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Monnet, Jean

Sources: 2002, David Rockefeller, 'Memoirs', pg. 412-413, referring to the Pesenti Group

Roman Catholic. Born in Cognac, France in 1888, in a family of Cognac merchants. Abandoned his university-entrance examinations in 1904. Worked in the City of London at J.G. Monnet & Co., his father's company London branch 1904-1906. Represented J.G. Monnet abroad in Scandinavia, Russia, Egypt, Canada, and the United States 1906-1914. Sent to Canada in 1910 to open new markets for the family business. Here he hooked up with the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) and the Lazard Freres banking house. Due to his negotiations, J.G. Monnet's subsidiary United Vineyard Proprietors Co. started shipping large amounts of brandy to HBC, which this company sold on to the native Indians, a trade prohibited by law. At the time, HBC, a centuries old bastion of the British Empire, was headed by Privy Councillor and Pilgrims Society member Lord Strathcona who was replaced in 1914 by Sir Thomas Skinner (not much written about him). In 1916, Pilgrims Society member Lord Kindersley, a long time Lazard partner (chair at some point) and Bank of England director, became head of the company. Around this time, the Keswicks of the Pilgrims Society and Jardine Matheson started to gain a controlling interest in the HBC. Monnet was grateful for the deal with HBC, because he found it tough to compete on the legal market with better-known firms as Hennessy. When WWI broke out Monnet tested unfit for military service. In September 1914, one month after WWI started, Monnet managed to meet up with France's Prime Minister René Viviani. He convinced Viviani of a plan to coordinate the use of Allied ships bringing supplies to beleaguered France. As a result, Monnet was sent to London to set up the International Supply Commission, which organized the Anglo-French pool of ships to supply the Allied forces in France. According to Monnet, he arranged the meeting with the prime minister through his father's corporate lawyer. According to some outside writers, the HBC was responsible for arranging this meeting through its high level French contacts. In any case, in London Monnet arranged a $200 million contract for HBC to ship 13 million tons of goods to France on which HBC would take a 1 per cent commission. Chef de Cabinet to France's economics minister Etienne Clementel in 1916. In 1917 he was instrumental in setting up the Inter-Allied Maritime Transport Council, to further improve the coordination of Allied shipping. He wanted this council to have full authority, but didn't get his way. He had, however, created his first supranational body. Before creating the Inter-Allied Maritime Transport Council, he had diner with Arthur Salter, who would become his lifelong friend, discussing the creation of this supranational body. Salter was a person closely involved with Quigley's Roundtable and his ideas of a federal Europe, which he would write down in 1931, would be adopted by Monnet, almost to the letter. Salter mentioned he was part of "small and secret committee" of economists who advised multiple prime ministers up to the outbreak of WWII. John Maynard Keynes (Cambridge Apostles member, just as Lord Victor Rothschild and Aldous Huxley; friend of J.P. Morgan & Co. chairman and CFR chair Russell C. Leffingwell) and Lionel Curtis (supposedly Round Table; primary founder RIIA) were involved in this committee. (Salter was educated at Oxford. First met Monnet in 1914. Had diner with Monnet in 1917, talking about the Inter-Allied Maritime Transport Council. Secretary of the Supreme Economic Council at Versailles in 1919, which also counted the involvement of Monnet from the French side. Head of the economic and financial section of the League of Nations secretariat, and in the League secretariat at Geneva, where he worked for stabilization of the currencies of Austria and Hungary, the former Habsburg empire. Arthur Salter wrote 'The United States of Europe' in 1931, a collection of papers which advocated a federal Europe within the framework of the League of Nations. Author and journalist in London in the early 1930s. Went to China in the early 1930s to advise the Chinese government on reorganizing its railways. Monnet was in China at the same time, working on the same issue. Appointed Gladstone professor of political theory and institutions at Oxford University in 1934, and became a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, supposedly the core of Quigley's Round Table. Carroll Quigley wrote in his 1981 book 'The Anglo-American Establishment': "In 1936, at least eleven out of twenty-six members of the council were of the Milner Group. These included Lord Astor (chairman), L. Curtis, G.M. Gathorne-Hardy, Lord Hailey, H.D. Henderson, Stephen