WWF, a 'White Man's Game', more secretive than the CIA

1993 book, "At The Hand Of Man - The White Man's Game," Raymond Bonner

• Excerpt on founding, motivation, and secrecy of the WWF:

"Prince Bernhard and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) " pp. 66-71

"To attract donors, large and small, as well as media attention, Nicholson, Scott and the founding fathers of WWF wanted the royal family to lend their name. They approached Prince Philip to be president. Philip was an avid outdoorsman and hunter-in January 1961 he had bagged a Bengal tiger in India-and he and Queen Elizabeth had been to Kenya, on a safari best remembered because King George VI died while they were watching wild animals and Princess Elizabeth had become Queen. Scott sent Philip a draft of the proposed charter. Philip read it carefully, replying that one provision was "unctuous," and another "to wordy." This careful reading was not what Scott hold expected. It is "a great bore that he suggests so much alteration," Scott wrote Nicholson. The founding fathers had wanted the Prince only as a figurehead. Philip agreed to head up the British chapter of WWF, but he turned down the presidency of the International and suggested his friend Prince Bernhard for the post. The men were alike in many ways. Both had been born into European royal families, but not very distinguished ones, and had acquired their status and string of titles when they married-Bernhard to the future Queen Juliana of the Netherlands. The two men were handsome, dashing, and staunchly conservative politically.

Scott, who liked consorting with royalty, made the pitch. "Prince Philip (who was sailing with me at Cowes in the 12 metre 'sceptre' on Saturday) . . . told me that he was very keen that you should 'head-up' the international Trustees," Scott wrote to Bernhard. "Please may I ask Your Royal Highness to say that you will be President of the Trustees of The World Wildlife Fund.'' Prince Bernhard he eventually said yes, and he served as president until 1976,

• when he was forced to resign after

it became public that he had solicited more than a million dollars in 'commissions" from Lockheed in exchange for Lockheed's receiving contracts to build warplanes for the Netherlands. (At One point after the scandal broke, Bernhard said that he had intended to give the money from Lockheed to WWF; a member of the board at the time insists this is not true.

Bernhard remained active behind the scenes in WWF, but a couple of years after he resigned, Philip became president of the International, and though it was thought he would serve for only a few years, he is still in power. The Prince is a committed conservationist and he undoubtedly has given prestige and visibility to WWF around the world. At the same time, however, many in the Third World have questioned whether he is the right person to head an organisation that does most of its work in developing countries. At a meeting of the Commonwealth Heads of state, most of them from the Third World and black, Philip said to an aide, "You wouldn't think the peace of the world rested on this lot, would you'?" on another occasion, he referred to the Chinese as "slitty-eyed."

WWF WAS SET UP to raise money, but in spite of the initial successes, it did not prove very effective. Nicholson had said that $1.5 million each year would be needed for conservation, which Scott thought he could easily raise; indeed, he anticipated coaxing $25 million from the rich. Scott discovered that socializing with the elite was one thing, getting them to part with their money quite another, and it was several years before the total of WWF's revenues reached $1 million.

WWF's financial fortunes began to change dramatically after a hard-driving South African businessman, Anton Rupert, joined the board. An Afrikaaner from the Cape, Rupert had already made millions as the owner of Rothmans International tobacco company, the foundation of the Rembrandt Group, his wholly owned business empire.... Rupert had long been interested in conservation, including the restoration of historic buildings, and in 1968 he joined the WWF board of trustees; he stayed on the board for twenty-two years, ill spite of a provision in the organisation's original incorporation documents that limited members to two three-year terms, a provision that was routinely ignored for the benefit of several other influential members of the board as well. Rupert brought a considerable amount of his own money to WWF, but, more important, he conceived a plan that would raise millions.

Rupert's idea was the "1001 Club" The "one" was Prince Bernhard The other one thousand were wealthy individuals who could be persuaded to part with $10,000. The one-time donation brings lifetime membership, and the names of the generous patrons are kept secret by the organisation. According to these secret lists, American givers have included August A Busch, Jr, of the beer company; Henry Ford II; Peter Grace; Nelson Bunker Hunt, the silver trader; Mrs Geoffrey Kent, of Abercrombie & Kent; Robert S. McNamara; Cyril Magnin; Lew Wasserman, of MCA; Thomas Watson, of IBM. Many of the donors understandably wish to remain anonymous (in part to avoid being badgered by other charities), but it is also understandable why WWF does not want the list made public. It has included many less savoury individuals-Zaire's President Mobutu, Sese Seko, one of the most corrupt leaders in Africa; Daniel K Ludwig, the reclusive American billionaire, whose companies destroyed thousands of miles of the Amazon rain forest; Agha Hasan Abedi, the founder of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCC1); Robert Vesco, the financier who fled the United States in the 1970s to escape trial on charges of fraud, embezzlement and obstruction of justice; Tibor Rosenbaum, founder of a Swiss bank that laundered billions of dollars of organised crime money and who was accused of embezzling Israeli deposits in the bank; Thomas Jones, who was forced out as chief executive of Northrop after it was revealed that the company paid $30 million in bribes to government officials and agents around the world in exchange for contracts; Lord Kagan, a British businessman convicted of theft and conspiracy to defraud the British tax service; a

• Norwegian shipowner convicted of taking a £1 million bribe;
• an individual who was the conduit for the money from Lockheed to Prince Bernhard.

There has been another remarkable feature about the 1001 Club-the number of South Africans. On the 1989 list, at least sixty individuals were from South Africa, including seven of Rupert's relatives. Many were also members of the Broederbond, the secret, conservative Afrikaaner society that has traditionally wielded immense political power in South Africa. Only five countries had more donors, and as a percentage of their population, South African whites had three hundred times as many members as the United States. It is easy to understand why so many South Africans have been willing to part with $10,000 to Join the 1001 and not all of it has to do with conservation. Not many international clubs welcomed white South Africans, and membership in the 1001 provided them an opportunity to mingle and do business with tycoons, as well as with Prince Philip and Prince Bernhard. What else they may have gained from the membership is unknown, in part because so much of what WWF-lnternational does is kept from the public and even from the organisation's own trustees. Because of the secrecy and closed nature of the WWF club, it is also difficult to know the extent of the influence that so much South African money has had on the organisation's conservation work. There can be little doubt, however, that WWF-International's initial opposition to the ivory ban reflected South African power on the board-South Africa was adamantly opposed to the ban, because its elephants were not being poached and it made money from selling ivory. ....

It is unlikely that any other charitable organisation that depends on public support operates with such little accountability and in such secrecy as WWF has under de Haes.

• It is easier to penetrate the CIA.

And when WWF has been caught in embarrassing conducts it has engaged in damage control and cover-ups of the kind that might be expected from a company whose products have caused injury to consumers and the environment. Under rules de Haes promulgated, WWF employees are prohibited from talking to anyone outside the organization about anything except what the organisation has already made public;

• the obligation to secrecy binds the employee

even after he or she has left WWF. Few are willing to break this code of silence-given their fear of de Haes and, in the case of current employees,

• the generous salaries and pleasant living conditions in Switzerland. "...

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