Workers World, Vol. 4 No. 6
Nothing so much symbolizes the evolution of the most influential capitalists and bankers in the direction of the Right as does the political shift of John J. McCloy.
McCloy is chiefly known to the broad public as the former presidential disarmament adviser and chief negotiator for the U.S. with the USSR. But McCloy is also considered to be one of the truly representative figures of high finance and industry in the U.S. government.
In his capacity as banker he was head of the World Bank and instrumental in shaping foreign policy on a broad front that ranged all the way from Korea to West Berlin. He and Dulles respectively represented the “soft” and “hard” lines in the Eisenhower administration.
McCloy was chiefly useful in operating behind the scenes.
As Board Chairman of the multi-billion dollar Chase Manhattan Bank, he needed little in the way of official posts to bolster his authority. He could at any time call on a dozen of the most powerful corporations in America, in which he served as a director, to press any issue he may have been interested in.
In his capacity as head of Chase Manhattan he was closely linked with the Rockefellers, and being the brother-in-law of John Sharman Zinsser, he also had a deep in with J.P. Morgan and Company.
During the Eisenhower administration McCloy played it liberal and earned for himself the reputation as one who stood for moderation, restraint and reasonableness – both on the issue of McCarthyism at home as well as on critical issues of foreign policy.
The current issue of Foreign Affairs, which often is the official mouthpiece of the State Department on a variety of issues, carries an all-too-significant article by McCloy. It is not so much that what he says has not already been said by others. But what is distinctly new is that he is saying it. It is not that he has adopted the language of the Goldwaters, Walkers or Admiral Arleigh Burke. No, it’s not that. He still measures his words carefully, still covers the substance and burden of his thesis with sweet reasonableness.
But a shift is clearly discernible. He has abandoned the position that the “non-aligned” nations can play a significant role in the life-and-death struggle between imperialist and the socialist camp. He no longer sees India as a leading neutral.
Whereas McCloy used to deliver preachments on the importance of the neutrals, he sees them now as a negligible factor. He covers his retreat from his previous position by saying that he has come to the realization of the general ineffectiveness of so-called neutral or non-aligned opinion as regards the test-ban negotiations, and denies what he calls the existence of “a moral opinion” among them.
This wouldn’t be news if it came from Senator Talmadge, Thurmond or General Van Fleet. But McCloy is perhaps the most powerful of the unofficial leaders of U.S. finance capital, both in and out of government. It must also be remembered that he is the man who served as U.S. military governor in Germany and also as U.S. High Commissioner there. Clay, who serves there now, is McCloy’s nominee. He has also negotiated on behalf of the U.S. Government with the highest Soviet officials.
A shift to the right in his thinking clearly means that his fellow board of directors in such powerful monopoly corporations as AT&T, Metropolitan Life Insurance, United Fruit, Westinghouse, Allied Chemical – not to speak of Chase Manhattan, have also undergone an evolution in their political thinking.
Kennedy’s foreign policy is clearly based on the men who dominate the leadership of the above-named companies. Men like McNamara, Hodges, Dillon, and others share this general view. It is supposed to have been shaped as a result of a reappraisal of U.S. military might.
In reality it is due to the deepening of the revolutionary ferment in Latin America, in Asia and in Africa. It grows out of a feeling of hopelessness of containing the spreading contagion of revolution by diplomatic and economic means alone. McCloy has apparently now come to the conclusion that naked force alone is to be relied on in the struggle to maintain U.S. domination.
Through the pages of Foreign Affairs, a magazine which mostly goes to the professional in the diplomatic corps, he has advised all and sundry in the financial community that he has dropped his mask. He is no longer McCloy the disarmament adviser. He is now John J. McCloy, armament expediter and behind-the-scenes plenipotentiary to the Kennedy administration. His new calling card is “faster and faster in the nuclear race” and to hell with neutral opinion.
The lesson for all of us who are studying the development of the ultra-right wing is that the main-spring of reaction is still in the hands of all those who hold power in Wall St. and in Washington.
And that while the ultra-rights undoubtedly represent the tendency towards naked fascist dictatorship, this is being fed and buttressed by the growing and deepening shift in the summits of the U.S. ruling class itself.
Last updated: 11 May 2026