Christian Right: Who’s the Man Behind the Curtain?
June 15th, 2005 | by Tom Harper |Wayne Madsen is an investigative journalist based in Washington, D.C. This post is taken from his article entitled Exposé: The "Christian" Mafia. The subtitle is “Where Those Who Now Run the U.S. Government Came From and Where They Are Taking Us.”
No matter how jaded or cynical you are, you’ll still be jolted by this exposé (at least I hope so). And thanks to The Lookout for showing me this site.
This article is very long, and Madsen has kind of a rambling, zigzagging style (to put it kindly). But it’s well worth reading; the site should be bookmarked. This post is only a brief summary.
His article begins with:
…I can now report on a criminal conspiracy so vast and monstrous it defies imagination. Using ‘Christian’ groups as tax-exempt and cleverly camouflaged covers, wealthy right-wing businessmen and ‘clergy’ have now assumed firm control over the biggest prize of all — the government of the United States of America.”
Don’t worry, it gets even gloomier.
The entire legislative branch of the U.S. government is controlled by a powerful, very secretive cult known as The Fellowship (they’re also known as The Family among other names). Wayne Madsen says “Jesus is used to justify the Fellowship’s access to the highest levels of government and business in the same way Santa Claus entices children into department stores and malls during the Christmas shopping season.”
The Fellowship has been around since 1935, under various names. To increase the stealth factor, it’s organized into lots of small cells. Sounds kind of like al Qaeda.
Archives of The Fellowship are maintained at the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College in Illinois. The group began in the 1930s with a Methodist Minister named Abraham Vereide. Vereide had a strong anti-Socialist, anti-union, pro-Nazi Germany agenda, but he concealed it behind his ministry. Secrecy was the highest priority. He wanted this movement to “carry out its objective through personal, trusting, informal, unpublicized contact between people.”
Just as James Dobson’s Ph.D. is in psychology rather than Divinity, Abraham Vereide’s main influence was German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. One of Nietzsche’s observations about Christianity was: “When we hear the ancient bells growling on a Sunday morning we ask ourselves: Is it really possible! This, for a Jew, crucified two thousand years ago, who said he was God’s son? The proof of such a claim is lacking.”
Two other influences on Vereide were Nazi philosopher Martin Heidegger and his colleague, Leo Strauss. Strauss is father of American neo-conservatism and the mentor of Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. Strauss had to flee Nazi Germany because of being Jewish. He emigrated to the United States and began teaching political science at the University of Chicago.
Strauss and Vereide formed the bridge that joined secular ultra-rightwing groups with various Christian sects, including the Dominionists.
Prior to World War II, the so-called America First groups were united in their hatred of labor unions and all other forms of Socialism. More than anything, they hated President Franklin Roosevelt. Vereide’s “ministry,” various pro-Nazi groups and a resurgent Ku Klux Klan all had an interlocking leadership and a coordinated political agenda.
Another pre-World War II organization was the Moral Rearmament Group, led by Frank Buchman. They were another alliance of the pro-Nazi and Christian Fundamentalist movements. This group was posing as a pacifist organization, but their real agenda was to persuade political leaders in America, Britain, Norway and South Africa to accept Hitler’s conquest. Then, after Hitler’s victory, everyone would unite and take up arms against all of the Communist and Socialist movements of the world.
There was very tight coordination between Frank Buchman’s Moral Rearmament Group and Abraham Vereide’s ministry.
Shortly after Franklin Roosevelt’s election to the White House in 1932, some wealthy Republican industrialists approached a Marine Corps general about the idea of overthrowing the United States government. Hiding behind a Christian Evangelical façade, the industrialists stirred up the idea of Roosevelt as an anti-Christ. This coup would be financed mostly by Du Pont and J.P. Morgan. The plan was to force Roosevelt to announce that he was too sick from polio to continue as an effective leader. He would create a new cabinet position, the Secretary of General Affairs. This cabinet position would be the real position of power; and the Secretary of General Affairs would abolish all programs connected with the New Deal.
One of the planners of the coup, a Wall Street bond salesman, told the Marine general “You know the American people will swallow that. We have got the newspapers. We will start a campaign that the President’s health is failing. Everyone can tell that by looking at him, and the dumb American people will fall for it in a second.”
