By Mike Gray
At RenewAmerica, Arlen Williams tells us that an important piece of American history may have been successfully flushed down the memory hole:
[Norman] Dodd emphasizes that beyond the tycoons, it has been the trustees of their foundations, who have sometimes twisted, or taken their original intents, to extremes. These extremes have not diverged, but converged, to support global empire through collectivism. To which foundations did he refer, when he said this? The truth is out there, about so many. Easy money attracts, but just how was it religiously zealous, global Marxists (or those who would exploit them) have so successfully become the ones to seize upon these capitalists’ mega-foundations?
Dodd was hired by a congressional committee in 1953 to investigate the possibly un-American (that is, unconstitutional) influences exercised on United States culture by large tax-exempt foundations; he claims he discovered that their principal aim was—and still is “with 100% of their money”—to gain control of America’s educational establishment, the ultimate goal being “collectivism administered with typical American efficiency.” The fix was in, however, with the committee’s own counsel subverting the investigation at almost every turn—including fabricated charges of bigotry, always a useful liberal-progressive dodge—and nothing ever came of it except an anemic 16-page report that’s been almost completely ignored and which concludes this way:
It seems incredible that the trustees of typically American fortune-created foundations should have permitted them to be used to finance ideas and practices incompatible with the fundamental concepts of our Constitution. Yet there seems evidence that this may have occurred.
The embedded YouTube video (run time: 52 minutes 23 seconds) featuring an interview with Dodd may not be the most scintillating thing you’ll ever see; but if he’s telling it like it really was and is (and that’s by no means certain), then I and possibly you—being products of the American educational system—at some point in our lives have been victimized, at least intellectually.
A question remains, though: If it’s out in the open, can it be called a conspiracy?
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Resources:
Arlen Williams’ RenewAmerica column.
Transcript of the Norman Dodd video interview.
The full text of The Dodd Report to the Reece Committee on Foundations (1954).