The Reece Committee was a 1950's congressional investigation into several tax exempt foundations that were thought to be philanthropic. The goal was to determine whether they were supporting communism or otherwise purposely undermining the American way of life. The lead staffer of the investigation, Norman Dodd, had a history in banking and finance and was sent to these organizations to ask questions. At The Ford Foundation, he said that the director told him he would rather tell him the overall goal than answer a tedious questionnaire. The goal, as recounted by Dodd, was essentially to mold public opinion in such as way that the United States could be comfortably merged with The Soviet Union. At the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the director told Dodd that he would rather allow one of Dodd's staffer's to view their minutes and be given a room in the library for two weeks to do so. Dodd chose a woman who he felt is very competent and even skeptical of the necessity of the investigation. What she found, according to Dodd, is that they had a running question in their minutes toward the start of their endowment. This was whether there was anything more effective than war to change public opinion. They, as told by Dodd, eventually came to a conclusion that there was not anything more effective than war. The next running question, according to Dodd, became how do we bring the United States into a war? Though this testimony is remarkable, the investigation was eventually stopped.
Norman Dodd was interviewed by G. Edward Griffin decades later about his experience with The Reece Committee