This is a 1982 interview with Norman Dodd, who was staff director of the Congressional Special Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations. The Chairman of the Committee was Republican Congressman Caroll Reese. Consequently, the committee became known as the "Reese Commission". Quotations of other persons involved are the best recollection of Mr. Dodd.

Norman Dodd was educated at Andover and Yale. He was employed in various industries before settling into banking with a Morgan bank of New York, which was deemed the most prominent in the country. He observed the '29 Panic and was asked by his superiors, "Norm, what do we do now?" to which Mr. Dodd replied "Find out what you do not know about banking." Mr. Dodd was subsequently asked to do it. He agreed and reported back 2.5 years later. The directors replied, "Norm, what you are saying is we should return to sound banking." Mr. Dodd concurred. They replied, "We will never see sound banking in the United States again. Since the end of Word War I we have been responsible for the institutionalizing of conflicting interests and they are so prevalent inside this country that they can never be resolved."

Mr. Dodd spent a year debating his situation and finally determined to submit his resignation to which the president of the bank, Mr. Cockran replied,

"You are not aware of what has occurred in the last ten days. The directors have never been able to get your report to them out of their mind. … You must reorganize this bank. Can I tear up your letter?"

Mr. Dodd agreed. In a span of six weeks Mr. Dodd was not permitted to do another piece of work. He was told not worry, play golf and tennis and retire on a handsome pension. After a year of doing nothing, Mr. Dodd could no longer stand it, and resigned. He found that "the doors of every bank were closed to me." He became an investment advisor among other things while he endeavored to get the educational world to teach economics realistically.

In 1953 Norman Dodd was appointed Director of Research of the Reese Commission to investigate the activities of tax-exempt foundations to determine if they were un-American. Mr. Dodd defined un-American for the committee as a "Determination to effect changes in the country by unconstitutional means."

In his capacity as Director of Research, Mr. Dodd was invited by Rolland Gaither, president of the Ford Foundation to meet with him to determine what the Reese Committee wanted -- 'Off-the-record'. Mr. Gaither said,

"All of us that have a hand in making policies here have had experience with the OSS during the war or European economic administration after the war. We've had experience operating under directives, and these directives emanate and did emanate from the White House."

"Now we still operate under such directives. … The substance of these directives is that we shall use our grant-making power to alter life in the United States so that it [the United States] can be comfortably merged with the Soviet Union."

Under similar circumstances, Mr. Dodd met with Dr. Joseph Johnson, then president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace for two years, and his council, partners of the law firm Sullivan and Cromwell. Dr. Johnson was the successor to Alger Hiss. Dr. Johnson was concerned that what the Reese Committee was requesting would take them months of research, so he invited Mr. Dodd to have a member of his staff read the minutes of the Endowment for two weeks as a way to placate the Reese Committee. Mr. Dodd agreed.

Mr. Dodd assigned Kathleen Casey to the task. Ms. Casey was a practicing attorney who was on the staff to see to it that the committee did not break any congressional rules. Ms. Casey was unsympathetic to the investigation. Mr. Dodd avoided biasing her in any way, but recommended time periods to investigate. Ms. Casey spoke what she read into a Dictaphone. The Dictaphone belts containing the readings are suspected of being in the congressional archives. The essence of the minutes are as follows:

In 1908 the trustees of the Carniege Endowment for International Peace met for the first time. They raised a very specific question which was discussed throughout the remainder of the year: "Is there any means known more effective than war, assuming that you wish to alter the life of an entire people?" They concluded there was not.

In 1909 a second question was raised; "How do we involve the United States in a war?" The conclusion was: "We must control the State Department, " which begged the question "How do we do this?" The answer: "We must take-over and control the diplomatic machinery of this country."

The United States was subsequently involved in World War I. During the war, the endowment dispatched a telegram to President Wilson asking him to "see that the war did not end too quickly."

After WWI the interest of the endowment shifts to preventing what they call "a reversion of life in the United States to what it was prior to 1914." To do so they concluded: "We must control education in the United States." They imagined this to be too big a task for them and solicited the aid of the Rockerfeller Foundation. The Rockerfeller Foundation agreed it would affect domestic education while the Carniege Endowment affected international education. They agreed that the key to the success of the endeavor lay in the alteration of the teaching of American History. They approached the top four history teachers and were turn-down flat. They then decided to "build our own stable of historians."

