> Chapter 2

"TRAGEDY AND HOPE"

(By Professor Carroll Quigley. Pub. 1966 by Macmillan, NY. Available from American Opinion Books, PO Box 8040, Appleton, WI 54913, 414-749-3783.)

This book is subtitled A History of The World in Our Time. It runs over 1300 pages, and is Professor Quigley's magnum opus. The book is establishmentarian to the core, and I don't really recommend that you seek out a copy (its publication run was truncated, and library copies have disappeared), since I can steer you instead to a much shorter book devoted solely to a detailed review of Quigley's book from an anti-elitist viewpoint.

Quigley and his book are highly important for our purpose, however, for one very good reason. While his establishmentarian credentials are impeccable, and while he acknowledges his agreement with the broad goals of the international elites, he states that he disagrees with them in one primary particular, namely that they insist on preserving their behind-the-scenes secrecy. They have been too important an element in Western history, he says, to remain unknown and unacknowledged. Having been granted access to their secret files for a period of time, he says, he has decided to provide some historical illumination, not only on some of their unknown works, but also on a number of their individual faces. His was the first book by an "Insider" which acknowledges the existence of an organized but heretofore secret "international Anglophile network" (p. 950) which has, since the late 1800's, been controlling much of our world's history. His book clearly went much too far for the liking of the elites, however, and they did their best to push the book down their (incompletely constructed) memory hole.

We'll discuss first a few of the lesser matters Quigley covers, just to give you the flavor of what it's about, and to substantiate several points made in Engdahl's book. First, he acknowledges (pp. 50-53) the existence and identity of the British merchant bankers who took advantage of the capital accumulated during their industrial revolution, and their skills in manipulating its use, to "take the old disorganized and localized methods of handling money and credit and organize them into an integrated system, on an international basis, which worked with incredible and well-oiled facility for many decades. The center of that system was in London, with major offshoots in New York and Paris.... The men who did this ... aspired to establish dynasties of international bankers, and were at least as successful at this as were many of the dynastic political rulers. The greatest of these dynasties, of course, were the descendants of Meyer Amschel Rothschild (1743-1812) of Frankfort...." He then lists the names of the important banking families: "They include Baring, Lazard, Erlanger, Warburg, Schroder, Seligman, the Speyers, Mirabaud, Mallet, Fould, and above all Rothschild and Morgan." Concerning the latter name, he notes that J.P. Morgan and Company was "originally founded in London as George Peabody and Company in 1838." More will be said about the subservience of Morgan to the British bankers in a review yet to come. Quigley, however, makes no bones about their joint power. It reached its peak in the period 1919-193 1, he says, "when Montagu Norman and J.P. Morgan dominated not only the financial world but international relations and other matters as well." Concerning the thrust of the bankers' control, Quigley notes, as a preview generalization (p. 62), "The history of the last century shows, as we shall later see, that the advice given to governments by bankers, like the advice they gave to industrialists, was consistently good for bankers, but was often disastrous for governments, businessmen, and the people generally."

The closest Quigley gets to going out on a limb and identifying underlying causes of World War 1, rather than just the public diplomatic maneuvers of the participating European powers, is to state (p. 224) that: "[I]nternational economic competition was, in the period before 1914, requiring increasing political support [from such groups as] British gold and diamond miners in South Africa, German railroad builders in the Near East, ... British oil prospectors in the Near East" and others. Elsewhere, however, he does talk more specifically (pp. 120-121) about the threat perceived by the British in Germany's growing internationalist outlook, most particularly in its effort to complete a "Berlin to Baghdad" rail link: "After 1889 the situation was different. Economically, the Germans began to invade Anatolia [i.e., Turkey] by establishing trading agencies and banking facilities.... Most important, perhaps, was the projected 'Berlin to Baghdad' railway scheme.... This project was of the greatest economic, strategic, and political importance not only to the Ottoman Empire and the Near East but to the whole of Europe. Economically, it tapped a region of great mineral and agricultural resources, including the world's greatest petroleum reserves." Best of all from the German viewpoint, says Quigley, these ties to raw materials needed by Germany "were beyond the reach of the British Navy" and therefore solved a "crucial problem" which would face the Germans in time of war. Then, starting about 1900, "for more then ten years, Russia, Britain, and France showed violent disapproval, and did all they could to obstruct the project." He outlines many of these efforts, but then concludes that it had nothing to do with starting the war because, about a month before the war started, Britain "withdrew her opposition" to the railway. Suspicious people might conceivably treat that proclamation with some doubt.

