George Edward Griffin (born November 7, 1931) is an American author, filmmaker, lecturer, and a conspiracy theorist. Griffin's writings promote a number of right-wing views and conspiracy theories regarding politics, defense and health care. In his book World Without Cancer, he argued in favor of a pseudo-scientific theory that asserted cancer to be a nutritional deficiency curable by consuming amygdalin. He is the author of The Creature from Jekyll Island (1994), which advances debunked conspiracy theories about the Federal Reserve System. He is an HIV/AIDS denialist, supports the 9/11 Truth movement, and supports the specific John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory that Oswald was not the assassin. He also believes that the Biblical Noah's Ark is located at the Durupınar site in Turkey.

In his classic work The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve, in which he describes the formation, structure and function of the US Federal Reserve System, which governs banking in the United States, G. Edward Griffin identified the seven men and who they represented, at the secret meeting held at the private resort of J.P. Morgan on Jekyll Island off the coast of Georgia in November 1910 when the System was conceived (and later passed as The Federal Reserve Act in 1913).

The creature from Jekyll Island : a second look at the Federal Reserve - Anna’s Archive (annas-archive.org)

The seven men at this meeting represented the great financial institutions of Wall Street and, indirectly, Europe as well:

They were,

Nelson Wilmarth Aldrich (/ˈɑldɹɪt͡ʃ/; November 6, 1841 – April 16, 1915) was a prominent American politician and a leader of the Republican Party in the United States Senate, where he represented Rhode Island from 1881 to 1911. By the 1890s, he was one of the "Big Four" key Republicans who largely controlled the major decisions of the Senate, along with Orville H. Platt, William B. Allison, and John Coit Spooner. Because of his impact on national politics and central position on the pivotal Senate Finance Committee, he was referred to by the press and public alike as the "general manager of the Nation", dominating tariff and monetary policy in the first decade of the 20th century.

Nelson W. Aldrich, Republican 'whip' in the US Senate.

Chair of the National Monetary Commission and father-in-law of John D. Rockefeller Jr.

John Davison Rockefeller Jr. (January 29, 1874 – May 11, 1960) was an American financier and philanthropist. Rockefeller was the fifth child and only son of Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller. He was involved in the development of the vast office complex in Midtown Manhattan known as Rockefeller Center, making him one of the largest real estate holders in the city. Towards the end of his life, he was famous for his philanthropy, donating over $500 million to a wide variety of different causes, including educational establishments. Among his projects was the reconstruction of Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. He was widely blamed for having orchestrated the Ludlow Massacre and other offenses during the Colorado Coalfield War. Rockefeller was the father of six children: Abby, John III, Nelson, Laurance, Winthrop, and David.

Henry Pomeroy Davison Sr. (June 12, 1867 – May 6, 1922) was an American banker and philanthropist.

Henry P. Davison, senior partner of J.P. Morgan Company.

Charles Dyer Norton (March 12, 1871 – March 6, 1923) was an American banker who served as the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and Secretary to President William Howard Taft.

Charles D. Norton, President of the 1st National Bank of New York.

Abram Piatt Andrew Jr. (February 12, 1873 – June 3, 1936) was an American economist and politician who served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, the founder and director of the American Ambulance Field Service during World War I, and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts.

A. Piatt Andrew, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury.

Frank Arthur Vanderlip Sr. (November 17, 1864 – June 30, 1937) was an American banker and journalist. He was president of the National City Bank of New York (now Citibank) from 1909 to 1919, and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury from 1897 to 1901. Vanderlip is known for his part in founding the Federal Reserve System and for founding the first Montessori school in the United States, the Scarborough School and the group of communities in Palos Verdes, California.

Frank A. Vanderlip, President of the National City Bank of New York, representing William Rockefeller.

Benjamin Strong Jr. (December 22, 1872 – October 16, 1928) was an American banker. He served as Governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for 14 years until his death. He exerted great influence over the policy and actions of the entire Federal Reserve System and indeed over the financial policies of all of the United States and Europe.

Benjamin Strong, head of J.P. Morgan's Bankers Trust Company and later to become head of the System.

Paul Moritz Warburg (August 10, 1868 – January 24, 1932) was a German-born American investment banker who served as the second vice chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1916 to 1918. Prior to his term as vice chairman, Warburg served as one of the original members of the Federal Reserve Board, taking office in 1914. He was an early advocate for the establishment of the US central bank system.

and Paul M. Warburg, a partner in Kuhn, Loeb & Company, representing the Rothschilds and Warburgs in Europe.

'The Rothschilds held immense sway in the Bank of England and the most likely answer is that they intervened to save the firm.

Peabody retired in 1864, and Junius Morgan inherited a strong bank with powerful links to Rothschild.'

