Norman Dodd
Encyclopedia
Norman Dodd born in New Jersey, was a banker/bank manager, worked as a financial advisor and served as chief investigator in 1953 for U.S. Congressman B. Carroll Reece
Special Committee on Tax Exempt Foundations (commonly referred to as the Reece Committee). He was primarily known for his controversial investigation into tax-exempt foundations.
In the Dodd report to the Reece Committee on Foundations, he began with a definition of "subversive", saying that the term referred to "Any action having as its purpose the alteration of either the principle or the form of the United States Government by other than constitutional means." He then proceeded to show that the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and Carnegie Endowment were using funds excessively on projects at Columbia, Harvard, Chicago University and the University of California, in order to enable oligarchical collectivism. He stated, "The purported deterioration in scholarship and in the techniques of teaching which, lately, has attracted the attention of the American public, has apparently been caused primarily by a premature effort to reduce our meager knowledge of social phenomena to the level of an applied science." He stated that his research staff had discovered that in "1933-1936, a change took place which was so drastic as to constitute a "revolution". They also indicated conclusively that the responsibility for the economic welfare of the American people had been transferred heavily to the Executive Branch of the Federal Government; that a corresponding change in education had taken place from an impetus outside of the local community, and that this "revolution" had occurred without violence and with the full consent of an overwhelming majority of the electorate." He stated that this revolution "could not have occurred peacefully, or with the consent of the majority, unless education in the United States had been prepared in advance to endorse it."
He stated that the grants given by the Foundations had been used for:
"Directing education in the United States toward an international
view-point and discrediting the traditions to which,
it (formerly) had been dedicated.
Training individuals and servicing agencies to render advice
to the Executive branch of the Federal Government.
Decreasing the dependency of education upon the resources
of the local community and freeing it from many of the
natural safeguards inherent in this American tradition.
Changing both school and college curricula to the point
where they sometimes denied the principles underlying the
American way of life.
Financing experiments designed to determine the most effective
means by which education could be pressed into service
of a political nature."
He cited a book called The Turning of the Tides, which documented the literature from various tax-exempt foundations and organizations like UNESCO
showing that they wished to install World Government
and collectivism
along the lines of Plato
's Republic.
The transcripts of the Reece Committee Hearings became extremely scarce for awhile, yet they are available on the internet due to Charlotte Iserbyt
, who worked with the Department of Education
in the 1980s, and was a friend of Dodd.
Norman Dodd was interviewed by the journalist G. Edward Griffin
just before he died and an interview documentary was produced as a result which has gained a very wide audience in later years.
, Ford Foundation
, and the Rockefeller Foundation
, among others. It was stated by him that these or other foundations were involved in the intentional instigation of the United States
into World War I
and attempting to mold world history through the explicit control of education in the United States
. His allegations stem from reviewing the minutes of the Carnegie Endowment and their explicitly stated plans listed therein. In his interview with Griffin, he stated that Catherine Casey, his assistant, who was initially skeptical and ambivalent about the Reece Committee, lost her mind after spot reading the minutes of the Carnegie Endowment. He stated that the minutes concerned the desire by the trustees of the Carnegie Endowment to figure out a way to alter life in the United States so that Americans would give up their traditional principles and concepts of government and be more receptive to the collectivist model of society. According to Dodd, the only means suitable for doing this was the instigation of war, and after WWI had occurred, the trustees teamed up with the Rockefeller Foundation and the Guggenheim Foundation to pool their financial resources to control education in America.
In his interview with Griffin he stated that the American Historical Association, under sponsorship from the Carnegie Endowment, dedicated the future of America to collectivism in the seventh volume of a study dedicated to the teaching of social sciences. He said: "This group of twenty historians eventually formed the nucleus of the American Historical Association. Then toward the end of the 1920’s the Endowment grants to the American Historical Association $400,000 for a study of history in a manner that points to what this country can look forward to in the future. That culminates in a seven-volume study, the last volume of which is a summary of the contents of the other six. And the essence of the last volume is, the future of this country belongs to collectivism, administered with characteristic American efficiency."
