COMMENT: Standard and Poor’s is owned by publishing giant McGraw-Hill [1]. In the wake of S & P’s downgrade of U.S. bonds’ rating from AAA (for the first time in history), it comes as no great surprise that the McGraw family are long time associates of the “Family of Secrets.” [2]
This multi-generational association goes back to the 1930’s, when Joseph and Permelia Pryor Reed [3] (daughter of Bush/Walker associate Samuel Pryor [4]), established Jupiter Island as a playground for the Northeastern power elite.
McGraw-Hill chief Deven Sharma [5] worked for Dresser Industries, now a division of Halliburton and a long time jewel in the Bush/Harriman corporate tiara. Dresser was George H.W. Bush’s first real job [6] after his graduation from Yale.
One must wonder, also, who was the “mystery investor” [7] who stood to make the better part of a $billion on the downgrade (at least according to media projections before the S & P downgrade)?
The SEC is investigating [8] the matter. It remains to be seen if anything substantive emerges from the investigation.
Similar profiteering [9] took place upon the occasions of the JFK assassination and 9/11 [10]. The Bush milieu was deeply involved in the events of 11/22/1963 [11] and 9/11/2001 [12].
“Reading Between the Lines” by Stephen Metcalf; The Nation; 1/10/2002. [13]
EXCERPT: . . . . While critics of the Bush Administration’s energy policies have pointed repeatedly to its intimacy with the oil and gas industry–specifically the now-imploding Enron–few education critics have noted the Administration’s cozy relationship with McGraw-Hill. At its heart lies the three-generation social mingling between the McGraw and Bush families. The McGraws are old Bush friends, dating back to the 1930s, when Joseph and Permelia Pryor Reed began to establish Jupiter Island, a barrier island off the coast of Florida, as a haven for the Northeast wealthy. The island’s original roster of socialite vacationers reads like a who’s who of American industry, finance and government: the Meads, the Mellons, the Paysons, the Whitneys, the Lovetts, the Harrimans–and Prescott Bush and James McGraw Jr. The generations of the two families parallel each other closely in age: the patriarchs Prescott and James Jr., son George and nephew Harold Jr., and grandson George W. and grandnephew Harold III, who now runs the family publishing empire.
The amount of cross-pollination and mutual admiration between the Administration and that empire is striking: Harold McGraw Jr. sits on the national grant advisory and founding board of the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy. McGraw in turn received the highest literacy award from President Bush in the early 1990s, for his contributions to the cause of literacy. The McGraw Foundation awarded current Bush Education Secretary Rod Paige its highest educator’s award while Paige was Houston’s school chief; Paige, in turn, was the keynote speaker at McGraw-Hill’s “government initiatives” conference last spring. Harold McGraw III was selected as a member of President George W. Bush’s transition advisory team, along with McGraw-Hill board member Edward Rust Jr., the CEO of State Farm and an active member of the Business Roundtable on educational issues. An ex-chief of staff for Barbara Bush is returning to work for Laura Bush in the White House–after a stint with McGraw-Hill as a media relations executive. John Negroponte left his position as McGraw-Hill’s executive vice president for global markets to become Bush’s ambassador to the United Nations. . . .