the story you are about to hear
represents a missing piece in the puzzle
of modern history without this knowledge
many contemporary events are simply
Beyond understanding you are about to
hear a man tell you that the major tax
exempt foundations of this land since at
least
1945 have been operating to promote a
hidden agenda and that agenda has
nothing to do with the surface
appearance of Charity good works or
philanthropy this man will tell you that
the real objectives include the creation
of a worldwide Collective estate
including the Soviet Union which is to
be ruled from behind the scenes by those
same interests which now control the tax
exempt
foundations the man who tells this story
is none other than Mr Norman Dodd who in
1954 was the staff director of the
Congressional special committee to
investigate tax exempt foundations
sometimes referred to as the Reese
committee in recognition of its chairman
Congressman Carol
ree the interview you're about to see
was conducted by me in
1982 I had no immediate use for the
material at that time but I realized
that Mr dod's story was of extreme
importance and since he was advanced in
age and not in good health I simply
wanted to capture his Recollections on
videotape while he was still with us it
was a wise decision because Mr DOD did
pass away just as short time
afterward in recent months there has
been a Resurgence of interest in the
substance of Mr dod's story and we have
decided to make it available to the
general public and so what now follows
is the full unedited interview broken
occasionally only for a tape change or
to omit the sound of a passing airplane
it stands on its own as an important
piece in the puzzle of modern
history Mr Dodd let's begin this
interview by a brief stting for the
record telling us who you are what your
background is and your qualifications to
speak on this
subject
well Mr
Griffin um as for who I
am I am just as the name implies an
individual born in New Jersey
and educated
in private
schools eventually in a school called
andova
Massachusetts and then Yale University
and running through my whole period of
being brought up and growing up I have
been an indefatigable
reader and I have had one major interest
and that
was this
country as I was led to believe it was
originally
founded and um I entered the world of
business knowing absolutely nothing
about the how that world
operated and U realized that the only
way to find out what that world was
consisted of would be to become part of
it and I then acquired some experience
in the manufacturing world and then in
the world of international communication
and finally chose banking as the a the
field I wish to devote my life
to and I was fortunate enough to secure
a position in one of the important banks
in New
York and lived there I lived
through the um ex conditions which led
up to what is
known as the crash of
1929 and
U I witnessed what has turned out to a
collapse of
the structure of the United States as a
whole and much to my surprise I was
um confronted by my superiors with a in
the middle of the panic in which they
were immersed
I was confronted with the question Norm
what do we do
now I was 30 at the time and I had
no more right to have an answer to that
question than the Man in the
Moon I however I did manage to say to my
superiors gentlemen you take this
experience as proof of something that
you do not know about
Banking and you better go find out what
that something
is and act
accordingly 4 days later I was
confronted by the same
superiors with a statement to the effect
that Norm you go find
out and
I really was fool enough to accept that
assignment because uh
it meant that you were going out to
search for something and nobody could
tell you what you were looking
for but I was I felt so strongly on the
subject that
I consented to I was relieved of
all normal duties inside the
bank and uh two and a half years later I
felt
that it was possible to report back to
those who had given me this
assignment and so I rendered such a
report and as a result of the report I
rendered I was told the
following Norm what you're saying is we
should return to sound
Banking and I said yes in essence that's
exactly what it I am
saying whereupon I got my first shock
which was a statement from them to this
effect we will never see sound banking
in the United States again and they
cited chapter and verse to support that
statement and what they cited was as
follows since the end of World War
I we have been responsible for the what
they call the
institutionalizing of conflicting
interests and they are so prevalent
inside this
country that they can never be
resolved this came to me as an
extraordinary shock because the men who
made the statement were men who
were deemed as the most prominent
Bankers in the
country the bank of which I was a part
was spoken of as a Morgan
Bank and coming from men of that
caliber a statement of that
kind made a tremendous impression on
me and
um the type of impression that it made
on me was I
wondered if I as an individual in a it's
what they call a junior officer of the
bank could with the same enthusiasm
Foster the progress and the policies of
the
bank I spent about a year trying to
think this
out and came to the conclusion that I
would have to
resign I did