The only mention that Quigley makes of the Seven Sisters cartel is as something of a footnote to his discussion of the overthrow of Prime Minister Mossadegh of Iran by the CIA for the benefit of the cartel, which Mossadegh was trying to oust. Concerning the cartel formation, he says only: "The world oil cartel had developed from a tripartite agreement signed on September 17, 1928 by Royal Dutch-Shell, Anglo-Iranian, and Standard Oil. The three signers were Sir Henri Deterding of Shell, Sir John (later Lord) Cadman of AIOC [Anglo-Iranian Oil Co., later BP], and Walter C. Teagle of ESSO [Standard of N.J.]. These agreed to manage oil prices on the world market by charging an agreed fixed price plus freight costs, and to store surplus oil which might weaken the fixed price level. By 1949 the cartel had as members the seven greatest oil companies of the world...." which he then names, the same as did Engdahl.

Concerning the Mossadegh overthrow, Quigley expounds at considerable length about the negotiations between Iran on one side and Britain and the AIOC on the other concerning terms of oil extraction rights. The negotiations ended, says Quigley, as follows: "The British, the AIOC, the world petroleum cartel, the American government, and the older Iranian elite led by the Shah combined to crush Mossadegh. The chief effort came from the American supersecret intelligence agency (CIA) under the personal direction of its director, Allen W. Dulles, brother of the Secretary of State." He goes into a fair amount of detail about how the coup was managed by Dulles, following which the Shah was returned to power and Iranian oil exploitation returned to the Seven Sisters.

We come now to the two matters comprising the unique importance of this book. The first has to do with the existence, organization, and personnel of the elite group ruling us. The second has to do with the historical origins of World War 2, with its 20 million deaths and worldwide disruption and misery.

The concept behind the movement that produced the elitist control structure, the core of which remains hidden today, was elucidated, says Quigley (p. 130), by John Ruskin, who was appointed to the fine arts professorship at Oxford in 1870. He made an immense impact on the undergraduates, all of them members of the privileged, ruling class in England. "He told them that they were the possessors of a magnificent tradition of education, beauty, rule of law, freedom, decency, and self discipline, but that this tradition could not be saved ... unless it could be extended to the lower classes in England itself and to the non-English masses throughout the world. If this precious tradition were not extended to these two great majorities, the minority of upper-class Englishmen would ultimately be submerged by these majorities and the tradition lost."

Listening transfixed in his audience was Cecil Rhodes, later to be the prime exploiter of the diamond (De Beers Consolidated Mines) and gold (Consolidated Gold Fields) resources in South Africa, who, with the help of financing by Lord Rothschild, attained an annual income in the middle 1890's of "at least a million pounds sterling a year (then about five million dollars) which was spent so freely for his mysterious purposes that he was usually overdrawn on his account. These purposes centered on his desire to federate the English-speaking peoples and to bring all the habitable portions of the world under their control.  For this purpose Rhodes left part of his great fortune to found the Rhodes Scholarships at Oxford in order to spread the English ruling class tradition throughout the English-speaking world as Ruskin had wanted." The most recent American big name to have gone through this training is our current President, Bill Clinton.

Among Rhodes' fellow students who became Ruskin adherents were Arnold Toynbee, Alfred (later Lord) Milner, and others named by Quigley. A similar group appeared in Cambridge, including Reginald Brett (Lord Esher) and Albert (Lord) Grey. The two groups were brought together in 1891, says Quigley, by William T. Stead, England's most successful journalist, ardent social reformer, and imperialist, whereupon "Rhodes and Stead organized a secret society of which Rhodes had been dreaming for sixteen years. In this secret society Rhodes was to be leader; Stead, Brett (Lord Esher), and Milner were to form an executive committee; Arthur (Lord) Balfour, (Sir) Harry Johnston, Lord Rothschild, Albert (Lord) Grey, and others were listed as potential---members of a 'Circle of Initiates'; while there was to be an outer circle known as the 'Association of Helpers' (later organized by Milner as the Round Table organization).... Thus the central part of the secret society was established by March 1891."

Rhodes died in 1902, but the secret society retained control of his fortune, which was added to by funds of other supporters, including Alfred Beit and Sir Abe Bailey. Milner became the chief Rhodes trustee, and, during his governorship in South Africa (1897-1905) he recruited young men from Oxford, etc., to assist him, men whom he later helped "into positions of influence in government and international finance, and [who] became the dominant influence in British imperial and foreign affairs up to 1939." Originally known as Milner's Kindergarten, "In 1909-1913 they organized semisecret groups, known as Round Table Groups, in the chief British dependencies and the United States. These still function in eight countries.... In 1919 they founded the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) for which the chief financial supporters were Sir Abe Bailey and the Astor family (owners of The Times). Similar Institutes of International Affairs were established in the chief British dominions and in the United States (where it is known as the Council on Foreign Relations) in the period 1919-1927. After 1925 a somewhat similar structure of organizations, known as the Institute of Pacific Relations, was set up in twelve countries holding territory in the Pacific area, the units in each British dominion existing on an interlocking basis with the Round Table Group and the Royal Institute of International Affairs in the same country."

Quigley then identifies Round Table leaders in Canada, South Africa, India, and elsewhere. Concerning the effectiveness of the group he says, "The power and influence of this Rhodes-Milner group in British Imperial Affairs and in foreign policy since 1889, although not widely recognized, can hardly be exaggerated. We might mention as an example that this group dominated The Times from 1890 to 1912 and has controlled it completely since 1912 (except for the years 1919-1922). Because The Times has been owned by the Astor family since 1922, this Rhodes-Milner group was sometimes spoken of as the "Cliveden Set," named after the Astor country house where they sometimes assembled."

In a later chapter which Quigley calls "American Confusions, 1945-1950," he updates the personnel, policies, and methodologies of the American branch of the Rhodes-Milner creation. It is a fascinating chapter, providing an explanation, for example, of the frequently asked question, Why do we so often see capitalists and their tax-exempt foundations supporting left-wing entities who have vowed to destroy capitalism? Quigley says (p. 938): "More than fifty years ago the Morgan firm decided to infiltrate the Left-wing political movements in the United States. This was relatively easy to do, since these groups were starved for funds and eager for a voice to reach the people. Wall Street supplied both." Another example that he gives is the creation of The New Republic magazine using Payne-Whitney money, Whitney being derived from the New York utility millionaire William C. Whitney, and Payne from Oliver Payne of the Standard Oil "trust." Quigley continues, "The original purpose for establishing the paper was to provide an outlet for the progressive Left and to guide it quietly in an Anglophile direction. This latter task was entrusted to a young man, only four years out of Harvard, but already a member of the mysterious Round Table group, which has played a major role in directing England's foreign policy since its formal establishment in 1909. This new recruit, Walter Lippmann, has been, from 1914 to the present, the authentic spokesman in American journalism for the Establishments on both sides of the Atlantic in international affairs."

Quigley puts an establishment spin on the communist infiltration into its several organizations (like the Institute of Pacific Relations), and its deleterious effects on world history, such as Chinese history. He is then led, however, into revealing the hidden workings of the big tax-exempt foundations. Behind the "unfortunate situation" concerning the IPR, he says (p. 936), "lies another more profound relationship which influences matters much broader than Far Eastern policy. It involves the organization of tax-exempt fortunes of international financiers into foundations to be used for educational, scientific, 'and other public purposes."' He further explains (p. 938), that these Wall Street elites "had to adjust to a good many government actions thoroughly distasteful to the group. The chief of these were in taxation law, ... above all else, in the inheritance tax. These tax laws drove the great private fortunes dominated by Wall Street into tax-exempt foundations, which became a major link in the Establishment network between Wall Street, the Ivy League, and the federal government." Quigley describes in a fair amount of detail (p. 937) how the foundations managed to acquire control over the primary Ivy League colleges, including Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Princeton, and then briefly notes a little later (pp. 954-955) the unwelcome effort by the anti-Communist 1953 Congress to shed some light on foundation activities: "A congressional committee, following backward to their source the threads which led from admitted Communists like Whittaker Chambers, through Alger Hiss and the Carnegie Endowment to Thomas Lamont and the Morgan Bank, fell into the whole complicated network of the interlocking tax-exempt foundations. The Eighty-third Congress in July 1953 set up a Special Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations, with Representative B. Carroll Reece of Tennessee as chairman. It soon became clear that people of immense wealth would be unhappy if the investigation went too far" and it was duly emasculated. We will later review a book specifically devoted to what that investigation uncovered.

