The “Dollarization” of the Americas
By William F. Jasper The John Birch Society Bulletin, August 1999
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.” — Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass
Last January, the business pages of many newspapers reported on a startling proposal by Argentine President Carlos Menem that his country abandon its own currency, the peso, and adopt the U.S. dollar. In short order, a number of stories began surfacing that Mexico, Canada, El Salvador, Brazil, and Venezuela are also considering similar “dollarization” proposals. The brief, shallow analysis and generally nonchalant tone found in most of the Establishment media’s reports about this astounding development greatly belie the impact upon the world’s political and economic structures that actual “dollarization” would inaugurate. The vast majority of Americans have not even heard of “dollarization” and have not the slightest idea that the adoption of this nation-destroying program is an integral part of the Insiders’ plans for an end to sovereign nationhood and the enthronement of tyrannical, one-world government. Nor do our fellow citizens have the merest inkling that the plans to implement this program are already well underway. To the extent that these radical proposals have engendered “debate” at all, it has been an overwhelmingly one-sided affair (no surprise there), with the usual assortment of globalist cognoscenti unabashedly promoting the scheme and assuring us that dollarization is the only realistic hope for stabilizing Latin America’s tottering economies and protecting America’s prosperity. While the dollarization scheme is but one of several strands in the economic rope of bondage that is being tightened on the American people (as well as on the billions of other hapless victims with whom we share this planet), it is the primary one on which we will be focusing here. There are many possible and logical points at which to begin unraveling this dangerous stratagem, but we will choose the Time magazine cover story for February 15, 1999, which must surely rank as one of the most extraordinary propaganda and disinformation pieces of this decade, if not of this century. Along with the headline, “The Committee to Save the World,” the cover featured the beaming visages of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, then- Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, and Deputy Treasury Secretary (now Treasury Secretary) Lawrence Summers, with this riveting subtitle: “The Inside story of how the Three Marketeers have prevented a global economic meltdown — so far.” This was more than your standard Insider puff piece aimed at honoring and promoting a few of its own. It was designed as one of the major centerpieces in an accelerated and intensified propaganda war unleashed by the Conspiracy over the past few months to advance a number of key objectives, all of which, ultimately, are directed toward propelling the program of economic, political, and military “convergence” into their planned, Orwellian new world order. Realizing that their proposals for international political and military convergence face strong nationalist objections — objections that will more readily be overcome once economic convergence is well established — the one-world advocates have been pushing the economic “reform” and “restructuring” agenda full tilt. The main purpose of the Time story is two-fold: to incite near panic in the American public concerning various “crises” that could initiate a global economic implosion; and to offer panic relief in the form of economic crisis managers of super-human genius and wisdom in whom we must place complete authority to manage our planet’s economic assets and policies. “In late night phone calls, in marathon meetings,” writes Time magazine’s Joshua Cooper Ramo, “…these three men — Robert Rubin, Allan Greenspan and Larry Summers — are working to stop what has become a plague of economic panic.” According to Mr. Ramo’s gushingly adulatory screed — replete with lavish, flattering photo spreads — citizens Rubin, Greenspan, and Summers become ethereal creatures, virtual demigods, with celestial intelligence and selfless virtue not available to mere mortals. “What holds them together,” says Ramo, “is a passion for thinking and an inextinguishable curiosity about a new economic order that is unfolding before them like an Alice in Wonderland world.” The reference to Lewis Carroll’s nonsensical storybook world is entirely apropos, particularly if one keeps in mind that Alice’s dreamscape, which began as amusingly absurd, rapidly degenerated into one that was not merely terrifying and nightmarish, but decidedly dangerous — with lots of nasty people trying to chop off her head. And, it should be noted, this divine trio (Ramo calls them “The Trinity”) is not passively observing this “unfolding” new order, but is actively involved in creating the worldwide disorder that is generating the “consensus” on the absolute “necessity” to adopt their global solutions. “The sheer fascination of inventing a 21st century financial system motivates them more than the usual Washington drugs of power and money,” says Ramo admiringly. No doubt the “Trinity” is fascinated indeed with its heady mission of “inventing” and “saving” the world. But is not holding the economic destiny of the planet in one’s hands