EIR AT 40
Providing the Intelligence Needed
To Create a Future Worthy of Mankind
by Nancy Spannaus, Editor
May 2—Forty years ago, on April 27, 1974, the political movement led by economist Lyndon LaRouche launched the newsweekly which survives today as Executive Intelligence Review (EIR). From the outset, the news service eschewed the standard "objective" reporting, which is, in fact, simply a means of hiding a philosophical/political point of view. We approached reporting from the standpoint of both patriots and citizens of the world, who were determined to take the leadership necessary to change it for the better, specifically by educating and recruiting people and institutions to the principles of physical-economy, which were needed to replace the murderous global financial system that was already firmly in place.
Our political/philosophical point of view is writ large on our sleeves, so to speak: an unwavering commitment to scientific and technological progress, republican government, and the nurture of the creative powers of mind for all people, as the true source of progress in all areas of endeavor. Our assessment of circumstances, personalities, and history has surely evolved, but the core philosophical commitment has been constant.
The Opening Statement
The editorial policy statement in our first issue speaks volumes about our conception of the role of our publication and our movement—which we can proudly report that we have successfully maintained despite intense attacks from powerful foes. It consisted of the Preamble to an Energy Policy Statement, addressed to the participants in a United Nations Raw Materials Conference that was about to occur, from the LaRouche movement's founding organization, the National Caucus of Labor Committees. The full text, with its rejection of Malthusianism and its emphasis on fusion poewr, is worth reprinting:
"The major difficulty now confronting all nations in respect to industrial development and the well-being of their populations is that a group of interlocking 'multi-national' interests, effectively beyond remedies of control by any one government, has wilfully imposed a 'Malthusian crisis' of shortages and de facto technological stagnation upon the masses of the entire world population.
"These same 'multinationals' have falsely represented the world's problems in terms of the need to ration out short supplies of raw materials and food. Contrary to that view, given adequate per capita ratios of usable energy, and the determination to rationally apply such energy supplies, there need be no shortage of raw materials nor of food production for the foreseeable future. In that view, the establishment of an appropriate world energy resources development policy is the proper basis for rational approaches to all other developmental issues, including raw materials development, prices and distributions.
"The key to solving all these interlocked problems is uniquely located in the immediate adoption of a 'brute force' development of controlled thermonuclear fusion power and technology. The necessary scale of such an undertaking demands international cooperation among developed and developing nations. This cooperation in development would be [the] prelude to the equitable access by all nations to the new technology thus established.
"Under the terms of such an adopted program, the participating nations would enjoy a rational basis for design and implementation of special short-term programs concerning energy use, raw materials, and development. These programs would obviously be designed to span the period of transition up to the point that each phase of realization of benefits from the thermonuclear program could provide the alternatives of a qualitative step upwards in general technology.
"During this same period of transition, the cooperating nations must provide one another mutual support to the end of frustrating the lawless manipulations of stocks and prices of energy and other raw materials by internationals. A related set of remedies must be provided for those developing countries whose further development is significantly attenuated or even aborted by accumulations of foreign public and private debt-service obligations. The impoverishment of a developing nation, an improverishment which is essentially a symptom of underdevelopment, must not be permitted to become a pretext to obstruct the flow of needed development aid.
"Since these policies directly represent the most urgent interests of the overwhelming majority of humanity, wherever such policies conflict with the formal rights and self-interests of the 'multinationals,' such rights and self-interests must promptly yield, even to the point of extinction."
LaRouche's Economics
The driving intellectual force behind EIR has, of course, been the work of Lyndon LaRouche, the Founding and Contributing Editor, whose writings and political activities have been at the center of our coverage, and whose ideas have guided our emphasis on breaking news developments. LaRouche has built his life work around his genius as an economic forecaster, and the history of those forecasts is uniquely available in EIR. Similarly, with the in-depth presentation of the scientific-philosophical outlook on which they are based.
From the start, as you can tell from the Issue No. 1 quotation above, we emphasized programmatic solutions to the economic immiseration of humanity, not commentary, or mere exposé. Our Aug. 22, 1978 edition—the first with a glossy color cover and picture—featured the need for a crash program for thermonuclear fusion, under the title "Fusion's Spectacular Promise." It also identified the chief saboteur of that promise at the time as the Carter Administration, the first Green administration in the United States.
Already, in the 1974 to 1978 period, EIR had uncovered what had long been buried—the American System of Political Economy, as the Constitutional, historical antithesis to the British System of imperial economics which had come to dominate United States policy. A review of EIR over the decades will find a treasure-trove of original research in this area, with a special emphasis on our first Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, whom LaRouche has identified as the seminal genius behind the American System. EIR has also published a number of books on this topic, which can be found at www.larouchepub.com.