In the Dodd Report to the Reece Committee, he said of this document that the AHA "concluded that the day of the individual in the United States had come to an end and that the future would be characterized, inevitably, by some form of collectivism and an increase in the authority of the State."
The text he was referring to, the American Historical Association’s Report on the Commission on Social Studies, supports these claims. Excerpts follow:
“The Commission is under special obligation to its sponsor, the American Historical Association. Above all, it recognizes its indebtedness to the Trustees of the Carnegie Corporation, whose financial aid made possible the whole five-year investigation of social science instruction in the schools, eventuating in the following Conclusions and Recommendations.” – p. xi
“the Commission could not limit itself to a survey of textbooks, curricula, methods of instruction, and schemes of examination, but was impelled to consider the condition and prospects of the American people as a part of Western civilization now merging into a world order.” – p. 1
“The Commission was also driven to this broader conception of its task by the obvious fact that American civilization, in common with Western civilization, is passing through one of the great critical ages of history, is modifying its traditional faith in economic individualism, and is embarking upon vast experiments in social planning and control which call for large-scale cooperation on the part of the people.” – pp. 1–2
“the Commission recognizes the further fact of the inter-relationship of the life of America with the life of the world. In all departments of culture-intellectual, aesthetic, and ethical – the civilization of the United States has always been a part of European, or “Western,” civilization . To ignore the historical traditions and usages which have contributed, and still contribute, to this unity is to betray a smug and provincial disregard of basic elements in American life and to invite national impoverishment, intolerance, and disaster. Moreover, the swift development of technology, industry, transportation, and communication in modern times is obviously merging Western civilization into a new world civilization and imposing on American citizens the obligation of knowing more, rather than less, of the complex social and economic relationships which bind them to the rest of mankind.” pp. 11-12
“there are certain clearly defined trends in contemporary technology, economy, and society of the utmost importance in creating new conditions, fashioning novel traditions, reorienting American life, and thus conditioning any future program of social science instruction.” – p. 13
“Under the moulding influence of socialized processes of living, drives of technology and science, pressures of changing thought and policy, and disrupting impacts of economic disaster, there is a notable waning of the once widespread popular faith in economic individualism; and leaders in public affairs, supported by a growing mass of the population, are demanding the introduction into economy of ever-wider measures of planning and control.” – p. 16
“Cumulative evidence supports the conclusion that in the United States as in other countries, the age of laissez faire in economy and government is closing and a new age of collectivism is emerging.” – p. 16
“As to the specific form which this “collectivism,” this integration and interdependence, is taking and will take in the future, the evidence at hand is by no means clear or unequivocal. It may involve the limiting or supplanting of private property by public property or it may entail the preservation of private property, extended and distributed among the masses. Most likely, it will issue from a process of experimentation and will represent a composite of historic doctrines and social conceptions yet to appear. Almost certainly it will involve a larger measure of compulsory as well as voluntary co-operation of citizens in the conduct of the complex national economy, a corresponding enlargement of the functions of government, and an increasing state intervention in fundamental branches of economy previously left to individual discretion and initiative-a state intervention that in some instances may be direct and mandatory and in others indirect and facilitative. In any event the Commission is convinced by its interpretation of available empirical data that the actually integrating economy of the present day is the forerunner of a consciously integrated society, in which individual economic actions and individual property, rights will be altered and abridged.” – p. 17
“While stressing the necessity of recognizing the emergence of a closely integrated society in America and the desirability of curbing individualism in economy, the Commission deems highly desirable the conscious and purposeful employment of every practicable means to ward off the dangers of goose-step regimentation in ideas, culture, and invention, of sacrificing individuality, of neglecting precious elements in the traditional heritage of America and the world, and of fostering a narrow intolerant nationalism or an aggressive predatory imperialism.” – p. 23
“The Commission deems possible and desirable an enlightened attitude on the part of the masses of the American people toward international relations, involving informed appreciation of the cultural bonds long subsisting among the nations of Western civilization and now developing rapidly among all the nations of the world, and special knowledge of the increasing economic interdependence of politically separate areas and peoples, and of the emerging economic integration of the globe.” – p. 25
