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direction.”
After a bitter Primary fight between the two, Reagan chose Bush to be his Vice Presidential
running mate, over the likes of Rep. Philip Crane from Illinois, and Sen. Jack Kemp from New
York. Reagan had originally wanted former President Ford to be his Vice-President, however,
Ford wanted the power to appoint people to the National Security Council and the Cabinet. He
also wanted to prepare “position papers” on foreign policy matters. This situation would have
been almost like a co-Presidency, making Reagan more of a figurehead, which he refused to be,
so his only other option was Bush.
Manchester Union Leader publisher William Loeb made the Commission a campaign issue
during the New Hampshire Primary by saying: “It is quite clear that this group of extremely
powerful men is out to control the world.” He accused them of advocating a “world order in
which multinational corporations ... can thrive without worrying about so-called national
interests.” During the campaign, Reagan attacked Carter’s ties to David Rockefeller, and other
Trilateral financiers; while Edwin Meese, a Reagan advisor, said that Trilateral influence was
responsible for a “softening of defense.”
Although Reagan appeared to be anti-Commission, it was only a front. Reagan’s Campaign
Manager, William J. Casey (former Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who
Reagan later appointed as Director of the CIA) was a Trilateralist. His campaign was controlled
by such Trilateralists as David Packard, George H. Weyerhaeuser, Bill Brock, Anne Armstrong,
Philip M. Hawley, William A. Hewitt, Caspar Weinberger, and others who were CFR members.
Reagan had the personal support of David Rockefeller, and belonged to the elitist Bohemian
Grove Club in Northern California.
The Bohemian Grove is the site of an annual two-week (including the 3 weekends) summer
retreat on a 2,700 acre redwood estate about 75 miles north of San Francisco (near the town of
Monte Rio), along the Russian River. It was established in 1872 by five reporters of the San
Francisco Examiner as a social club “to help elevate journalism to that place in the popular
estimation to which it is entitled.” By 1878, when the first Grove-fest took place, reporters were
being pushed out. Newsweek (August 2, 1982) called it “…the world’s most prestigious summer
camp.” There is a $2,500 initiation fee, and annual dues of $600. Nearly every Republican
President since Calvin Coolidge has been a member of this conservative clan. President Herbert
Hoover called it the “greatest men’s party on Earth.” Among its 2,000 members are other high
level government officials, and the very elite of America’s corporate power, who sit on a variety
of organizations such as the Trilateral Commission, CFR, and the Committee for Economic
Development.
Among their members: Alexander Haig, Caspar Weinberger, Richard Nixon, Henry
Kissinger, George P. Shultz, Newt Gingrich, Stephen Bechtel, Jr., Alan Greenspan, Gerald R.
Ford, Jack Kemp, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Colin Powell, William F. Buckley, Jr., Merv Griffin,
Joseph Coors, Edward Teller, Malcolm Forbes, Ronald Reagan, A. W. Clausen, George H. W.
Bush, William French Smith, Richard Cheney, and William E. Simon.
They “own 25-30% of all privately held wealth in America, own 60-70% of the privately
held corporate wealth ... direct the large corporations and foundations, and dominate the federal
government in Washington.” The bottom line, is that it is “one of the most influential meetings
of the powers-that-be,” and a setting for policy-making on specific issues; and not the all-male
social club they purport to be.
It has been said that the Manhattan Project (which created the first atomic bomb) was first
discussed at the Grove. One of the few stories to emerge was about a 1967 agreement by Ronald