CIA's "Bible Lesson on Spying"
This CIA study, "A Bible Lesson on Spying," appeared in the Winter 1978 issue of the agency's classified spy journal, Studies in Intelligence. The study reviews the ethical and strategic lessons of spy missions ordered by Moses and Joshua to scope out the "Promised Land."
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One more round with espionage by Moses and Joshua
A BIBLE LESSON ON SPYING
John M. Cardwell
For the past few years the Central Intelligence Agency has come under considerable scrutiny. Major issues have been raised regarding oversight and control, the intent being to insure accountability and legality. With the advent of the Carter administration, the issue of morality has also become a major concern. Today the CIA and the nation are confronted by a perplexing situation: how can we engage in secret operations with oversight of these operations lying essentially in the public domain (Congress) and conduct inherently insidious spying activities that also must also conform to traditional non-spying standards of ethical conduct and morality.
In an effort to seek some solutions to these problems, it is natural that we should explore historical precedents to determine what lessons and insights the past might offer. One rich source of information that should not be overlooked in the Holy Bible. The purpose therefore of this discussion is to explore the issue of spying as it occurs in the Bible and examine the lessons it might offer. Perhaps new perspectives can be found that will offer guidance regarding how "...one Nation, under God..." should go about the business of spying.
The subject of spying appears in numerous places throughout the Old and New Testament.(1) Spies were used by the Israelites against their adversaries, and on occasion various factions within the tribes of Israel used spies against each other. In the New Testament, spies were used by the political forces opposed to the emerging Christian movement and by members of the early Christian church to protect itself. There are many additional incidents in which individuals clearly engaged in espionage activities but are not normally referenced using those terms. For example, Judas could be described as having been a secret agent for the Sanhedrin because of his role in the betrayal of Jesus.
Spying as an activity is not treated as an issue in either the Old or the New Testaments and is discussed or mentioned only as an event worth reporting. As a consequence, the lessons to be learned from examining the scriptures must be inferred in the context of narrative experiences. Guidance to be derived from the study of biblical spying events is therefore subjective and dependent upon the approach and depth from which inferences are drawn. In this discussion, however, the objective has been to emphasize the facts and keep interpretations to a minimum.
The earliest mention of spying in the Old Testament occurs in the story of Joseph.(2) After Joseph had been sold by his brothers into bondage and had later maneuvered himself into a position of influence in the Egyptian government, his
(1) All references cited in this article can be found in the Holy Bible, Revised Standard Version, Thomas Nelson and Sons, New York, 1959.
(2) Genesis 42:6-17
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Biblical Spying
brothers came to Egypt to buy food during a famine. They were brought before Joseph but did not recognize him. Joseph, however, did recognize them, and in an effort to hide his recognition, accused him of coming to Egypt not to buy food but to spy. Evidently spying was an established fact of life, well familiar to Joseph.
There are only two spying incidents in the Bible in which methods and sources are discussed in any detail, and both occur in the Old Testament. The first incident occurred under the direction of Moses shortly after he led the Israelites out of Egypt.(3)They had camped in the wilderness of Paran near the boundary of the Promised Land, and Moses used spies to determine what the Promised Land was like. The second occurred approximately 40 years later under the direction of Joshua.(4) At that time, the Israelites had completed their sojourn in the desert and were again about to enter the Promised Land. There is a remarkable contrast not only in terms of methods and sources used by these two outstanding biblical leaders, but also in the different administrative procedures governing these two operations and the kinds of people involved. From an analysis of these two operations, biblical experience and perspectives with respect to spying are revealed.(5)
The children of Israel were divided into 12 tribes, or family groups, each tribe having its own leaders and hierarchy. The society was predominately patriarchal in nature with the leader of each tribe acting as a kind of benevolent dictator or governor over his group. In him was vested the responsibility for providing administrative, legal, military, social, economic, and religious guidance and leadership. Moses was the overall leader and spokesman of the tribes but he exercised final authority only upon the consensus of the people and the leaders of the 12 tribes. Forty years later Joshua occupied roughly the same position as Moses. Both men, therefore, were not absolute rulers of the tribes of Israel. The people could, and occasionally did, reject their leadership.
Moses conducted the earliest spying operations recorded in the Bible. As previously mentioned, the purpose of this operation was to "spy out" Canaan.(6) He chose 12 prominent individuals, one from each of the 12 tribes, to be his spies and instructed them to go to the Promised Land and learn what the land was like. To provide proof that indeed it was a "land flowing with milk and honey," he instructed his spies to return with samples of fruit. These spies spent 40 days in the Promised Land, returned as instructed with information regarding the cities and the population, and delivered samples of fruit. Upon their return, they reported their findings publicly to Moses and the 12 tribes. They brought back a uniform opinion regarding the cities, number of people, lay of the land, and the fact that the countryside was indeed "flowing with milk and honey." Ten of the spies, however, reported that the people were so physically large and well organized that is an invasion was attempted, the Israelites would be destroyed. They advocated stoning the two spies who said that an invasion should be attempted.
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(3) Numbers 13-14
(4) Joshua 2
(5) Intelligence operations by Moses and Joshua have previously figured in "Decision Trees" by Dr. Edwin C. Sapp, Studies XVIII/4, and "Scientific and Technical Intelligence" by Robert M. Clark, Studies XIX/1, pp. 46-47.
(6) The complete story of the espionage mission can be found in Numbers 13 and Numbers 14:1-10. The consequences are described in Numbers 14:10-34.
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Moses was distraught at the loss of confidence by the Israelites, especially after they had been safely delivered out of Egypt and had successfully crossed the Red Sea. Their attitude brought them dangerously close to losing their status as God's chosen people, but Moses argued successfully on their behalf. They were nevertheless severely punished for their failure. They were told that they would be required to remain in the wilderness one year for every day the spies spent in the Promised Land, that is, 40 years for the 40 days spent spying. They were furthermore told that everyone over the age of 20 would be denied entry into the Promised Land, and that the only exceptions would be the two spies who maintained their faith. Even Moses was told he would not enter the Promised Land, and he did not.(7) Thus the first spying operation discussed in the Bible ended in failure and had disastrous consequences for the population.
Forty years later the Israelites found themselves again preparing to enter the Promised Land, this time under the leadership of Joshua.(8) Joshua was, by the way, one of the two surviving spies who had participated in the operation conducted under Moses.(9) As before, there was a need to send spies into the Promised Land to get intelligence to support the invasion. Joshua, however, went about things quite differently. He chose two young men whose names are not recorded and instructed them to reconnoiter the city of Jericho.(10) The spies went to Jericho and visited a harlot named Rahab. Although the presence of the spies was reported to the local authorities, Rahab hid the spies and kept them from being captured. She told the two spies that the people had been expecting an Israelite invasion for some time. She reported that -- despite the fact that the city was well fortified and the army well trained -- the people were frightened of the Israelites and had lost the courage to stand up to them. The escape of the Israelites from the Egyptians, their successful crossing of the Red Sea, the subsequent destruction of Pharaoh and his armies, and their exploits during their 40 years of wandering in the desert were well known to the people and had convinced them of the Israelites' superiority. Rahab likewise was convinced that the city would fall and made an agreement with the spies that she would help them leave the city and not reveal what she had told them if in return they would spare her and her family during the attack. The spies agreed and with Rahab's help they successfully escaped capture and eventually made their way back to their own people. The spies reported to Joshua everything that had happened, especially the information given to them by the harlot regarding the fear of the people.
Using this information, Joshua made plans for the invasion and reported his plan to the 12 tribes. The plan was approved, the invasion proceeded, and the attack, capture, and subsequent destruction of the city of Jericho was successful.(11) Rahab and her family were, as agreed, spared by Joshua during the battle of Jericho.(12)
The contrast between these two incidents is significant. Moses used 12 people, all amateurs, each with both political and military responsibilities in his own tribe. Each was a prominent individual who is named in the Bible. On the other hand, Joshua apparently used two professional (throughout they were referred to only as "spies") anonymous (their names are not given) people to conduct his mission. Moses' spies brought back reports only of the physical characteristics of the land, whereas Joshua's also reported the attitude of the people. The spies Moses sent made their report
(7) Deuteronomy 1:37
(8) Joshua 1:1-2
(9) Deuteronomy 1: 38
(10) The mission into Jericho is described in Joshua 2.
(11) Joshua 3, 4, 5, and 6:1-21
(12) Joshua 6:22-25
[page break] Biblical Spying
openly, and the discussion that followed was conducted in public. Joshua's spies, by contrast, reported only to Joshua, who then made the necessary decisions. Moses' spies, who also would have been principals in any military action to be taken, participated in the decision-making process. Joshua's spies neither had leadership responsibilities nor did they participate in the policy-making decision process. The consequences of these two operations are significantly different. Moses' operation, conducted by amateurs more or less in the public domain, resulted in a weakening of Moses' position of authority, led to a loss of the people's confidence in themselves, and precipitated an extended period of severe national punishment. Joshua's operation, conducted in private by professionals, led to an achievement of national destiny.