“The Commission, under the frame of reference here presented, deems desirable the vitalizing of the findings of scientific inquiry by the best social thought of the present and of the past, and the incorporation into the materials of social science instruction in the schools of the best plans and ideals for the future of society and of the individual.” – p. 27
“The implications for education are clear and imperative: (a) the efficient functioning of the emerging economy and the full utilization of its potentialities require profound changes in the attitudes and outlook of the American people, especially the rising generation-a complete and frank recognition that the old order is passing, that the new order is emerging.” – pp. 34–35
“Organized public education in the United States, much more than ever before, is now compelled, if it is to fulfill its social obligations, to adjust its objectives, its curriculum, its methods of instruction, and its administrative procedures to the requirements of the emerging integrated order.” – p. 35
“If the school is to justify its maintenance and assume its responsibilities, it must recognize the new order and proceed to equip the rising generation to cooperate effectively in the increasingly interdependent society and to live rationally and well within its limitations and possibilities….” – p. 35
“The program of social science instruction should not be organized as a separate and isolated division of the curriculum but rather should be closely integrated with other activities and subjects so that the entire curriculum of the school may constitute a unified attack upon the complicated problem of life in contemporary society.” – p. 48
Professor Harold Laski, a philosopher of Fabian socialism, said: “At bottom, and stripped of it’s carefully neutral phrases, the report is an educational program for a socialist America.”
Dodd's most controversial claim concerns the Ford Foundation president Rowan Gaither, who Dodd alleges told him off the record that ""all of us [Foundation leaders] that have a hand in the making of policies here have had experience, either with the OSS during the war, or the European Economic Administration after the war - we've had experience dealing with directives, and these directives emanated from the White House [...] we still operate under these directives. Would you like to know what the substance of these directives is? [...] Mr. Dodd, we operate under directives, the substance of which is that we shall use our grant making power so to alter life in the United States that it can be comfortably merged with the Soviet Union."
Although this is an off record statement, and is a contemporary, not primary, source, the essence of this claim can be corroborated by looking at other evidence. In 1972, a White House conference led by Roy Ash
pushed for the beginning of a World Economic Community around 1990 , and in 1985 the United States and the Soviet Union agreed on a merger of education systems, and continued further policy mergers until 1990. The title of the document corroborating this claim, signed by George Shultz, is The General Agreement Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on Contacts, Exchanges, and Cooperation in Scientific, Technical, Cultural, and other fields. Charlotte Iserbyt
was fired from her position as Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), U.S. Department of Education, for discussing this document.
B. Carroll Reece
Brazilla Carroll Reece was a U.S. Representative from Tennessee.-Early life and career:Reece was born on a farm near Butler, Tennessee, one of thirteen children of John Isaac and Sarah Maples Reece...
Special Committee on Tax Exempt Foundations (commonly referred to as the Reece Committee). He was primarily known for his controversial investigation into tax-exempt foundations.
In the Dodd report to the Reece Committee on Foundations, he began with a definition of "subversive", saying that the term referred to "Any action having as its purpose the alteration of either the principle or the form of the United States Government by other than constitutional means." He then proceeded to show that the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and Carnegie Endowment were using funds excessively on projects at Columbia, Harvard, Chicago University and the University of California, in order to enable oligarchical collectivism. He stated, "The purported deterioration in scholarship and in the techniques of teaching which, lately, has attracted the attention of the American public, has apparently been caused primarily by a premature effort to reduce our meager knowledge of social phenomena to the level of an applied science." He stated that his research staff had discovered that in "1933-1936, a change took place which was so drastic as to constitute a "revolution". They also indicated conclusively that the responsibility for the economic welfare of the American people had been transferred heavily to the Executive Branch of the Federal Government; that a corresponding change in education had taken place from an impetus outside of the local community, and that this "revolution" had occurred without violence and with the full consent of an overwhelming majority of the electorate." He stated that this revolution "could not have occurred peacefully, or with the consent of the majority, unless education in the United States had been prepared in advance to endorse it."