resign and as a consequence of that had
this
experience when my letter of resignation
reached the desk of the president of the
bank he sent for
me and then he and I came to visit with
him and he stated to me Norm I have your
letter but I don't believe you
understand what's happened in the last
10
days I said no Mr Cochran I have no idea
what's happened well he said the
directors have never been able to get
their your report to them out of their
mind and as a
result they had
decided that you as an individual must
begin at once and you must reorganize
this Bank in keeping with your own
ideas and
U he then said
now can I tear up your
letter and in as much as what had been
said to me was offering me at the age of
by then 30
33 about as find an opportunity for
service to the country as I could
imagine I said
yes and they said they wish me to begin
at
once and I did and
um suddenly in the span of about 6 weeks
I was not permitted to do another piece
of work and every time I brought the
subject up I was kind of patted on the
back and said and told
um stop worrying about it Norm pretty
soon you'll be a vice president and then
you'll have an a quite a handsome salary
and ultimately be able to retire on a
very worthwhile pension in the meantime
you can play Golf and Tennis to your
heart content on
weekends well Mr Griffin I found I
couldn't do it I spent a year with my
figuratively with my feet on the desk
doing
nothing and I just couldn't adjust to it
so I did
resign and this time my resignation
stuck and then I got my second shock
which was the discovery that the doors
of every Bank in the United States were
closed to me and I never could get a job
as it were in the bank so I found myself
for the first time since IID graduated
from college out of a
job and from there on I followed various
branches of the financial World ranging
from investment Council
to membership of the stock
exchange and finally ended up as
a as an advisor to a few individuals who
had Capital funds to look
after in the meantime uh my major
interest became very
specific which was to
Endeavor by some means of getting the
educational
world to actually
you might say teach the subject of
Economics
realistically and move it away from the
support
of various speculative activities that
characterize our
country and I have had that interest and
you know how as you generate a specific
interest you find yourself gravitating
toward persons with similar
interests and ultimately I found myself
kind of the center
of the world of dissatisfaction with the
direction that this country was
headed and
um that's on One Direction and the same
way I've found myself in contact with
many individuals
who on their own had done a vast amount
of studying and
research in areas which were part of the
problem and
um Mr D if I may interrupt here for a
second uh at what point in your career
did you become connected with the Reese
committee
1953
1953 yeah and what was that capacity sir
that was the capacity of what they call
director of research for the Reese
committee can you tell us what the Rees
committee was attempting to do yes I can
tell you it was operating and and
carrying out instructions embodied in a
resolution passed by the House of
Representatives which was to investigate
the activities of
Foundations as to whether or not these
activities could justifiably be labeled
unamerican without I might say defining
what they meant by
unamerican but that was the the the
resolution and um the committee had then
the task of selecting a council and the
council in turn had the task of
selecting a
staff and he had to have somebody who
would direct the work of that staff and
that was what they meant by the director
of research what were some of the
details the specifics that you told the
committee at that
time well Mr Griffin in that report I
specifically
um uh number one
defined what was to us what was meant by
the phrase
unamerican and we defined that in our
way as
being uh
um
a determination to effect changes in the
country
by um unconstitutional means we have we
have plenty of constitutional procedures
assuming that we wish to effect a change
in the form of government or that sort
of
thing and therefore any effort in that
direction which did not Avail itself of
the procedure which were authorized by
the
Constitution would could be justifiably
called
unamerican that was the start of
educating them up to that particular
point the next thing was to educate them
as to the
effect on the country as a whole of the
activities of large endowed
foundations over the
then past 40 years what was that effect
sir that effect was to orient our
educational system over away from
support of the U principles embodied in
the Declaration of Independence and
implemented in the
Constitution and educated them over to
the to the idea that the task now
was um
as a result of the orientation of
Education
to um away
from these brief principle briefly
stated principles and self-evident
truths and that's what had been the
effect of the
wealth which
was Which con constituted the endowments
of those foundations that had been in
existence over the largest portion of
the span of 50
years and hel holding them responsible
for this
change and U what we were able to bring
forward was that
the that what we had uncovered was the
