A Culture of Conspiracy. Michael Barkun

parts, in terms of both organizations and individuals. This push to identify the conspirators has bifurcated into a modest approach, in which the conspiracy is identified with a single organization, and an ambitious approach, in which the conspiracy operates through a network of linked organizations. The ambitious versions, referred to here as superconspiracies, appear to be proliferating, driving out or absorbing the simpler plots.

      The modest version of conspiracy theory concentrates on one or two well-defined groups, whose individual members are identifiable. Most commonly, the groups selected are composed of elites such as the Council on Foreign Relations or the Trilateral Commission. They have only slightly overlapping memberships, but the involvement of the Rockefeller family in both has made them attractive targets.

      The Council on Foreign Relations—by far the better known of the two—is particularly identified with its influential publication, Foreign Affairs. The council was organized in 1921, “dedicated to increasing America’s understanding of the world and contributing ideas to U.S. foreign policy.” At the time, isolationist sentiment was strong, especially in the Midwest. In reaction to World War I and the establishment of the League of Nations, many Americans sought to reduce if not eliminate American involvement in conflicts outside the United States. Those who by conviction or need felt that American national interests were bound up with the rest of the world were concentrated in eastern urban centers. Seeking ways to shape American foreign policy, these internationalists founded the council. The sons of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., with far-flung business ventures and deep personal commitments to international cooperation, were catalysts in its establishment, as they were later with the Trilateral Commission. Anti-internationalists frequently characterized their adversaries as part of an eastern “elite” conspiracy—a stereotype to which the Rockefeller family’s international business activities lent themselves.¹

      An even stronger current of antielitism drives hostility toward the Trilateral Commission. This commission was itself a by-product of an older elite group, the Bilderbergers, founded in 1952 to bring together European and American political and business leaders. Between 1954 and 1978, slightly more than nine hundred people attended the Bilderbergers’ closed meetings, whose aim was to develop common transatlantic policies. By the early 1970s, some within the Bilderberg group felt the need to reinvigorate their efforts in response to the economic rise of Japan (excluded from Bilderberg) and European opposition to President Richard Nixon’s foreign and economic policies. The Trilateral Commission was organized in 1972, under the leadership of David Rockefeller, with members drawn from not only the Bilderberg group but also academic, business, and governmental institutions.²

      The prospect of identifying a list of names of the true rulers of the world is heady stuff for conspiracists. John McManus, president of the John Birch Society, calls Council on Foreign Relations and Trilateral Commission members “Architects of the New World Order” and devotes one-fifth of his book The Insiders to membership lists. Interestingly, McManus omits the names of the Trilateral Commission’s European and Japanese members, implying that they are mere tools of their American colleagues. Larry Abraham’s Call It Conspiracy also includes a Council on Foreign Relations membership roster—seventeen closely printed pages—and adds charts that graphically depict the conspiracy.³

      Abraham’s diagrams reflect the tendency of conspiracy theorists to think increasingly in terms of complex, interlinked plots. He includes a diagram of the “World Supra-Government,” with the Council on Foreign Relations at its center and an array of spokes that connect to international banks, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, major foundations, the U.S. government’s executive branch, think tanks, major media organizations, and large corporations. While Abraham is clearly of the political right—preoccupied with tales of the communist conspiracy—his suspicion of these institutions is based on antipathy toward wealth and corporate power. People on both the left and the right who share this antipathy have found the Trilateral Commission and similar organizations attractive targets. In addition to laying out the components of the “supragovernment,” Abraham includes an elaborate 1984 chart, attributed to Johnny Stewart of Waco, Texas, titled “The C.F.R./Trilateral Connection.” The same chart, which reappears in many conspiracist works, deconstructs the lists by placing members under such headings as “Media,” “House & Senate CFR / TC Members,” and “U.S. Military.” At the diagram’s pinnacle, flanked by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury, sits David Rockefeller. The implications are clear: although the conspirators are few in number, they have managed to infiltrate and control every significant social institution, so that understanding their evil designs requires, not merely possession of the membership list, but also an appreciation of the complex interconnections. Indeed, Stewart suggests that membership lists alone are misleading, for he points out that some members are merely careerists or have been added for “window dressing,” and thus presumably are not members of the conspiracy.⁴