THE TRUTH IS ALWAYS ON THE OTHER SIDE
Chapter IV
The Bank for International Settlements
Another critical development in this period was the creation of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) – as ‘the central bank of central banks’ – in 1930. As described by Professor Carroll Quigley, the BIS was the apex of efforts by elite bankers ‘to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole.’
But the push started many years before with Montagu Norman (Bank of England) and Benjamin Strong (the first governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York) both committed advocates. ‘In the 1920’s, they were determined to use the financial power of Britain and of the United States to force all the major countries of the world to go on the gold standard and to operate it through central banks free from all political control, with all questions of international finance to be settled by agreements by such central banks without interference from governments.’
This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world’s central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank, in the hands of men like Montagu Norman of the Bank of England, Benjamin Strong of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, Charles Rist of the Bank of France, and Hjalmar Schacht of the Reichsbank, sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world. The B.I.S. as a private institution was owned by the seven chief central banks and was operated by the heads of these, who together formed its governing board.
But, Quigley points out:
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 financial powers of the world were in the hands of these investment bankers (also called ‘international’ or ‘merchant’ 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. This dominance of investment bankers was based on their control over the flows of credit and investment funds in their own countries and throughout the world. They could dominate the financial and industrial systems of their own countries by their influence over the flow of current funds through bank loans, the discount rate, and the re-discounting of commercial debts; they could dominate governments by their control over current government loans and the play of the international exchanges. Almost all of this power was exercised by the personal influence and prestige of men who had demonstrated their ability in the past to bring off successful financial coupe, to keep their word, to remain cool in a crisis, and to share their winning opportunities with their associates. In this system the Rothschilds had been preeminent during much of the nineteenth century. See Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time, pp. 242-3 & 245.
Ensuring that this select group of international bankers could operate without any form of accountability to any other authority in the world, the BIS ‘Headquarters Agreement with Switzerland’ Articles 4 and 12 specifically identify a range of ‘privileges and immunities’ that, among others, provide that ‘The Bank shall enjoy immunity from jurisdiction’ and ‘members of the Board of Directors of the Bank, together with the representatives of those central banks which are members of the Bank’ with ‘immunity from arrest or imprisonment’. See ‘Agreement between the Swiss Federal Council and the Bank for International Settlements to determine the Bank’s legal status in Switzerland’.
In plain language, the BIS and its members are beyond the reach of governments, key international organizations and the rule of law. They are accountable to no-one. And this is why the BIS was never held to account for its commission of war crimes. See ‘History – the BIS during the Second World War (1939-48)’. For an excellent and detailed account of the Bank for International Settlements, see Adam LeBor’s Tower of Basel: The Shadowy History of the Secret Bank that Runs the World.
Beyond this, as Sutton notes, because politicians sympathetic to financial capitalism and academics with ideas about world control are kept in line with a system of rewards and penalties, ‘in the early 1930s the guiding vehicle for this international system of financial and political control’ was the BIS, headquartered in Basle. The BIS ‘continued its work during World War II as the medium through which the bankers – who… were not at war with each other – continued a mutually beneficial exchange of ideas, information, and planning for the post-war world.’ In this sense only, the war was irrelevant to them. See Wall Street and The Rise of Hitler, pp. 11-12.
So while elite figures, including the Rothschilds, continued to shape institutions and events to restructure world order and make it more profitable for themselves, virtually everyone else in the world was an unwitting victim of their secret programs, many at the cost of their own life. A notable exception was US Major General Smedley Butler who at least spelled out the critical role that war played in wealth creation for the elite. Following more than three decades of highly-decorated service in the US Marine Corp, Butler later described his experience in the following terms: ‘I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.’ See ‘Major General Smedley Butler’.
Who Really Controls the World? Deadly Weapons, Concentration of Wealth, Corporate Media
In his book published in 1935, he wrote: ‘War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious…. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives…. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.’ He went on to describe some of the individuals and corporations that made huge profits out of World War I. See War Is A Racket.