determination of these large endowed
foundations through their trustees to
actually get control over the content of
American
Education there's quite a bit of
publicity given to your conversation
with uh Rowan
Gaither uh would you please tell us who
he was and what was that conversation
you had with him ran Gaither was at that
time president of the Ford
foundation and um um Mr Gaither had sent
for me when I found it convenient to be
in New York
asked me to call upon him at his office
which I
did and on arrival after a few
amenities Mr Gaither said Mr DOD we've
asked you to come up here this today
because we thought that possibly off the
Record you would tell us why the
Congress is interested in the activities
of Foundations such as ourselves
and um before I could think of how I
would reply to that statement Mr Gaither
then went on voluntarily and
stated he said Mr DOD all of us that
have a hand in the making of policies
here have had experience
either with the OSS during the war or
the European economic Administration
after the war we've had experience
operating under
directives and these directives emanate
and did emanate from the White House now
we
still operate under just such directives
would you like to know what the
substance of these directives is I said
yes Mr G i' like very much to
know whereupon he made this statement to
me namely
Mr Dodd we are here operate on SI
similar in response to similar
directives the substance of which is
that we shall use our grant making power
so to older life in the United States
that it can be comfortably merged with
the Soviet
Union well
parenthetically um Mr Griffin I nearly
fell off the chair
I of course it didn't but
um my response to Mr Gaither then was
well Mr Gaither I can now answer your
first
question you forced the Congress of the
United States to spend
$150,000 to find out what you just told
me so why don't
you I said of course legally you're
entitled to
um make grants for the for this purpose
but I don't think you're entitled to
withhold that information from the
people of the country to whom you're
indebted for your tax exemption so why
don't you tell the people of the country
that's what you've told me and his
answer was we would not think of doing
any such thing so then I said well Mr
Gaither obviously you force the Congress
to spend this money
in order to find out what you just told
me Mr dod you have spoken before about
uh some interesting things that were
discovered by Katherine Casey at the
Carnegie endowment can you tell us that
story
please yes I'm glad to Mr Griffin
um this experience that you have just
referred to came about in response to a
letter which I had written to the
car Endowment for International Peace
asking certain questions and Gathering
certain
information and on on the arrival of
that letter Dr Johnson who was then
president of the carnegi endowment
telephoned me and said did I ever come
up to New York and I said yes I did more
or less each
weekend and he said well when you're
next year will you drop in and see it
which I
did and again on arrival at the office
of the
endowment I found myself in the presence
of Dr Joseph Johnson the the president
who was a successor to aler
his two vice presidents and their own
Council a partner in The Firm of
Sullivan and
Cromwell and Dr Johnson said after again
amenities Mr DOD we have your letter we
can answer all those questions but it'
be a great deal of
trouble and we have a counter
suggestion and our counter suggestion is
that if you can spare a member of your
staff for two weeks and send that member
up to New York we will give to that
member a room in the library and the
minute books of this Foundation since
Inception and we think that whatever you
want to find out or the Congress wants
to find out will be obvious from those
minutes well my first reaction was they
lost their mind I had a pretty good idea
of what those minutes would
contain but I realized that Dr Johnson
had only been in office two years and
the other the the vice presidents were
relatively young men
and Council seemed to be also a young
man and I guessed that probably they
never read the minutes
themselves and so I said I had somebody
I would take it I would accept their
offer and I went back to Washington and
I
selected the member of my staff who was
on my
staff having been a a practicing
attorney in
Washington but she was on my staff to
preed to it that I didn't break any
Congressional procedures or
rules in addition to which she was
unsympathetic to the purpose of the
investigation uh she was a levelheaded
and a very reasonably brilliant capable
lady and her attitude of toward the
investigation was What could possi
possibly be wrong with foundations they
do so much good well in the face of that
sincere conviction of Catherine I went
out of my way not to Prejudice her in
any
way but I did explain to her that she
couldn't possibly cover 50 years of
handwritten
minutes in two weeks so she would have
to do what we call spot reading and I
blocked out certain periods of time to
concentrate on
on and off she went to New
York she came back at the end of two
weeks with the following in the way of
on on dictaphone
belts we are now at the year
198 which was the year that the Carnegie
began
operations and in that year the trustees
meeting for the first time raise a