An implicit point is made regarding the procedures used during these two spying operations. It is not specifically stated, but one is left with the impression that the 12 spies sent by Moses more or less went about their business as tourists, and the report they brought back is typical of the kind of thing that a tourist would report. The information reported to Moses consisted both of facts and conclusions drawn by the spies. The negative report given by the majority of the spies, for example, reflected their perception regarding the consequences of military actions, which, if taken, they would be called upon to lead. The people agreed with the negative position, not because of facts reported, but because of the negative interpretation given these facts by individuals of prominence.
Joshua's spies, on the other hand, went in secret (although they were discovered) and visited a harlot who gave them valuable information regarding the attitude of her people. The spies did not interpret this information but simply reported to Joshua what they had been told. No moral judgment was made regarding the fact that Joshua's spies visited a harlot, nor is the information provided by her judged to be of questionable validity.
The relationship between Rahab and the spies was evidently amoral. No conditions of "conversion" were imposed in the recruitment, but merely an agreement for conspiratorial silence in exchange for a harlot's office. Joshua made no recorded comment or judgment regarding his spies' recruitment of or the agreement with the harlot. He did, however, honor the agreement, despite the fact that he had not given his prior approval and took no part in making it. After the Battle of Jericho, Rahab joined the Israelites and lived with them. No mention is made of whether or not she continued to practice here old profession. All references to her, in both the Old and New Testament, refer to her only as "Rahab the harlot."
If there is a lesson to be learned, it would appear that a strong case is made for the conduct of spying activities in secret by professionals, unencumbered by other political or military responsibilities, and that these professionals should report in secret to higher authority who would make policy decisions without debate. Spies should definitely not participate in the policy-decision-making process, nor should they take their cases to the public. When that occurs, although stoning is passé, the people are likely to throw figurative rocks at the wrong people for the wrong reasons.
It can be argued that the Moses operation suffered from complications that arose because of oversight and political issues. The selection of twelve spies, one from each of the twelve tribes, was probably motivated by political considerations, and the very specific instructions given by Moses to the spies were probably necessary in order to define the specific objectives and procedures in order to obtain approval from the twelve tribes. All the Israelites knew that the operation was to occur, who was going, and what they were to accomplish on the mission. When they returned, their report
[page break] Biblical Spying
was likewise made in public, the results of which have been noted earlier. It is noteworthy that the spies successfully accomplished all mission objectives. The point at which the Moses operation actually failed can be traced to the negative comments made during the public "mission briefing." Taken overall, it can be argued that the negative report of the spies and the loss of control over the situation was actually stimulated because of too much oversight and the tightly controlled administrative procedures used. In summary, this episode is a classic example of an operation that was successful, but in which the "patient" died.
The contrasts offered by the Joshua operation are startling. Joshua certainly did not have an oversight problem, nor did he worry about defining a politically acceptable mission scenario. His spies were sent in secret, were given absolutely minimal instructions, "Go, view the land, especially Jericho," and reported back only to Joshua. The operational scenario could hardly have been predicted, and if it could, it is questionable that it would have been met with approval. Joshua handled all administrative matters alone, provided flexible and responsive support to his spies by keeping their bargain, and made the necessary judgments required to successfully lead his people to victory. From a purely administrative point of view, the Joshua mission was a nightmare; nevertheless, the operation can only be judged as an unqualified success.
[document ends]
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More on the CIA's "Bible Study"
Holy Spooks!
CIA's "Bible Lesson on Spying"
by Jon Elliston
Dossier Editor
pscpdocs@parascope.com
In times of crisis, some people turn to a higher power for solace and guidance. When the Central Intelligence Agency's public standing hit the skids in the mid-1970s, one officer delved into scripture for insight on the ethics of "inherently insidious spying." The result, a study called "A Bible Lesson on Spying," suggested that even though the agency was under fire for operating in extreme secrecy, it would probably have to continue its clandestine ways.
How did the Holy Bible become the source material for this odd bit of espionage analysis? A select group of Americans in the intelligence community knew the answer; they had access to the CIA's classified spy journal, Studies in Intelligence. The Fall 1978 issue carried the study, which was authored by one John M. Cardwell (or someone using that name as a pseudonym; disguised authorship was common in the CIA publication).
The author began the study by taking note of the CIA's tribulations stemming from the "considerable scrutiny" of its operations in the media and in Congress. The agency, which had operated almost exclusively in secret since its founding in 1947, had finally been called to task for its assassination plots, mind control programs, domestic spying, foreign political manipulations and other skullduggery. The CIA was entering a difficult new era, one that would probably entail far greater public awareness of intelligence operations.
"Today the CIA and the nation are confronted by a perplexing situation: how can we engage in secret operations with oversight of these operations lying essentially in the public domain (Congress) and conduct inherently insidious spying activities that must also conform to traditional non-spying standards of ethical conduct and morality," the study said.
The word of God might clear up that question, the author reasoned: "Perhaps new perspectives can be found [in the Bible] that will offer guidance regarding how '... one Nation, under God...' should go about the business of spying."
The study was a unique entry in the CIA's spy journal, but it was neither the first nor last time that America's spies dabbled in religion. In fact, the CIA has infiltrated and utilized religious groups in operations in dozens of countries. Religious sentiments, Christian and otherwise, have been manipulated in many a CIA propaganda operation. Documented examples of such operations abound. To name just a few:
- In the early 1960s, the agency secretly rallied Catholic leaders in Latin America against Cuba's revolutionary government and used the fish, an ancient sign of Christian resistance, as the symbol for anti-Castro rebellion.
- During the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations the CIA funneled political action funds through church authorities in Chile, as part of efforts to oppose leftist leader Salvador Allende.
- To keep tabs on dissident movements and social activists in Bolivia, the CIA gathered intelligence from Protestant missionaries working among the poor there.
- In the early 1980s, the Nicaraguan contras, a CIA-backed rebel group, dropped leaflets bearing the images of Jesus Christ and the Pope along with messages exhorting the reader to choose between the church and communism.
 CIA-backed Nicaraguan contras attempted to politically manipulate religious sentiments with leaflets bearing the image of Jesus Christ. (Click here to view enlargement.) | |
Moses sent twelve spies on a fateful foray into that territory when his people were first plotting their attack. In a straightforward account paraphrased from the Bible text, the CIA study recounts how ten of the twelve returned with foreboding warnings of the strength and size of the adversaries and insisted that the mission to seize Canaan be abandoned. The remaining two dissented and backed the planned invasion.
Moses' people listened to the doubting spies, and as a result God banished them to the wilderness for 40 years. The CIA study finds a lesson here: "the Moses operation suffered from complications that arose because of oversight and political issues." Though "the spies successfully accomplished all mission objectives," they were too tied to their tribal constituencies to favor bold military action. In addition, the "oversight" -- the public airing of the spies' fears about the enemy -- had disillusioned the public.
"Taken overall," the study says, "it can be argued that the negative report of the spies and the loss of control over the situation was actually stimulated because of too much oversight and the tightly controlled administrative procedures used." For a CIA facing unprecedented monitoring by Congress, the moral of the story seemed to be that the agency was better off in the shadows -- doing as it saw fit, unfettered by public scrutiny.
Fast-forward 40 years in the biblical account, and Moses' people are now led by Joshua. They are about to emerge from their nomadic existence and attempt to seize the Promised Land. The first city they will strike is Jericho, and to scope it out Joshua dispatches two spies.
The agents made it into the city, the Bible says, but word of their presence reached the authorities. On the run, Joshua's spies found safe haven with a local identified as "Rahab the harlot." Not only did she save their lives, she offered valuable intelligence that told Joshua the citizens of Jericho feared his forces. Shortly thereafter Jericho fell to Joshua's troops, and the conquest of the Promised Land was finally underway.
Again the CIA analyst concluded that a Bible tale highlighted the need for firm secrecy: "Joshua's operation, conducted in private by professionals, led to an achievement of national destiny." The study also pointed out that the spying success had depended on Rahab, and that her status as a harlot led to "no moral judgment" by Joshua. The case does make for a fitting comparison, in that the CIA has often argued that it must rely on unsavory foreign agents -- including drug-runners, torturers and murderers -- for the dirty work of intelligence gathering.
Is it a sin to spy? Dossier posted the full CIA Bible study online -- so click here, give the document your prayerful consideration, and decide for yourself. 0
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The Wycliffe Bible Translators, John Mott & Rockefeller Connections: UnHoly Alliances,
2 Peter 2:1-3 "But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not."
In order to understand the interconnectedness of the Rockefellers, Wycliffe and Cam Townsend, and John Mott, one must understand that missions became a pawn to gain global wealth and control. It should be pointed out that many missionaries, while sincere Christians, may not have understood the implications of how their ministry was operated or who provided the funding and desired direction they took. The desire for wealth and power is not restricted to those mentioned in this article, like J. Howard Pew, Nelson Bunker Hunt, but many more in the oil and commodities industry and others who sought the same things Rockefeller did.