King-Hall, Mrs. Alfred Lyttelton, Sir Neill Malcolm, Lord Meston, Sir Arthur Salter, J.W. Wheeler-Bennett, E.L. Woodward, and Sir Alfred Zimmern." Also according to Quigley, Salter was also one of seven board members of the Montague Burton Chair of International Relations at Oxford in the 1930s, together with the Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, of the family that supposedly coordinated the Round Table. MP for Oxford University from 1937-1950. Vice chairman of the Franco-British Economic Coordination Committee just before WWII. Appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1941. Appointed deputy director-general of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in 1944. Minister of State for Economic Affairs at the Treasury, and Minister of Materials in 1952.) Appointed to represent France at the Allied Supreme Economic Council at the Versailles Peace Conference of 1919, where he worked with Pilgrims Society members as Lord Robert Cecil, Lord Milner, Nicholas Murray Butler, John and Allen Dulles, David Bruce, Elihu Root, and Russell Leffingwell. First deputy secretary general of the League of Nations 1919-1923. Sir Eric Drummond, the 16th Earl of Perth, was the original secretary general. Saw the League as a failure primarily because each member had a veto right. Rejoined the family business in 1923 to save it from a financial crisis. Obtained a loan from the HBC, which he was told he could treat as a gift, and saved his family's company. In 1925, Monnet moved to America to accept a partnership in Blair & Co., a New York bank which had done bonanza business in the war effort. Elisha Walker was head of the firm. Served as the company's representative in France and made a small fortune. Monnet's papers reveal that he received business referrals from Dulles and Lazard Brothers' banker Robert whose sister-in-law was Lady Nancy Astor. Monnet's work for Blair & Co. also brought him into the law offices of Blair’s attorney, John J. McCloy (Pilgrims Society) at Cravath, Swaine & Moore. Appointed vice president of Blair & Co. in 1928. Lost his small fortune in the great depression that started in 1929. A loan of the Lazard Bank, arranged through former Hudson Bay Company chairman Sir Robert Kindersley, helped Monnet back up on his feet. Monnet would only be able to fully repay the loan in the late 1950s/early 1960s. Blair & Co. merged with Bank of America in 1929, forming Bancamerica-Blair Corporation, which was owned by the Transamerica Corporation of Amadeo Peter Giannini (Bohemian Grove; largest competitor of the East Coast establishment). Elisha Walker was appointed chairman of Transamerica Corporation in January 1930; Jean Monnet became vice-chairman of Transamerica. Giannini retired to Italy, only remaining chairman of Transamerica's Advisory Board. On September 23, 1931, Walker announced that Transamerica would be selling most of its nation-wide banking assets, because of the financial crisis and because the board expected that nation-wide banking wouldn't be allowed anymore in the future. It is also announced that Lee, Higginson & Co., a Wall Street investment bank which started to fund the Nazis around this time, would be taking a majority control in Transamerica. Monnet's future investment partner, George Murnane, was among three directors of Lee, Higginson that were appointed to the board of directors of Transamerica, while Monnet remained vice chairman. In addition to the Gianninis, 19 directors were dropped from the Transamerica board. The following day Giannini announced that he wouldn't allow the sell off of Bank of America for what he termed a "ridiculously low" price. On December 10, 1931 the New York Times reported: "A. P. Glannini announced tonight that he personally would head a "fight to the finish" to oust Elisha Walker, chairman of the Transamerica Corporation, and "Wall Street domination" from the corporation which he founded. He made the statement after he had read a letter from Mr. Walker and James A. Bacigalupi to Transamerica's stockholders. He called the letter "an attack on my personal honesty and integrity"... He said the letter had been timed "to catch me unaware" as it was not released for publication until after he had left San Francisco tonight for Ventura and Santa Barbara, where he planned to carry on the battle for proxies on behalf of Associated Stockholders." Giannini won his Transamerica fight in February 1932, which is when Walker had to resign as chairman. Monnet seems to have been fired at the same time. Monnet was also fired as a director of the Bancamerica-Blair Corporation in March 1932. In November 1932, the Chinese Minister of Finance, Tse-Ven Soong (Christian family; Green Gang triad family; governor of the Central Bank of China; sister married Chiang Kai-Shek; other sister sister