Talk:Ford Foundation

Simple question, on our lilly white foundations, you guys need to check an old vignette called Operation Mockingbird

It is a known fact that certain corporate-funded foundations employ their resources for one overt and the other covert reasons.

The overt is to give us the philathropic view of the foundations as promoters of humanitarian causes and ideals,while the second is used to channel funds to clandentine causes which further American Foreign Policy, of course it looks even better if they are seen as being funded by a charitable organisation. Prior to founding the Rockefeller Foundation Ivy Lee (public relations consultant) adviced JD Rockefeller to use the foundation not only to evade income tax but to also use it as tool to influence academic circles through research grants. By way of funding academic studies into sociology and other research projects and the re-doing Rockefeller's own biography (Collier-Horowitz version refers to this) given the flak originally fired by Ida Tarbell on Rockefeller's monopolitistic practices.

Worth noting, are that board members of tax free foundations interock with American Government at Federal Level and corporate leaders. Hence McGeorge Bundy, bios would evince presence in the Presidential Cabinet, President of such and such Corp, member or director of such and such foundation. Take for example Robert McNamara his pattern is not an isolated case either.

Please read the book Foundations:Their Power and Influence by Rene Wormser, which belong to a series of congressional investigations into the activities of tax free foundations. May be is it me or is that people with power and wealth will tend to abuse it? Perhaps I am just conspiratorial? For those who always doubt the orthodox view.

Bias? For those people who doubt the established doctrine would do well to read Gary Allen's None Dare Call It Conspiracy and the Rockefeller File available from amazon. Let's be clear though I do not subscribe to the conspiratorial/religion view, it is a question of simply getting power, keeping and expanding it. Simply view Power elite for these cross-linkages May be Wiki.org fears potential litigation eh? What's your take guys? --203.61.147.2 13:49, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

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Um, okay, not that I'm necessarily saying you're wrong, but PLEASE provide some documentation for this charge, before we have an entry that says NOTHING but that they're a CIA front?!? Graft 15:27 Sep 26, 2002 (UTC)

Nice edit with the "stated". You're right, the evidence that its a CIA front is -- erm -- not great (I'd like one article that didn't read like it'd been written by a conspiracy theorist -- User:GWO

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Gareth, he's the prosecutor for the Nuremberg trials... fallacy of authority, fine, but you're writing away all testimonials completely if you say this. I think 'war criminal' was adequately qualified (or, we can do that if you like), but the fact that someone intimately involved with the prosecution of war criminals thinks this man could probably be one surely has SOME weight worthy of putting it in the article? Graft

So, Scott Ritter was an inspector for UNSCOM. That doesn't make his "we found 95%" claim any more valid than anyone else's guess. However, if someone wants to accuse a person of war crimes, I wouldn't want to censor that accusation just because I personally disagree with it. --Ed Poor

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By the way, I think the stuff on Bundy should go in a companion article. Any objection? --Ed Poor 14:22 Sep 27, 2002 (UTC)

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Nope but I dont like this -

McGeorge Bundy (1919-1996) was Special Assistant to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson? for National Security Affairs from 1961-1966, and then headed the Ford Foundation from 1966-1979. His brother, William Bundy, worked for the CIA for 10 years, suggesting that the Ford Foundation may not have been independent of US government foreign policy during that period.

His brother working for the CIA does not suggest the Ford Foundation are tied with the CIA. Its another unsubstianted link (although it does appear to be a close tie-in) Greg Godwin 14:31 Sep 27, 2002 (UTC)

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The "front" stuff needs more work.

relationship with government, secret services and war crimes

It is considered by some to be a front organisation for the CIA, claiming to distribute funds for the development of democracy and human rights in countries where US interests are threatened by local groups struggling for human rights and democracy. By making donations and then putting conditions on how funds are spent, or by obtaining personal information on human rights activists, its critics allege that the Ford Foundation and CIA together often succeed in diverting intellectual and organising energy of human rights activists into useless or ineffective avenues, or in dividing different human rights activist groups from one another.

The above paragraph raises more questions than it answers:

• considered a front by whom?

e.g. by Frances Stonor Saunders (The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters, New Press, 2001, ISBN 1565846648). The author says, for instance, that "[a]t times it seemed as if the Ford Foundation was simply an extension of government in the area of international cultural propaganda. The foundation had a record of close involvement in covert actions in Europe, working closely with Marshall Plan and CIA officials on specific projects".

• explain how funds for human rights conflict with US interests. One example should suffice.

Of course, it is not just "funds for human rights", but "funds for the development of democracy and human rights in countries where US interests are threatened by them". I presume that you are familiar with the cases of Guatemala, Nicaragua or Cuba, and that therefore you are capable of understanding how for US planners the rise of democratic socialist governments, with their emphasis in social and economic human rights, posed a threat to Washington interests. These governments, they said, were like a "virus", that would "infect" the whole region by serving as a model for other countries to follow.

social "democracy" in Cuba and Nicaragua, huh? J. Parker Stone 04:38, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Another specific case would be the West Papua situation where either human rights or democracy funds could undermine the Freeport license signed with the invading Indonesian government two years before the so called "Act of Free Choice"; it is note worthy that only independantly funded groups (the Robert Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, and the US Department of State) have dared mention the on-going genocide since Indonesian occupation; given that the Ford Foundation is extremely likely to have been a major advisor to JFK to support the Indonesian invasion, the Ford Foundation has two (fiscal & PR) reasons to keep world attention on minor issues like Israel and its 20,000 free settlers rather than the IMF funded 6 million Indonesian Islamic settlers in non-Islamic countries like West Papua.