Authors Colby and Dennett, in Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon, show how John D. Rockefeller Jr. worked with John Mott and later how Nelson Rockefeller and Wycliffe Bible Translators founder Cameron Townsend, worked with the U.S. and foreign governments to secure the resources and 'pacify' indigenous people in the name of democracy, corporate profit, and religion, resulting in massacre and genocide.
"In the name of God, progress and the struggle of democracy against communism, "Bibleless tribes" were pacified, oil lands and strategic natural resources were secured, and lucrative markets were developed. In the process, hundreds of thousands of tribal people died and many more were uprooted from their homelands....We see Rockefeller gathering political power and building a vast business empire in Latin America, working with the CIA, developing close friendships with famous Latin American politicians and businessmen, and increasingly advocating military dictatorships, while Townsend's missionaries are used to pacify native populations in frontiers rich in oil and rare minerals or subject to guerrilla insurgencies. Seeking to hasten the Second Coming, Townsend pursues a fanatical effort to reach every Bibleless tribe with the Word, even to the point of saving their souls by destroying their cultures and allying with the dictators who oppress them..."
This is really no different than what was discussed in the article "What Happened in Africa?". From Thy Will Be Done Acknowledgments : p.xvi " ...In the Amazon basin countries, the conquest followed the general trend of exploring for oil, rubber [etc.]...and U.S. competition with other big powers...All this was assisted by a foreign aid system which was gradually crafted over thirty years by Nelson Rockefeller, beginning as Roosevelt's Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs during World War II and as Truman's foreign aid architect.
"The missionaries came in on the cultural, social, and political side of the conquest, their leader influenced by Rockefeller philanthropies and a counterinsurgency network shaped by Nelson Rockefeller's development goals.Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) was hired by military dictatorships and civilian governments, often headed by Nelson's allies, to pacify the tribes and integrate them into national economics increasingly being brought into the North American market. SIL used the Bible to teach indigenous people to "obey the government, for all authority comes from God.""
The massacre and genocide of, for example, the Indians of Cintas Largas, Brazil for the land, minerals and wealth of the land was for the most part officially ignored until 1968, although well documented today. According to Colby and Dennett, "the disastrous impact of missionary activity" remained officially ignored. 'in reality those in command of these Indian Protections posts are North American missionaries--they are in all the posts--and they disfigure the original Indian culture and enforce acceptance of Protestantism.' But officials of the American Fundamentalist missionary organization that worked with SPI [Service for the Protection of the Indian] among the tribes---the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL), known in the United States by its less scientific alias, the Wycliffe Bible Translators--denied that any genocide took place. The head of SIL's branch in Brazil disclaimed all reports of genocide, and the founder of SIL, William Cameron Townsend, denied any knowledge of the massacres at all." [Colby, p.3-4]
It should be noted that secular evaluation of Christian activities always carries a certain amount of bias against what is done, particularly the sharing of the Gospel, which is the mainstay of Biblical obedience. There is a danger of condemning those who love the Lord when evaluating the very ungodly associations and practices entered into by some claiming to be of the Lord.
Our test of what is true and right must be based on Biblical truth as well as facts. We are to "Prove all things." Far to often people hear the words Christian missionary and feel that they are indeed supporting something of the Lord. Only God knows hearts. However, as will be discussed, if someone becomes Biblically disobedient in their endeavor to serve God, it must be questioned if what they are doing actually is of God.
Although many verses remind us to "be patient" and wait for God to work out His perfect plan, often impatience causes a Christian to act in ways that are contrary to Scripture. Impatience and being mindful of earthly things may produce or reveal opportunities which seem to be of God, but are not. Opportunities and open doors do not always mean these are for us. We earnestly need to be heavenly minded, checking that what is happening aligns with the Scriptures that were provided so that we might know what God would have us do. For example, dishonesty to further the Gospel, no matter the desired end result, goes against the Scriptures such as:
Romans 12:17 "Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men."
2 Corinthians 8:21 "Providing for honest things, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men."
1 Peter 2:12 "Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. 13 Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme;"
Unholy Alliances
2 Corinthians 6:15
"And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?
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SIL was founded in 1934, although Cam Townsend originally encountered difficulties in being allowed to proselytize. The endorsement by Dr. Frank Tannenbaum of Columbia University, gave Townsend the in he needed with the Mexican authorities. Tannenbaum had conducted studies sponsored by the Social Science Research Council and the Brookings Institution-a liberal think-tank--both of which were Rockefeller funded.
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The Summer Institute of Linguistic Connection SIL and the CIA
See: The Council for National Policy
Selected Organization/Media/Project Index
http://www.seekgod.ca/cnporganizations.htm
Luke 6:26
"Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets."
Whether it was misguided zeal, pride, impatience for God to work, or calculated Biblical disobedience, Cam started SIL under pretense and deceit, gaining entrance to Mexico, for example, by having his students claiming to be linguistic investigators rather than missionaries whose goal was to translate the Bible into native tongues.
By joining the liberal Linguistic Society of America, which became the official sponsor of Townsend's group, Cam was able to funnel donations from mission agencies to WBT, so the appearance and knowledge of their being missionaries was kept hidden. [Colby, p. 65-69] Later,
"...the Inter-American Scientific Congress would be described by Townsend's followers as the birthplace of the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL). It was also the birthplace of SIL's active collaboration with Rockefeller allies." [Colby, p.67-68]
The third 'Camp Wycliffe', precursor of WBT, found the missionaries put on salaries to then Mexican President Cardenas. Two of the original ten missionaries refused, offended that they were to be working for a 'self-declared' "revolutionary" government, with the emphasis on linguistics rather than their missionary goals, which goal was to remain hidden.
"[Cam's] recruits were being told that they were working for the Mexican government, and under an alleged Communist party sympathizer, at that. "[Colby, p. 73-74]
It was through the Linguistic Society of America that Cam entered the "Rockefeller-funded world of indigenismo, an international movement of liberal anthropologists and other social scientists in the Americas." "The penchant for social engineering...peaceful integration, respect for Indian culture, reforms in education..." [Colby, p.67-68]
2 Corinthians 6:14 "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?"
The collaboration with Rockefeller allies lead to what many later viewed as an attack on Native culture and the forced acceptance of Protestantism, with the World Council of Churches and anthropologists, who were Cam's former allies, providing studies to that effect.
In Thy Will be Done, authors Colby and Dennett wrote, "Nelson [Rockefeller] knew, as did much of the nation, that Barry Goldwater had refused to disavow support for the ultrarightist John Birch Society. He also knew...that Goldwater and the Birch Society were both heavily funded by J. Howard Pew, owner of one of Standard Oils major rivals, the Sun Oil Company." [Colby, p. 453-454] Wycliffe Bible Translators received large funds of money from Nelson Rockefeller, Crowell Trust [Quaker Oats], the Glenmeade Trust [Pew] and the Lilly Foundation, the liberal Ford Foundation and others. [p. 569].
2 Corinthians 6:15 "And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?
16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people."
Eventually, some countries officially called for the expulsion of SIL missionaries, although, unofficially in many cases, they were allowed to stay. Part of the problem which resulted in SIL's later public denunciation lay with groups such as the CIA using missionaries as informants. Although against policy, some collaborated with the CIA, and in some cases, it's counterinsurgency survey's in such places, for example, as Vietnam. Some documented data about various people groups collected by SIL and other mission groups was given to the CIA database. Documentation reveals a pattern of SIL helping various dictatorships or military governments control the 'natives' in return for furthering Townsend's goal of getting Bibles to all tribes, believing he was ushering in the return of Christ. Sara Diamond wrote in Spiritual Warfare,
"Over the years, WBT/SIL's close relationship with U.S. government officials and allied foreign leaders has earned the missionaries a reputation as "assets" of the CIA. In the Philippines in the early 1950's, for example, WBT/SIL representative Richard Pittman befriended Ramon Magsaysay, the politician the CIA promoted after it's defeat of the Huk guerrillas. Once Magsaysay was installed as Philippine president, he awarded WBT/SIL a contract to work on the islands. [It should be noted that the Rockefellers fund a Magsaysay Scholarship]
In Vietnam during the early 1960's, when the CIA trained the indigenous Montagnards to fight the Vietnamese National Liberation Front, it was the Summer Institute of Linguistics, with a grant form the U.S. Agency for International Development (AID), [a CIA funded front] that supplied ethnographic information to U.S. forces and trained the Montagnards to read and write. To practice their reading skills, the CIA gave the new literates booklets on how to use M-16 rifles and blow up bridges.