The Marine general rejected the idea. He reported this plot to Congress, but he was dismissed as a crackpot; no investigation was ever held.
Harry Truman had some vague past connections with Frank Buchman. He frantically downplayed these connections in 1944 when he was selected as FDR’s Vice President.
In 1942 Vereide began holding discreet prayer breakfast meetings for the House of Representatives; he began making further inroads into Congress from there.
When Harry Truman took over the White House after FDR’s death, he announced that the New Deal would remain intact (although he renamed it the Fair Deal). The religious Fundamentalist / anti-Communist coalition pulled out all the stops in their attacks against Truman. They accused Truman of having Communists embedded in his administration. This gave Senator Joseph McCarthy a vehicle for his demagoguery, which became the infamous McCarthyism of the 1950s.
It was because of pressure from this rightwing coalition that Truman consolidated already-existing agencies to form the Central Intelligence Agency. Ironically, many Republicans at that time were appalled at the idea of a federal government agency having so much power and secrecy.
By this time the civil rights movement was starting to take hold, and Buchman and Vereide fought it with every “Christian” gimmick they could come up with. They became experts at finding Biblical passages to prove that God was the original segregationist.
Another major player was a Republican senator from Maine, Ralph Owen Brewster. Brewster was a Ku Klux Klan member, and the KKK played a large role in getting him into the Senate. (Brewster was played by Alan Alda in the movie “The Aviator.”)
Prescott Bush (father of George Herbert Walker Bush; grandfather of W) and his father-in-law, George Herbert Walker, were a bridge between Nazi Germany and several large American banks and investment companies. (What is it about bluebloods and recycling the same five names over and over and over?) Close ties were formed between the Bush family, several oil companies and the CIA.
In 1968, a powerful coalition of Big Business and Christian Fundamentalists pushed for the presidential nomination of Ronald Reagan over the more liberal Richard Nixon. They suffered a temporary setback, but came back with a vengeance in 1980.
Beginning in the late 1940s, Vereide worked closely with Senator Strom Thurmond. Their strategy was to Evangelize large numbers of poor whites all across the South. For Vereide, this was a chance to spread his brand of Christianity-meets-Big Business. For Thurmond, it provided power and a “Christian” camouflage for his pro-segregation anti-civil-rights agenda.
In the 1950s Frank Buchman tried to play down his past Nazi ties, and turned his attention toward Asia in general, and Korea in particular. He began working with a Korean Presbyterian minister, Sun Myung Moon. They quickly became allies, realizing that they both dreamed of a worldwide rightwing government with a Christian façade. He helped the Reverend Moon establish the Unification Church. And the Moonies were born!
By the late 1950s Vereide had established hundreds of “ministries” all over the U.S., Europe, Latin America and Asia. For some reason, the countries where his “ministries” were the most active were the same countries where the CIA was the busiest with their espionage and “destabilizing” activities. Coincidence?
The CIA became very skillful at recruiting ministers and businessmen to do the tasks that the CIA itself was barred from by international law.
During the late 1950s and early ‘60s, most of the colonies in Asia and Africa achieved independence from their European colonizers. This created millions of potential converts for Abraham Vereide’s brand of “Christianity.”
The Presidential Prayer Breakfast has been an annual event since 1953. (At some point it got renamed the National Prayer Breakfast.) Billy Graham became a regular fixture at this event. But the event was established by Vereide; it gave his movement a cloak of legitimacy and an even stronger foothold in the highest circles of American government, business and the “church” establishment.
One of the 1972 Watergate tapes contained this conversation between Richard Nixon, Billy Graham and Nixon’s Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman:
Graham: “This [Jewish] stranglehold has got to be broken or the country’s going down the drain.”
Nixon: “You believe that?”
Graham: “Yes, sir.”
Nixon: “Oh, boy. So do I. I can’t ever say that but I believe it.”
Graham: “No, but if you get elected a second time, then we might be able to do something.”
————
Graham: “By the way, Hedley Donovan has invited me to have lunch with [the Time Magazine] editors.”
Haldeman: “You better take your Jewish beanie.”
