is the one who recently
visited the Middle East to try to pro-
tect the superprofits of Standard Oil
against the oil producing countries.

‘And he is the one who went to Peru in

1969 to try to bully the Peruvian gov-

“ernment into not nationalizing Standard

Oil there’ He wasn’t yet Undersecre-
tary of State then, but was performing
comparable functions.

_ Who is Irwin? From a wealthy Iowa
family, after prep school and Prince-

- ton, he joined the Morgan law firm of

Davis, Polk, Wardwell, ‘etc., in 1946. In
1949 he hit the financial jackpot by
marrying Jane Watson, daughter of the
centimillionaire head of - International
Business Machines, Thomas. Watson, Sr.:
He then. was made a. partner in the

Rockefeller law firm’ Patterson, Belk-.

ean
i

N
I

nated his time between serving the
Rockefeller-Standard Oil and IBM in-
terests as a private citizen and as a
Defense Department and State Depart-
ment official. His directorships, before
taking the undersecretaryship in 1970,
included the IBM World Trade Corpo-
ration and the Rockefeller-Astor United
States Trust Co. of New York. He is
chairman of the board of Union Theolo-
gical Seminary, a trustee of the Morn-
ingside Community Center Inc., and of
the Asia Foundation, outfits in the Roc-
kefeller orbit. He is also a director of
the Foreign Bondholders Protective
Council, the international Scrooges of
Wall Street. e

Thus Irwin is in the very top circles
of the oligarchy by virtue of his conju-
gal wealth and, perhaps, personal energy.
But most directly, he united the inter-
ests of the two biggest profiteers from
foreign investments, from the global
operations of U.S. imperialism.

Standard Oil of N.J., has long been
the No. 1 company in this respect, with

its admitted foreign profits reaching

$694 million in 1968, before dipping in
1969. For the last two years IBM’s for-
eign profits have ificreased, while its
domestic profits have declined. Last
year IBM made $513 million on its for-
eign operations as against $398 million
on its domestic operations. The foreign
profits amounted to an incredible 21
percent after taxes on sales—which
means over 40 percent on sales before
taxes—as compared with 9 percent
after taxes on domestic sales. Now
IBM is definitely in second place in

profits from foreign investments, and

may even move ahead of Standard Oil
(N.J.) soon.

How does all this fit in with the
statement of Thomas Watson Jr., now
head of IBM, before the Foreign Rela-
tions Committee last spring expressing
his concern over the Vietnam war and
its escalation into. Cambodia? So far,
this was nothing but a momentary devia-
tion, inspired by panic over the popular
upsurge of protest and the cancellation
of IBM orders resulting from the finan-
cial crisis touched off by the Cambo-
dian invasion. Previously Watson was a
hawk, and he hasn’t been heard from
since. :

At any rate, actions speak louder
than words. Irwin’s actions show that
the main thrust of U.S. multinational
corporations, including IBM, is un-
changed. They are the mainspring of
aggressive U.S. foreign policy, its. mili-
tarized economy, vicious wars of con-
quest, and: anti-Soviet. thermonuclear

arms buildup.

CLOT Po VaALIAAT Sierseas Lali SGT Sap AG
TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, JANUARY 28, 1972—PAGE 3

ee

secre ume