THE NATION's NED Connection—part 1

THE NATION's NED Connection—part 1 by bob feldman "Bill vanden Heuvel suggested that the Freedom Award be given to General Powell for the new role of the military in these efforts. Leo Cherne referred Mr. vanden Heuvel's suggestions to the Special Events Committee for consideration. He expressed his hesitancy at this point to address issues of the war itself, beyond the expression of applause for the military's humanitarian work..." —from the International Rescue Committee [IRC] Board's May 22, 1991 Meeting Minutes ...The National Endowment for Democracy [NED] was set up to "support democratic institutions throughout the world through private, nongovernmental efforts."... Allen Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation establishing NED was quite candid when he said in 1991: "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA." In effect, the CIA has been laundering money through NED. ...NED successfully manipulated elections in Nicaragua in 1990 and Mongolia in 1996 and helped to overthrow democratically elected governments in Bulgaria in 1990 and Albania in 1991 and 1992. In Haiti in the late 1990s, NED was busy working on behalf of right-wing groups who were united in their opposition to former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his progressive ideology... ...Cuban dissident groups and media are heavily supported...Between 1990 and 1997, the Endowment donated a quarter-million dollars of taxpayers' money to the Cuban-American National Fund, the ultra-fanatic anti-Castro Miami group... The NED, like the CIA before it, calls what it does supporting democracy. The governments and movements whom the NED targets call it destabilization. (ROGUE STATE by William Blum, 2000) The editor of THE NATION, Katrina vanden Heuvel, is also a member of the board of directors of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute [FERI]. Her father, International Rescue Committee [IRC] Board Member William vanden Heuvel, has, in recent years been both the co-chairperson of the FERI board and FERI's president. Sitting between NATION Editor Vanden Heuvel and IRC Board Member Vanden Heuvel on the FERI board recently has been the Texaco director that Bill Clinton appointed to be the National Endowment for Democracy [NED] Chairman in the 1990s: NYU President Emeritus John Brademas. FERI Director Brademas held his position as NED Chairman between 1993 and 2001; and on January 18, 2001, FERI Board Member Brademas was presented with the NED's "Democracy Service Medal" in recognition for his years of service on the NED board of directors. Prior to serving as NYU's president between 1981 and 1992, FERI board member Brademas was a Congressional representative from South Bend, Indiana for 22 years. According to CURRENT BIOGRAPHY, in October 1976 the former NED Chairman "acknowledged that he had accepted about $5,000 in campaign funds in 1970, 1972 and 1974 from Park Tong Sun, the Washington party fixture under federal investigation for influence-peddling" in the "Koreagate Affair." As NYU's president, FERI Board Member Brademas also was the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and a director of the Rockefeller Foundation, the New York Stock Exchange, Scholastic Inc., Loew's Corp., RCA/NBC and Texaco. While a member of the Texaco board of directors before Texaco was acquired by Chevron in 2001, NATION editor Vanden Heuvel's colleague on the FERI board sat on both the "Audit Committee" and the "Public Responsibility Committee" of Texaco's corporate board. Other members of these Texaco board committees included then-Capital cities/ABC board chairman Thomas Murphy and a retired chairman of the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff, William Crowe. A long-time colleague of FERI Board Co-Chair William vanden Heuvel on the IRC board--the now-deceased former CIA Director William Casey--used to also sit on the Capital Cities/ABC board. FERI Board Member Brademas also was the chairman of the Texaco Foundation during the 1990s. In July 1999 a subsidiary of Texaco, Saudi Arabian Texaco Inc., was given a $506 million award by the United Nations "for damage sustained in Middle East oil fields" during the early 1990s. The $506 million that was given to Texaco's subsidiary came from a "UN Compensation Committe" account--which was funded by seizing 30 percent of Iraqi oil sales revenues, instead of allowing the Iraqi government to use all of its oil sales revenues to decrease the human suffering in Iraq that U.S. economic sanctions and U.S. militarism have produced there since 1991. But according to its web site, in Iraq the NED which FERI Board Member Brademas used to chair "supports institutions--both abroad and inside the country--which promote concepts and programs of liberal democracy." A $40,000 grant, for instance, was given by the NED in 2001 to the "American Society for Kurds," which "trained journalists in the rights, duties and role of journalists in democratic societies, and helped in the formation of a working group of independent journalists." In 2001, the NED also has been providing money to groups in Belgrade. Radio-Television B-92, for instance, was given a $100,000 grant by the NED; and a $228,000 grant from the NED was given to the Otpon (Resistance] Movement. Around $760,000 in grants were also given in 2001 by the NED to groups like the "Center for a Free Cuba," the "Cuban Committee for Human Rights," the "Cuban-American Military Council," the "Information Bureau on Human Rights in Cuba" and "Cuba Net." "Cuba Net," for instance, was given a $35,000 grant from the NED "to support independent journalists inside of Cuba." to part 2...THE NATION's NED Connection—part 2 by bob feldman One of the co-chairs of the January 18, 2001 National Endowment for Democracy [NED] event in which Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute [FERI] Board Member