married Sun Yat-sen, the person who established the Republic of China; still another sister was secretary to Sun Yat-sen) on behalf of Chiang Kai-Shek (the ruling Shanghai-based anti-communist pro-western warlord; member of the Green Gang Triad and close to its Soong family. This Green Gang was involved in the opium and gold smuggle, the sex trade, slave-girl trade, brothels, assassinations, and in keeping an eye on labor unions; would create the Taiwanese republic/police state after he lost the battle against the communists in the years after WWII), invited Jean Monnet to act as chairman of an East-West non-political committee in China for the development of the Chinese economy. Railroads played a central role in these economic developments. Monnet accepted, and in 1933 he took his assistant, David Drummond (the future 17th Lord Perth; from a Catholic Hungarian family which emigrated to Scotland in the 11th century; two members of this family were among the eight original founders of the Order of the Thistle; son of Sir Eric Drummond, Monnet's superior at the League of Nations; raised by the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk, a very old Catholic aristocratic family; later Privy Councillor; later chair of the Ditchley Foundation for 3 years; later representative of the Queen to the Vatican; arranged a meeting in his own flat during the early 1960s between Edward Heath, the minister responsible for the EEC negotiations, and Jean Monnet; became a member of the extremely elite Roxburghe Club, together with members of the Cecil, Cavendish, Howard, Mellon, Rothschild, and Oppenheimer families), to China where he lived until 1936. After some preliminary investigations Monnet found that his basic task would be the partnership of Chinese capital with foreign companies. This concept led to the formal inauguration of the Chinese Development Finance Corporation (CDFC), which was made up of the main Chinese private banks teamed with four government controlled ones. It was John Foster Dulles (Pilgrims Society) of Sullivan & Cromwell who provided the financial backing for Monnet's next investment company, Monnet, Murnane & Co., in 1935. Dulles wrote about Monnet to his partner W.N. Cromwell: "... one of the most brilliant men that I know" and "an intimate friend [who] has the full confidence of many of the most important financial people". George Murnane (vice president New York Trust Company; deputy commissioner for France in the American Red Cross; director Allied Chemical & Dye of the Speyer family; partner in Lee, Higginson & Co.1928-1935, a Wall Street investment firm once set up by Opium trade families who around this time were financing the Nazis; main advisor for the Belgian Solvays and Boëls in the United States; colleague of Robert Bosch who oversaw his interests at Mendelssohn Bank/NAKIB in Amsterdam since 1934; appointed chair of the American Bosch Corporation in 1935; in November 1940 he was designated by the Wallenbergs' Enskilda Bank as the sole voting trustee with complete power to vote the American Bosch stock at stockholders' meetings in the US. If Murnane would have died, John Foster Dulles would have taken his place; appointed director of North American Corp. in 1938; his firm Monnet, Murnane & Co. was briefly investigated in 1938 by the FBI for supposedly having traded with the Nazis; became a Lazard partner in 1944, personally picked by Andre Meyer; Trustee emeritus of Rockefeller University; died in 1969) was a very well known investment banker and a former colleague of Monnet at Transamerica. They hired Frenchman Henri Mazot as an agent to set up their Shanghai office of Monnet, Murnane & Co., within the French concession of that town. Monnet tried to include Britain into the cooperation, rather than letting it conduct business on its own. Unfortunately for Monnet, many British diplomats felt he was looking after his own interests. Around this time Monnet wrote: "[Britain] is the one that best understands China and whose actions most benefit it." When Monnet returned to the United States in 1936 he was investigated for tax evasion. In 1938, Monnet, Murnane & Co. was briefly investigated by the FBI, suspected of having laundered Nazi money. The investigation was called off and no charges were laid, but today it is known that the Dulles brothers and Murnane's Lee, Higginson & Co. certainly were involved in trade with the Nazis, just as Monnet's later close friend, Clarence Dillon of Dillon, Read & Co. 2003, Christopher Booker & Richard North, The Great Deception, The secret history of the European Union, p. 21: "Following his lucrative spell in China, Monnet's career as a merchant banker had continued to be murky. On his return to America he had been investigated for tax evasion. In 1938 his company company had even come under suspicion