He stated that the grants given by the Foundations had been used for:
"Directing education in the United States toward an international
view-point and discrediting the traditions to which,
it (formerly) had been dedicated.
Training individuals and servicing agencies to render advice
to the Executive branch of the Federal Government.
Decreasing the dependency of education upon the resources
of the local community and freeing it from many of the
natural safeguards inherent in this American tradition.
Changing both school and college curricula to the point
where they sometimes denied the principles underlying the
American way of life.
Financing experiments designed to determine the most effective
means by which education could be pressed into service
of a political nature."
He cited a book called The Turning of the Tides, which documented the literature from various tax-exempt foundations and organizations like UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
showing that they wished to install World Government
World government
World government is the notion of a single common political authority for all of humanity. Its modern conception is rooted in European history, particularly in the philosophy of ancient Greece, in the political formation of the Roman Empire, and in the subsequent struggle between secular authority,...
and collectivism
Collectivism
Collectivism is any philosophic, political, economic, mystical or social outlook that emphasizes the interdependence of every human in some collective group and the priority of group goals over individual goals. Collectivists usually focus on community, society, or nation...
along the lines of Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
's Republic.
The transcripts of the Reece Committee Hearings became extremely scarce for awhile, yet they are available on the internet due to Charlotte Iserbyt
Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt
Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt is an American freelance writer who served as a Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement , U.S. Department of Education during the first term of U.S. President Ronald Reagan, and staff employee of the US State Department . She was born...
, who worked with the Department of Education
United States Department of Education
The United States Department of Education, also referred to as ED or the ED for Education Department, is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government...
in the 1980s, and was a friend of Dodd.
Norman Dodd was interviewed by the journalist G. Edward Griffin
G. Edward Griffin
G. Edward Griffin is an American film producer, author, and political lecturer. He is perhaps best known as the author of The Creature from Jekyll Island , a critique of much modern economic theory and practice, specifically the Federal Reserve System.Starting as a child actor, he became a radio...
just before he died and an interview documentary was produced as a result which has gained a very wide audience in later years.
Early life
Norman Dodd was born in New Jersey, he attended private schools, Andover, Massachusetts, and graduated from Yale University. He was, by his own words an indefatigable reader. He worked in manufacturing before devoting himself to banking according to himself. During or after the 1929 stock market crash he was assigned by his superiors the task of restructuring the bank he was working at, after a period of which he recommended what at the time was referred to as "sound banking". He was told that his recommendations would not be considered because his superiors told him that "we will never see sound banking in the United States again".Tax-exempt Foundations
His claims about his investigative work have become the cornerstone of theories implicating the Carnegie Endowment for International PeaceCarnegie Endowment for International Peace
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is a foreign-policy think tank based in Washington, D.C. The organization describes itself as being dedicated to advancing cooperation between nations and promoting active international engagement by the United States...
, Ford Foundation
Ford Foundation
The Ford Foundation is a private foundation incorporated in Michigan and based in New York City created to fund programs that were chartered in 1936 by Edsel Ford and Henry Ford....
, and the Rockefeller Foundation
Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation is a prominent philanthropic organization and private foundation based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The preeminent institution established by the six-generation Rockefeller family, it was founded by John D. Rockefeller , along with his son John D. Rockefeller, Jr...
, among others. It was stated by him that these or other foundations were involved in the intentional instigation of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
into World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and attempting to mold world history through the explicit control of education in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. His allegations stem from reviewing the minutes of the Carnegie Endowment and their explicitly stated plans listed therein. In his interview with Griffin, he stated that Catherine Casey, his assistant, who was initially skeptical and ambivalent about the Reece Committee, lost her mind after spot reading the minutes of the Carnegie Endowment. He stated that the minutes concerned the desire by the trustees of the Carnegie Endowment to figure out a way to alter life in the United States so that Americans would give up their traditional principles and concepts of government and be more receptive to the collectivist model of society. According to Dodd, the only means suitable for doing this was the instigation of war, and after WWI had occurred, the trustees teamed up with the Rockefeller Foundation and the Guggenheim Foundation to pool their financial resources to control education in America.
