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held in personal trusts, the family also holds stock in numerous companies.
Some of their major holdings: Chase Manhattan Bank, American Telephone & Telegraph
(AT & T), Eastman Kodak, IBM, General Electric, Texas Instruments, Xerox, Minnesota Mining
and Manufacturing, Monsanto Chemical, Aluminum Co. of America (Alcoa), Armour,
Bethlehem Steel, Chrysler, DuPont, General Motors, International Paper, Polaroid, Sears and
Roebuck, Standard Oil of California (Chevron), Standard Oil of New York (Mobil), Standard Oil
of Indiana, U.S. Steel, International Basic Economy Corp., International Harvester, Quaker Oats,
Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel, Itek, Federated Department Stores, Walgreen Stores,
Transcontinental Gas Pipeline, Consolidated Edison, Anaconda Copper Co., General Foods, Pan
American World Airways, Colgate-Palmolive, E. I. du Pont de Nemours, W. R. Grace, Inc.,
Corning Glass Works, Owens Corning Fiberglass, Cummins Engine, Hewlett-Packard, R. R.
Donnelly and Son, Dow Chemical, Teledyne, Inc., Warner-Lambert, Westinghouse, International
Telephone and Telegraph (IT & T), Motorola, S. S. Kresge, Texaco, National Cash Register,
Avon, American Home Products, Delta Airlines, Braniff Airlines, Northwest Airlines, United
Airlines, and Burlington Industries.
The financial core of the family fortune included the Chase Manhattan Bank, Citicorp (which
grew out of the Rockefeller-controlled First National City Bank), the Chemical Bank of New
York, First National Bank of Chicago, Metropolitan Equitable, and New York Mutual Life
Insurance. By the 1970’s, Rockefeller-controlled banks accounted for about 25% of all assets of
the 50 largest commercial banks in the country, and about 30% of all assets of the 50 largest life
insurance companies.
The Chase Manhattan Bank, however, remains the supreme symbol of Rockefeller
domination. Founded in 1877 by John Thompson, the Chase National Bank was named after
Salmon P. Chase (Lincoln’s Secretary of Treasury). It was taken over by the Rockefellers in a
merger with their Equitable Trust Co., whose President was Winthrop Aldrich, son of Sen.
Nelson Aldrich. In 1955, it merged with the Bank of Manhattan (which had been controlled by
Warburg; and Kuhn, Loeb and Co), the oldest banking operation in America (founded in 1799 by
Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr), which had 67 branches in New York, and $1.6 billion in
assets. Although it was only the sixth largest bank (over $98,000,000 in assets), it was the most
powerful.
In 1961, the Chase Manhattan Bank Plaza was built in downtown Manhattan, at a cost of
$125,000,000. It is 64 stories high, with five basement floors, the lowest of which contains the
largest bank vault in the world.
They had 28 foreign branches, and over 50,000 banking offices in more than 50 countries,
and had a controlling interest in many of the largest corporations in America. Some of those that
were listed in the Patman Report: American National Bank and Trust, Safeway Stores, Reynolds
Metals, White Cross Stores, J. C. Penney, Northwest Airlines, Eastern Airlines, TWA, Pan
American World Airways, Western Airlines, Consolidated Freightways, Roadway Express,
Ryder, Wyandotte Chemicals, Armstrong Rubber, A. H. Robins, G. D. Searle, Sunbeam,
Beckman Instruments, Texas Instruments, Sperry Rand, Boeing, Diebold, Cummins Engine,
Bausch and Lomb, CBS-TV, International Basic Economy Corp., Addressograph-Multigraph,
Aetna Life, American General Insurance Co., Allegheny-Ludlum Steel, National Steel.
Men from the Chase Manhattan’s Board of Directors have also sat on the Boards of many of
the largest corporations, which have created a system of interlocking directorates. Some of these
have been: Allegheny-Ludlum Steel, U.S. Steel, Metropolitan Life, Travelers Insurance,
Continental Insurance, Equitable Life Assurance, General Foods, Chrysler Corp., Standard Oil of