ustxtxb_obs_1985_12_06_50_00003-00000_000.pdf

state zip I about the greater good in the purest of terms does coincidentally have ties to the profit-making machinery that provides the subtext of that belief. To wit. In the September 27, 1985, Observer, Dave Denison writes about Austinite Ellen St. John Garwood, who donated $65,000 toward the rehabilitation of a contra helicopter. At the World Anti-Communist League convention in Dallas, Garwood said she believed Major General John K. Singlaub “was undoubtedly sent by the Lord Almighty to help save freedom and the United States from Communist totalitarianism . . . With this tremendous un-self-centered General, given the go-ahead by God and President Reagan, freedom in our country may possibly survive.” U.S. Rep. Tom Loeffler praised Garwood’s altruism, saying: “You have been . . . blessed with many good things in life in the United States of America. But you’re the kind of person that every freedom-seeking person throughout the world seeks to emulate. Because you give everything you have . . . for freedom throughout the world.” What nobody was saying, however, is that many of the good things Garwood has been blessed with have been the result of Third World exploitation. Garwood is the daughter of former undersecretary of state for economic affairs Will Clayton, generally credited with formulating the Marshall Plan. Clayton was the founder of Anderson, Clayton & Co., once the largest cotton company in the world and known in the trade as “the big store.” Between the two world wars, Anderson, Clayton expanded across the U.S. Southwest and into Mexico and Brazil. It has been a number of years since the purported altruism of the Marshall Plan has been revealed as a plan to revive the American economy as much as to revive Western Europe and halt Soviet influence. But Clayton’s role in creating the Marshall Plan provides an interesting perspective on the politics of Ellen Garwood. Everybody’s Business \(Harper and Clayton’s] company. During the New Deal, cotton had become a subsidized crop, pricing U.S. cotton out of world markets. Without their Brazilian supplies on the one hand, and strapped by expensive American cotton on the other, Anderson, Clayton needed a way out. The Marshall Plan supplied the countries of Western Europe with the credit they needed to buy goods. And the Plan gave American business an overwhelming advantage in Europe since credits could be spent only on U.S. products. Cotton was given a high priority because textile mills provided both clothing and jobs. As the world’s largest supplier of cotton, Anderson, Clayton benefited enormously.” MN MI NM 1M NM OM WM MO MN MMIMI =I I Subscribe to the Texas Observer name address city 0 S23 enclosed for a one-year subscription 0 bill me for S23 600 W. 28th 1105, Austin, Texas 78705 MN NIB MMMMMMMMMM Since World War II, the company has diversified into food processing, vegetable oils, and coffee. It became one of the world’s leading exporters of green coffee. According to Everybody’s Business, the Clayton family owned 29 percent of the company’s outstanding shares, worth about $85 million, in 1980. Ellen Garwood’s son, U.S. Court of Appeals Judge William Garwood, was on the Anderson, Clayton board of directors prior to assuming the federal bench, as was his brother, W. St. John Garwood, Jr., prior to his death. Does this mean that Ellen Garwood is supporting the contras in the hope that an overthrow of the Sandinistas will give Anderson, Clayton control of the Nicaraguan coffee and cotton market? Hardly. It is almost too neat a package when someone like Garwood uses money indirectly derived from cheap peasant labor to help suppress what is in part a peasant revolt, and all in the name of freedom. What this does reveal is that Garwood’s ideology was not created in a vacuum, that her worldview is informed by “the big store” business philosophy that sees the world as a cheap producer of raw commodities to be controlled for profit. It is also in this “big store” that Garwood and moneyed supporters of politicians come to exchange values like commodities, buying freedom here, trading on “national security” and the absence of an oil tariff there. G.R. CONTENTS FEATURES 1 The Star Wars Summit Ronnie Dugger 2 The Big Store Geoffrey Rips 4 Special-Interest Candidate Dave Denison 8 The Peacemakers in Geneva Ronnie Dugger 9 Crystal City Internment Remembered Louis Dubose 10 Accumulated Sadness Jeanne Kiyomi Goka 11 The Geo-Political Value of Human Life Vera Titunik DEPARTMENTS 4 Dialogue 15 Political Intelligence 19 Social Cause Calendar Books and the Culture: 16 Virginia Durr’s Good Fight Judith Paterson 20 Poems Jessica Greenbaum Afterword: 22 The Geography of College Football Greg Franzwa Cover Art by Dan Hubig THE TEXAS OBSERVER 3