Graham: “Is that right? I don’t know any of them now . . .A lot of Jews are great friends of mine . . .They swarm around me and are friendly with me because they know that I’m friendly with Israel. But they don’t know how I really feel about what they are doing to this country.”
Nixon: “You must not let them know.”
Another Watergate conspirator and Nixon’s all-around dirty trickster, Charles Colson, was an active member of the Fellowship. Colson hasn’t been in the news much since Watergate, but his work was just beginning. I’ll let Wayne Madsen show you how the Watergate era is connected to our present situation:
Although Nixon would later come to distrust the Fellowship, one of his closest confidants, Charles Colson, would become one of the key figures in the group. Colson served time in jail as a result of his involvement in the Watergate scandal. He would later re-emerge ‘born again’ and serve as a covert adviser to the very same elements who would propel George W. Bush into office as President. No longer would the Fellowship have a paranoid, moderate Republican like Nixon or corny, superficially Christians like Reagan or George H. W. Bush in the White House. For the Fellowship, Nixon, Reagan and the first Bush served their purposes but they were not true believers. In their minds, after an unsuccessful coup against Roosevelt and war with their brethren in Germany; the uncooperative and “left leaning” administrations of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson; a paranoid administration in Nixon; a transitional Gerald Ford; a born again Christian anomaly in Jimmy Carter; partial entrees to power with Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush; and absolute disgust with Bill Clinton, the Fellowship believed it was God’s will that they would have one of their very own core members wielding power in the Oval Office and carrying out God’s (the Fellowship’s) dictates. In George W. Bush, who had been indoctrinated into the total submission to Jesus (the Fellowship) after his involvement with alcohol and drugs, fundamentalists would not only be able to remake the United States but, indeed, the entire world.”
Whew! And here we are. Don’t miss the next exciting episode! Coming in November of 2008: The Sequel.
Cross-posted at Who Hijacked Our Country
28 Responses to “Christian Right: Who’s the Man Behind the Curtain?”
By Brother Kenya on Jun 15, 2005 | Reply
Holy shit! It’s positively Shakespearean. I’ll tell you this, though; I am in such trouble if they ever do take over completely…
Excellent work, Tom. Really eye-opening.
By pia on Jun 15, 2005 | Reply
Amazing wonderful post Tom. One I wish that I had written, but as an almost practicing Jew would have probably been accused of distorting facts to suit my agenda.
“Father Coughlin,” heard of him all my life and his ant-semitic radio show that was largely taken as gospel by many people.
I could talk about every point in depth but…
One thing I did scan through Wayne Madsen’s essay–plan to read it in more depth later. He talks about how W was in Christian rehab during Dubaya: the missing Guard time. I was just thinking about that last night and wondering why nobody makes a big deal of it, yet people still talk about John Kerry’s college record.
While I believe that this is the land of second chances, why do we let W get away with things that people on the right would never ever let a Democrat get away with?
Again thanks Tom, this was positively riveting.
By TheChosenOne on Jun 15, 2005 | Reply
Haven’t read such good comedy in a long, long time. Made me laugh so hard I’m crying! Can’t wait until you come up with more!
By piapia on Jun 15, 2005 | Reply
Try reading history books and magazines, you who believe you were chosen, might do you some good!
By Billion Year Old Carbon on Jun 15, 2005 | Reply
Its not that I don’t believe that this is some what plausible because there is a string of historical events, the real question is are they tied together, sure there where Nazi rallies in America before we entered the war my grand parents from Clifton, NJ and some of their freinds actually witnessed this as children. as one of their friends put it ,”My father and I went down to the lake and they had this big rally going on, my father turned to me and said well thats the last time we’re coming here.
And yesthe CIA has been known to use missionaries as cover just as they have been known to use criminals for one specific reason these are the people who know the terrain and can get around law enforcment in their specific area, if a buddist monk could help accomplissh an objective they will use him too, christian missionaries are convienient because they are operating all over the world and are not assumed to be interested in conflict.
Of course ther is an element in our society that would like to use the word of scripture to control the masses that is what it is most often used for when politicians and preachers collide, and yes Max Weber made the connection between christianity and capitalism a long time ago, but I am not buying this story as a broad conspiracy prpetrated by Odessa type organizations mixed in with christian fundies. Like I said it looks plausible in some facets but in other ways it looks like a bunch of events that have been stung together for the authors purposes.
