In the election year of 1976, Jimmy Carter ran a .successfulcampaign for the presidency which was based on his image as an anti-establishment, peanut-farming, ex-governor of the state of Georgia. Yet, since the fall of 1973, Carter had been associated with David Rockefeller and other members of an international power elite through his association with the Trilateral Commission, one of Rockefeller’s many policy-making organizations. While this side of Carter’s background was almost totally ignored by the mass media, the American. public was fully informed about his peanut-farming activities, the Playboy interview, and Amy’s lemonade stand. According to the Italian publication Europa, as cited in The Review of The News, Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski, a founding director of the Trilateral Commission (TLC), had agreed on Carter’s potential as our next president as far back as 1970. Supportive of Carter’s close relationship with this little-known power elite is the fact that many members of his administration have been drawn from the membership rolls of the TLC. These include: Cyrus Vance, Secretary of State; Brzezinski, National Security Adviser; W. Michael Blumenthal, Secretary of Treasury; Harold Brown, Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs; Warren Christopher, Deputy Secretary of State; Richard N. Cooper, Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs; Andrew Young, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations; and C. Fred Bergsten, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Economic Affairs. Carter’s personal choice for vice president, Walter Mondale, is also .a member of the TLC. The virtual blackout of information available to the public through the mass media concerning the relationships between Jimmy Carter, David Rockefeller, and the Trilateral Commission qualifies this story for nomination as a “best censored” story.
SOURCES:
- The Crisis of Democracy, Michael Crozier, Samuel P. Huntington, Joji Watanuki, “Report on the Governability of Democracies to the Trilateral Commission;” published by New York University Press, 1975.
- Seven Days, February 14, 1977: “From the folks who brought us light at the end of the tunnel” by William Minter, and “Trilateral RX for crisis: governability yes, democracy no” by Noam Chomsky.
- The Review of the News, August 18, 1976.
- The Berkeley Barb, Gar Smith, July 30, 1976.
- Jimmy Carter / Jimmy Carter, Gary Allen; published by ’76 Press, P.O. Box 2686P Seal Beach, California 90740, 1976.
- American Opinion, “Carter Brings Forth a Cabinet,” by Gary Allen, Feb.’77.
- San Francisco Examiner, December 12, 1976 , by W.E. Barnes, political analyst
- New York, December 13, 1976, “Carter’s Little Kissingers,” by Aaron Latham.
- Time, December 20, 1976.
- In These Times, February 2, 1977.