"...Wycliffe serves an ideological function that is decidedly conservative and pro-capitalist. In Mexico...the translators in 1978 prepared a dictionary for the Tzotzil people of Mayan Indian ancestry...WBT/SIL's Tzotzil-Spanish dictionary eliminated the Spanish and indigenous words for ideological concepts that threaten the status quo: class, community, conquer, exploitation, bossy, oppression, repression, revolution, revolutionary, rebellion..." [Diamond, p. 218-219]
Cam Townsend had been won over to the modernist thought long before WBT emerged. Townsend, although apparently accepting God's Word in the Bible without question, owed his beliefs to his father. Pursuit of the Promised Land, and belief of his Bible, "and a stubborn belief that honesty, temperance and a prairie-born populist justice would somehow, someday, prevail." were instilled in Cam. However, the Promised Land is not of this world and the concept that "populist justice" would prevail, echoes the concept of Dominionist theology, as is the idea of "ushering in the Second Coming of Christ.".
2 Corinthians 6:17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,"
Thy Will Be Done, reveals that the real source of Cam Townsend's inspiration and beliefs was John Mott.
But in spite of Cam's lifelong reverence for the Word, his work had come under growing scrutiny by his mission elders over the past five years. Locked in battle with modernists abroad as well as at home, Cam's fundamentalist superiors were doubtful about his doctrinal purity. [p. 42]
And they had reason to be.... Even his inspiration for becoming a missionary had been John Mott. Mott had delivered a passionate speech before Cam and other students at Occidental College on "evangelizing the world in this generation." [pp. 42-43]
In 1930, The Laymen's Foreign Missions Inquiry, convened by John D. Rockefeller Jr. and John Mott, surveyed Asia and issued a report in 1932 entitled, Rethinking Missions.Rethinking Missions provided the beginnings of "contextualizing" the Gospel, and the concept that the focus of missions should be on day to day living and through secular education, health improvement to make good workers and so on.
"Rethinking Missions recommended reforms that few Fundamentalists could accept: an end to segregation from Asian cultures and appreciation of elements in Asian faiths that were kindred to Christ's message; more quiet lessons of examples and programs in education, medicine, and agriculture and less evangelical proselytizing; more cooperation and efficiency to reduce the wasteful overlap of programs; and most important, a gradual transfer of power to indigenous churches.
'....another young Fundamentalist missionary could understand Mott's call for indigenous control over institutions founded by foreign missionaries. And he had learned the values of the Rockefeller philanthropies for his own mission. In the years ahead, he would ally himself with Bell, his funder, J. Howard Pew of Sun Oil Company (SUNOCO) and Billy Graham to build America's largest and most politically controversial missionary organization, the Summer Institute of Linguistics...[He was] inadvertently serving the interests of Nelson Rockefeller as "the Apostle of the Lost Tribes." [Colby p.40]
The man was William Cameron Townsend, founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators (WBT), which was known internationally as the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL). Townsend's associations did not end with the Rockefellers and John Mott, nor did SIL's, as we've seen they are officially Partnered with UNESCO.
In 1967, CNP's Nelson Bunker Hunt provided Cameron Townsend, property in Dallas for a new international translation center for Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) and the Wycliffe Bible Translators. Hunt also funded CNP's Ed McAteer, who sat on Wycliffes' board..
"Ed McAteer, was the...real organizing force behind the politicized Fundamentalist movement. McAteer had the glib tongue of his profession, substituting Christ for soap in his market analysis. He was more than a friend of Cam Townsend; he was a major figure on the board of Wycliffe Associates, which was now a powerhouse of resources for SIL, providing it and JAARS [Jungle Aviation & Radio Service founded by Townsend in 1963] with construction skills, money, promotion and overnight stays for furloughed translators on fund-raising tours. In return, testimonies from returned translators, films, books, and slide shows parlayed surrogate travels around the world for suburban believers. Special trips to the jungle bases allowed the more affluent faithful actually to partake in adventure for God. The sheer human energy amassed by wealthy SIL backers like North Carolina's James A. Jones, one of the largest contractors for military bases in Vietnam, and oilman Nelson Bunker Hunt of Texas. "Bunker Hunt had helped me considerably," McAteer freely offered.
"Wycliffe Associates' "500 Club" was designed to offer the richer members a way out of service through cash; $500 or more each year was all it took to get a special certificate of membership. Some gave much more. Texas's corporate leaders were prominent in helping Cam build SIL's International Linguistics Center near Dallas; the Linguistics Center's board meeting was one of those special occasions where a Rockefeller business partner like Trammel Crow could rub shoulders with an ultrarightist like Nelson Bunker Hunt. But they were the old core of supporters. The real power in the Wycliffe Associates was its thousands of newer members, spreading the influence of SIL across the country, and the influence of Wycliffe Associates in Cam's organization.
"Promoting and leading this base of support into politics was McAteer's forte. During the Carter administration, his name began to appear among New Right circles in Washington, D.C., connected with North Carolina's Senator Jesse Helms. It was McAteer who brought Jerry Falwell into this crowd, helping Falwell build the Moral Majority. Then, in 1979, McAteer organized the Religious Roundtable. Well-funded, McAteer pulled together many of the Fundamentalist leaders of the nation to back the candidacy of Ronald Reagan. Cam was on of those who followed McAteer into the founding meeting of the Religious Roundtable...Cam's base of support in the homeland and his top financial backers left him little choice. He was, at the end of his career, trapped by the Far Right Fundamentalist base on which he had built Wycliffe's success at home...." [Colby & Dennett, pp 570, 804-5]
See: Major Donors to SIL/WBT to see some of the many corporate donors who had a financial stake in SIL's opening the door for their ventures. The Apostle Peter wrote:
2 Peter 2:1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
2 And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.
3 And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.
4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
5 And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;
6 And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;
7 And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:
8 (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)
9 The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:
Resources
Colby, Gerard & Charlotte Dennett,Thy Will be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil, Harper Collins, 1995.
Diamond, Sara. Spiritual Warfare: The Politics of the Christian Right, MA: South End Press, 1988.
42. Cairns, Earle E., Christianity Through the Centuries: A History of the Christian Church, p. 490, Zondervan Publishing House, Revised Edition, 1970, orig. 1954
43. Eugene A. Nida; Bible Translations: An Analysis of Principles and Procedures, with Special Reference to Aboriginal Languages; p.50-51; N.Y. Publisher, American Bible Society. 1947
45. The Greek New Testament, The Fourth revised edition. Editors: Barbara Aland & Kurt Aland; Johannes Karavidopoulos, Carlo M. Martini, Ruth M. Metger; Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, United Bible Societies, Stuttgart, Germany, 1994.
Patrick, James R., Research Manual:America 2000/Goals 2000, Citizens for Academic Education, 1994
Brzezinski, Zbigniew, Power & Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Advisor, 1977-1981, New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1983, p. 289
Brzezinski, Zbigniew, BETWEEN TWO AGES: AMERICA'S ROLE IN THE TECHNETRONIC ERA, Viking Press, 1971; reprinted edition, Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut, 1982
Spenner, Joe, Rockefeller-- Regionalism The Shadow Behind Oregon's LCDC, 1992
Copyright . All articles are the sole property of SeekGod.ca and Vicky Dillen
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http://www.akha.org/content/missiondocuments/sil.html
Ed McAteer was also a member of the board of Wycliffe Bible Associates, a lay ministry which was created to support the work of Wycliffe Bible Translators, an evangelical organization that raises funds and recruits missionaries to do the work of the Summer Institute of Linguistics. Bill Bright served on the board of the International Linguistics Center in Dallas, which was an associate group of SIL. The Summer Institute of Linguistics was established in 1936 by William Cameron Townsend as a scientific, nonsectarian organization specializing in language studies, literacy work and "other services." 32. An expose of SIL's corruption by Rockefeller money mentions Cam Townsend's role in founding the Religious Roundtable with Ed McAteer.
"In 1979, after Nelson Rockefeller had passed from living humanity into history, Cam had gathered with other members of Christian Fundamentalism to form the Religious Roundtable. . . Cam was one of those who followed McAteer into the founding meeting of the Religious Roundtable. If he had any reservations about where this would lead SIL and how it would play in Latin America . . ., Cam's base of support in the homeland and his top financial backers left him little choice. He was, at the end of his career, trapped by the Far Right Fundamentalist base on which he had built Wycliffe's success at home." 33.
In this massive volume, Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil, authors Gerard Colby and Charlotte Dennett present the disturbing evidence of Rockefeller's use of American missionaries, and in particular, the Summer Institute of Linguistics, who cooperated in conducting surveys, transporting CIA agents and indirectly assisting in the genocide of tribes in the Amazon basin.
"At the heart of this story are two intensely ambitious and ultimately tragic figures: Nelson Rockefeller, scion of the liberal Standard Oil family, and William Cameron Townsend, founder of the ultraconservative Wycliffe Bible Translators. Although leaders of opposing camps, both found common cause against fascism and the communism, with ironic, fateful results.
"We see Rockefeller gathering political power and building a vast business empire in Latin America, working with the CIA, developing close friendships with famous Latin American politicians and businessmen, and increasingly advocating military dictatorships, while Townsend's missionaries are used to pacify native populations in frontiers rich in oil and rare minerals or subject to guerrilla insurgencies. Seeking to hasten the prophesied Second Coming, Townsend pursues a fanatical effort to reach every Bibleless tribe with the Word, even to the point of saving their souls by destroying their culture and allying with the dictators who oppress them.