And to give you an example of how things like this occur there is a vast belief among conspiracy nuts on the other side that Al Gore, General John B. Alexander, and Bill Clintion, are members of the Illuminate, trying to bring about a New world Order through the United Nations.
Infact if you read the $25,000 study that our airforce commisioned on teleportation(which some kid must have put together in his basement) it makes reference to this in the fourth chapter.
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technovel_teleport_041103.html
There are all camps of thought working on all sides of the equation all the time, and no one dominates for more than a few years we will be O.K. Try not to step in any bullshit on the way.
By Jet on Jun 15, 2005 | Reply
It’s always good to drag stuff like this out into the light. If it’s smoke, no harm done. If there’s some truth to it, the scramble for cover is, in itself, enlightening.
Great post, Tom.
By Billion Year Old Carbon on Jun 15, 2005 | Reply
Jet,
Out of curiosity I hope your not accusing my last post as the scramble for cover, that your refering to, I’m just checking.
I just don’t believe in the credibility of this journalist, If you want an understanding of the mind set that blows this kind of smoke I invite you to google the the terms Al gore gen. john b. alexander jedi together and see what it brings back this story is the same kind of shit just put out by guys who are not on the right.
By Tom Harper on Jun 15, 2005 | Reply
Brother Kenya: Thanks. If they take over, we’re all in trouble. Everyone except James Dobson, that is; and someday they’ll come for him too.
Pia: Thanks. Yeah, it’s ironic that Bush’s “missing years” are kept hush hush while Kerry’s college grades are all over the media.
Chosen One: I’m glad you liked my comedy. It isn’t quite as funny as Bush talking about “freedom on the march” in Iraq, but I’m working on it.
Billion Year Old Carbon: I wouldn’t doubt that the author is exaggerating the connected-ness between these groups. But most of this information is unknown to most people. I think it needs to brought out into the open so the public can decide whether it was one huge orchestrated movement or just a bunch of seperate groups who weren’t connected.
And undoubtedly there are powerful groups on the other side working behind the scenes; there aren’t any guardian angels involved here.
You say that if “no one dominates for more than a few years we will be OK.” This is the part I’m worried about. I really think our democracy is in danger now, more than ever before. Watergate was a close call, but we had real live journalists back then. The “media” today has the function of keeping the masses distracted with Michael Jackson and the missing-girl-of-the-week so that the real news gets missed by the public. If it weren’t for online activists and bloggers and foreign newspapers, Downing Street would just be another street name.
Jet: Thanks. This stuff definitely needs to be dragged out into the light.
By Tom Harper on Jun 15, 2005 | Reply
Billion Year Old Carbon: I’m assuming that when Jet talked about the “scramble for cover” she was referring to the Rove machine and Fox News and not other bloggers.
By CoolAqua on Jun 15, 2005 | Reply
Thanks for the informative post and links, it will take a while to digest all of this. I think there is probably more to come, its time we learned as you say “who is behind the curtain”.
By Billion Year Old Carbon on Jun 15, 2005 | Reply
Thank you Tom, I agree the media has a distracting funtion these days and that the majority of blogers and activists are seeking the truth but buyer beware it is also possible that some bloggers are pulling the fox news allen colmes stunt where you take one side of the coin in an effort to help the other side make its point because your playing for the other team(not related to this post just in general) Who is to say that this guy (journalist) isn’t really just looking to make the left look bad by calling the right names and propagating bull shit that everyone can see what it is. You know stuff like this has a tendancy to make the left look like morons so I question the motives for putting it out there, I mean thats a more plausable conspiracy theory no offense meant. This guy could be a complete crack pot or he could be a very smart pundit for the right.
By Tom Harper on Jun 15, 2005 | Reply
CoolAqua: Thanks. There’s definitely a lot of information there to digest.
Billion Year Old Carbon: Who knows, maybe Wayne Madsen is just a crackpot, or secretly working for the Right. From the Google information I found on him he seems pretty credible; the Right dismisses him as a crackpot, predictably enough. And there’s lots of other links to Frank Buchman and Abraham Vereide, although most of the other sites are more complimentary about them than Madsen was.
