To most Americans, the idea that
a powerful plutocrat could anoint a president seems rather preposterous, but as
Gary Allen reported in his book Jimmy Carter / Jimmy Carter, that is precisely
how Carter ascended to the presidency.
In the wake of Watergate, the
Rockefeller cabal needed a suitable Democrat replacement since their polling
indicated that a Republican’s chance of election were not much better than a
snowball’s survival in hell.
Their poll results indicated that
a “progressive” southern Democrat sported the best chance of winning the
election, no doubt due to the growing electoral significance of the South, but
also in recognition of the nation’s increasing rightward tilt – at least
rhetorically so.
In 1973 David Rockefeller invited
Florida governor Reubin Askew and Georgia governor Jimmy Carter to his
Tarrytown, New York estate for dinner to discuss the proposition of either one
of them running for president.
Prior to this point, the
Rockefeller controlled media began juicing Carter’s political engines by doing
favorable puff pieces for Carter extolling his New South credentials in order
to make him more palatable to traditional coastal liberals and moderate
Midwesterners.
Allen states that Rockefeller
chose Carter over Askew because the Georgia governor showed much more ruthless
ambition than his southern neighbor. In order to make Carter more pliable, they
maneuvered him into deceiving his banker and friend Bert Lance to shovel bank
depositor funds into Carter’s peanut business which was subsequently deposited
back into the bank to serve as the basis for campaign matching funds.
This illegal campaign fraud would
later envelop Lance when he outlived his usefulness, resulting in his resignation as OMB Director in Carter's first year. Lance was also implicated
in other bank fraud in connection with BCCI in the late 1980s.
Once elected, Carter honored
Rockefeller’s wish to fill his cabinet with Council on Foreign Relations and
Tri Lateral Commission alumni in pursuit of his Grand Design for merging the
USSR and USA into a single political union.
In the end the rightward tilt left threw Carter off his perch with the Iran Hostage Crisis fiasco which happened to be instigated by none other than David Rockefeller.
Reference
An Interview with Gary Allen by John Rees, The Review of the News,
February 27, 1980, http://www.whale.to/b/allen1.htmlCopyright 2013 Tony Bonn. All rights reserved.