specific question which they discuss
throughout the balance of the year in a
very learned fashion and the question is
is there any means
known more effective than War assuming
you wish to alter the life of an entire
people and they conclude
that no no no more effective means than
War to that end is known to
humanity so then in 199 they raised the
second question and discuss it namely
how do we involve the United States in a
war well I doubt at that time if there
was any subject more removed from the
thinking of most of the people of this
country than its involvement in a war
there were intermittent shows in the
Balkans but but I doubt very much if
many people even knew where the Balkans
were then finally they answer that
question as follows we must control the
state
department and they and then that very
naturally raises the question of how do
we do
that and um they answer it by saying we
must take over over and control the
Diplomatic Machinery of this
country and finally they
resolve to aim at that as an
objective then time
passes and we are eventually in a war
which would have been World War
I and at that time
they record on their
minutes a
shocking report in which
they dispatched to President Wilson a
telegram cautioning him to see that the
war does not end too
quickly and finally of course we are the
war is
over at that time their interest shifts
over to preventing what they call a
reverse verion of life in the United
States to what it was prior to
1914 when World War I broke out and they
arrive at that point they come to the
conclusion that to prevent a reversion
we must control education in the United
States and they realize that that's a
pretty big
task so it's to them it is too big for
them alone so they approach approach the
Rockefeller
foundation with the suggestion
that that portion of Education which is
could be considered domestic be handled
by the Rockefeller foundation and that
portion which is international should be
handled by the
endowment and they then decide that the
key to the success of these two
operations lay in the an alteration of
the teaching of American
History so they
approach four of the then most
prominent teachers of American history
in the country people like Charles and
Mary
Bird and their suggestion to them is
will they alter the manner in which they
present this subject and they get turned
down
flat so they then decide that it is
necessary for them to do as they say
build our own stable of
historians and then they approach the
Guggenheim Foundation which specializes
in
fellowships and say when we find young
men in the process of studying for
doctorates in the field of American
history and we feel that they are uh the
right caliber will you grant them
fellowships on our say so and the answer
is
yes so under that condition eventually
they assembled
20 and they take this 20
potential teachers of American History
to London and they're they're briefed
into what is expected of them when as
and if they secure
appointments in keeping with the
doctorates they will have
earned and
um
that new that group of 20 historians
ultimately becomes the nucleus of the
American historical
Association and then toward the end of
the
1920s the endowment grants to the
American historical
Association
$400,000 for a
study of our history in a manner which
points to what can this country be can
it look forward
to in the
future and uh that culminates in a seven
volume
study book
study the last volume of which is of
course an essence of summary of the
contents of the other six and the
essence of the last volume is the future
of this country belongs to
collectivism administered with
characteristic American
efficiency that's the story that
ultimately grew out of and of course was
what could have been presented by the
members of this Congressional committee
to the Congress as a whole for just
exactly what it
said but they never got to that point
this is the story that emerged from the
minutes of the uh of the Carnegie fund
that's right Carnegie endowment that's
right and uh so it was official to that
extent I see and Katherine Casey brought
all of these back in the form of uh
dictated notes or verbatim readings of
the of the minutes onct phone B else are
those in existence today I don't know
but if they are they they're somewhere
in the
archives under the under the um control
of the Congress House of Representatives
how many people actually heard those or
were they typed up transcripts made of
them how many people actually heard
those uh
recordings oh three
maybe myself my top
assistance and
Katherine yeah I might tell you this
experience as far as its impact on
Catherine casy's concern was she never
was able to return to her law
practice if it hadn't been for Carol
Reese's ability to tuck her away on a
job with the Federal Trade Commission I
don't know what would have happened to
Catherine But ultimately she lost her
mind as a result of it
terrible shock
to it's it's it's a very rough
experience to
encounter proof of these kinds Mr DOD
what kind uh well can you summarize the
the opposition to the committee the
Reese committee and particularly the
efforts to sabotage the
committee well they began right at the
right at the start of uh uh of the work
of a of an operating staff Mr
Griffin um and it