The second of the two matters referred to above which comprise the unique importance of this book has to do with the origins of World War 2. Quigley's concentration in this area is not so much on the mechanics of Hitler's rise within Germany as it is on the British secret policies during the 10 years or so before the war broke out (in September 1939) of encouraging and assisting Hitler's rise to political and military dominance over Europe.

One fact which Quigley relates (p. 433) which appears also in Engdahl's book is that the deal which made Hitler the Chancellor of the German Reich was negotiated in Cologne at the home of Baron Kurt von Schroder on Jan. 4, 1933. (Historian / correspondent William A. Shirer in his Rise and Fall of the Third Reich further notes on page 179 that Hitler's meeting with Schroder also promised Hitler that "West German business interests" would take over the debts of the Nazi Party, and that ten days later Joseph Goebbels announced that the financial position of the party had "fundamentally improved overnight.") Baron von Schroder is the same Schroder that Quigley lists as among the major world banking families (p. 52). Quigley, however, leaves the matter there, whereas Engdahl describes the close relationship between Baron von Schroder and Montagu Norman's friend Hjalmar Schacht, which bore fruit for Schacht when, after consolidating his power and receiving Bank of England credits from Montagu Norman, Hitler made Schacht his Minister of Economics as well as President of the Reichsbank, the latter being a position he held until 1939.

Quigley relates a great deal of detail concerning the many actions taken by Great Britain during the 1930's in support of Hitler. A short way into his tale, he decides to lay out the motivations, as he saw them, of the several groups within the British government that were making and administering its foreign policy. He says (p. 580) that by 1938, "the motives of the government were clearly not the same as the motives of the people, and in no country has secrecy and anonymity been carried so far or been so well preserved as in Britain." From the outermost circles of government to the central inner circles, motives became more and more secret. There were four circles: "(1) the anti-Bolsheviks at the center, (2) the 'three-bloc-world' supporters close to the center, (3) the supporters of 'appeasement', and (4) the 'peace at any price' group in a peripheral group." In the years before World War 2, the latter two groups were, says Quigley, "remote from the real instruments of government," but were used by the two inner groups to sway public opinion toward actions which were in support of their secret policies.

The policies of the anti-Bolshevik group were (p. 581): "to destroy reparations, permit German rearmament, and tear down what they called 'French militarism."' That is, they proposed to rearm Germany, let it dominate Europe (particularly including France), and then let it (and perhaps help it) destroy the Soviet Union.

On the other hand, the three-bloc-world group, says Quigley, sought not to destroy the Soviet Union, but to "contain" it between a German-dominated Europe and an English-speaking bloc. More specifically (p. 582), it "sought to weaken the League of Nations and destroy all possibility of collective security [i.e., of protecting France from Germany] in order to strengthen Germany in respect to both France and the Soviet Union, and above all to free Britain from Europe in order to build up an 'Atlantic bloc' of Great Britain, the British Dominions, and the United States."

This latter policy thus coincided with that of the anti-Bolshevik group up to and including the domination of Europe by Germany, a configuration which they regarded as stable, producing peace for many years into the future. It involved, however, a number of sacrifices to be made by a number of other countries. They believed that their three-bloc system, once set up (p. 582), "could force Germany to keep the peace (after it absorbed Europe) because it would be squeezed between the Atlantic bloc and the Soviet Union, while the Soviet Union could be forced to keep the peace because it would be squeezed between Japan and Germany. This plan would work only if Germany and the Soviet Union could be brought into contact with each other by abandoning Austria, Czechoslovakia, and the Polish Corridor to Germany. This became the aim of both the anti-Bolsheviks and the three-bloc people from the early part of 1937 to the end of 1939 (or even early 1940). These two [groups] cooperated and dominated the government in that period."

The three-bloc-world policy belonged precisely to the Milner Group / Round Table Group / Cliveden Set described earlier in this review. Quigley repeats the same familiar set of names (p. 581). He also lists a few names in the anti-Bolshevik group, somewhat less familiar, but including General Jan Smuts and Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. Quigley notes that relations between the two groups were cordial, with some members in both groups, such as General Smuts.

Quigley goes into great detail about how Britain secretly maneuvered to strengthen Hitler's Germany at the expense of France and all of the other weaker countries in Europe. He devotes a whole chapter to discussing Britain's publicly "neutral" role in the Spanish Civil War, and concludes (p. 602): "Britain's attitude was so devious that it can hardly be untangled, although the results are clear enough. The chief result [of the war] was that in Spain a Left government friendly to France was replaced by a Right government [General Franco's] unfriendly to France and deeply obligated to Italy and Germany. The evidence is clear that the real sympathies of the London government favored the rebels, although it had to conceal the fact from public opinion in Britain."