Hidden History: The Secret Origins of the First World War, p. 222.

'were beholden to or fronts for the Rothschilds...

Like J.P. Morgan, Barings and Kuhn Loeb, the M.M. Warburg Bank owed its survival and ultimate success to Rothschild money.'

To reiterate then:

'by the early twentieth century numerous major banks, including J.P. Morgan and Barings, and armaments firms, were beholden to or fronts for the Rothschilds.'

'there were periods of blistering competition between the investment and banking houses, the steel companies, the railroad builders and the two international goliaths of oil, Rockefeller and Rothschilds, but by the turn of the century the surviving conglomerates adopted a more subtle relationship, which avoided real competition.'

'Clearly both understood the advantage of monopolistic collusion.'

Ibid pp. 222-225.

The Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve Board Building (commonly known as the Eccles Building or Federal Reserve Building) located at 20th Street & Constitution Avenue NW in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C.  Designed by architect Paul Philippe Cret in 1935, construction of the Art Deco building was completed in 1937.

Beyond business and financial links of this nature, of course, there is marriage.

For example, according to Dean Henderson:

'The Warburgs, Kuhn Loebs, Goldman Sachs, Schiffs and Rothschilds have intermarried into one big happy banking family.

The Warburg family... tied up with the Rothschilds in 1814 in Hamburg, while Kuhn Loeb powerhouse Jacob Schiff shared quarters with Rothschilds in 1785.

Schiff immigrated to America in 1865.

He joined forces with Abraham Kuhn and married Solomon Loeb's daughter. Loeb and Kuhn married each other's sisters, and the Kuhn Loeb dynasty was consummated.

Felix Warburg married Jacob Schiff's daughter.

Two Goldman daughters married two sons of the Sachs family, creating Goldman Sachs.

In 1806 Nathan Rothschild married the oldest daughter of Levi Barent Cohen, a leading financier in London.'

Big Oil & Their Bankers In the Persian Gulf: Four Horsemen, Eight Families and Their Global Intelligence, Narcotics and Terror Network - Anna’s Archive (annas-archive.org) p. 488 

So, to return to the foundation of the US Federal Reserve System, according to Griffin:

The reason for secrecy was simple.

Had it been known that rival factions of the banking community had joined together, the public would have been alerted to the possibility that the bankers were plotting an agreement in restraint of trade - which, of course, is exactly what they were doing.

What emerged was a cartel agreement with five objectives: stop the growing competition from the nation's newer banks; obtain a franchise to create money out of nothing for the purpose of lending; get control of the reserves of all banks so that the more reckless ones would not be exposed to currency drains and bank runs; get the taxpayer to pick up the cartel's inevitable losses; and convince Congress that the purpose was to protect the public.

It was realized that the bankers would have to become partners with the politicians and that the structure of the cartel would have to be a central bank.

The record shows that the Fed has failed to achieve its stated objectives.

That is because those were never its true goals.

As a banking cartel, and in terms of the five objectives stated above, it has been an unqualified success.

To reiterate Griffin's key point:

'a primary objective of that cartel was to involve the federal government as an agent for shifting the inevitable losses from the owners of those banks to the taxpayers.'

'Massive evidence of history since the System was created'.

Or, in the words of economics Professor Antony C. Sutton, who carefully detailed the longstanding links between Wall Street and the family of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, including Roosevelt himself (a banker and speculator from 1921 to 1928):

'The Federal Reserve System is a legal private monopoly of the money supply operated for the benefit of a few under the guise of protecting and promoting the public interest.'

Wall Street and FDR: The True Story of How Franklin D. Roosevelt Colluded with Corporate America - Anna’s Archive (annas-archive.org)

And, as U.S. Congressman Louis Thomas McFadden, chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Currency, observed in 1932:

'When the Federal Reserve Act was passed, the people of the United States did not perceive that... this country was to supply financial power to an international superstate - a superstate controlled by international bankers and international industrialists acting together to enslave the world for their own pleasure.'

Speech by Rep. Louis T. McFadden denouncing the Federal Reserve System':

Louis Thomas McFadden (July 25, 1876 – October 1, 1936) was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania, serving from 1915 to 1935. A banker by trade, he was the chief sponsor of the 1927 McFadden Act, which rechartered the Federal Reserve System in perpetuity, liberalized branch banking for national banks and increased competition between member and non-member banks.

You can read detailed accounts of what took place, including key players, their motives and instigation of the Boer War in South Africa, touched on above, as part of the process, in the books listed above, & such as these:

Prolonging the agony: how the Anglo-American establishment deliberately extended WWI by three-and-half-years - Anna’s Archive (annas-archive.org)

There is also a thoughtful summary in:

and an excellent video on the subject: