The Anglo-American Establishment
By
Carroll Quigley
Professor of Foreign Service
Georgetown University
New York: Books in Focus
1981
Table of Contents
Chapter 1—Introduction
Chapter 2—The Cecil Bloc
Chapter 3—The Secret Society of Cecil Rhodes (1)
Chapter 4—Milner’s Kindergarten, 1897-1910
Chapter 5—Milner Group, Rhodes, and Oxford, 1901-1925
Chapter 6—The Times
Chapter 7—The Round Table
Chapter 8—War and Peace, 1915-1920
Chapter 9—Creation of the Commonwealth
Chapter 10—The Royal Institute of International Affairs
Chapter 11—India, 1911-1945
Chapter 12—Foreign Policy, 1919-1940
Chapter 13—The Second World War, 1939-1945
Appendix—A Tentative Roster of the Milner Group
Notes
Preface
The Rhodes Scholarships, established by the terms of Cecil Rhodes's seventh will, are
known to everyone. What is not so widely known is that Rhodes in five previous wills
left his fortune to form a secret society, which was to devote itself to the preservation and
expansion of the British Empire. And what does not seem to be known to anyone is that
this secret society was created by Rhodes and his principal trustee, Lord Milner, and
continues to exist to this day. To be sure, this secret society is not a childish thing like the
Ku Klux Klan, and it does not have any secret robes, secret handclasps, or secret
passwords. It does not need any of these, since its members know each other intimately.
It probably has no oaths of secrecy nor any formal procedure of initiation. It does,
however, exist and holds secret meetings, over which the senior member present presides.
At various times since 1891, these meetings have been presided over by Rhodes, Lord
Milner, Lord Selborne, Sir Patrick Duncan, Field Marshal Jan Smuts, Lord Lothian, and
Lord Brand. They have been held in all the British Dominions, starting in South Africa
about 1903; in various places in London, chiefly 175 Piccadilly; at various colleges at
Oxford, chiefly All Souls; and at many English country houses such as Tring Park,
Blickling Hall, Cliveden, and others.
This society has been known at various times as Milner's Kindergarten, as the Round
Table Group, as the Rhodes crowd, as The Times crowd, as the All Souls group, and as
the Cliveden set. All of these terms are unsatisfactory, for one reason or another, and I
have chosen to call it the Milner Group. Those persons who have used the other terms, or
heard them used, have not generally been aware that all these various terms referred to
the same Group.
It is not easy for an outsider to write the history of a secret group of this kind, but,
since no insider is going to do it, an outsider must attempt it. It should be done, for this
Group is, as I shall show, one of the most important historical facts of the twentieth
century. Indeed, the Group is of such significance that evidence of its existence is not
hard to find, if one knows where to look. This evidence I have sought to point out without
overly burdening this volume with footnotes and bibliographical references. While such
evidences of scholarship are kept at a minimum, I believe I have given the source of
every fact which I mention. Some of these facts came to me from sources which I am not
permitted to name, and I have mentioned them only where I can produce documentary
evidence available to everyone. Nevertheless, it would have been very difficult to write
this book if I had not received a certain amount of assistance of a personal nature from
persons close to the Group. For obvious reasons, I cannot reveal the names of such
persons, so I have not made reference to any information derived from them unless it was
information readily available from other sources.
Naturally, it is not possible for an outsider to write about a secret group without falling
into errors. There are undoubtedly errors in what follows. I have tried to keep these at a
minimum by keeping the interpretation at a minimum and allowing the facts to speak for
themselves. This will serve as an excuse for the somewhat excessive use of quotations. I
feel that there is no doubt at all about my general interpretation. I also feel that there are
few misstatements of fact, except in one most difficult matter. This difficulty arises from
the problem of knowing just who is and who is not a member of the Group. Since
membership may not be a formal matter but based rather on frequent social association,
and since the frequency of such association varies from time to time and from person to
person, it is not always easy to say who is in the Group and who is not. I have tried to
solve this difficulty by dividing the Group into two concentric circles: an inner core of
intimate associates, who unquestionably knew that they were members of a group
devoted to a common purpose; and an outer circle of a larger number, on whom the inner
circle acted by personal persuasion, patronage distribution, and social pressure. It is