by the FBI for having laundered Nazi money, although this inquiry was called off without any charges being laid." Appointed chairman of the Franco-British Economic Coordination Committee in 1939. Reunited with his friend Arthur Salter at the outbreak of WWII, who became vice chairman of the Franco-British Economic Coordination Committee. In December 1939, Jean Monnet was sent to London to oversee the collectivization of the two countries' war production capacities. When the French government fled Paris in June 1940, De Gaulle went to London to prepare for the French government's departure to North Africa to continue the war from there. While in London, De Gaulle was approached by Jean Monnet who proposed to him the creation of a Franco-British Union. The two nations would be joined indissolubly as one, complete with a single government, joint armed forces, common citizenship, and even a single currency. Monnet had written: "The two governments declare that in the future France and Great Britain will no longer be two nations but a single Anglo-French Union. The constitution of the Union will entail common organisations for defence, foreign policy and economic affairs... The two Parliaments will be officially united." Monnet and a very enthusiast De Gaulle discussed the plan with Sir Robert Vansittart, Lord Halifax, and others who proposed it to Churchill. Churchill wasn't convinced, but after the positive reactions from his cabinet members all he crossed out was the common currency plan; everything else was approved and the British officials proposed the plan to the French government, still headed by Paul Reynaud. Unfortunately for Reynaud, his vice-premier Marshal Petain and his allies in government reacted with intense hostility to the plan, claiming it was a British plot to wrestle control over France. In the aftermath of this conflict, Reynaud resigned and Marshal Petain came to power, creating the Vichy state. The Catholic anti-republican Petain government arranged an armistice with the Germans and soon actively collaborated with them. Britain was doomed, according to Petain. In August 1940, Jean Monnet was sent to the United States by the British government as a member of the British Supply Council, in order to negotiate the purchase of war supplies. He became particularly close to Harry Hopkins, FDR's right-hand man and a Soviet agent, according to the post-war ultra-conservative Le Cercle intelligence group. Through Hopkins he became President Roosevelt's personal advisor on Europe. After the war, the elitist John Maynard Keynes would say that Monnet probably shortened the war by a year. Went to Algiers in 1943 for the United States and British Munitions Assignment Board, which supplied the Free French forces with arms, headed by the two presidents, General Henri Giraud (supported Pétain and the Vichy government, but refused to cooperate with the Germans; supported by Robert D. Murphy, FDR's chargé d’affaires to the Vichy government who later became Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and vice chair of the Operations Coordinating Board (OCB) under Eisenhower; mainly supported by FDR who was interested in supporting the anti-Nazi elements in the pro-Catholic anti-republican Vichy government) and General Charles De Gaulle (mainly supported by Churchill, who was responsible for keeping him in the picture; very much disliked by FDR), two bitter opponents which had to work together in this organization. According to his New York Times obituary, Monnet initially supported Giraud, who was ousted as co-president by De Gaulle within a year. After Giraud seemed to become the underdog, Monnet became a supporter of De Gaulle, who seemingly didn't hold his previous support of Giraud against him. In 1943, while in Algiers, Monnet started to work closely with Harold MacMillan, Churchill's political representative to the Mediterranean. Both Macmillan and Monnet weren't fond of De Gaulle's high-handedness, but were of the opinion he was the only person to lead the French government in exile effectively. Monnet and Macmillan co-created the Comité Francais de Libération Nationale (CFLN), which was to be headed by De Gaulle in the end. At the same time, in Algiers, David Rockefeller, as a low-level Army Intelligence officer with almost unlimited connections, stood in close contact with both De Gaulle's and Giraud's aide-de-camp. In his 2002 memoirs, Rockefeller seemed to indicate he was more of a fan of Giraud than of De Gaulle, stating that by 1943 De Gaulle still was an obscure politician virtually none of the military officers liked. During a meeting on 5th August 1943, Monnet, who by this time had started brainstorming about post-WWII European integration, declared to the Comité Francais de Libération Nationale (CFLN): "There will be no peace in Europe, if the states are reconstituted on the basis of national sovereignty with its implications of prestige politics and economic protectionism... The countries of Europe are too small to guarantee their peoples the necessary prosperity and social development... the nations of Europe [must] form a federation of a European entity which will forge them into a single economic unit..." Went back to Washington in the 1944-1945 period. Immediately after the 1945 liberation, Monnet proposed a "global plan for modernization and economic development" to the French government. As Planning Commissioner of the National Economic Council from 1945 to 1952, appointed by De Gaulle, he carried out essential work for the reconstruction of the French economy. Henri Rieben, a later close associate of Jean Monnet, explained to the Empire Club of Canada in the 1967 speech 'Napoleon Failed—Will We Succeed? - Towards a United States of Europe': "Jean Monnet and General de Gaulle had probably at that time [1943-1945] come into conflict over two issues: national sovereignty--Germany... For a country which has fallen into the abyss, a striving to accomplish a mission will help it regain its self esteem. But, de Gaulle added, this mission must not be such that the nation becomes diluted in a European entity... De Gaulle also feared Germany..." In early 1947, U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall (Pilgrims Society) created a team of officials to map out a strategy for economic support to Europe. Key members of this group were George Kennan, Dean Acheson, and Will Clayton, all three of the CFR and/or Pilgrims Society. Especially Kennan and Clayton had many consultations with Jean Monnet over this issue before they came up with the Marshall Plan, a scheme which gave economic aid to countries in Europe that renounced communism and opened up their markets (including economic assets) to the United States. In response to the Marshall Plan, 17 nations agreed to attend a Paris conference on July 12, 1947 and created the Committee for European Economic Co-operation (CEEC). As vice-chairman, Monnet was the key player in the CEEC, more so than its chairman, Oliver Franks. Pilgrims Society member and later permanent Bilderberg member George Ball worked for Monnet at the CEEC, advising how the CEEC case for economic aid could best be presented in the US. In 1948, the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) was created to administer the distribution of the Marshall Plan funding. Monnet pushed hard to create an executive council with supranational powers, but because of opposition by the British, Sweden, and Switzerland, the OEEC council remained intergovernmental. One of the main supporters of the Marshall Plan was the League for Economic Cooperation (ELEC), founded by Joseph Retinger (MI6; Vatican connections; knew many many people internationally; organized Bilderberg with his good friend Prince Bernhard) in 1946. In May 1948, the Congress of Europe was convened by the United Europe Movement in The Hague. It was organized by Jean Monnet with the help of Joseph Retinger; its chairman was Winston Churchill while Alcide de Gasperi, Paul Henri Spaak, Leon Blum, Robert Schumann, and Konrad Adenauer, the latter soon to be chancellor of West-Germany, were among the attendants. The congress called for the creation of a Council of Europe, but was too large and unwieldly to reach any decisions on this issue. It was, however, agreed upon that the European Movement should be set up. Seven Resolutions on Political Union were adopted at the The Hague Congress. Resolution number seven stated: "The creation of a United Europe must be regarded as an essential step towards the creation of a United World." Retinger and Churchill's son-in-law Duncan Sandys, went to America after this congress to lobby for support for their campaign for European unity. Here they met two key figures, William Donovan (head OSS; founder in 1947 of the CIA; SMOM) and Allen Dulles (OSS; CIA; SMOM). These two very senior members of the intelligence community had recently joined in support of Coudenhove, an ally of the Habsburg family, to form a Committee for a Free and United Europe. But, as a result of the meetings with Sandys and Retinger, Coudenhove, who considered that he alone should lead any unity movement, was now dropped, amid some acrimony. A new organization was set up, the American Committee on United Europe (ACUE), which would be used as a conduit for covert CIA funds, augmented by contributions from private foundations such as the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, to support many important organizations in Europe that were pro-capitalist, anti-communist, and working towards European integration. This covert contribution never formed less than half the European Movement's budget until the 1960s. Allen Dulles, general Walter Bedell Smith (CIA; very good friend of Prince Bernhard), and Mrs. John J. McCloy were among the ACUE's board members. In 1949, Monnet realised that the friction between Germany and France for control of the Ruhr, the important coal and steel region, was rising to dangerous levels. France was attempting to keep control over Germany's economy. The solution to this state of affairs could not however be the federation, because France, proud of its so-recently recovered sovereignty, rejected it. For this reason Monnet, together with a few collaborators, drafted a revolutionary proposal: to pool, under the control of a European government, Franco-German coal and steel resources. John Foster Dulles, the old friend and business associate of Monnet, called it "brilliantly creative." Monnet went looking for a prominent politician to promote his plan; he ended up with Schuman, France's foreign minister. The top secret Monnet Memorandum to Schuman stated: "By pooling basic production and the establishment of a new High Authority, whose decisions will be binding on France, Germany and the countries that join them, this proposal will lay the first concrete foundations of a European federation, which is indispensable to the maintenance of peace". Schuman, after having secretly conferred with Adenauer, accepted the proposal and rendered it public on May 9, 1950, not informing anyone the original text came from Monnet. Dean Acheson was among the handful that knew about the top secret plan before it went public. One year later, with the Treaty of Paris, six countries (France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg) founded the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). The model of "Europe's government" was almost exactly the same as Monnet's friend, Arthur Santer, had proposed twenty years earlier. President of the European Coal and Steel High Authority 1952-1955. Received the Charlemagne award in 1953. First met Henri Rieben in 1955. Rieben collaborated with the Steel Division of the UN's European Economic Commission on the preparation of a report, published in 1949, which, in terms of metallurgy, was a kind of precursor of the Monnet/Schuman Plan. Rieben defended his thesis 'From agreements of metalwork masters to the Schuman Plan' in 1952, under the guidance of Professor Firmin Oulès and Philippe de Selliers de Moranville, head of the Steel Division and member of an elite Belgian family. Monnet wrote a paper, calling for the establishment of the European Defence Community, a supranational European Army. He gave this paper to the French premier Rene Pleven, who introduced it as his own idea. It ultimately was rejected by a Gaullist French parliament which was more in favor of the intergovernmental NATO. In 1955, Monnet was disturbed by the failure of his European Defence Community (EDC), which was rejected by France. He decided to change his work strategy radically and founded the Action Committee for the United States of Europe, together with Henri Rieben. The Ford Foundation website wrote: "In the past the Foundation has assisted European agencies concerned with Atlantic-community problems—for example, the Center of Documentation of the Action Committee for the United States of Europe, headed by Jean Monnet—and similar groups in the United States." January 27, 1960, The Oneonta Star, 'In Europe political unity plans growing': "The Action Committee for the United States of Europe has recommended that the three executive organizations which head the Economic Community, the Coal and Steel Community, and Euratom be replaced by a single president and controlling board... Now Washington is worried... [The EEC] might close European markets to American goods. The United States is therefore seeking a merger of its own economic interests with those of Britain and the Continent, and with Canada, in a new overall organization to which other nations, especially. Japan, could be admitted." July 3, 1962, San Mateo Times, 'Today and Tomorrow by Walter Lippmann': "The committee has now spoken out unequivocally in favor of British membership in the European Economic Community and in a European political union. It has declared itself against the separatism of General de Gaulle which would lead to "profitless adventures and preserve that spirit of superiority and domination which not so long ago led Europe to the brink of destruction and could now engulf the world." At the same time the action committee declares for a partnership between the new Europe and North America, for a "relationship of two separate but equally powerful entities, each bearing its share of common responsibility in the world."... For if Great Britain and the Scandinavian countries and the European neutrals and the Commonwealth are all outside the Common Market, and in rivalry with it, it will be presumptuous of the Six to call themselves "Europe." and there will be little prospect of a partnership between Europe and the United States." March 26, 1967, The Fresno Bee: "Members of the Action Committee for the United States of Europe, which is headed by Jean Monnet of France, the 'eminence grise' of the movement for unification of Western Europe. They [members] include Willy Brandt, West German vice chancellor and foreign minister; Pietro Nenni, Italian vice premier; Herbert Wehner, West German minister for all-German affairs—Socialists — and Rainer Barzel, leader of the Christian Democratic party in the West German Bundestag; Mariano Rumor, secretary general of the Italian Christian Democratic party; and Guy Mollet, head of the French Socialist party." June 25, 1969, San Mateo Times, 'French Foreign Minister Opposed De Gaulle': "One of the more interesting cabinet appointments made by new French President Georges Pompidou is his selection of Maurice Schumann [Roman Catholic who worked closely with Robert Schumann, De Gaulle and the UN in the aftermath of WWII] to be his foreign minister... In 1962 he [Maurice Schumann] became minister for development under Pompidou who then was premier. After a month, he quit in protest against De Gaulle's nationalistic policies... Also contributing to the "European" flavor of the new cabinet was the appointment of Valery Giscard d'Estaing to the post of finance minister. Giscard d'Estaing, a finance minister under De Gaulle for four years and a possible presidential candidate seven years from now, recently joined the action committee for the United States of Europe. This is an international group led by Jean Monet which favors both British membership in the Common Market and the political integration of Europe." August 16, 1969, The Gleaner, 'Britain's new bid to enter the ECM': "The Action Committee for the United States of Europe met for the first time in London on March 11, and expressed the belief that nothing is more important than to strengthen and continue the European integration which the Six have already begun by ensuring that Great Britain joins in. Both the main contenders for the office of President of France [Cercle members Alain Poher and Georges Pompidou] are vying with each other in their declarations that they want Britain in the Common Market, provided she will accept the terms of the Treaty of Rome. The West German Foreign Minister has expressed the belief and hope that negotiations for Britain's entry might begin before the end of the year; his colleague in the Finance Ministry, Herr Strauss [Cercle member], has urged immediate negotiations between Britain and the Six." Monnet chaired his Action Committee from 1955 to 1975, after which it lost its influence. July 25, 1969, Time Magazine: "They were all there, those aging statesmen who years ago committed their dreams to the ideal of European unity. Jean Monnet, 80, "the father of the Common Market," last week convened a session of his nonofficial Action Committee for a United States of Europe in Brussels. Former Common Market President Walter Hallstein was there, along with veteran French Politicians Antoine Pinay and Maurice Faure and dozens of other ranking European statesmen. Together, they constitute a sort of European shadow government." Vice president of the Action Committee for the United States of Europe was Max Kohnstamm, who failed trying to revive the committee after Monnet's death. Kohnstamm had become the initial 1973 European chairman of the Trilateral Commission, which was founded by David Rockefeller. Kohnstamm visited the Trilateral Commission until the 1990s and Jean Monnet Association is still represented today. Kohnstamm also became a president of the European Policy Centre, which is allied with the King Baudouin Foundation. First met the extremely influential Pilgrims Society member C. Douglas Dillon (of Dillon, Read & Co.; Rockefeller associate; married into European nobility; vice chair CFR) in 1956 when the latter was US ambassador to France. Monnet, although not invited to attend the signing of the Treaty of Rome, which established the European Economic Community, did play an important role in the negotiations. Ernst H. van der Beugel (honorary secretary general of Bilderberger; vice chair of the Netherlands Institute for Foreign Affairs; Harvard lecturer) in his 1966 book 'From Marshall Aid to Atlantic Partnership' (foreword by Henry A. Kissinger): "Monnet and his Action Committee were unofficially supervising the [Treaty of Rome] negotiations and as soon as obstacles appeared, the United States diplomatic machinery was alerted, mostly through Ambassador Bruce [Pilgrims Society; descendant of Robert de Bruce of Scotland]... who had immediate access to the top echelon of the State Department... At that time, it was usual that if Monnet thought that a particular country made difficulties in the negotiations, the American diplomatic representative in that country approached the Foreign Ministry in order to communicate the opinion of the American Government which, in practically all cases, coincided with Monnet's point of view." Monnet's high-level friends, who assisted him in these strong-arm tactics, included President Eisenhower, Dulles, McCloy, Bruce, George Ball, and C. Douglas Dillon. When John Foster Dulles died in 1959 Jean Monnet came to the US to attend his funeral. Visited C. Douglas Dillon at this time and lunched with president Eisenhower. With behind-the-scenes lobbying and help from influential people like Douglas Dillon and John Tuthill (became head of the Atlantic Institute in the 1960s), Monnet managed to replace the OEEC in 1961, dominated by the British and their intergovernmental politics, with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). He also initiated a proposal, via Douglas Dillon, to include Canada and the United States in the OEEC/OECD as to further dilute the influence of Britain. Founding board member of the Per Jacobsson Foundation, which was established in 1963 to carry forward the work of Per Jacobsson (League of Nations; BIS; IMF) in international cooperation in the monetary and economic field. Some other directors of the Per Jacobsson Foundation in the 1960s to early 1970s were Viscount Harcourt (Pilgrims; IMF; World Bank; chair Morgan Grenfell & Co.), Gabriel Hauge (Pilgrims; chair Manufacturers Hanover Trust; treasurer CFR; Bilderberg steering committee) Herman J. Abs (chair Deutsche Bank), Marinus W. Holtrop (chair BIS and the Nedelandse Bank); (Lord Salter (Privy Council; League of Nations), Lord Cobbeld (Privy Council; Bank of England), David Rockefeller (Pilgrims), Lord Arthur Salter (Monnet's longtime friend and associate in establishing the United States of Europe; supposed Roundtable member; associated with Oxford and All Souls; Privy Council; League of Nations), Allen Sproul (Pilgrims; NY Fed), Maurice Frère (BIS; Sofina; Banque Nationale de Belgique; family today owns Frère-Bourgeois Group), Albert E. Janssen (Chair Société Belge de Banque), Samuel Schweizer (chair Swiss Bank Corporation), and others. Eugene R. Black (Pilgrims; Chase; World Bank; Fed; Brookings; Bilderberg) and Marcus Wallenberg were among the chairmen of the foundation. Banks in Austria, France, Italy, Norway, Finland, Ireland, Canada, United Arab Republic, Pakistan, India, the Philippines, New Zealand, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Chile, and Japan were also represented on the board of the Per Jacobsson Foundation. In 1961, the 17th Lord Perth, who went with Monnet to China in the early 1930s, arranged a meeting between Jean Monnet and Edward Heath (As Lord Privy Seal 1960-1963 responsible for the initial talks to bring Britain into the European Common Market; head Conservative party 1965-1975; Conservative prime minister UK 1970-1974; very committed to the EU; a close Sun Myung Moon associate) in his own apartment. This aristocratic and Catholic Lord Perth was chairman of the Ditchley Foundation at some point, and in good family tradition, at times a liaison to the Vatican for the British queen. Edward Heath signed the United Kingdom into the European Union in January 1972, which became effective a year later. Jean Monnet and Paul-Henri Spaak were at his side during this signing. In earlier times, Monnet and his associates kept Britain out of the European Common Market, although Heath had been an early advocate of Britain joining the EU. December 13, 1972, New York Times: "Mr. Kissinger talked the other day to President Pompidou privately about the monetary, trade and political questions between the U.S. and the European Common Market, and the related question of money and commerce between these two and Japan. He also had a talk in Paris with Jean Monnet, the architect and philosopher of European unity, and Monnet will be going to Washington late in January to carry on these conversations." Died in 1979. April 24, 1981, the New York Times published an interview with Lazard banker Felix Rohatyn: "A hero, Mr. Rohatyn said, is Jean Monnet, who guided the creation of the European Common Market. ''Monnet never had a voice in the French Government,'' he said. ''But he accomplished a great deal. I don't flatter myself into thinking I'm Jean Monnet. But I believe that ideas in themselves have great power, if you have a platform that has legitimacy." Otto von Habsburg has stated that his ally and predecessor at the Pan-Europa Union, Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, was a prophet and visionary, while Monnet was a technocrat. Because of this, Habsburg said, Monnet and Coudenhove-Kalergi didn't get along very well.