Rockefeller – Controlling the Game (16 page)

As always, population was a top priority. Suggestions for domestic policy for stabilisation or reduction of population included contraceptives, abortions, sterilisations; daycare; tax reliefs for singles and childless couples and higher taxes for those with more than three children. For developing nations, suggestions included paramedical personnel providing contraceptives, abortions, and sterilisations; and foreign-aid measures with “an indirect negative effect on fertility” such as education and employment for women.
²⁷⁶

These recommendations were very similar to those presented by the Rockefeller Commission to President Nixon in 1972—which got rejected by the President. This may explain the title.

Similar proposals would return a third time in the
Global 2000 r
eport 1980. The solutions also closely resembled those emerging from the
World Future Society
conference 1975. Conference participants Willis Harman, Lester Brown, and Jay Forrester, had been involved in this project, as well as the consultants Donella Meadows and Carroll L. Wilson.

Assassination Attempts on President Ford

Nelson Rockefeller, who had become Vice President in the Ford Administration after Nixon’s resignation, failed to reach his life goal of becoming President of the United States when Gerald Ford, persuaded by Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, decided to run for office without Nelson in the 1976 elections. The family thereby lost a valuable position in the White House and left Nelson resentful and bitter.

Coincidentally, however, Nelson had been
very
close to having his childhood dream realised through two bisarre assassination attempts and a freak traffic accident.
²⁷⁷

The first incident happened in Sacramento, on September 5, 1975. The perpetrator was 26-year-old Lynnette ‘Squeaky’ Fromme, a member of Charles Manson’s cult The Family. Her motive was to protest the threat of pollution to the redwood trees. Manson (now in prison) had called her ‘Red’ to signify both her red hair and her passion for the redwood trees. Dressed all in red, she aimed an antique .45 caliber Colt at the President when he came out after speaking at the Convention Center. Due to the quick intervention from Secret Service agents, the attempt failed. She received a life sentence but was released after 24 years.

A fascinating coincidence is that Nelson’s father, John D. Rockefeller Jr., had been a strong advocate for the protection of the redwood forests.
²⁷⁸
According to David Rockefeller it was the redwood trees which inspired the family’s long-lasting interest in conservation.
²⁷⁹
As tribute, part of the Humboldt Redwood State Park, containing the world’s largest remaining contiguous old redwoods, was named the Rockefeller Forest in 1952.

Only 17 days later, a left-wing radical and FBI informant, Sara Jane Moore, made another attempt. She was a 45-year-old bookkeeper, fascinated by Patty Hearst (the young heiress who was kidnapped in 1974 by the Symbionese Liberation Army and joined their militant activities). SLA wanted to coordinate the radical left’s activism for feminism, anti-capitalism, and anti-racism, and gather all races, genders, and ages to fight against the fascist capitalist class.
²⁸⁰
Sara’s assignment was to keep an eye on SLA activities. Despite being an FBI informant, one day she was suddenly overcome by a strong impulse to start a revolution. She somehow got hold of a weapon and fired one shot at the President, missed, and was promptly disarmed by an ex-marine during her second attempt. The bullet hit a bystander (who luckily survived). Sara also received a life sentence, but was released after 32 years.

And then, on October 14, a 19-year-old male accidentally smashed into President Ford’s limousine when passing in a motorcade through Hartford, Connecticut. The limousine was, however, well armoured and Ford was shaken but unscathed.

Another curious coincidence is that one of the revelations from Bobo Sears Rockefeller during her divorce from Winthrop in 1954, was that the brothers had used to brainstorm on how to make Nelson President without being elected.
²⁸¹

He knew what he wanted. He wanted to be President of the United States. Knew it early. And I think he felt that the family was there to help him achieve that. (David Rockefeller, 2002)
²⁸²

Family Discord

After Nelson’s failure to reach his goals in politics he was forced to return to the family office at Rockefeller Center, where he found his position as the leader of the family challenged. When trying to resume control over RBF and the family office, a conflict with his eldest brother John D. III and his brother’s children ensued. Nelson wanted to consolidate all power to himself and considered only Laurance, David, and John’s son Jay qualified to lead a reformed family office. The rest were not cut out for the task.

Several of the cousins had also tarnished the family reputation by criticising the brothers in the bestseller
The Rockefellers – An American Dynasty
(1976).
²⁸³
On top of this they had given the authors access to the family’s archives without control of the end result. The book, describing the emergence of the Rockefeller family’s empire, was largely based on interviews with the cousins and came to be genuinely hated by the brothers. The authors predicted a family empire that would crumble; the brothers were ambitious but had flaws, while the cousins were all too mediocre to live up to the legacy of their parents.
²⁸⁴
Some of the cousins had also spoken in negative terms about their “reactionary and unsympathetic” parents.
²⁸⁵
David saw it as “Marxist propaganda” and would work hard for the rest of his life to prove them wrong. The bitterness was still tangible in his memoirs from 2003.

