Silk, Leonard and Silk, Mark. The American Establishment. New York: Avon
Books (Discus), 1981. 351 pages.
Leonard Silk is a member of the establishment: editorial board of the
New York Times, former Business Week editor, Brookings Institution senior
fellow, Council on Foreign Relations member, former presidential advisor,
former Salzburg Seminar visiting professor, etc. When he teams up with his
son Mark (a teaching fellow at Harvard) and confesses that there is indeed
an American Establishment, it's not easy to dismiss them as conspiracy buffs.
"We see the American Establishment as a churchlike institution which seeks
to play a mediating role between the competing forces in our society. As
such, it is mildly reformist and ultimately conservative."
Those looking for hard research will be disappointed. The authors
prefer a loose commentary interspersed with anecdotes, and deal only with
institutions familiar to them: Harvard (pages 21-65), New York Times
(pages 66-103), Ford Foundation (pages 125-152), Brookings Institution
(pages 153-182), Council on Foreign Relations (pages 183-225), and some
big business organizations. In the final analysis, father and son are glad
the Establishment exists, but "we think that it works best as a truly
secret organization, secret even from its own membership." To paraphrase:
"Yes, there's a priesthood that calls the shots, but it hasn't gone to
their heads so we should all be grateful and wish them well."
ISBN 0-380-56556-0
Extract the names from this source
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