Within a week after the July 10, White House luncheon meeting (which launched the CFR's foreign aid committee), the President and his high-level aides were talking about a grave crisis in Berlin and about foreign aid as the essential means of "meeting" that crisis.
On July 25, when congressional debates over the foreign aid bill were in a critical stage, President Kennedy spoke to the nation on radio and television, solemnly warning the people that the Berlin situation was dangerous.
Immediate, additional support for the foreign aid bill came from the country's liberal and leftwing forces, who united in a passionate plea–urging the American people to support the President "in this grave hour."
On August 27, an Associated Press release announced that House Leader John W. McCormack (Democrat, Massachusetts), was attempting to enlist the cooperation of 2,400 city mayors in support of a long-range foreign aid bill to meet the President's demands.
McCormack sent the city officials a statement of his views with a cover letter suggesting that the matter be brought to "the attention of citizens of your community through publication in your local newspaper," and, further, urging their "personal endorsement of this bipartisan program through the medium of your local press...."
State Department officials scheduled speaking tours throughout the land, and CFR affiliated organizations (like the Councils on World Affairs) started the build-up to provide audiences–all in the interest of "briefing" the American people on the necessity and beauties of foreign aid.
Anyone with sense had to wonder how the giving of American tax money to communist governments in Europe and to socialist governments all over the earth could help us resist communism in Berlin. But with the top leaders in our society (from the President downward to officials in the National Council of Churches) telling us that the survival of our nation depended on the President's getting all the foreign aid "authorization" he wanted–most Americans remained silent, feeling that such consequential and complicated matters should be left in the hands of our chosen leaders.
By the end of August, the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 had been passed by both houses of Congress; and the Berlin crisis moved from front page lead articles in the nation's newspapers to less important columns.
Thus, in 1961, as always, the foreign aid bill was a special project of our invisible government, the Council on Foreign Relations. And, in 1961, as always, the great, tax-supported propaganda machine used a fear psychology to bludgeon the people into silence and the Congress into obedience.