I’ve had Madsen’s article bookmarked for several months, debating whether to post about it or not. I finally decided the information should be brought out to the several hundred people who’ll read it here (and another 130 or so at my own site). From the web searches I did, there seems to be a lot of truth and credibility to his article, even if he’s exaggerating.
By Billion year old carbon on Jun 15, 2005 | Reply
Sure thats exactly the problem here
,” there seems to be a lot of truth and credibility to his article, even if he’s exaggerating.”
It meets the description of stringing accurate info along for your own purposes.
And in the vain of making the left look like a bunch of crackpots to the right giving creedence to a story like this so that aprox 260 will read it may be getting you further from your goals. No offense meant.
By Tom Harper on Jun 15, 2005 | Reply
Like I said, I spent several months deciding whether to post this. But after several web searches there seemed to be enough corroboration to Madsen’s article, that I decided to run it. Maybe it’s a hoax, but I don’t think it is.
The AlterNet article about The Family (linked in my post) seems pretty similar to Madsen’s description of them.
By billion year old carbon on Jun 15, 2005 | Reply
I will give you one thing, any Nazi or Klan member would probably like nothing more than for this story to be true as well as the storey about gore, alexander, and jedi, the first one is obvious the second one gives them a ground to oppose democrats and liberals. I find it funny that both stories call the other guys Nazis in some fashion. Niether republicans or democrats are Nazis, but I some how doubt the clan voted for Kerry.
By sally on Jun 15, 2005 | Reply
Tom, this is fascinating…taken with a grain of salt, but, still very fascinating!
By The Bastard on Jun 15, 2005 | Reply
Billion Year Old Carbon,
It’s funny you mention Clifton, I live in Bloomfield and grew up in Andover. The Nazi’s are very much alive here in NJ. The American Bund’s headquarters were actually where the Andover Police department is today. And speaking of police, don’t the NJ State Trooper uniforms resemble the SS? That’s because storming Norm’s dad, the founder of the state troopers, modeled the uniforms after them.
So how far stretched is this post? I wouldn’t put it past them. The nazi movement is very much alive and underground. What, you think a politician is actually gonna stand up and say “hey vote for me I’m a nazi”, no, they are going to work within the system to bring down the system.
By Tom Harper on Jun 15, 2005 | Reply
Sally: Oh yeah, a grain of salt is definitely called for (or several). But it’s fascinating. This country has a very interesting history; much more colorful than any history textbook would ever let on.
TB: That’s interesting about the NJ state trooper uniforms being modeled after the SS. Thomas Keane, former NJ governor, was mentioned in Madsen’s article (there was way too much information in there to bring it all into my post). Either his father or grandfather was one of the major players in that Nazi/Religious Right coalition.
By doug on Jun 15, 2005 | Reply
I’m inclined to think like Carbon. Even granting, for argument’s purposes, that everything is as interconnected as it seems it still took a majority of voters to re-elect George Bush. The storyline has a real Protocol of the Elders of Zion feel to it. Take for instance, the connection with Nietzche. By a six-degrees of separation tree, everything is connected to everything and any theoretical conspiracy can be proven. I don’t think a cabal has seized power in this country, I think we just elected an incompetent leader to four more years. Conservatism is dead and liberalism out of power and I agree with Tom, Democracy is in danger. Thanks to all BIO writers for your vigilance.
By Billion Year Old Carbon on Jun 15, 2005 | Reply
Well you got me on the Uniform thing I knew that they where designed to be psychologically intimidating as I have know people involved with law enforcement in one facet or another while I was groing up, but never made the SS connection. And though I can see it I would also say that it is who is wearing the uniform not what it looks like as I once had the privlege of meeting a female African American Trooper, no joke , honest Abe not all NJ troopers are 6′4 Aryan men. So in that sense even if the uniform was designed with an intent other that protecting the trooper by being a mind killer - it failed. Its OK the Nazi’s are not in control of NJ law enforcement if you live here you know that. But to be fair there really was a Nazi party operating in NJ until our involvement in the war and no doubt some of those families passed their heritage on. Any one here ever read a magazine called Weird NJ?