In his interview with Griffin he stated that the American Historical Association, under sponsorship from the Carnegie Endowment, dedicated the future of America to collectivism in the seventh volume of a study dedicated to the teaching of social sciences. He said: "This group of twenty historians eventually formed the nucleus of the American Historical Association. Then toward the end of the 1920’s the Endowment grants to the American Historical Association $400,000 for a study of history in a manner that points to what this country can look forward to in the future. That culminates in a seven-volume study, the last volume of which is a summary of the contents of the other six. And the essence of the last volume is, the future of this country belongs to collectivism, administered with characteristic American efficiency."
In the Dodd Report to the Reece Committee, he said of this document that the AHA "concluded that the day of the individual in the United States had come to an end and that the future would be characterized, inevitably, by some form of collectivism and an increase in the authority of the State."
The text he was referring to, the American Historical Association’s Report on the Commission on Social Studies, supports these claims. Excerpts follow:
“The Commission is under special obligation to its sponsor, the American Historical Association. Above all, it recognizes its indebtedness to the Trustees of the Carnegie Corporation, whose financial aid made possible the whole five-year investigation of social science instruction in the schools, eventuating in the following Conclusions and Recommendations.” – p. xi
“the Commission could not limit itself to a survey of textbooks, curricula, methods of instruction, and schemes of examination, but was impelled to consider the condition and prospects of the American people as a part of Western civilization now merging into a world order.” – p. 1
“The Commission was also driven to this broader conception of its task by the obvious fact that American civilization, in common with Western civilization, is passing through one of the great critical ages of history, is modifying its traditional faith in economic individualism, and is embarking upon vast experiments in social planning and control which call for large-scale cooperation on the part of the people.” – pp. 1–2
“the Commission recognizes the further fact of the inter-relationship of the life of America with the life of the world. In all departments of culture-intellectual, aesthetic, and ethical – the civilization of the United States has always been a part of European, or “Western,” civilization . To ignore the historical traditions and usages which have contributed, and still contribute, to this unity is to betray a smug and provincial disregard of basic elements in American life and to invite national impoverishment, intolerance, and disaster. Moreover, the swift development of technology, industry, transportation, and communication in modern times is obviously merging Western civilization into a new world civilization and imposing on American citizens the obligation of knowing more, rather than less, of the complex social and economic relationships which bind them to the rest of mankind.” pp. 11-12
“there are certain clearly defined trends in contemporary technology, economy, and society of the utmost importance in creating new conditions, fashioning novel traditions, reorienting American life, and thus conditioning any future program of social science instruction.” – p. 13
“Under the moulding influence of socialized processes of living, drives of technology and science, pressures of changing thought and policy, and disrupting impacts of economic disaster, there is a notable waning of the once widespread popular faith in economic individualism; and leaders in public affairs, supported by a growing mass of the population, are demanding the introduction into economy of ever-wider measures of planning and control.” – p. 16
“Cumulative evidence supports the conclusion that in the United States as in other countries, the age of laissez faire in economy and government is closing and a new age of collectivism is emerging.” – p. 16
“As to the specific form which this “collectivism,” this integration and interdependence, is taking and will take in the future, the evidence at hand is by no means clear or unequivocal. It may involve the limiting or supplanting of private property by public property or it may entail the preservation of private property, extended and distributed among the masses. Most likely, it will issue from a process of experimentation and will represent a composite of historic doctrines and social conceptions yet to appear. Almost certainly it will involve a larger measure of compulsory as well as voluntary co-operation of citizens in the conduct of the complex national economy, a corresponding enlargement of the functions of government, and an increasing state intervention in fundamental branches of economy previously left to individual discretion and initiative-a state intervention that in some instances may be direct and mandatory and in others indirect and facilitative. In any event the Commission is convinced by its interpretation of available empirical data that the actually integrating economy of the present day is the forerunner of a consciously integrated society, in which individual economic actions and individual property, rights will be altered and abridged.” – p. 17