the ultimate drug of power and money? Though the Greenspan-Rubin-Summers pseudo-deity may be in a key position for wielding power, most veteran JBS members realize that it exercises no power of its own. They are mere temporarily elevated front men, sanctified technocrats, who implement the plans of a concerted conspiracy of Insiders that remains behind the scenes. The most visible organizational structure representing and carrying out the evil plans of those Insider megalomaniacs is the Council on Foreign Relations. In the May Bulletin, we provided an abbreviated history of the treachery of the same CFR cabal operating through several presidential administrations — both Republican and Democrat — to deliver the Panama Canal, an asset of enormous economic and military value, to our enemies. In the dollarization “debate” — and the larger, global, economic “restructuring” of which it is a part — we are dealing with the delivery of our entire country to the enemy. Greenspan, Rubin, and Summers are, naturally, veteran CFR members. As is Joshua Cooper Ramo, the editor of Time’s world section, who heaped such lavish praise upon the trio of economic mega-managers. So are, for that matter, many other executives and editors at Time magazine and its parent company, Time Warner. (Time Warner, in fact, is a corporate member of the CFR.) But Time folks are not unique. Hundreds of their colleagues, who dominate and control virtually all of our major media, are also members of the CFR’s “Pratt House fraternity” that has literally been running America for several decades. And, like Time, they have been campaigning for economic convergence. Mr. Ramo’s piece is but one of many similar reports in the broadcast and print media over the past few months that have been aimed at psychologically softening up the American business community and winning its acceptance of the dollar as a regional currency. What makes Mr. Ramo’s article particularly revealing, though, is that it provides an especially significant admission. He writes: “In the same way that the threat of mutually assured destruction helped Kissinger replace the Washington ideology with Realpolitik, the shadow of a massive economic meltdown has helped the committee sell a market-driven policy that could be labeled Realeconomik.” Aside from the fact that he is engaging in typical CFR deception by referring to the blatantly globalist-statist economic policies as “market-driven,” Ramo confirms that the CFR clique is employing a favorite tactic that has succeeded so fabulously on other fronts: pose a global specter, real or fictional (which, in either case, you have created yourself), and then offer a solution that demands vast new power for you and your cabal of “crisis managers.” So it was that we began to see a growing parade this year of CFR “wise men” and their unquestioning followers marching in lock step to push dollarization as the salvation for our impending economic woes. The Wall Street Journal has been the chief cheerleader for this effort. One of the early Journal volleys this year was fired by Harvard University Professor of Economics Robert J. Barro in an op-ed column for March 8, 1999 entitled, “Let the Dollar Reign From Seattle to Santiago.” Dollarization, he said, is “a good idea, not just for Argentina but for other countries in the Western Hemisphere. But the dollarization of the Americas won’t happen without U.S. leadership.... Washington ought to take the lead in promoting the monetary integration.” When Federal Reserve Chairman Greenspan and Deputy Secretary Summers (who has since moved up to Secretary, replacing his boss, Rubin, who retired on July 2nd) appeared before the Senate Joint Economic Committee, they played the coy coquettes. Greenspan averred that dollarization could “be clearly in the economic and broader national interest of the United States,” but did not explicitly endorse the proposal. The supposedly tepid support by Summer and Greenspan during their Senate testimony elicited an op-ed piece from Judy Shelton in the Journal on April 29th admonishing them to get behind dollarization: The issue of dollarization goes to the heart of monetary stability in our hemisphere. With Mexico and Canada, our two most vital trade partners, considering the dollarization option at the highest levels of policy discussion and public debate, the U.S. is compelled to take a position. These countries are talking about effectively replacing their own currencies with the U.S. dollar or at least granting their citizens a choice of currencies. For the three signatory nations to the North American Free Trade Agreement, it would amount to the establishment of a common currency to more fully realize the economic returns from a tariff-free common market…. [Emphasis added.] Then comes the big whopper. “Dollarization has arisen as a spontaneous movement within our hemisphere,” claims Ms. Shelton. “The ball is in America’s court; if Washington plays it properly, it will score a powerful victory for free trade and free markets.” But the dollarization bandwagon is about as spontaneous as the Normandy invasion, and it has nothing to do with free markets. There are a myriad of documents, publications, statements, speeches, conferences, meetings, and events from the past several decades to which we could point — time and space permitting — which copiously prove that the current dollarization drive we are now witnessing is the culmination of a massive, long-range effort that began many years ago as an intermediate stepping stone to world government. One such document is Western Hemisphere Economic Integration, a study by Gary Clyde Hufbauer (CFR, and former CFR vice president) and Jeffrey J. Schott, published in 1994 by the Institute for International Economics (IIE). The dedication at the beginning of this book reads: “TO DAVID ROCKEFELLER, For his lifelong devotion to promoting economic development in Latin America and to improving relations among the countries of the Western Hemisphere. His wisdom has been an enormous source of encouragement to the work of the Institute and inspired us to explore the important ties that unite the Americas.” Mr. Rockefeller, of course, was chairman of the CFR from 1970-1985 and, as we will see, has played an especially key role in the dollarization and Western hemispheric economic convergence scheme. Likewise the IIE, which is virtually joined at the hip to the CFR. The executive director of the IIE is former U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs C. Fred Bergsten (CFR), who appeared on May 21st of this year before the House Banking and Financial Services Committee to argue for the dollarization power scam. The link between the CFR and the IIE is further demonstrated by the list of IIE officers and directors provided in the Hufbauer-Schott study. IIE’s Chairman is listed as Peter G. Peterson, who is also chairman of the board of the CFR, a position he has held since 1985, when he succeeded David Rockefeller in that position. Chairman of the IIE Executive Committee is Anthony M. Solomon (CFR). Listed also are the IIE board of directors, which include such CFR luminaries as W. Michael Blumenthal, Carla A. Hills, Donald F. McHenry, Paul A. Volcker, Marina Whitman, and Andrew Young. Chairman of the Advisory Committee is Richard N. Cooper (CFR) a leading advocate of a global currency, a global Federal Reserve, and global government. One of the members of that same Advisory Committee was Lawrence H. Summers. Listed as an Honorary Director was Alan Greenspan. So what did the Hufbauer-Schott study published by the IIE advocate? Very simply, “a Western Hemisphere Free Trade Area (WHFTA)” following the EU pattern. “After four decades of dedicated effort,” said the report, “Western Europe has just arrived at the threshold of … monetary union, and fiscal coordination. It seems likely that trade and investment integration will proceed at a faster pace within the Western Hemisphere.” (Emphasis added.) “Finally,” it stated, “the more countries that participate in integration and the wider its scope, the greater the need for some institutional mechanism to administer the arrangements and to resolve the inevitable disputes, and the stronger the case for a common legal framework.” (Which means, supranational legislative, executive and judicial institutions, naturally.) “The European Commission, Council, Parliament, and Court of Justice have many of the powers of comparable institutions in federal states,” the report noted approvingly, then went on to comment, “On this subject, we score Europe with a 5 [on a scale of 0 to 5].” Not satisfied with the EU model, the authors proposed going far beyond it. They asserted that “integration between NAFTA and Latin America should be legally open-ended; potentially the WHFTA should include countries outside the hemisphere.” Indeed, they asserted: “Economic logic suggests that the expansion of NAFTA in an Asian direction is just as desirable as its expansion in a Latin American direction.” In countless similar studies, speeches, lectures, and programs over the years, the CFR elitists have prepped the elite of the U.S. and Western intelligentsia and business communities so that they would enthusiastically embrace this deadly nostrum — long before it appeared “spontaneously” for general public consumption. But how did they succeed in drawing Latin American leaders into this snare and overcoming the long-standing fear of Yankee “dollar imperialism?” One obvious answer is that through the lending programs of the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and Wall Street banks, they have saddled Latin American countries with hopeless debt burdens that have left them desperate and willing to try radical measures. But a more complete answer is to be found in the long-term activities of groups like the IIE and the Council of the Americas (COA) that have for two generations been assiduously grooming and tutoring the business, academic, and political leaders of Latin America. The COA describes its origins thusly: “In 1965, David Rockefeller and a group of like-minded business people founded the Council of the Americas based on the fundamental belief that free markets and private enterprise offer the most effective means to achieve regional economic growth and prosperity.” (Those so naïve as to believe in the COA’s professed embrace of “free markets and private enterprise” probably also believe that the Social Security Administration has set up a bank account with their name on it, awaiting their retirement!) Among the CFR brotherhood joining Mr. Rockefeller in the COA’s leadership are COA Chairman Robert A. Mosbacher, Sr., Vice Chairman Robert E. Wilhelm, Treasurer Richard de J. Osborne, and General Counsel Sergio J. Galvis.