"Rockefeller and Townsend contributed more than any other Americans to the conquest of the Amazon that now threatens to destroy the 'lungs of the planet,' the rain forests. Their systematic campaign of colonization was a chilling foretaste of American intervention in the Third World that has become so common today we take for granted repeated forays in the name of democracy and the securing of valuable resources." 34.
Colby and Dennett also describe the vital role of Ed McAteer in bringing together wealthy liberal and conservative patrons to fund and direct the Wycliffe organization which, in the name of Christ, was assisting Nelson Rockefeller in the conquest of Latin America:
"Yet, of all the principles building the Religious Right into a cohesive political force, the most important was perhaps the least known. Edward McAteer was the Colgate-Palmolive salesman who was the real organizing force behind the politicized Fundamentalist movement. McAteer had the glib tongue of his profession, substituting Christ for soap in his market analysis. He was more than a friend to Cam Townsend; he was a major figure on the board of Wycliffe Associates, which was now a powerhouse of resources for SIL, providing it and [Jungle Aviation and Radio Services] with construction skills, money, promotion, and overnight stays for furloughed translators on fund-raising tours. In return, testimonies from returned translators, films, books, and slide shows parlayed surrogate travels around the world for suburban believers. Special trips to jungle bases allowed the more affluent faithful actually to partake in adventure for God. The sheer human energy amassed by Wycliffe Associates was impressive, but the financial core was fueled by reliable wealthy SIL backers like North Carolina's James A. Jones, one of the largest contractors for military bases in Vietnam, and oilman Nelson Bunker Hunt of Texas. 'Bunker Hunt had helped me considerably,' McAteer freely offered.
"Wycliffe Associates '500 Club' was designed to offer the richer members a way out of service through cash; $500 or more each year was all it took to get a special certificate of membership. Some gave much more. Texas's corporate leaders were prominent in helping Cam build SIL's International Linguistics Center near Dallas; the Linguistics Center's board meeting was one of those special occasions where a Rockefeller business partner like Trammel Crow could rub shoulders with an ultra-rightist like Nelson Bunker Hunt. But they were the old core of supporters. The real power in Wycliffe Associates was its thousands of newer members, spreading the influence of SIL across the country, and the influence of Wycliffe Associates in Cam's organization." 35.
As Ed McAteer's applied his advertising and public relations skills to finance the Summer Institute of Linguistics, these techniques would serve him well in organizing a base of support for the election of Ronald Reagan:
"Promoting and leading this base of support into politics was McAteer's forte. During the Carter administration, his name began to appear among New Right circles in Washington, D.C., connected with North Carolina's Senator Jesse Helms. It was McAteer who brought Jerry Falwell into this crowd, helping Falwell build the Moral Majority. Then, in 1979, McAteer organized the Religious Roundtable. Well funded, McAteer pulled together many of the Fundamentalists leaders of the nation to back the candidacy of Ronald Reagan. 36.
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<a href="http://www.akha.org/content/missiondocuments/sil.html">Wycliffe Bible Translators</a>, by The Akha Heritage Foundation
WYCLIFFE BIBLE TRANSLATORS
Ed McAteer was also a member of the board of Wycliffe Bible Associates, a lay ministry which was created to support the work of Wycliffe Bible Translators, an evangelical organization that raises funds and recruits missionaries to do the work of the <a href="http://www.sil.org/">Summer Institute of Linguistics</a>. Bill Bright served on the board of the International Linguistics Center in Dallas, which was an associate group of SIL. The Summer Institute of Linguistics was established in 1936 by William Cameron Townsend as a scientific, nonsectarian organization specializing in language studies, literacy work and "other services." 32. An expose of SIL's corruption by Rockefeller money mentions Cam Townsend's role in founding the Religious Roundtable with Ed McAteer.
"In 1979, after Nelson Rockefeller had passed from living humanity into history, Cam had gathered with other members of Christian Fundamentalism to form the Religious Roundtable. . . Cam was one of those who followed McAteer into the founding meeting of the Religious Roundtable. If he had any reservations about where this would lead SIL and how it would play in Latin America . . ., Cam's base of support in the homeland and his top financial backers left him little choice. He was, at the end of his career, trapped by the Far Right Fundamentalist base on which he had built Wycliffe's success at home." 33.
In this massive volume, <i>Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil</i>, authors Gerard Colby and Charlotte Dennett present the disturbing evidence of Rockefeller's use of American missionaries, and in particular, the Summer Institute of Linguistics, who cooperated in conducting surveys, transporting CIA agents and indirectly assisting in the genocide of tribes in the Amazon basin.
"At the heart of this story are two intensely ambitious and ultimately tragic figures: Nelson Rockefeller, scion of the liberal Standard Oil family, and William Cameron Townsend, founder of the ultraconservative Wycliffe Bible Translators. Although leaders of opposing camps, both found common cause against fascism and the communism, with ironic, fateful results.
"We see Rockefeller gathering political power and building a vast business empire in Latin America, working with the CIA, developing close friendships with famous Latin American politicians and businessmen, and increasingly advocating military dictatorships, while Townsend's missionaries are used to pacify native populations in frontiers rich in oil and rare minerals or subject to guerrilla insurgencies. Seeking to hasten the prophesied Second Coming, Townsend pursues a fanatical effort to reach every Bibleless tribe with the Word, even to the point of saving their souls by destroying their culture and allying with the dictators who oppress them.
"Rockefeller and Townsend contributed more than any other Americans to the conquest of the Amazon that now threatens to destroy the 'lungs of the planet,' the rain forests. Their systematic campaign of colonization was a chilling foretaste of American intervention in the Third World that has become so common today we take for granted repeated forays in the name of democracy and the securing of valuable resources." 34.
Colby and Dennett also describe the vital role of Ed McAteer in bringing together wealthy liberal and conservative patrons to fund and direct the Wycliffe organization which, in the name of Christ, was assisting Nelson Rockefeller in the conquest of Latin America:
"Yet, of all the principles building the Religious Right into a cohesive political force, the most important was perhaps the least known. Edward McAteer was the Colgate-Palmolive salesman who was the real organizing force behind the politicized Fundamentalist movement. McAteer had the glib tongue of his profession, substituting Christ for soap in his market analysis. He was more than a friend to Cam Townsend; he was a major figure on the board of Wycliffe Associates, which was now a powerhouse of resources for SIL, providing it and [Jungle Aviation and Radio Services] with construction skills, money, promotion, and overnight stays for furloughed translators on fund-raising tours. In return, testimonies from returned translators, films, books, and slide shows parlayed surrogate travels around the world for suburban believers. Special trips to jungle bases allowed the more affluent faithful actually to partake in adventure for God. The sheer human energy amassed by Wycliffe Associates was impressive, but the financial core was fueled by reliable wealthy SIL backers like North Carolina's James A. Jones, one of the largest contractors for military bases in Vietnam, and oilman Nelson Bunker Hunt of Texas. 'Bunker Hunt had helped me considerably,' McAteer freely offered.
"Wycliffe Associates '500 Club' was designed to offer the richer members a way out of service through cash; $500 or more each year was all it took to get a special certificate of membership. Some gave much more. Texas's corporate leaders were prominent in helping Cam build SIL's International Linguistics Center near Dallas; the Linguistics Center's board meeting was one of those special occasions where a Rockefeller business partner like Trammel Crow could rub shoulders with an ultrarightist like Nelson Bunker Hunt. But they were the old core of supporters. The real power in Wycliffe Associates was its thousands of newer members, spreading the influence of SIL across the country, and the influence of Wycliffe Associates in Cam's organization." 35.
As Ed McAteer's applied his advertising and public relations skills to finance the Summer Institute of Linguistics, these techniques would serve him well in organizing a base of support for the election of Ronald Reagan:
"Promoting and leading this base of support into politics was McAteer's forte. During the Carter administration, his name began to appear among New Right circles in Washington, D.C., connected with North Carolina's Senator Jesse Helms. It was McAteer who brought Jerry Falwell into this crowd, helping Falwell build the Moral Majority. Then, in 1979, McAteer organized the Religious Roundtable. Well funded, McAteer pulled together many of the Fundamentalists leaders of the nation to back the candidacy of Ronald Reagan. 36.
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October 13, 2005. Inter Press Service, Venezuela to Expel U.S. Evangelical Group, by Humberto Márquez
CARACAS - Venezuela will expel the U.S. evangelical group New Tribes Mission, which has been active in indigenous communities along the southern border with Colombia and Brazil since 1946, President Hugo Chavez announced Wednesday.
"They will leave Venezuela," said the president. "They are agents of imperialist penetration. They gather sensitive and strategic information and are exploiting the Indians. So they will leave, and I don't care two hoots about the international consequences that this decision could bring."
