David Rockefeller - Policy Groups

Policy Groups

Throughout his life, Rockefeller has participated in and even created a number of policy groups aimed at responding to domestic and international concerns. In 1947, Rockefeller was invited to join the board of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; serving on the board were such figures as Alger Hiss, John Foster Dulles (chairman), Dwight D. Eisenhower and the president of IBM, Thomas J. Watson. He accepted the prestigious appointment and was subsequently instrumental in relocating the Endowment's headquarters to a site opposite the new United Nations headquarters building, with a Chase Bank branch on the ground floor. In 1967, he formed The Business Committee for the Arts, Inc. (BCA), which is a national not-for-profit based in New York that established the annual Business in the Arts Awards, awarded to businesses who have formed exemplary partnerships with the arts community; this organization is co-sponsored by Forbes Magazine. In 1979, he formed the Partnership for New York City, which is another not-for-profit membership organization consisting of a select group of two hundred CEOs ("Partners") from New York City’s top corporate, investment and entrepreneurial firms. They are elected annually and committed to working closely with government, labor and the nonprofit sector to enhance the economy and maintain New York City’s position as the global center of commerce, culture and innovation. Through its roster of blue-chip corporations, Rockefeller sits at the core of a network of the most powerful and influential businessmen and women in corporate America. In 1992, he was selected as a leading member of the Russian-American Bankers Forum, an advisory group set up by the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to advise Russia on the modernization of its banking system, with the full endorsement of President Boris Yeltsin.

On the world stage, influenced by the globalist perspective of his father, Rockefeller involved himself in a number of policy organizations focused on improving international relations. Rockefeller began a lifelong association with the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) when he joined as a director in 1949, the youngest member appointed to that position yet. He would later become head of the nominating committee for future membership and after that much the chairman of this influential foreign policy think-tank. In 1965, Rockefeller and other businessmen formed the Council of the Americas to stimulate and support economic integration in the Americas. In 1992, at a Council sponsored forum, Rockefeller proposed a "Western Hemisphere free trade area", which subsequently became the Free Trade Area of the Americas in a Miami summit in 1994. His and the Council's chief liaison to President Bill Clinton in order to garner support for this initiative was through Clinton's chief of staff, Mack McLarty, whose consultancy firm Kissinger McLarty Associates is a corporate member of the Council, while McLarty himself is on the board of directors.

Displeased with the failure of the Council on Foreign Relations to include Japan, Rockefeller helped found the Trilateral Commission in July 1973. Zbigniew Brzezinski, the National Security Advisor under Carter and fierce advocate for international cooperation, became the inaugural United States director. Perhaps the most important aspect of the Commission is their commitment to facilitating high-level international dialogue.

The Commission came under media scrutiny when it was later disclosed that Carter appointed 26 former Commission members (who must resign before taking up government positions) to senior positions in his Administration. Moreover, it also came out that Carter himself was a former Trilateral member. (The Clinton Administration, by contrast, had close to a dozen Commission members, including Clinton himself; both Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush has consulted the think tank). Addressing this and other claims proffered by traditional media, far-left and -right academics, and many conspiracy theorists, in Rockefeller's 2002 autobiography "Memoirs" he wrote: "For more than a century ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents such as my encounter with Castro to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as internationalists and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure — one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it."