By The Bastard on Jun 15, 2005 | Reply
Weird NJ is exactly where you can find alot of information on the Bund operating in NJ. But you can google it as well. All I’m trying to point out is that these people went way underground and shrouded themselves in religion. If I can find it I willpost a link to an article that highlighted Odessa’s marching orders after the WWII. They were instructed to infiltrate, adapt and take down the US from the inside out. There are people out there that did not stop fighting after Hitler died that just adapted new tactics.
By OTTMAN on Jun 15, 2005 | Reply
It is too bad that those on the left are so paranoid of Jesus. No wonder democrats keep losing elections, they are the Anti-Christian Liberal Union Socialist Party.
By Tom Harper on Jun 15, 2005 | Reply
BYOC and Doug: I agree the author Wayne Madsen is a little over-the-top and there could be a 6-degrees-of-separation factor here. But his article was just too full of information (most of which checked out with the web searches I did) not to do a post on it. I think this information needs to be brought out and examined and debated.
Ottman: Paranoid of Jesus? I think you’re missing the point. It’s not Jesus; it’s the rightwing nutzoids who discovered 70 years ago how easy it is to carry out their agenda if they just hide behind a 100-foot Jesus banner. That way anyone who questions what they’re doing hates Jesus. Thanks to all the gullible voters, it worked like a charm in the 1930s and it worked again in 2004.
By BYOC on Jun 16, 2005 | Reply
Tom thanks for the BYOC acronym I’ve been kicking myself for such a long name choice but that works, Its a good debate to have but Ottman is a good example of how stuff like this alienates the right from the left.
If anything it gives everyone a moment to stop and think about the identities we asign ourselves, our leaders and others, in real ife most of us are average good people but get us online and we are saying things that make us all look extreme.
I grew up with christianity, all the prayers I say are christian prayers, but I don’t believe organized religion is nessecary to be close with god. I don’t believe that non-believers are damned, I believe in forgiveness. I do not accept the current national christian identity that so many have bought into. I believe in a more secular government and that god will sort out the rest its not up to us, but some how this sets me apart politically and deprives me of being a “christian” even if I don’t make a very good one, its not fair.
I don’t want the state in my religion and I don’t want my religion in the state because thats the first step in getting the state involved in ones religion. But the tone of the article does make it look like what is being called the left (wich is just as broad a term as the right) Is associating Christianity with Nazism when its really the other way around. Nazism is associated with christianity because it does not accept anything else. But christianity in its true form is devoid of politics its not meant to be aligned with political ideologies its meant to be aligned with god. Which brings us back to your point that it has been co-opted for political gain. But like doug said I don’t think a cabal has seized power in this country.
By doug on Jun 16, 2005 | Reply
Sure, Tom. I wasn’t criticizing the post. The more information out the better. We can filter.
This kind of shit is why this practicing Christian with a conservative political philosophy is staying the hell away from the G.O.P. and donating to and voting for Dems these days.
By mulligan on Jun 16, 2005 | Reply
Strangely enough, this is a story (for want of a better word) that I first heard when I was about 14 years old. That was more than 20 years ago. The father of some children I was babysitting told me about this conspiracy when he drove me home one night. At the time I thought the father was crazy. Now. . . I’m not so sure.
Yes, some of the connections are tenuous. That’s why this information needs to be brought out into the light. That is the only way to see if the connections really exist, or if they are just gossamer threads.
By Tom Harper on Jun 16, 2005 | Reply
BYOC, Doug, Mulligan:
Thanks for your comments. (I’ve been wrapped up in Downing-gate for awhile now; haven’t had a chance to answer your comments.)
Skepticism is good; I don’t necessarily believe everything Madsen was saying. But I wanted to bring out this information so people could see it, debate it, etc. It might very well be that he was just “manufacturing” connections between groups and events that weren’t connected.
I actually expected a lot more negative comments than I got. I thought maybe every rightwing blogger that’s ever been to this site was gonna come thundering in with “you gullible $#%&!#, do you really believe that %$#@@&*!#!!” (Or maybe they’re still going to.)