New Tribes, an evangelical organisation that has long had close ties with the U.S.-based Summer Institute of Linguistics, is active in a number of countries in Asia and Latin America, and in Venezuela has focused its efforts on the Yanomami, Ye'kuana and Panare indigenous groups and other ethnic communities in the southern part of the country.
The Summer Institute of Linguistics was founded in 1934 with the declared purpose of translating the Bible into indigenous languages.
Chavez was delivering collective land titles, boat motors, vehicles and credits to indigenous communities in the plains region in southern Venezuela on Wednesday, the date he had declared "day of indigenous resistance," when he made the surprising announcement on the New Tribes Mission in a nationally broadcast speech.
"I have seen reports and videos on the activity of these New Tribes. We don't want them here; we all form part of an old tribe," Chavez quipped.
Since the 1970s, New Tribes has drawn heavy criticism from many quarters, including leftist political groups, environmentalists, indigenous organisations, academics, Catholic Church leaders and even members of the military. The controversial group has been accused of prospecting for strategic minerals on behalf of transnational corporations and of the forced acculturation and conversion of indigenous people.
Sociologist and environmentalist Alexander Luzardo, who 20 years ago published a report on the New Tribes Mission's operations in the Amazon jungle, welcomed Chavez's decision.
He told IPS that the decision "complies with what is stipulated in the constitution of 1999, which establishes indigenous peoples' right to self-determination and to respect for their beliefs, values and customs.
He also said the expulsion of the group would be in line with the recommendations of numerous government and parliamentary reports that had warned about the group's activities in Venezuela.
"New Tribes has westernized indigenous people by force, while spreading a sense of shame and guilt, disguised as teaching the gospel: they taught the Panares that Satan had turned into a Panare Indian and that they were guilty of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ," said Luzardo.
However, New Tribe missionary Richard Bruce said in an interview with the local press four years ago that "we want to respect the way of life and customs of indigenous peoples, not change them overnight. This is not a corner of the United States."
During the group's most active period, roughly 20 years ago, New Tribes missionaries from the United States numbered close to 200, said Luzardo. They were mainly concentrated in Tama-Tama, a spot where several rivers meet in the heart of the southernmost Venezuelan state of Amazonas.
This area is believed to be rich in minerals like uranium. For many years, New Tribes built airstrips and modern installations that contrasted sharply with the rustic constructions in the indigenous communities they ministered to.
The now defunct National Identity Movement, which grouped together cultural, environmental and indigenous organisations in the 1980s, maintained that New Tribes acted as a cover for the prospecting of geological and mineral wealth coveted by corporations that provided funding for the Summer Institute of Linguistics. These included General Dynamics, a defence industry contractor, and Ford.
Nevertheless, the demands made at the time for the expulsion of the New Tribes Mission from Venezuela eventually faded into oblivion, as did public concern over the activity of the group, which has also experienced divisions in recent years, Luzardo commented.
But that changed with the announcement made by Chavez, who noted that "while indigenous people live in extremely difficult conditions, New Tribes have power plants, radio systems and airstrips well maintained with tractors and mowers, where planes fly in from abroad without going through any kind of customs check."
His reference to the potential consequences of the measure is likely due to the fact that New Tribes belongs to the Evangelical Council of Venezuela and could accuse the government of religious persecution.
But it is also an organisation based in the United States, and the Venezuelan and U.S. governments have been caught up in an escalating political and diplomatic confrontation for the last two years.
What's more, in August, U.S. televangelist Pat Robertson publicly called for the Venezuelan leader's assassination, and last Sunday accused Chavez of providing funding to Osama bin Laden, leader of the Al Qaida terrorist network.
Chavez stressed that "we are not going to run roughshod over anyone, we will give New Tribes time to pack up their things and go."
Although Luzardo believes the measure is a positive one, he added that "just today there were new indigenous protests, because Chavez is opening up indigenous lands to coal mining (in northwestern Venezuela) by other 'new tribes', this time from Brazil," an allusion to joint ventures formed for this purpose by Venezuelan and Brazilian companies, whose activities are scheduled to begin next year.
Copyright © 2005 IPS-Inter Press Service.
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WEB POSTED 05-15-2001
May 15, 2001, The Final Call, On The CIA And Christian Missionaries, by Cedric Muhammad,
by Cedric Muhammad
-Guest Columnist-
Related links:
On Slavery In The Sudan
BEC, 05-15-2001
E-Letter To The Washington Post and William Raspberry BEC, 05-08-2001
Sharpton calls on U.S. leadership to solve the civil war in Sudan FCN 05-01-2001
America's failed policy in the Sudan FCN 11-14-2000
Sudan.net
News, Culture and History
Establishing a direct link between missionaries, US AID, the CIA and other intelligence agencies like the NSA, is not a very difficult task. The question for the Black electorate, in the Western Hemisphere and Africa is how such a history impacts on the monopoly of thought that Christian Solidarity International has obtained over the issue of the Sudan, influencing members of the US Congress and the British parliament, as well as White Conservatives and Black Civil Rights leaders? 
The recent emergence of the relationship between the mainstream media, elected officials, White conservatives, Black civil rights leaders, a Sudanese opposition group (SPLA/M), and a Christian human rights organization, Christian Solidarity International (CSI), caused us to reflect over a long history of covert relationships between US and foreign intelligence agencies and Christian missionaries. One of the best examples of such was the relationship between the famous Wycliffe Bible Translators and the CIA. The relationship was documented in a book, Thy Will Be Done, written in the 1990s.
According to Gerard Colby and Charlotte Dennett, the association between the intelligence community and Christian missionaries predates the public emergence of the CIA. In Thy Will Be Done,they write of the Wycliffe Bible Translator's (also known as the Summer Institute of Linguistic -SIL) and its founder William Cameron Townsend's (also known as "Cam") association with the intelligence community.
"This was not the first time that SIL had served U.S. government intelligence purposes during the war. In 1942, after discussions in Washington with "some men who are interested in furthering good will between our countries", Cam specifically requested SIL's Mexico City office to solicit reports from "any of our workers who may have observed efforts on the part of anyone to make the Indians think that Americans are not their friends." Cam's directive ended with a message, "Please give my regards to Mr. Lockett in case you should see him in this connection." Thomas Lockett, commercial attaché', was Cam's confidential contact at the embassy after Ambassador Daniels departed in 1941. Lockett carried out intelligence missions for Washington, identifying suspected Nazi sympathizers and their companies for (Adolf) Berle and (Nelson) Rockefeller. SIL was one of his intelligence sources.
"SIL had helped gather anthropological information on the Tarascan Indians that ended up in Nelson Rockefeller's intelligence files. The files contained cross-references to reveal behavioral patterns among Indian peoples in everything from socialization (including aggressive tendencies) and personality traits, drives, emotions, and language structure, to political intrigue, kinship ties, traditional authority, mineral resources, exploitation, and labor relations. Rockefeller called these data the Strategic Index of Latin America."
While the majority of SIL or the Wycliffe Bible translators work with the intelligence agencies took place in Latin America they also worked hand in hand with the CIA in Asia,
"As souls ascended to heaven in the flight against Satan, many clergy became direct collaborators with the CIA. One member of the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA) was proud of this collaboration. William Carlsen, a missionary in northeastern Thailand, considered it " a privilege to share information with responsible agencies of the government where they seek us out." Carlsen gave an eight-hour briefing to the CIA on Thailand's tribal areas when he returned home for a furlough. Most C&MA missionaries did likewise, according to a CIA source. Most of the information gleaned was about people, their actions, opinions, and grievances."
Interestingly, the link between the CIA and missionary groups was quite often the US Agency for International Development (AID). This is written of in great detail in Thy Will Be Done:
" William Cameron Townsend watched the controversy over the CIA's use of missionaries with curiosity and growing alarm. The CIA's penetration of religious missions, an issue previously overlooked by the media, was now, in 1975, making international headlines.
" The story had been building since 1970, when Dr. Eric Wolfe, chair of the American Anthropological Association's ethics committee, explained how anthropologists had been manipulated through the Chiang Mai Tribal Research Center in northern Thailand, which was funded through the Agency for International Development (AID). He also revealed that American missionary organizations had been drawn into this counterinsurgency operation as well.
"That June, President Nixon's director of AID, John Hannah, had admitted publicly that AID had funded CIA operations in Laos, and subsequent revelations pointed to CIA-AID collaboration in Ecuador, Uruguay, Thailand and the Philippines. These revelations could hurt all missionary efforts, but the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) was particularly vulnerable. Cam Townsend had been aggressively pursuing government funding for his Bible translators for decades, first from foreign governments and then from his own government. The amendment to the 1949 Federal Property and Administrative Services Act that allowed religious missions to take surplus U.S. government property abroad had even been called "Townsend's bill" in some congressional circles. By the 1960s, SIL was receiving a hefty income from AID indirectly through foreign governments that received U.S. foreign aid or directly through AID-funded programs in bilingual education and agricultural development cooperatives. This income was supplemented by surplus military equipment, including helicopters that were retired from Vietnam and donated to SIL. Evangelized pilots of these choppers became soldiers for Christ in the tradition of Dawson Trotman's Navigators. In Peru, after the nationalization of Standard Oil, the head of the U.S. Embassy's AID office even became a member of SIL."
