23-01-2011, 05:23 AM
Jim DiEugenio Wrote:The best book I have read on the Kennedy vs Rockefeller dispute over American leadership is Donald Gibson's Battling Wall Street.
This is a book that unfortunately did not get wide circulation at the time, and then the publisher went out of business. But it is the best book I have ever read on JFK's economic politics, and how they ran up against the Power Elite, represented by David Rockefeller.
As I have written elsewhere, the idea that Kennedy was part of this cabal is simply wrong. JFK was never in the CFR. His family fortune was nouveau riche, and since Joe was Irish, he was even more looked down upon. That is why he had to buy his son's way into Harvard. Kennedy never really liked this crowd, he thought they were phoney and self centered. He actually used to make fun of them with Inga Arvad, who I think is the one woman he really wanted to marry.
This is why Kennedy never joined any of those secret societies at Harvard, and why he hung out with a bunch of schmoes. And then when he went into the service, he specifically requested to get out of intelligence and onto a PT Boat. Here he could be with more schmoes.
So after educating himself about the Third World, and learning first hand what his Dad told him about businessmen being SOB's during the Steel Crisis, Kennedy decided he was not going to play ball with the business elite as represented by the CFR and David Rockefeller.
In this regard, someone mentioned the famous RFK quote about Kennedys' eating Rockefellers for breakfast. Well, I also like the great three word telegram that Kennedy wrote to Jock Whitney after his inauguration, relieving him of his duties as British ambassador:
Jock,
Pack.
Jack
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_on_..._Relations
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., in his book on the Kennedy presidency, A Thousand Days, wrote that Kennedy was not part of what he called the "New York establishment":
"In particular, he was little acquainted with the New York financial and legal community-- that arsenal of talent which had so long furnished a steady supply of always orthodox and often able people to Democratic as well as Republican administrations. This community was the heart of the American Establishment. Its household deities were Henry Stimson and Elihu Root; its present leaders, Robert Lovett and John J. McCloy; its front organizations, the Rockefeller, Ford and Carnegie foundations and the Council on Foreign Relations; its organs, the New York Times and Foreign Affairs."[11]