e some "public
service" project in its advertising, and the project evoked public
indignation, the business firm would lose customers. The Advertising
Council has no customers to please. Yet, the Advertising Council is a
private agency, beyond the reach of voter and taxpayer indignation
which, theoretically, can exercise some control over public agencies.

* * * * *

Who are these autocrats who have become so powerful that they can
condition, if not control, public opinion? They are the members of the
Public Policy Committee of the Advertising Council. Here were the 19
members of the Advertising Council's Committee, on June 23, 1958:

_Sarah Gibson Blanding_, President of Vassar College; _Ralph J.
Bunche_, United Nations Under Secretary; _Benjamin J.
Buttenwieser_, partner in Kuhn, Loeb & Co.; _Olive Clapper,_
publicist; _Evans Clark_, member of the _New York Times_ editorial
board; _Helen Hall_, Director of Henry Street Settlement; _Paul G.
Hoffman_, Chairman of this Public Policy Committee; _Charles S.
Jones_, President of Richfield Oil Corporation; _Lawrence A.
Kimpton_, Chancellor of University of Chicago; _A. E. Lyon_,
Executive Secretary of the Railway Labor Executives Association;
_John J. McCloy_, Chairman of the Chase Manhattan Bank; _Eugene
Meyer_, Chairman of the _Washington Post & Times-Herald_; _William
I. Myers_, Dean of Agriculture at Cornell University; _Elmo Roper_,
public opinion analyst; _Howard A. Rusk_, New York University
Bellevue Medical Center; _Boris Shishkin_, Assistant to the
President of AFL-CIO; _George N. Shuster_, President of Hunter
College; _Thomas J. Watson, Jr._, President of International
Business Machines Corporation; _Henry M. Wriston_, Executive
Director of the American Assembly.

Of these 19, 8 are members of the Council on Foreign Relations--Bunche,
Buttenwieser, Hoffman, McCloy, Roper, Shishkin, Shuster, Wriston. The
remaining 11 are mostly "second level" affiliates of the CFR, or under
the thumb of CFR members in the business world.

* * * * *

Some Advertising Council projects really are "in the public interest."
The "Stop Accidents" campaign and the "Smokey Bear" campaign to prevent
forest fires are among several which probably have done much good.

There has never been an Advertising Council project which insinuated
a