“While stressing the necessity of recognizing the emergence of a closely integrated society in America and the desirability of curbing individualism in economy, the Commission deems highly desirable the conscious and purposeful employment of every practicable means to ward off the dangers of goose-step regimentation in ideas, culture, and invention, of sacrificing individuality, of neglecting precious elements in the traditional heritage of America and the world, and of fostering a narrow intolerant nationalism or an aggressive predatory imperialism.” – p. 23
“The Commission deems possible and desirable an enlightened attitude on the part of the masses of the American people toward international relations, involving informed appreciation of the cultural bonds long subsisting among the nations of Western civilization and now developing rapidly among all the nations of the world, and special knowledge of the increasing economic interdependence of politically separate areas and peoples, and of the emerging economic integration of the globe.” – p. 25
“The Commission, under the frame of reference here presented, deems desirable the vitalizing of the findings of scientific inquiry by the best social thought of the present and of the past, and the incorporation into the materials of social science instruction in the schools of the best plans and ideals for the future of society and of the individual.” – p. 27
“The implications for education are clear and imperative: (a) the efficient functioning of the emerging economy and the full utilization of its potentialities require profound changes in the attitudes and outlook of the American people, especially the rising generation-a complete and frank recognition that the old order is passing, that the new order is emerging.” – pp. 34–35
“Organized public education in the United States, much more than ever before, is now compelled, if it is to fulfill its social obligations, to adjust its objectives, its curriculum, its methods of instruction, and its administrative procedures to the requirements of the emerging integrated order.” – p. 35
“If the school is to justify its maintenance and assume its responsibilities, it must recognize the new order and proceed to equip the rising generation to cooperate effectively in the increasingly interdependent society and to live rationally and well within its limitations and possibilities….” – p. 35
“The program of social science instruction should not be organized as a separate and isolated division of the curriculum but rather should be closely integrated with other activities and subjects so that the entire curriculum of the school may constitute a unified attack upon the complicated problem of life in contemporary society.” – p. 48
Professor Harold Laski, a philosopher of Fabian socialism, said: “At bottom, and stripped of it’s carefully neutral phrases, the report is an educational program for a socialist America.”
Dodd's most controversial claim concerns the Ford Foundation president Rowan Gaither, who Dodd alleges told him off the record that ""all of us [Foundation leaders] that have a hand in the making of policies here have had experience, either with the OSS during the war, or the European Economic Administration after the war - we've had experience dealing with directives, and these directives emanated from the White House [...] we still operate under these directives. Would you like to know what the substance of these directives is? [...] Mr. Dodd, we operate under directives, the substance of which is that we shall use our grant making power so to alter life in the United States that it can be comfortably merged with the Soviet Union."
Although this is an off record statement, and is a contemporary, not primary, source, the essence of this claim can be corroborated by looking at other evidence. In 1972, a White House conference led by Roy Ash
Roy Ash
Roy L. Ash was the co-founder and president of Litton Industries and director of the Office of Management and Budget during the administrations of U.S...
pushed for the beginning of a World Economic Community around 1990 , and in 1985 the United States and the Soviet Union agreed on a merger of education systems, and continued further policy mergers until 1990. The title of the document corroborating this claim, signed by George Shultz, is The General Agreement Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on Contacts, Exchanges, and Cooperation in Scientific, Technical, Cultural, and other fields. Charlotte Iserbyt
Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt
Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt is an American freelance writer who served as a Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement , U.S. Department of Education during the first term of U.S. President Ronald Reagan, and staff employee of the US State Department . She was born...
was fired from her position as Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), U.S. Department of Education, for discussing this document.