The implications of this bedrock understanding are huge, and led to EIR's groundbreaking exposés of the true history of Empire—from Zeus to the British—and its diffusion into the general population through such genocidal frauds as Malthusianism and systems analysis.
One additional breakthrough in EIR's economic studies came with the uncovering of the role of the British Empire's drug trade in subverting the world financial system, its economy, and its population. When book-length exposé of what has become popularly known as "Dope, Inc." hit the public in 1978, it caused a huge uproar and political blowback against LaRouche and his associates, which has not totally subsided to this day. EIR has periodically updated and amplified the original study, including its crucial extension into analysis of the British role in sponsorship of international terrorism.
In this connection, it's appropriate to note that this blowback, and not only against the Dope, Inc. exposé, has come from the highest levels of the British and Anglo-American establishment, which arranged hoked-up criminal prosecutions against LaRouche and his leading associates, which sent them to prison for years. Our enemies also take our ideas seriously—as threats to their power.
Strategic Intervention
EIR, along with the Fusion Energy Foundation, has also played a crucial role in supporting LaRouche's history-making interventions to stop nuclear war, ranging from the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) proclaimed by President Ronald Reagan in 1983, to the Eurasian and World Land-Bridge proposals of the post-Soviet era.
While publishing the theoretical writings by LaRouche on the concepts on which the SDI was based, EIR uniquely chronicled the battle around this idea, which was an international one, and one which was largely suppressed in the mainstream media, which turned it into "Star Wars"—a parody of LaRouche's actual conception. EIR interviewed leading participants in that fight, and developed the scientific concepts in depth, concepts which are still critical for mankind to move ahead into an era of peace and prosperity.
International Dimensions
From the outset, EIR has had an international perspective, and very early on, made its influence felt on the international stage. Our magazine became the vehicle for many leaders in nations under assault from the British financial and political forces, to get out their story to the world at large. In our archive you will find interviews with many world leaders who availed themselves of that opportunity.
In addition, many international leaders have looked to EIR and LaRouche for input on economic and strategic matters, often seeing the LaRouche movement and its publications as a source of hope for their countries, a reflection of the "real" United States.
At the time EIR was launched, it already had bureaus in Mexico City and Wiesbaden, West Germany, but these bureaus have expanded over the years to the point that EIR has highly placed sources, if not direct correspondents, in virtually every major nation in the world, including Russia, Japan, China, Australia, India, and Egypt. We also have an Arabic-language division, with unsurpassed expertise in the history and culture of Southwest Asia.
One major means of expanding EIR's international scope has been the holding of conferences on economic development themes throughout the world. Such conferences have often brought together leading scientists and political figures in the countries where they were held, and, in many cases, EIR has published the proceedings as a magazine of record.
Science and Culture
EIR has never been intended to be an "easy read." Unlike other newsweeklies, our aim is to get behind surface events to reveal their causes, and the flaws in thinking which have led not only the "experts" and governments, but the population at large, to submit to the current British imperial paradigm.
Thus, our issues have frequently featured major philosophical articles by Lyndon LaRouche, his wife Helga Zepp-LaRouche, and their collaborators. These are polemical, idea-dense, often lengthy articles aimed at changing the thinking of the reader who is preparing to become a leader of his or her nation. They are dedicated to putting out the truth, no matter how deeply entrenched erroneous contrary popular opinion may be. Our features on "Obamacare" come to mind.
Among the hottest topics in this vein is Classical culture, specifically music and drama, and you will find many significant articles on these topics over the years. In addition, EIR has featured the interventions of the LaRouche movement into the music world, with its campaign for lowering the concert pitch to Classical tuning (C=256 Hz). We insist that these "non-political" issues often turn out to be the most important determinants of how people think, and thus whether mankind will survive.
Similarly, with advanced scientific conceptions, particularly in space and nuclear science.
Home Base
In reflecting upon EIR's crucial role, in the past, present, and future, one should not neglect its "home base," the Washington, D.C. area. EIR has been a tool of intellectual influence upon the U.S. Capitol from the outset, bringing in an international and economic perspective available nowhere else, and fighting for the adoption of crucial policy changes—such as the Fusion Energy Act featured on one of the cover graphics with this article. This input has frequently included testifying before Congressional committees on crucial issues, from economics, to foreign policy, to matters of social justice.
On the other side, EIR's daily discussions with decision-makers in Washington, both on Capitol Hill and off, give it unique insights upon which international policymakers have come to rely.
As we go into our fifth decade, we at EIR are committed to upgrading and expanding our effectiveness in our basic goals: improving the intelligence of the world's policymakers, and their ability to fight effectively for a prosperous future for all mankind, by giving them the crucial ideas and information they need. Just think of how much better off the world would be if, for example, the United Nations had listened to EIR in 1974.
N.B. The back cover of every issue has information on how to subscribe to EIR.
