National Advertising Council

The final major association of the American business aristocracy is very different from the other four. It is the National Advertising Council. The NAG was formed during World War II as the War Advertising Gouncil and was designed to promote such government programs as ration¬ing and war bonds. After the war it continued as a public service paid for by the large corporations. “It’s a voluntary gift to America by U. S. business,� explained a two-page advertisement in a 1965 issue of Time Magazine.’8 The council’s best-known figure is Smokey the Bear, but it also supports the Red Gross, the Peace Corps, the United Nations, Traffic Safety, Youth Fitness, and Radio Free Europe. As of 1958, eight of the 19 members of its Public Policy Gommittee were members of the GFR. Four of the eight who are in the GFR, along with four others, are corporate executives or members of the upper class. The others are college presidents (three), labor leaders (two), and a variety of professional persons. Among the upper-class members of this council are John J. McCloy, a leading figure in the CFR, Benjamin Buttenweiser, a leading figure in the FPA, and Paul G. Hoffman, a leading figure in the CED. However, the most obvious basis of control in this case is corporate financing.

Radio Free Europe, one of the NAC’s benefactions, is the largest of the nongovernmental radio stations beamed at the Communist world. It is aimed exclusively toward the five Communist countries of Eastern Europe. RFE is an operation of the Free Europe Committee, Inc., founded in 1949 and backed by funds raised by the Committee’s Crusade for Freedom. General Dwight Eisenhower, later president of Columbia University and of the United States, and General Lucius D. Clay led the first fund-raising campaign, and its first directors included Clay, Allen Dulles (SR, NY), C. D. Jackson (SR, NY), and A. A. Berle, Jr. (SR, NY). Other upper-class Americans who have been officials of the Free Europe Committee or one of its subcommittees include William Clayton, Henry Ford II, Herbert H. Lehman, Henry R. Luce, and Charles M. Spofford (SR, NY).’9