began on the day in which the committee
met for the purpose of consenting to or
confirming my appointment to the
position of director of
research um thanks to the abstention of
the minority members of the committee
that is the two Democratic members from
voting why technically I was
unanimously
appointed and
um well wasn't the White House involved
in
opposition well not not at this
particular Point Sir Mr Reese ordered
Council and myself to visit Wayne
Hayes and Wayne Hayes was the ranking
minority member of the committee as a
Democrat
so we Council and I had to go down to Mr
Hayes's office which we did Mr Hayes
greeted us with um the flat
statement directed primarily to me which
is that I am opposed to this
investigation I regard it as nothing but
a an effort on a part of Carol Reese to
gain a little prominence and and um so
I'll do everything I can to see that it
fails
well I
am kind of a strange personality in the
sense that a challenge of that nature
interests
me our Council um withdrew he went over
and sat on the couch on Mr
Reese's office and
pouted um but I sort of took up this
statement of hay as a challenge and set
myself the goal of winning him over to
our point of
view and I started by noticing on his
desk that there was a book and the book
was of the type that there are many in
these days that would be um complaining
about the spread of Communism in
Hungary that type of book and this meant
to me that at least haes read a
book and so I brought up the subject of
the spread of the influence of the
Soviet world and for two hours discussed
this with Hayes and finally ended up
with his rising from his desk and saying
Norm if you can if you will carry this
investigation toward the goal as you've
outlined it to me I'll be your biggest
supporter I said Miss I can assure you
that you I will not double cross
you subsequently Mr Hayes sent word to
me that he was in the Bethesda hospital
with an attack of
ERS and but would I come and see him
which I did he then said Norm the only
reason I've asked you to come out here
is I just want to hear you say again you
will not double cross
me I gave him that
assurance and that was a basis of our
relationship meantime Council took the
attitude expressed in these words Norm
if you want to waste your time with this
guy as he called him you can go ahead
and do it but don't ever ask me to say
anything to him under any condition on
any
subject so in a sense that cleared the
de for me to operate in relation to
Hayes on my
own and as time
passed
Hayes offered
friendship which I hesitated to accept
because of his
vulgarity and I didn't want to get mixed
up with him socially under any
condition well that was our ATM our con
um our relationship for about three
months and then
eventually I had occasion to add to my
staff and as a result of adding to my
staff a Top Flight intelligence
officer both the Republican National
Committee and the and the White House
were resorted to to stop me from
continuing this investigation in the
direction that Carol ree had personally
asked me to do which was to utilize this
investigation Mr Griffin to uncover the
fact that this country had been the
victim of a
conspiracy that was Mr Reese's
conviction I eventually agreed to carry
it
out I explained to Mr Rees that his own
Council wouldn't go in that
direction he gave me permission to
disregard our own
councel and I had then to set up an
aspect of the investigation outside of
our office more or less
secret and um the Republican National
Committee got wind of uh of what I was
doing
and they did everything they could to
stop me they appealed to council to stop
me and finally they resorted to the
White House was there objection because
of what you were doing or because of the
fact that you were doing it outside of
the official offices of the committee no
their objection was as they put it U my
devotion to what they call
anti-Semitism that was a cooked up idea
but in other words it wasn't true at all
but anyway that's the way I expressed
it and um excuse me why and they made it
stick why did they do that how could
they say that well they could say they
could say it Mr Griffin but but they had
to have
something in the way of a a
rationalization of their decision to do
everything they could to stop that stop
the completion of this investigation in
the direction that it was moving
which would have been an exposure of
this Carnegie endowment story and the
Ford foundation and the ganim and the
Rockefeller Foundation all working in
harmony toward the control of Education
in the United
States
um well in any
event to secure the help of the White
House in the picture they
assigned they got the White House to
cause
the um liazon personality between the
White House and the hill a major persons
to go up to Hayes and try to get him to
as it were actively
oppose what investigation was engaged
in and Hayes very kindly then would
listen to the
visit from major person then he would
call me and say Norm come up to my
office I have a good deal to tell you I
would go up he' tell me I've just had a
visit from major persons and he wants me
to break up this investigation so I then
say well Wayne what did you do what did
you say to him he said I just told him
to get the hell
out and he did that three times and I