Quigley then proceeds to Britain's involvement in the acquisition by Hitler of Austria, then Czechoslovakia, and then Danzig, the "free" city in the Polish Corridor. Britain's policies with respect to these matters, he says, were spelled out in a seven-point policy secretly delivered to Germany, since "the British government could not publicly admit to its own people these 'seven points' because they were not acceptable to British public opinion." The seven points were (p. 619):

1. Hitler's Germany was the chief defense against the spread of communism in Europe.

2. A four-power pact of Britain, France, Germany and Italy, consolidating the Anglo-French Entente and the Rome-Berlin Axis, and excluding all Russian influence, was the goal to be sought as the foundation of a stable Europe.

3. Britain would not object to German acquisition of Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Danzig.

4. Germany must not use force to achieve these aims, as this would start a war which public opinion would force Britain into.

5. An agreement with Germany restricting the number and use of bombing planes was desired.

6. Britain would give Germany certain (Portuguese and Belgian) African colonies, given German cooperation with the above.

7. Britain would pressure Czechoslovakia and Poland to negotiate with Germany on its desires.

Quigley then notes that Germany's professional diplomats and soldiers were perfectly willing to gain European domination without going to war, but that the leaders of the Nazi Party were not, "especially Hitler, Ribbentrop, and Himmler, who were too impatient and who wanted to prove to themselves and the world that Germany was powerful enough to take what it wanted without waiting for anybody's permission." It was this lack of understanding between the British elites and the Nazi leaders which ultimately brought on the horror of World War 2.

Activities in support of Point 3 then proceeded apace. The substantially bloodless takeover of Austria was accomplished in March 1938, with no significant response from the British public. Czechoslovakia was carved up by Britain, France, Germany, and Italy on September 29, 1938, with incredible prior pressures exerted on France and Czechoslovakia by Britain, in accordance with Point 7 above, as described in detail by Quigley. The British public had been prepared to welcome this result as the great lifting of the fear of war with Germany, a fear that had been driven into them by several years worth of propagandizing by the British elites as to the overwhelming military superiority of the Germans, a superiority which Quigley exposes as being entirely fraudulent (p. 633 ff.).

The continuation of the seven-point policy with respect to Poland suffered two new setbacks, however. First, says Quigley, Hitler had not made up his mind whether to attack France or Poland next. British diplomats in Europe smelled this out in January 1939 (p. 642) and "began to bombard London with rumors of a forthcoming attack on the Netherlands and France." Appeasement as a policy suddenly appeared to many Britishers to be unrealistic and personally dangerous. Second, on March 15 Chamberlain told the House of Commons "that he accepted the seizure of Czechoslovakia, and refused to accuse Hitler of bad faith." The howls of rage from Commons changed his mind as to what he could say and do in public, and two days later he denounced the seizure to his constituency in Birmingham. The reality of underlying policy did not change, however, though a second policy effort was mounted to satisfy the British public about ending "appeasement." Of the two policies, says Quigley, "One policy was public; the other was secret. Since the Foreign Office knew of both, it tried to build up the 'peace front' against Germany so that it would look sufficiently imposing to satisfy public opinion in England, and to drive Hitler to seek his desires by negotiation rather than by force, so that public opinion in England would not force the government to declare a war that they did not want in order to remain in office."

Hitler, however, was determined to have his war, and notwithstanding additional British efforts, including first a threat to come to Poland's aid if it were attacked, and then a secret offer to make a non-aggression pact with Germany along the lines of the three-bloc-world plan of the Round Tablers (p. 653), Hitler did finally act. He signed a non-aggression pact with the USSR on August 23, 1939, including a secret protocol defining how Poland was to be divided up, and on September 1 invaded Poland. For two more days, France and England begged Hitler to withdraw his forces from Poland and open negotiations. When the British public and the government's supporters in Parliament began to grumble, Britain reluctantly declared war on September 3, followed by similar French action a few hours later.