If you read the short external link http://www.cia-on-campus.org/internat/indo.html you will see the Foundation does have dirty pro-Islamic business it would rather keep quiet; there have been a number of journalist reports about it founding anti-Israel NGOs. It is also worth noting Ford created the Foundation while he was involved in & impressed by Nazi Germany, two years before he receives his award; remember Ford also had a factory in Empirial Japan, and for some unexplained reason in Mar 1945 Japan sent orders for a pro-Independance committee to be formed (see History of Indonesia); the Foundation is in Indonesia supporting this group by the years end... it would be excellent if someone were to one day research the Japanese records to discover who requested the 'independance' committee.

• What does "diverting ... energy" mean?

Former Ford Foundation President Richard Bisell acknowledged that the purpose of the Foundation was not "so much to defeat the leftist intellectuals in dialectical combat as to lure them away from their positions". In other words, you make them work in "harmless" activities, and not in those that may eventually pose a threat to the interests of the US government.

Don't get me wrong: I don't want any sort of whitewash or cover-up. Please fix up the text and then put it back. --Ed Poor

I'm going to put back an updated version. Please let me know if you agree with the final result, or if you have any further questions that you would like to see answered. --Sir Paul

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I find "nothing more than" still emotive, and "the foundation actively works against its stated aims" is a very serious accusation, which should either be toned down or backed up.

while we can mention such charges, i don't think critiques of the Foundation as a "CIA front" should dominate the article. i personally was unaware of this charge until reading this, and i don't think it's very widely known or alleged. the political orientation of radical sources such as Ramparts (New Left) should also be noted. J. Parker Stone 04:32, 10 July 2005 (UTC) /////

I have been researching the political situation in America for a couple of years now in preparation for a documentary I am making (strictly amateur). The documentary is about the effect of the elite on American political culture. I came across this Ford Foundation-CIA link and it made tremendous sense to me. This was a primary instance of the elite (the rich and the megacorporations) acting through the Govt to mold the American political culture over decades. What the big nonprofit foundations did in America was pretty much what Bissell said they would do overseas--they used that money to influence American leftist activists and writers to channel American leftism into a new direction--towards identity politics, towards race and gender politics, and away from economics oriented leftism. They did this over decades by using the foundations to fund activists and writers who took the RIGHT KIND of approach to leftism--the identity politics approach. So now we have an American left that is all about race and gender, and not about taxing the rich and providing a social safety net and universal healthcare, like they have in Europe.

So now we have in America what I call a FAUXleft--a FALSE left, thanks to the money provided by the elite through foundations like the FF.

I have a blog that discusses this in more detail, and has links to the first two parts of my documentary, but if I just give a link, I am sure that the many hierarchy-loving rightwingers will use that as an excuse to delete. Yeah, call me paranoid if you want, but Wikipedia is a rightwing outfit. And they have no shame.

Anyway, to find my blog, search google for Homo Sapiens Americanus and fauxleft and identity politics.

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Less than noble purpose of the Ford Foundation

From http://www.lewrockwell.com/yates/yates99.html

[source material snipped]

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 141.151.182.232 (talk • contribs) .

The source for this quote [1] is a televison producer who specializes in conspiracies and fringe ideas. I think that we can do better. -Will Beback 03:30, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

CIA-link mentioned in the New York Times

This is a newspaper clipping from the New York Times 15/02/76 [2] Could this be of any interest in exploring the alleged link with the CIA? --Jambalaya 17:41, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Funding for Communism

The article cited with regard to this criticism outlines the statements of the Congressman as groundless. The TIME article states, for example, in paragraph 4, that the report by the Congressman does not cite any evidence with regard to the accustations laid. Additionally, the article does not mention the link mentioned in the Wikipedia article between the Ford Foundation and communism. Criticism, when it has reasonable evidence, should be fostered. This material does not meet that standard. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.85.222.215 (talk)

Skull and Bones

Has this foundation (long with Carnegie) not been partially hijacked by member(s) of Yale's Skull and Bones society, and used to promote CFR, Trilateral, Bohemian Club and Bilderberg (Rockerfeller) agendas? "The New World Order" and "World Bank". This explains CIA tentacles, the CIA being a very 50 year old Skull and Bones controlled operation, (hence the CIA's nickname "Spooks" forthose who don't know!).

Further Reading Suggestion

Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine", Penguin, 2008, isbn, 978-0-141-02453-0 - Ford Foundation's involvement in the 'Southern Cone' (South Americas region) and Indonesia, is a fascinating tale of intellectual sponsorship of fascist intellectuals such as those following Milton Friedman's Chicago School econonomics, embarrasment of the aftermath, followed by sponsorship of human rights organisations. Thx. BadCop666 (talk) 10:02, 10 January 2009 (UTC)