Inasmuch as the invisible government is composed of organizations which enjoy the special privilege of federal tax-exemption (a privilege seldom given to organizations advocating return to traditional American policies) it is often suggested that public pressures might persuade the Treasury Department to withdraw the tax-exempt privilege from these organizations.
How could the Treasury Department ever be persuaded to take action against the Council on Foreign Relations, when the Council controls the Department? Douglas Dillon, Secretary of the Treasury, is a member of the CFR.
It is impractical to think of getting Treasury Department action against the CFR. Moreover, such a solution to the problem could be dangerous.
A governmental agency which has limitless power to withdraw special tax-privileges must also have limitless power to grant special privileges. The Treasury Department could destroy all of the organizations composing the invisible government interlock by the simple action of withdrawing the tax-exempt privilege, thus drying up major sources of revenue. But the Treasury Department could then create another Frankenstein monster by giving tax-exemption to other organizations.
It is often suggested that some congressional committee investigate the Council on Foreign Relations and the network of organizations interlocked with it.
Yet, as we have seen, two different committees of Congress–one Democrat-controlled and one Republican-controlled–have tried to investigate the big tax-exempt foundations which are interlocked with, and controlled by, and provide the primary source of revenue for, the Council on Foreign Relations and its affiliates.
Both committees were gutted with ridicule and vicious denunciation, not just by the official communist party press, but by internationalists in the Congress, by spokesmen for the executive branch of government, and by big respected publishing and broadcasting firms which are a part of the controlled propaganda network of the Council on Foreign Relations.
The invisible government is not, however, beyond the reach of the whole Congress, if the Congress has the spur and support of an informed public.
Our only hope lies in the Congress which is responsive to public will, when that will is fully and insistently expressed.