got pretty proud of him in the sense
that he was as it were
backing me up and we finally embarked
upon
hearings at Hayes request because he
wanted to get them out of the way before
he went abroad the
summer and
um but why were the hearings finally
terminated what happened to the
committee what happened to the committee
or the hearing the hearings H the
hearings oh the hearings were terminated
Reese was up against such a furor as
hay through through the activity of our
own
Council Hayes became convinced that he
was being double crossed and he put on a
show in a public hearing room Mr Griffin
that was an absolute disgrace and he
called Carol ree publicly every name in
the
book and Mr Reese took this as proof
that
he couldn't couldn't continue the
hearings
um he
actually invited me to accompany
him when he went down to Hay's
office and in my presence with the tears
rolling down his face haes apologized to
Carol Reese for every done and his
conduct
and um apologized to
me and I thought that would be enough
and Carol would
resume but he never did the charge of of
uh anti-Semitism is kind of intriguing
to me what what was the basis of that
charge Char the basis for it at all no
the basis that the Republican National
Committee used was that the intelligence
officer I'd taken on my
staff when I when I oriented this
investigation to the exposure of and
proof of a
conspiracy was known to have a book and
the book was deemed to be anti-semitic
this was childish but this was the
second in command of the Republican
National Committee and he tried me I'd
have
to I would have to dismiss this person
from my staff who was that person to who
was that person the person yes a colonel
Lee Lorraine Lee Lorraine yeah and what
was his book do you
recall the book they referred to was
called Waters flowing
Eastward which was
um um a
very castigation of the Jewish influence
in the world what were some of the other
charges made by Mr Hayes
uh against Mr
Reese oh just just that Mr
Reese was uh utilizing this
investigation for his own prominence
inside the House of Representatives that
was the only charge they hay could think
of how would you describe the um the
motivation of the people who created the
foundations the big foundations in the
very beginning what is or what was their
motivation their motivation well let's
take let's take Mr carnegi as as an
example his publicly declared and
steadfast interest was to counteract the
the um departure of this of the colonies
from Great
Britain he was devoted to just putting
the pieces back together
again would that have required the
collectivism that they were dedicated to
no no no no these these policies of or
the foundation's allegiance to
u to these unamerican concepts are all
traceable to the type to the transfer of
the funds over and into the hands of
Trustees Mr Griffin that um not to men
who had a hand in in the creation of the
wealth that led to the endowment of or
as a
use of that wealth for what we would
call public
purposes it was a subversion of the
original intent then oh yeah completely
so and that we got into the world
traditionally of bankers and
lawyers how do you see see that the
purpose and direction of the major
foundations has changed over the years
to the present what is it today whole
100%
behind uh meeting the cost of Education
such
as such as it is presented through the
schools and colleges of the United
States on the subject
of our history has proven our IDE our
original idea is to be no longer
practical the future belongs
to a collectivistic
concept and
uh there just no no uh disagreement on
that why do the
foundations generously
support uh communist causes in the
United States well because to them what
communism represents a a means of
developing what we call a
monopoly that is the organization
will'll say of of large scale
industry into an an administer
unit do they think that they will be one
of theator they will they will be the
beneficiaries of it
yes
e
[Applause]
[Music]
we have seen their kind before they are
The Heirs of all the murderous
ideologies of the 20th
century by sacrificing human life to
serve their radical Visions by
abandoning every value except the will
to power they follow in the path of
fascism Nazism and total
arianism and they will follow that path
all the way to where it ends in
history's unmarked grave of discarded
lies every nation and every region now
has a decision to
make either you are with
us or you are with the
terrorists
freedom and fear are at
War the advance of human Freedom the
great achievement of our time and the
great hope of every
time now depends on
us our nation this generation will lift
a dark threat of violence from our
people and our
future when freedom is lost it is lost
forever we are losing the right to make
our own determinations about what we
think what we eat how we protect our
health how we protect our children
children and whether in fact we are
members of a free and Democratic Society
the purpose of Education in America
today is not education it is
indoctrination in internationalism in
collectivism and in atheism and they're
doing a wonderful job they have to
destroy the United States Constitution
and our way of life and they've got to
do so in such a way that will actually
embrace it you have to get a hold of the
minds of a young why