In the ensuing family power struggle, Laurance felt that he had only been temping for Nelson over the last two decades and had no problem handing the reins back to his brother. David also supported Nelson but John thought Nelson had failed and that it was time for David to assume the position as family patriarch. After a few months of bitter conflict, Nelson had to admit defeat and David took over as the leader of the family.
²⁸⁶

Before withdrawing from RBF, Nelson made sure to get his and David’s friend, Henry Kissinger, elected to the board of directors. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate had been one of the family’s most valuable asset and Kissinger’s loyalty paid off both financially (including a personal gift of $50,000 from Nelson in 1969)
²⁸⁷
, and in terms of influence (in 1977 David made him chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank's International Advisory Council and board member of the Council on Foreign Relations). A decade later, when David handed the reins of RBF over to his son and the younger generation, he would praise his old friend:

Henry's guidance, wisdom, and friendship as a member of the board were for me without equal. I am very grateful (David Rockefeller, 1987).
²⁸⁸

Family conflicts subsided when the eldest brother John D. III died in a car accident in July 1978. Nelson himself expired only six months later of a heart attack in the arms of his mistress Megan Marshack.
²⁸⁹
A few years earlier, Winthrop (1973) and Babs (1976) had passed away in cancer.

After Nelson’s death, Henry Kissinger wrote the following of his friend and mentor:

That Nelson Rockefeller is dead is both shattering and nearly inconceivable. One thought him indestructible, so overpowering was he in his energy, warmth and his deep faith in man’s inherent goodness. For twenty-five years, he had been my friend, my older brother, my inspiration and my teacher.
²⁹⁰

Despite the personal conflicts within the family, the family’s control over the White House remained, now primarily through David.
²⁹¹
The Carter Administration was dominated by members from the Trilateral Commission, and Zbigniew Brzezinski became National Security Advisor.

Cyrus Vance, Trilateral and earlier chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation, replaced Kissinger as Secretary of State.

In 1980, David Rockefeller became chairman of RBF, replacing Laurance. John D. Rockefeller's favourite grandchild was now in charge. The following year, David resigned as president of Chase Manhattan Bank to focus his full attention on conservation, population, and the climate. His extensive network of connections with world leaders and global corporations would come in handy. He also continued as chairman of the Trilateral Commission’s North American branch, and as chairman of the International Advisory Committee at Chase Manhattan Bank.

The Global 2000 Report

In May 1980,
The Global 2000 Report to the President
was presented. The report included population trends and resource estimations for the coming two decades. It concluded that global prospects were bleak and in need of firm guidance.
²⁹²
This conclusion – which happened to be right in line with the Rockefeller family’s view on global development – is hardly surprising as the head of the commission behind the report was Gerald O. Barney, study director of RBFs
The Unfinished Agenda
(1977).
²⁹³

Both RBF and Rockefeller Foundation had long-reaching plans for curtailing population growth. Large sums had already been invested in proactive measures in the developing nations and in biomedical research.
²⁹⁴

First Global Conference on the Future

July 24, 1980, in Toronto, Canada, World Future Society organised another groundbreaking futurist conference, the First Global Conference on the Future, sponsored by leading tech companies.
²⁹⁵
Again Graham Molitor was on the planning committee.
²⁹⁶
This futurist conference was international, with around 5,000 delegates from North America, Europe (including the Soviet Union), and developing countries (including China). During the opening session, two groups of futurists were set against each other:

1. A neo-Malthusian group, with Aurelio Peccei from the Club of Rome and Lester Brown from Worldwatch Institute, held the view that the planet’s natural resources would not be able to sustain an ever-increasing population and that a tight regulation therefore was necessary.
   

1. A technophile group, which included Herman Kahn from Hudson Institute (Kahn had been a frequent guest of Nelson Rockefeller’s, who had appreciated his ideas) was more optimistic and thought we had barely started exploiting human ingenuity and capacity for technological innovation.
   

After the session, however, the conference participants unanimously adopted the view of the first group. Thereafter the conference was divided into three themes (similar to the panels in Nelson Rockefeller’s Commission on Critical Choices for Americans):

1. Human Concerns
   (including food, human environments, health, and medicine);
   

1. Global Concerns
   (including population, resources, environmental quality, science and technology);
   

1. Management Concerns
   (including “new economy”, social and institutional change, and Global Governance).
   

Discussions included deforestation, pollution, extinction of animal species, depletion of natural resources, and climate change.

The world was facing massive changes and effective solutions were called for to handle the crisis of complex problems – “
world problematique
” as the Club of Rome called it. There was a need for rational management and a new international order where the environment, resources and social justice would be managed within the framework of a system built around interdependence and a network between the nations.
²⁹⁷

The conference motto was “Think Globally, Act Locally” which became a popular slogan during the coming decade.

In the conference book
Through the ‘80s – Thinking Globally, Acting Locally
, W. Warren Wagar wrote that Technocracy was the highest form of capitalism and predicted its impending implementation.

The most likely scenario for the future involves, therefore, the welding of the governments and business communities of the major industrial powers into a single, more or less monolithic, more or less coordinated system of control that will manage the capitalist world-economy in the twenty-first century.

The executives of the chief multinationals, the department heads of government ministries, and their counterparts in the nominally socialist countries will work together easily and pleasantly, speaking the same language and pursuing the same goals. International councils and commissions, informal networks of technocrats of all kinds will gradually erode national and even corporate authority in their common dedication to a higher cause: The empowerment of the new class itself.
²⁹⁸

W. Warren Wagar (1932–2004) was a historian, futurologist, and the vice-president of the H. G. Wells Society, which was initially created to champion the political ideas proposed by Wells in
The Open Conspiracy
and
The World Brain
.