Business Advisory Council

Whereas the Foreign Policy Association-World Affairs Center is primarily interested in fostering the foreign policy desired by the CFR, and the Committee for Economic Development is primarily interested in formulating economic and other policies which, through governmental controls, will lead us into total socialism—another, smaller (but, in some ways, more powerful) organization has (or, until mid-1961, had) the primary responsibility of infiltrating government: of selecting men whom the CFR wants in particular jobs, and of formulating, inside the agencies of government, policies which the CFR wants. This small but mighty organization was the Business Advisory Council.

Daniel C. Roper, F. D. Roosevelt's Secretary of Commerce, formed the Business Advisory Council on June 26, 1933. Roper set it up as a panel of big businessmen to act as unofficial advisers to President Roosevelt. He was disappointed in it, however. The biggest businessmen in America did, indeed, join; but they did not support the total New Deal as Roper had expected they would when he made them "advisers."

Roper, however, was a figurehead. The brains behind the formation of the Business Advisory Council were in the head of Sidney J. Weinberg, Senior Partner of the New York investment house of Goldman, Sachs & Co.—and also on the boards of directors of about thirty of the biggest corporations in America. Weinberg helped organize the BAC. He recruited most of its key members. He was content to let America's big businessmen ripen for a while in the sunshine of the New Deal's "new" philosophy of government, before expecting them to give that philosophy full support.

Secretary of Commerce Daniel C. Roper pouted and ignored the Business Advisory Council when he discovered that the big businessmen, enrolled as governmental "advisors," tried to advise things that governmental leaders did not like. But Sidney Weinberg was shrewd, and had a definite, long-range plan for the Business Advisory Council. He held the BAC together as a kind of social club, keeping the big business men under constant exposure to the "new" economic philosophies of the New Deal, waiting for the propitious moment to enlist America's leading capitalists on the side of the socialist revolutionaries, determined to destroy capitalism and create a one-world socialist society.

The right time came in 1939, when World War II started in Europe and Roosevelt developed his incurable ambition to get in that war and become President of the World. Plans for America's frenzied spending on national defense began in 1939. With mammoth government contracts in the offin g, Weinberg had no trouble converting the Business Advisory Council of leading businessmen into an agency for helping governmental leaders plan the policies for war and for the post-war period.

In September, 1960, Harper's Magazine published an article by Hobart Rowen, entitled "America's Most Powerful Private Club," with a sub-title, "How a semi-social organization of the very biggest businessmen—discreetly shielded from public scrutiny—is 'advising' the government on its top policy decisions." Here are passages from the article:

"The Business Advisory Council meets regularly with government officials six times a year . . . On two of these six occasions . . . the BAC convenes its sessions at plush resorts, and with a half-dozen or more important Washington officials and their wives as its guests, it indulges in a three-day "work and play" meeting . . .

"The guest list is always impressive: on occasion, there have been more Cabinet officers at a . . . BAC meeting than were left in the Capital . . .

"These meetings cost the BAC anywhere from $6,000 to $12,000 or more, paid out of the dues of members . . . which have been judged tax-deductible by the Internal Revenue Service . . .

"After the 1952 election, the BAC was haying its fall "work and play" meeting at the Cloister, just off the Georgia coast and a short distance from Augusta, where Ike was alternating golf with planning his first-term Cabinet. [Sidney] Weinberg and [General Lucius D.] Clay [members of the BAC executive committee] . . . hustled . . . to Augusta, conferred with Ike [a "close, intimate, personal friend" of both men] . . .

"The result was historic: Ike tapped three of the BAC leaders . . . for his Cabinet. They were Charles E. Wilson of General Motors as Defense Secretary; George M. Humphrey, then boss of the M. A. Hanna Co., as Treasury Secretary; and Robert T. Stevens of the J.P. Stevens & Co., as Army Secretary . . .

"Afterwards, [Secretary] Humphrey himself dipped into the BAC pool for Marion Folsom of Eastman Kodak as Under Secretary of the Treasury [later Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare] . . .

"Membership in the Council gives a select few the chance to bring their views to bear on key government people, in a most pleasant, convivial, and private atmosphere . . .

"The BAC, powerful in its composition and with an inside track, is thus a special force. An intimation of its influence can be gleaned from its role in the McCarthy case . . . BAC helped push Senator Joe McCarthy over the brink in 1954, by supplying a bit of backbone to the Eisenhower Administration at the right time. McCarthy's chief target in the Army-McCarthy hearings was the aforementioned Robert T. Stevens—a big wheel in the BAC who had become Secretary of the Army. The BAC didn't pay much, if any, attention to Joe McCarthy as a social menace until he started to pick on Bob Stevens. Then, they burned up."

"During the May 1954 meeting at the Homestead [expensive resort hotel in Hot Springs, Virginia, where the BAC often holds its "work and play" sessions with high government officials and their wives], Stevens flew down from Washington for a weekend reprieve from his televised torture. A special delegation of BAC officials made it a point to journey from the hotel to the mountaintop airport to greet Stevens. He was escorted into the lobby like a conquering hero. Then, publicly, one member of the BAC after another roasted the Eisenhower Administration for its McCarthy-appeasement policy. The BAC's attitude gave the Administration some courage, and shortly thereafter former Senator Ralph Flanders (a Republican and BAC member) introduced a Senate resolution calling for censure.

Active membership in the Business Advisory Council is limited to about 70. After a few years as an "active," a member can become a "graduate," still retaining his full voting and membership privileges.

I have obtained the names of 120 "active" and "graduate" members of the BAC, listed below. Those who are members of the Council on Foreign Relations are identified by "CFR" after their names. [Note: A complete list of the current members of the Business Advisory Council is listed in Appendix A]

Of these 120 BAC members, 41 are members of the Council on Foreign Relations. Most of those who are not CFR members have affiliations with foundations or other organizations that are interlocked with the CFR.

Sidney Weinberg, for example (father of the BAC), is not listed (in any Council on Foreign Relations Annual Report in my files) as a member of the CFR; but he is a member of the board of many corporations which support the CFR; and has many close connections with CFR leaders through foundations and other CFR subsidiary agencies.

All Secretaries of Commerce since 1933 have served as ex-officio General Chairman of the BAC.

On July 10, 1961, Roger M. Blough announced that the Business Advisory Council had changed its name to Business Council; had severed its connection with the Commerce Department; and would in the future give its consultative services to any governmental agency that asked for them. The BAC had been under intense criticism for the expensive entertainment it had been giving to governmental officials it advised.