On the 'Trilateral Commission'

Howard Zinn on military spending in 1970:

By 1970, the U.S. military budget was $80 billion and the corporations involved in military production were making fortunes. Two-thirds of the 40 billion spent on weapons systems was going to twelve or fifteen giant industrial corporations, whose main reason for existence was to fulfill government military contracts. Senator Paul Douglass, an economist and chairman of the Joint Economic Committee of the Senate, noted that "six-sevenths of these contracts are not competitive. . . . In the alleged interest of secrecy, the government picks a company and draws up a contract in more or less secret negotiations."

Meanwhile, the United States, giving economic aid to certain countries, was creating a network of American corporate control over the globe, and building its political influence over the countries it aided. The Marshall Plan of 1948, which gave $16 billion in economic aid to Western European countries in four years, had an economic aim: to build up markets for "carrying out ... a policy of relief and reconstruction today chiefly as a matter of national self-interest." [2]

To explore relationships, search on:

Nixon and Cheney
Nixon and Rumsfeld
Nixon and Weinberger
Nixon and Carlucci
Nixon and Wolfowitz
Nixon, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Weinberger and Carlucci

A Nixon-Rumsfeld tape:

On this tape Rumsfeld is heard making several acknowledgments, such as ``yes'' and ``that's right'' as Nixon rambles on about African and American blacks. The comments, which were racist, and Rumsfeld's part in the conversations, can be read here:[3][4]

The Council for a Livable World critiques the 2002 plan for a U.S. missile system:

However, the Council argues that Rumsfeld's logic and history are incomplete at best, and misleading at worst. There have been a number of Pentagon weapons programs started and later abandoned because they were over cost, behind schedule or underperforming -- and sometimes all three -- including the Crusader mobile artillery piece and the A-12 aircraft.

President Richard Nixon followed the Rumsfeld model and wasted more than $25 billion on a Safeguard national missile defense system that was quickly abandoned.

...Safeguard missile defense is the model this Administration is following. In 1974, the United States deployed 100 missile interceptors at Grand Forks, North Dakota, the last deployed missile defense system. In that case, just like the present situation, the Nixon Administration determined that it was better to do something than nothing. However, within months of Safeguard's deployment, it was deactivated. The radars were vulnerable and the system could be overcome by decoys and countermeasures. Sometimes doing nothing is better than doing something wasteful. Defense Secretaries acted on that basis to kill the Crusader and the A-12. Refusing to heed that lesson cost more than $25 billion (in today's dollars) for the inadequate Safeguard system. [5]

What was Rumsfeld's role in the Nixon Administration?

When Congress began to call for Richard Nixon's impeachment, however, Rumsfeld -- who actually had his own little plumbers-type unit at the Office of Economic Opportunity in 1969, charged with sniffing out "revolutionaries" who might disburse federal funds to "subversives" -- offered to resign and help the beleaguered president fight for survival. (Nixon declined.)

At the time, some held that if Nixon had tilted more towards Rumsfeld and Robert Finch earlier on, rather than Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, the president might have avoided Watergate entirely. But if Haldeman's diaries are any indicator, Nixon found Rumsfeld to be admirably Machiavellian. On May 21, 1970, as Nixon was fuming about disloyalty in the cabinet and contemplating a purge, Rumsfeld pointed out that a record of trying to work things out with the recalcitrant secretaries had to be established before firing them. The next line in Haldeman's entry: "[Nixon] Wants Don Rumsfeld brought more into the inner councils."

[And later, in the Ford administration]... Consensus, Osborne wrote, was that the Rummy might know a bit more than he let on: "Rumsfeld, who hoped in 1974 that he would be Mr. Ford's choice for appointment to the vice presidency, professes to hold Nelson Rockefeller in the highest esteem and to have no designs on the 1976 nomination [but] Rockefeller and his principal assistants are aware that Rumsfeld and his deputy Richard Cheney are actually running the President's pre-nomination campaign and that Callaway gets most of his orders from them."

As such, no one had heard an "expression of admiration and affection for Donald Rumsfeld in Nelson Rockefeller's vicinity." By fall of 1975, Rockefeller was out as the 1976 vice presidential nominee. By this time, Rumsfeld was concentrating on taking out another target: Henry Kissinger. [6]

People have noted the striking similarities between Nixon's approach and Cheney's:

According to the History News Network Web site, "When Nixon was forced from office, Cheney helped Vice President Ford make the transition to the Oval Office and in 1975, Cheney became President Ford's White House chief of staff."

When we look at the dates, I think the Reality becomes clear: when Richard Nixon left office, he turned into Dick Cheney.

[Note: Rumsfeld was there too; he held the post of Chief of Staff of the White House and Chairman of the Transition to the Presidency of Gerald Ford, and Cheney was his deputy.