Some 240 companies with interests in Latin America, ranging from AT&T, Bank of America, Coca Cola, Citibank, and Dow Jones & Company, to Exxon, Ford, General Electric, IBM, Microsoft, Newsweek, Turner Broadcasting System, Wal-Mart, and Xerox, provide impressive muscle (and financial support) for the COA’s agenda as corporate members. Most of these companies, with a heavy CFR presence at their executive and directorate levels, have proven to be reliable supporters of the one-world corporatist line. Working hand-in-glove with the COA-CFR corporate socialists are the pampered princelings of the U.S.-tax-dollar-subsidized multilateral lending institutions like the IMF and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), many of whose officers are also CFR members. The acknowledgment section of the aforementioned Hufbauer-Schott study, for instance, notes that the “Inter-American Development Bank provided support for the research underlying this project and the bank sponsored seminars for the discussion of its preliminary results.” Indeed, a brief survey of the daily faxes we receive from the IDB, IMF and their sister institutions makes very plain the completely corrupt process by which the Insiders form their convergence “consensus.” Each day brings announcements of tens of millions (sometimes hundreds of millions) of dollars in IDB “loans” for natural gas pipelines in Mexico, electric power plants in Argentina, highways in Bolivia, coffee plantations in El Salvador, etc. IDB cooperation can lift a Latin American politician by financing the programs that make him look good, or help his opposition by pulling funds and destroying confidence in his economic program. Thus, when President Carlos Menem of Argentina and President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela delivered their CFR-scripted speeches at June COA luncheons in New York, they knew they were addressing sympathetic movers and shakers of the COA-CFR-IIE-IDB axis who would parlay their proposals into the new “working consensus” that would become official U.S. policy.
An American EU
Of course, what the new world order architects have in mind for the Americas is exactly what they are foisting on Europe in the form of the European Union and the new euro currency. That evolving supranational monstrosity was also presented to unwary Europeans as a “spontaneous” movement aimed at “free trade” and “free markets.” But Europeans are belatedly waking up to the fact that it is no accident that the centralized, socialist bureaucracy of the EU is strangling their freedoms and national sovereignty: It was planned to develop into exactly that from the start. There is no longer reason for any sensible American to doubt that the CFR coterie intends to take us down the same path. The one-world architects of the European Monetary Union (EMU) are openly advocating an American Monetary Union (AMU). The CFR journal, Foreign Affairs for July/August 1999 provides ample confirmation. In the opening paragraph of his essay, “From EMU to AMU?: The Case for Regional Currencies,” Zanny Minton Beddoes of Britain’s The Economist pronounces with oracular certainty: “By 2030 the world will have two major currency zones — one European, the other American. The euro will be used from Brest to Bucharest, and the dollar from Alaska to Argentina — perhaps even Asia.” “Skeptics argue that a national currency is a basic symbol of sovereignty that countries choose to forfeit only under extraordinary circumstances,” says Beddoes. Mr. Beddoes and his devious allies would surely like all of us to believe that a national currency is only a “symbol of sovereignty,” but it is much more than that, of course. It is an essential ingredient of sovereignty, and a nation is at the fearful mercy of any entity to whom it may be foolish enough to forfeit so important a power. The Federal Reserve System and the International Monetary Fund have already vindicated that claim a thousand times over, and yet here we are about to be enticed into an even deeper abyss. Words fail to convey the enormity and audacity of this colossal, dangerous fraud we are witnessing in the current “spontaneous movement” to transform the Western Hemisphere into a carbon copy of the increasingly tyrannical European Union. But even that grim prospect of an America under a EU-style centrally controlled economic bloc does not begin to convey the seriousness of the peril we face if we allow these plans to succeed. Regional “integration” is but a steppingstone to the real objective sought by the Insiders of a self-perpetuating Conspiracy: Total, unrestrained power on a planetary scale. And if it ever succeeds in attaining that monstrous objective, we can be sure that the killing fields of Rwanda, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, China and Russia will pale by comparison to the global bloodbath that will be unleashed. Once we are willing to grasp that fact, we will begin to give even more effort to preventing this nightmare from ever being realized.
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