Establishing a direct link between missionaries, US AID, the CIA and other intelligence agencies like the NSA, is not a very difficult task. The question for the Black electorate, in the Western Hemisphere and Africa is how such a history impacts on the monopoly of thought that Christian Solidarity International has obtained over the issue of the Sudan, influencing members of the US Congress and the British parliament, as well as White Conservatives and Black Civil Rights leaders?
And finally, what does all of this have to do with President Bush's new appointment to head US AID, Andrew Natsios and his decision, this month, to make Mr. Natsios the special humanitarian coordinator to monitor aid deliveries in Sudan?
We were intrigued by President Bush's recent emphasis on making sure that aid deliveries reached the people of the Sudan as opposed to being stolen and misappropriated by the Sudanese government. We were interested in President Bush's comments because it has been documented by many human rights groups and even the US government that it has been the SPLA, the Sudanese opposition group, that has been foremost in stealing foreign aid, food and resources before they reach the Sudanese people. Again, human rights groups have documented this information and provided it to the White House and members of the US Congress. But Republicans and Democrats alike, have done and said nothing.
Not surprisingly, Christian Solidarity International, who works hand in hand with the SPLA in arranging its "slavery redemptions", has been silent on such abuses, as have all of those in the anti-slavery coalition in America. The missionary and human rights work of Christians in the Sudan seems to dovetail rather nicely with the foreign policy objectives of the US and Britain in that part of Africa.
A coincidence?
Will Andrew Natsios' work in the Sudan continue US AID's tradition of "counterinsurgency" work? And what is there to be learned of the relationship between US AID and CSI?
There is so much more to this "slavery" in the Sudan issue than most imagine…
(Cedric Muhammad is the Publisher of BlackElectorate.com, a publication that focuses on the dynamics of Black culture, economics and politics.)
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Wycliffe and the CIA
NELSON ROCKEFELLER and Evangelism in the Age of Oil, by Gerard Colby with Charlotte Dennett [Harper Collins, 1995] 960 pages
Reviewed by Carmelo Ruiz
Carmelo Ruiz is a Puerto Rican journalist and research associate at the institute for Social Ecology, email is e@igc.apc.org at Goddard College, Vermont.
Connect: email: carrneloruiz@hotmailcom
In 1976, reporters Gerard Colby and Charlotte Dennett traveled to Brazil as part of a journalistic team to write stories about the work of Christian missionaries in the Amazon basin.
High on Colby and Dennett's list of priorities was to learn about a mysterious missionary organization called the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL). This outfit, also known as the Wycliffe Bible Translators, had gotten kudos from both conservatives and liberals for translating the Bible into hundreds of indigenous languages in Central and South America and helping native peoples cope with the intrusion of Western civilization into their lives.
However, Colby and Dennett had heard of a darker side to SIL.
Numerous critics had alleged that SIL was the vanguard of the destruction of both the rainforests and their native inhabitants.
They had heard from Latin American acquaintances that SIL was, in military fashion, a scouting party that surveyed the Amazonian hinterlands for potential sources of opposition to natural resource exploitation (read cattle ranching, clearcutting and strip mining) among native peoples and that it employed a virulent brand of Christian fundamentalism that relied on linguistics to undermine the social cohesion of aboriginal communities and accelerate their assimilation into Western culture.In addition to all this, numerous articles in the Latin American press accused SIL of being funded by the American intelligence community.
That last charge sounded particularly believable, since the authors' trip took place in the wake of recent revelations by the Church Committee of the US Senate, which investigated the activities of US intelligence agencies. It bears mentioning that Colby was by then no stranger to corporate and political intrigue. In 1974, writing as Gerard Colby Zilg, he published Dupont: Behind the Nylon Curtain, a 600+ page tome that narrated the Dupont family's corrupt history, from its profiteering on gunpowder sales to its manufacture of ozone-depleting gases. However, don't expect to see it in bookstores. When a Dupont PR representative said the book was scurrilous and actionable, publisher Prentice Hall was intimidated into letting Dupont go out of print. (In 1984, an expanded and updated 900 page-long edition of the book was published, which included, among other things, the Dupont's little-known connection to the Nicaraguan contras. Unfortunately, it met the same fate as the previous edition.)
Dennett was also a veteran journalist, having recently been stationed in Beirut, where she covered the civil war then raging in Lebanon. The authors found SIL a veritable empire whose missionary activities spanned every country in the Amazon basin, with a network of bases that look more like picket-fenced American suburbia than the frontier outposts for the global economy that they actually are. SIL even has its own air force and communications system, the Jungle Aviation and Radio Service (JAARS), which permits it to act virtually independently from the governments of the countries where it operates. After years of research, Colby and Dennett found a number of irrefutable links between SIL and US counterinsurgency operations. Among these, SIL agressively denied that the native peoples of Brazil and Guatemala were being slaughtered by the military regimes of their countries; it allowed its base in the Ecuadoran Amazon to be used by Green Berets who were combing the Western Amazon for signs of armed insurgency; and it assisted the Peruvian air force, which had napalmed the Mayoruna and Campa Indians.
If Colby and Dennett had limited themselves to just exposing SIL, Thy Will be Done would still have been a formidable journalistic achievement. But the authors went on to research the American institutions, private and governmental, that provided support for SIL's mission. These included Standard Oil of New Jersey; the Pew family, creators of the Sun Oil Company (Sunoco) and the Pew Charitable Trusts, the US Agency for International Development, and the US military through its donations of surplus military equipment. Although they could find no smoking gun directly linking the CIA to SIL, they did find several circumstantial and indirect links, such as financial support from a foundation that was later exposed as a CIA front and the fact that JAARS's top pilot, Lawrence Montgomery, was on the >Agency's payroll.
In the course of their investigation, the authors learned that SIL had a big debt to institutions and individuals associated with the Rockefeller family. SIL founder William Cameron (Cam) Townsend was inspired by the antihookworm and antimalaria campaigns of the Rockefeller Foundation and the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission, and his linguistics methods owed much to the work of linguist Edward Sapir of the University of Chicago, an institution that was also supported by the Rockefeller Foundation. Another influence on Townsend was Mexican anthropologist Manuel Gameo, whose interdisciplinary studies on native peoples were sponsored by the University of Chicago, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fund and the Social Science Research Council. The last two were run by Beardsley Ruml, a member of the inner circle of the Rockefeller family. One thinker who had a great influence on Townsend's approach to native cultures was John Mott, one of John D. Rockefeller, Jr.'s most trusted envoys. Mott was a millenarian who hoped to evangelize the world in his generation, but rather than embracing fundamentalism, he rejected it in favor of a broad-minded science-based approach. In a report he co-authored in 1932 called Rethinking Missions, Mott called for more cultural tolerance and social concern on the part of missionaries working abroad and less reliance on vociferous evangelical proselytizing. Such an approach, he argued, would win more converts in the long run and neutralize the nationalistic and communist revolts then brewing in what years later would come to be called the Third World.
The authors follow Nelson Rockefeller's consuming interest in Latin America: his days in Venezuela working for Standard Oil subsidiary Creole Petroleum, where he developed his concepts of corporate social responsibility; his tenure as coordinator of the CIAA; his brief stint as Assistant Secretary of State, in which he was a key behind-the-scenes player in the international negotiations that led to the founding of the United Nations and the Organization of American States; his formation of IBEC, his service to the Eisenhower administration as special assistant for cold war strategy, a position in which he was briefed on top secret CIA operations, including coup d'etats and the infamous MKULTRA mind control experiments, his membership in president Nixon's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board at a time when the CIA was destabilizing Salvador Allende's democratic socialist government in Chile, and much more.
Of special interest to Colby and Dennett were a series of by-invitation-only seminars hosted by Nelson under the sponsorship of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) in Quantico naval base during the Eisenhower administration. The Quantico seminars, known officially as the RBF Special Studies Project, advocated increased military spending and a more confrontational policy towards the Soviet Union. The participants included men who would later become instrumental in developing the Kennedy administration's counterinsurgency doctrine, such as Eugene Rostow, Edward Lansdale, Paul Nitze, Adolf Berle, McGeorge Bundy, Walt Rostow, Henry Kissinger and Dean Rusk (who was then president of the Rockefeller Foundation and would become Kennedy's Secretary of State).
The book only skims through Nelson's deeds as governor of New York, although it does mention his ignominious performance during the Attica prison uprising. Colby and Dennett focus instead on his presidential ambitions, which came to a climax with his botched attempt to beat Barry Goldwater to the 1964 Republican presidential nomination, and his international activities, such as his disastrous 1969 tour of the Americas. Nelson's crowning political achievement was getting appointed to the vice presidency of the United States in 1974. Unelected Vice President Rockefeller was then called on by unelected President Ford to chair a commission to investigate CIA abuses. As the authors point out, no one could have been less qualified for that last job.