Cheney had first served under Rumsfeld in the anti-poverty agency of the Nixon years (as did Frank Carlucci), on the Nixon White House staff and again as assistant director of the Cost of Living Council.]

Consider the evidence: according to [John] Dean, who ought to know, the Bush-Cheney presidency seeks to enhance the powers of the presidency and decrease those of Congress; it was only because of that little Watergate blunder that Congress was able to regain its power under Nixon. Cheney, in the style of Nixon, "seeks to place a blanket freeze on information." If the war on Iraq reminded anyone of Vietnam, it's because Nixon, (who, as Dean points out, kept ratcheting up the Vietnam War while Congress wasn't in session) clearly is Cheney and was the architect of both. The Patriot Act, people being held without trial: pure Nixon.[7]

More on how Cheney's present policies were informed by his days in the Nixon Whitehouse:

Not since Richard Nixon's presidency have the powers of Congress been in greater jeopardy. Not only is the Bush White House seeking to expand presidential powers at the expense of Congress, but the conservative gang of five on the U.S. Supreme Court are busy trimming congressional powers directly.

Clearly, Vice President Dick Cheney is the force behind the White House's effort to enhance presidential power, and limit the powers of those on Capitol Hill. ... Indeed, Cheney has all but admitted the point. "In thirty-four years, I have repeatedly seen an erosion of the powers and the ability of the president of the United States to do his job," Cheney told ABC's "This Week" in January 2002.

His reference to "thirty-four years" is quite clear. About thirty-four years ago, in 1969, Dick Cheney joined the Nixon Administration - serving in a number of positions at the Cost of Living Council, and later the Office of Economic Opportunity. When Nixon was forced from office, Cheney helped Vice President Ford make the transition to the Oval Office and in 1975, Cheney became President Ford's White House chief of staff.

Cheney's reference to the erosion of presidential powers thus appears to relate to the Nixon presidency and Watergate, and then to the Reagan presidency and Iran-contra. Accordingly, one might at first wonder if he was referring to the Independent Counsel Law. But that law has expired. So while no law eroded presidential powers more, nor made it more difficult for the president to do his job, than the Independent Counsel law, that law cannot be Cheney's target. [8]

Cheney's defiant refusal, in the aftermath of the Enron scandal, to reveal the names of the energy industry lobbyists he met with while planning the Bush administration's energy policy is reminiscent of Nixon's refusal to turn tapes over to Congress. [9] And then there was the dismissal of the lawsuit against Cheney, which would have required him to reveal the names. An article in Counterpunch, entitled 'Nixon Redux', alleges a 'Nixonian coverup':

The dismissal of the General Accounting Office lawsuit against Vice President Dick Cheney is just another example of the veil of secrecy that permeates within the Bush administration and is a grim reminder of the dark days of former President Richard Nixon, who openly defied Congress during the investigation into Watergate.[10]

Connecting the dots between Nixon and Reagan Administrations:

PNAC signatory Richard V. Allen served on President Richard Nixon's foreign security staff. He resigned from government to join Overseas Companies of Portugal where he became the Washington advocate for white rule in South Africa. He later became involved in the Robert Vesco investment scandal. Allen became President Reagan's first National Security Adviser and in that position was a core member of the group that shaped foreign policy for the administration. Over a series of rather murky events that again tarnished his image, Allen lost his job as National Security Adviser. However, he remained in the administration as a member of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. [12]

Also, and perhaps more importantly, Allen was a founding member of the Committee on the Present Danger (CPD).

Enthusiasm for Reagan among the CPD Republicans was never in doubt. Richard Allen, who would first become Reagan's chieft foreign adviser and the head of the Office of National Security, worked closely with Reagan from the Committee's beginnings. As a founding member of the CPD, Allen was instrumental in bridging the distance between traditional Republican conservatives and the neoconservative Democrats.

... In all, during the campaign and transition process, forty-six CPD members served on the Reagan advisory task force. At the core of this group shaping the Reagan foreign and military policy, in addition to PNAC signatory Allen and PNAC signatory [Jeanne] Kirkpatrick, were CPD and Team B members William Van Cleave and Richard Pipes. They in turn were joined by Daniel Graham and Seymour Weiss from the B team. Still other died-in-the-wool hawks in Reagan's entourage included Lt Gerneral Edward Rowny who resigned from SALT II negotiations in protest and now spoke openly of engaging the Russians in an arms race... - Jerry Sanders, Peddlers of Crisis: The Committee on the Present Danger and the Politics of Containment (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1983), pages 282-83

For more on William Van Cleave, see George W Bush/VanCleave and Reagan/VanCleave and Ford/VanCleave. For more on Richard Allen, see Reagan/Allen1, Reagan/Allen2, and GWBush/Allen and Signatories/Allen. For more on Jeanne Kirkpatrick, see Signatories/Kirkpatrick

Lloyd Bentsen