To this end the Guggenheim Foundation was approached with the following question: "When we find young men in the process of studying for their doctorates in the field of American History, and we feel they are the right caliber, will you grant them fellowships?" The Guggenheim Foundation agreed.

When twenty such potential teachers of American history were assembled, they were taken to London where they were "briefed as to what is expected of them when, as, and if they secure appointments." This group of twenty became the nucleus of the American Historical Association.

Toward the end of the 1920s, the endowment granted $400K to the association for a study of American history in a manner that points to what the country can look forward to in the future. The result was a seven volume report. The last volume summarized the report: "The future of the country belongs to collectivism administered with characteristic American efficiency."

The Reese Committee was obstructed from the beginning. As the investigation began to uncover a conspiracy among the foundations to control the education of Americans, the Republican National Committee (RNC) used the appointment of Col. Lee Loran, an intelligence officer who had a book in his book case that was deemed "anti-Semitic" as an excuse to stop the hearings. The RNC pushed Reese Committee Council to stop the committee. When that failed, the RNC turned to the White House, which sent the congressional liaison Major Persings to get Wagner Hays, the ranking minority leader to stop the hearings.

Mr. Hays was one of two Democrats on the committee. He was originally opposed to the investigation, because he thought that Congressman Reese was using the committee as platform. Mr. Dodd succeeded in convincing Mr. Hays to support the endeavors of the committee.

Mr. Hays rebuffed the appeals of Major Persings three times. Subsequently, Mr. Hays thought he was being double-crossed by Dodd and blasted Mr. Reese for using the committee for his personal political purposes. The investigation was stopped. Mr. Hays later apologized to Caroll Reese and Norman Dodd, but the investigation was not resumed. The final report of the Reese committee was entitled:

SPECIAL COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE

TAX EXEMPT FOUNDATIONS AND

COMPARABLE ORGANIZATIONS

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

Eighty Third Congress

H. Res. 217

It seems that the original intent of those who funded the foundations was perverted by the trustees. For example, Carnegie was devoted to "counteracting the departure of the colonies from Great Briton." When asked why the foundations generously supported Communist causes in the United State, Mr. Dodd stated that it was "because Communism represented a means of developing a monopoly --of organizing large scale industry into an 'adminstrable unit'-- of which the foundations would be the beneficiaries."

The source of the video tape entitled "The Hidden Agenda of World Government, As Revealed by Norman Dodd, Congressional Investigator of Tax-Exempt Foundations" is

Edward Griffin
American Media
P.O. Box 4646
Westlake, Calif. 91359
805-496-1649

Pamela Fisher of Congressman Cunningham's office in Escondido (737-8438) responded by telephone on or about 10/21/93 to the forgoing letter addressed to Cunningham. She researched the whereabouts of the tapes and referred Bill Holmes to Bill Davis:

Bill Davis
Center for Legislative Archives, Room 8E
National Archives and Records Administration
7th and Pennsylvania Ave. N.W.
Washington D.C. 20408
202-501-5350:

The Reese Committee final report should be found in the Serial Set Index published by the Congressional Information Service and found in Federal depository libraries like the San Diego Library on 820 E. Street, 619-236-5813. There was no mention of tapes in the unpublished inventory of the National Archives concerning the Carniegie Endowment, but will check again for tapes, belts or wire. Access to the inventory is strictly physical (Washington D.C.). Bill Davis later called to report that no tapes, belts or wires could be found in the inventory.

Bill Holmes volunteered to send a copy of the video tape to him, but he asked that it not be sent until he could do further research. Bill later called and said he would send information on how we could gift the tape to the National Archives.

Bill Holmes followed the advice of Mr. Davis and went to the San Diego Library. In the Science section (Patents, Copyrights, etc.) was found a series of indexes to government publications by year. In the subject index of the 1953-56 volumes under "tax-exemption" references to the "Special Committee To Investigate Tax Exempt Foundations And Comparable Organizations" were found:

By looking in the body of the volume for the abstract corresponding to the number, the Congress, session and a brief description of the document and cross-reference numbers are found. If the cross-reference number is like "2681" as it was for 396 (report) above, then go the Serial Set Index Card file (separate cabinet in dusty corner) and find the "call desk reference number," in this case, 11748. Give this number to the "call desk" clerk and the volume will be retrieved in a matter of minutes for you. Y4.T 19/3 : f82/954/pt.2

Additional information: http://www.sourcewatch.org/wiki.phtml?title=Tax-exempt_foundations