Those who may feel tempted to dismiss Thy Will be Done's conclusions as conspiracy theory will have a hell of a time trying to refute the book's arguments and conclusions. The 830 pages of text, 92 pages of footnotes and bibliography and dozens of charts, graphs, photographs and maps eloquently document and support every single charge made by the authors. It is precisely in order to placate the skeptics that Colby and Dennett adopted this mindbogglingly exhaustive approach. In spite of this, the book is amazingly readable and does not come across as stuffy and academic.
Those who read books on American foreign policy in search of titillating revelations of sensational CIA covert operations while neglecting to study the social, political and historical context in which they are embedded will find this book a difficult, even annoying, read. Conspiracy buffs may have an encyclopedic knowledge of CIA intrigues and scandals, but they're not interested at all in doing the hard intellectual work of learning about the nature of the system of corporate profit and exploitation which intelligence agencies were created to serve. They will undoubtedly be frustrated by the book's scholarly dose of anthropology, linguistics and history, and will probably skim through the pages in search of startling revelations of covert intrigue and secret wars. The authors' implicit message to the self-proclaimed conspiracy researchers is clear: that all the muckraking investigative journalism in the world will not bring about social change if it is not accompanied by a critical analysis of the economic, political and historical context of the times we're living.
Upon a superficial examination, one would tend to think that the book will appeal to the Bible-thumping, right-wing populists of the John Birch fringe who despise the Rockefellers. This band of the American political spectrum, which has been known to publicize bizarre allegations of a Rockefeller--orchestrated plot to create a socialist world government, will be baffled and perplexed by one of Thy Will be Done's chief conclusions: that they've been had. According to Colby and Dennett, far from being a threat to the Machiavellian power of the Rockefellers, the Christian fundamentalists were extremely useful in furthering the global designs of the heirs of the Standard Oil fortune.
On the other hand, left-leaning liberals will find the book's conclusions even harder to swallow, since the Rockefeller philanthropies (which include the Rockefeller Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Rockefeller Family Fund) are among the main funding sources of liberal political activism in the US, including civil liberties, feminism and the environmental movement. Beneficiaries of Rockefeller charitable giving in recent years have included groups like Essential Information, the ACLU, the Ms. Foundation, the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, Environmental Action, the Student Environmental Action Coalition, the Center for Responsive Politics, the NAACP who are much more likely to say, "Wait, you're being a little unbalanced. Sure, they've done terrible things in the past, but they're funding some really terrific stuff nowadays." As much as one may try to rationalize the embarrassing predicament of taking money from the ultra-rich to finance social change, the question remains: What are the prospects for an American progressive agenda when it is heavily dependent on funding from a philanthropic system that owes its fortune to commercial activities that destroy ecosystems worldwide, erode biological diversity and create a holocaust for indigenous peoples? Colby and Dennett do not pose that question to readers, but it will certainly hover ominously over the mind of any American reader whose political beliefs are at least five degrees to the left of National Public Radio or The New Republic.
Thy Will be Done is a very challenging and deeply disturbing book. Although much lip service has been paid to the concept of holistic thinking, Colby and Dennett do actually put together the pieces of the macabre puzzle of the destruction of the Amazon rain-forest and the genocide of its indigenous dwellers and reach conclusions that are unsettling for conservatives and liberals alike. All or most environmentalists agree that the destruction of the Amazon rainforest can't be seen as separate from a host of social, political and economic factors in South America as well as in industrialized countries like the US, but it takes nothing less than a book like Thy Will be Done to show what this actually means.
Copyright 1991 - 2006 The Akha Heritage Foundation
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Wycliffe Bible Translators, by The Akha Heritage Foundation
WYCLIFFE BIBLE TRANSLATORS
Ed McAteer was also a member of the board of Wycliffe Bible Associates, a lay ministry which was created to support the work of Wycliffe Bible Translators, an evangelical organization that raises funds and recruits missionaries to do the work of the Summer Institute of Linguistics. Bill Bright served on the board of the International Linguistics Center in Dallas, which was an associate group of SIL. The Summer Institute of Linguistics was established in 1936 by William Cameron Townsend as a scientific, nonsectarian organization specializing in language studies, literacy work and "other services." 32. An expose of SIL's corruption by Rockefeller money mentions Cam Townsend's role in founding the Religious Roundtable with Ed McAteer.
"In 1979, after Nelson Rockefeller had passed from living humanity into history, Cam had gathered with other members of Christian Fundamentalism to form the Religious Roundtable. . . Cam was one of those who followed McAteer into the founding meeting of the Religious Roundtable. If he had any reservations about where this would lead SIL and how it would play in Latin America . . ., Cam's base of support in the homeland and his top financial backers left him little choice. He was, at the end of his career, trapped by the Far Right Fundamentalist base on which he had built Wycliffe's success at home." 33.
In this massive volume, Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil, authors Gerard Colby and Charlotte Dennett present the disturbing evidence of Rockefeller's use of American missionaries, and in particular, the Summer Institute of Linguistics, who cooperated in conducting surveys, transporting CIA agents and indirectly assisting in the genocide of tribes in the Amazon basin.
"At the heart of this story are two intensely ambitious and ultimately tragic figures: Nelson Rockefeller, scion of the liberal Standard Oil family, and William Cameron Townsend, founder of the ultraconservative Wycliffe Bible Translators. Although leaders of opposing camps, both found common cause against fascism and the communism, with ironic, fateful results.
"We see Rockefeller gathering political power and building a vast business empire in Latin America, working with the CIA, developing close friendships with famous Latin American politicians and businessmen, and increasingly advocating military dictatorships, while Townsend's missionaries are used to pacify native populations in frontiers rich in oil and rare minerals or subject to guerrilla insurgencies. Seeking to hasten the prophesied Second Coming, Townsend pursues a fanatical effort to reach every Bibleless tribe with the Word, even to the point of saving their souls by destroying their culture and allying with the dictators who oppress them.
"Rockefeller and Townsend contributed more than any other Americans to the conquest of the Amazon that now threatens to destroy the 'lungs of the planet,' the rain forests. Their systematic campaign of colonization was a chilling foretaste of American intervention in the Third World that has become so common today we take for granted repeated forays in the name of democracy and the securing of valuable resources." 34.
Colby and Dennett also describe the vital role of Ed McAteer in bringing together wealthy liberal and conservative patrons to fund and direct the Wycliffe organization which, in the name of Christ, was assisting Nelson Rockefeller in the conquest of Latin America:
"Yet, of all the principles building the Religious Right into a cohesive political force, the most important was perhaps the least known. Edward McAteer was the Colgate-Palmolive salesman who was the real organizing force behind the politicized Fundamentalist movement. McAteer had the glib tongue of his profession, substituting Christ for soap in his market analysis. He was more than a friend to Cam Townsend; he was a major figure on the board of Wycliffe Associates, which was now a powerhouse of resources for SIL, providing it and [Jungle Aviation and Radio Services] with construction skills, money, promotion, and overnight stays for furloughed translators on fund-raising tours. In return, testimonies from returned translators, films, books, and slide shows parlayed surrogate travels around the world for suburban believers. Special trips to jungle bases allowed the more affluent faithful actually to partake in adventure for God. The sheer human energy amassed by Wycliffe Associates was impressive, but the financial core was fueled by reliable wealthy SIL backers like North Carolina's James A. Jones, one of the largest contractors for military bases in Vietnam, and oilman Nelson Bunker Hunt of Texas. 'Bunker Hunt had helped me considerably,' McAteer freely offered.
"Wycliffe Associates '500 Club' was designed to offer the richer members a way out of service through cash; $500 or more each year was all it took to get a special certificate of membership. Some gave much more. Texas's corporate leaders were prominent in helping Cam build SIL's International Linguistics Center near Dallas; the Linguistics Center's board meeting was one of those special occasions where a Rockefeller business partner like Trammel Crow could rub shoulders with an ultrarightist like Nelson Bunker Hunt. But they were the old core of supporters. The real power in Wycliffe Associates was its thousands of newer members, spreading the influence of SIL across the country, and the influence of Wycliffe Associates in Cam's organization." 35.
As Ed McAteer's applied his advertising and public relations skills to finance the Summer Institute of Linguistics, these techniques would serve him well in organizing a base of support for the election of Ronald Reagan:
"Promoting and leading this base of support into politics was McAteer's forte. During the Carter administration, his name began to appear among New Right circles in Washington, D.C., connected with North Carolina's Senator Jesse Helms. It was McAteer who brought Jerry Falwell into this crowd, helping Falwell build the Moral Majority. Then, in 1979, McAteer organized the Religious Roundtable. Well funded, McAteer pulled together many of the Fundamentalists leaders of the nation to back the candidacy of Ronald Reagan. 36.
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