Even after being forced into a war that he did not want, Chamberlain did not give up his anti-Bolshevik policy of using Germany to destroy the USSR. According to Quigley (p. 668), the conflict during the period from September 1939 to May 1940 was referred to as "the 'Sitzkrieg' (sitting war) or even the 'phony war' because the Western Powers made no real effort to fight Germany." He noted, for example, that the British air force was ordered to refrain from bombing any German land forces, to the air force's considerable dismay. Quigley attributes this policy to Chamberlain's continued effort to make peace with Germany, so he could get on with his original plan. Now hating Hitler because of Hitler's insistence upon war, Chamberlain felt that "the best way to reach peace would be to encourage some anti-Hitler movement within Germany itself " The only action of any significance taken against Germany during this period was a weak-kneed blockade, mounted primarily as a sop to public opinion.

Chamberlain during this period had the secret support of France, whose government was well aware of Hitler's vacillation as to whether to attack France or Poland first. Thus, when the Soviet Union made demands upon Finland and then invaded on November 29, 1939, the British and French (p. 679) "regarded it as a heaven-sent opportunity to change the declared but unfought war with Germany, which they did not want, into an undeclared but fighting war against the Soviet Union." They took their case to the moribund League of Nations, reawakened it, and obtained a condemnation of Russia in just 11 days. More importantly, they got up an expeditionary force of 100,000 troops to aid Finland, and tried to get Swedish and Norwegian permission to transit their territory to get to Finland. Under pressure from Germany and Russia, Sweden and Norway refused. Finland made peace on March 12, 1940, but even then the British did not give up their efforts. They kept their expeditionary force at the ready, issued threats to Norway and Sweden to cooperate, and ordered the French General Weygand to carry out a bombing raid on Russia's Caucasus oil fields from their bases in Syria. However, Hitler invaded Denmark and Norway on April 9, cutting off British access to the Russians via that route, thereby assuring Russian quiescence while he dealt with western Europe. Weygand could not mount his attack on the Caucasus until the end of June, but Hitler invaded France and the lowlands on May 10, 1940, obviating that possibility, and the issue was forever settled.

The British anti-Bolshevik and three-bloc-world circles finally got what they wanted - the hegemony of Germany over Europe - but not without military force, as they had wished. They consequently lost their public support, and in a violent debate in Parliament from May 7 to May 10, Chamberlain, still feebly trying to defend his policies, was attacked from all sides. He was the appointed fall guy, however, and the recipient of the famous words (p. 684): "Depart, I say. Let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!" These words were delivered by Leopold Amery, "the shadow of Lord Milner" says Quigley (582), he who, Quigley says, as one of the three-bloc-world leaders, led his circle into an increasingly anti-German posture, and into a split with the anti-Bolsheviks. Chamberlain resigned on May 10, as France was being invaded, and was replaced by Winston Churchill, the old war-horse previously known as "The best-hated man in the House of Commons," to prosecute the war against Germany.

Quigley reveals nothing concerning any involvement by Churchill in helping Roosevelt maneuver the United States into the war, enabling the war to finally be brought to a conclusion. His prose does, however, elucidate facts of great interest regarding the mind-set of British leadership - the same leadership which today reaches across the ocean to execute its policies through the offices of the Council on Foreign Relations, the U.S. branch office of the Round Table group. That mind-set led them to find a German villain as bad as Stalin, secretly support and build him up, and hand him all of Europe, all of which policies were obviously against the best interests of millions of Europeans, and would of course have been violently opposed by the British electorate had those policies been publicly revealed.

It should further be noted that the financial assistance leading to Hitler's buildup derived from the actions of Montagu Norman at the Bank of England and Hjalmar Schacht, protege of Baron von Schroder, at the Reichsbank. It is impossible to believe, however, that Hitler was not raised up without the approval of the major banking families which run this world, for, as Quigley points out (pp. 326-327): "It must not be felt that these heads of the world's chief central banks were themselves substantive powers in world finance. They were not. Rather, they were the technicians and agents of the dominant investment bankers of their own countries, who had raised them up and were perfectly capable of throwing them down. The substantive powers of the world were in the hands of these investment bankers ... who remained largely behind the scenes in their own unincorporated private banks. These formed a system of international cooperation and national dominance which was more private, more powerful, and more secret than that of their agents in the central banks."

It therefore becomes extremely hard to believe that these major banking families which run our world, listed at the beginning of this review, were not themselves culpable in the origination of World War 2. It is said that power corrupts, and that absolute power, close to being realized in both Britain and Germany of the 20's and 30's, did in fact corrupt close to absolutely, to the great sorrow of millions around the world during that greatest single human conflagration that our world has yet seen.