One week later, the New York lawyer took an apartment in Washington and, as a member of President Kennedy's "Task Force" on foreign aid, started writing the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. The lawyer is Theodore Tannenwald, Jr., a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, who wrote many of the foreign aid bills which President Harry Truman presented to Congress and who, during the first Eisenhower term, was assistant director of the Mutual Security Program.
After Mr. Tannenwald and his task force had finished writing the 1961 foreign aid bill, President Kennedy appointed Tannenwald coordinator in charge of "presenting" the bill to committees of the House and Senate. Three cabinet officers and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff took their orders from Mr. Tannenwald, who was, according to the New York Times, "the Administration's composer, orchestrator and conductor of the most important legislative symphony of the Congressional session."
With admiration, the Times said:
"Mr. Tannenwald has been a kind of special White House ambassador to Capitol Hill. While the legislative committees struggled with the controversial proposal to by-pass the appropriating process and give the President authority to borrow $8,800,000,000 (8 billion, 800 million) for development lending in the next five years, he was the man in the ante-room empowered to answer questions in the name of the President."
In July, 1961, President Kennedy completed Mr. Tannenwald's foreign aid "orchestra." On July 10, in ceremonies at the White House, the President formally announced creation of the newest foreign-aid propaganda organization, the Citizens Committee for International Development, with Warren Lee Pierson as chairman. Here is the membership of the Citizens Committee for International Development:
Eugenie Anderson (member of the Atlantic Union Committee); William Benton (Chairman of the Board of Encyclopaedia Britannica; member of the Atlantic Union Committee); Everett N. Case (President of Colgate University); O. Roy Chalk (President of the District of Columbia Transit Company); Malcolm S. Forbes (Editor and Publisher of Forbes Magazine); Eleanor Clark French; Albert M. Greenfield (Honorary Chairman of the Board of Bankers Security Corporation, Philadelphia); General Alfred M. Gruenther (President of the American National Red Cross; member of the Atlantic Union Committee); Murray D. Lincoln (Chairman of Nationwide Insurance Company); Sol M. Linowitz (Chairman of Zerox Corporation); George Meany (President of AFL-CIO); William S. Paley (Chairman of the Board, Columbia Broadcasting System); Warren Lee Pierson (Chairman of the Board, Trans-World Airways); Ross Pritchard (Professor of Political Science, Southwestern University, Memphis); Thomas S. Nichols (Chairman of the Board of Olin Mathieson Chemical Corporation; member of the Atlantic Union Committee); Mrs. Mary G. Roebling (President Of Trenton Trust Company); David Sarnoff (Chairman of Radio Corporation of America); Walter Sterling Surrey (legal consultant, Economic Cooperation Administration); Thomas J. Watson, Jr., (President of International Business Machines Corporation); Walter H. Wheeler, Jr., (President of Pitney-Bowes); James D. Zellerbach (President and Director of Crown-Zellerbach Corporation; Chairman of Fibreboard Products, Inc.; member of the Atlantic Union Committee and United World Federalists); Ezra Zilkha (head of Zilkha & Sons).
Of these 22 people, 12 (including the Chairman) are members of the Council on Foreign Relations: Benton, Case, Gruenther, Paley, Pierson, Pritchard, Nichols, Sarnoff, Surrey, Watson, Wheeler, and Zellerbach.
Heads of the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations attended the White House luncheon when the Committee was formed. Vice President Johnson, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, and Attorney General Robert Kennedy were also present. The President urged each and all to get foundations, business firms, civic organizations, and the people generally, to put pressure on Congress in support of the 1961 foreign aid bill.