Brademas received his "Democracy Service Medal"--former Reagan Administration Deputy Secretary of State John Whitehead--is, like Brademas, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. And, like NATION Editor vanden Heuvel's father, the January 18, 2001 NED event Co-chair Whitehead has long been actively involved in the International Rescue Committee[IRC]'s activities around the globe. On May 4, 1984, for instance, Whitehead (who was also a Senior Partner at Goldman Sachs at the time) sent the following telegram to then-Vice President George Bush I: "Dear George: "I thought I should let you know that I will also be in Pakistan from May 14 [1984] to May 18 [1984] in my capacity as president of the International Rescue Committee...I have an appointment with President Zia and other Cabinet memebers...If I can assist you in any way or coordinate visits with you I would be delighted to do so." And on May 18, 1984, then-IRC president Whitehead sent the following telex to then-IRC Chairperson Leo Cherne: "Our time in Pakistan only serves to renew our dedication to the heroic cause of the Afghan people...We have stood with President Zia and Vice President Bush at the Khyber Pass..." After former CIA Director Bush had become the U.S. president and ordered the 1991 high-technology aerial attack on Iraq, Whitehead and Cherne also sent an April 12, 1991 letter to then-President Bush I, on IRC stationery, which stated: "The IRC is the first American private voluntary agency to have begun the work of helping these victims of the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein." In the 1980s, the long-time IRC colleague of NATION Editor vanden Heuvel's father, IRC Chairperson Cherne, was also a colleague of Henry Kissinger on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board [Pfiab]. In addition, Cherne also asked Kissinger to appeal for more corporate funds for the IRC. In a September 3, 1986 letter to Leo Cherne, Kissinger Associates Chairperson Henry Kissinger wrote: "Dear Leo: "Your August 18th [1986] letter did reach its destination, and while I am sorry to hear of the circumstances under which the IRC has been operating, it will be an honor to help in any way. I will await your draft. "Looking forward to seeing you at PFIAB. "Warm regards, "Henry A. Kissinger." An article by Jeff Gerth and Sara Bartlett that appeared in the April 30, 1989 issue of the NY TIMES, entitled "Kissinger and Friends and Revolving Doors," characterized the PFIAB as "a little-known, but powerful group" of 16 scientists, business executives and former U.S. government officials which advise the U.S. President about intelligence issues and intelligence activities. According to this TIMES article, during the 1980s IRC Board member Kissinger "had a continuous window into the government's most sensitive information as a member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board or Pfiab." At least one former PFIAB official, "who asked not to be identified because of the board's secrecy pledge," told the TIMES that during the 1980s Kissinger, "using his authority as a board member, frequently reviewed intelligence documents outside the regular board meetings." The former PFIAB official also told the TIMES that he believed Kissinger's PFIAB membership gave Kissinger special business benefit because Kissinger "could not have separated the insights gained from his access to United States intelligence data from his continuing analysis and advice" to his Kissinger Associates clients. In reply to Kissinger's September 3, 1986 letter, IRC Chairperson Cherne wrote: "Dear Henry: "I am so pleased that you are willing to send an IRC appeal to the chief executives of the Fortune 1000 corporations...Although I will have a copy of the draft with me when we met at PFIAB, I thought there was a possibility that draft might reach you before just in case you wish to make any changes in the text. "Cordially, "Leo Cherne." Like the National Endowment for Democracy, the International Rescue Committee (on whose board FERI Co-Chairperson vanden Heuvel still sits) apparently supported the political opponents of the Sandinista government, as well as opponents of the Cuban government. As the IRC's Latin America Advisory Committee noted in a 9/22/93 annual review document: "In Nicaragua with the election of Violet Chamorro in 1990, democracy took fragile hold and IRC assisted with the repatriation of Nicaraguans...The Committee recommends appropriate support be given to Brothers to the Rescue, an organization rescuing Cuban refugees fleeing the country on rafts." Although Harry Belafonte has worked to provide humanitarian aid to refugees in Africa and elsewhere for many years, IRC officials apparently didn't want to invite Belafonte to become one of its "celebrity" board members. In an October 26, 1994 letter to the then-chairman of the IRC's executive committee, James Strickland, long-time IRC official Leo Cherne indicated why he didn't want Harry Belafonte to be an IRC board member: "I happen to have some reservations about Belafonte. I have found him, in certain circumstances, beyond my tastes for the elements of left wing predisposition. He played a significant relief role in Ethiopia at a time when Ethiopia was under the control of the left wing dictator Mengistu, at the very time that the Castro military forces were playing an active support role in Ethiopia..." But a few months later, Cherne was still apparently on good political terms with FERI Co-Chair vanden Heuvel. In a February 14, 1995 letter to the NATION editor's father, former IRC Chairperson Cherne wrote: "I deeply appreciate your having encouraged Columbia University's oral history project to press me on overcoming my neglect...The effort you have made to encourage funding of this project is indispensable..." As Co-Chair of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute [FERI]'s board of directors, NATION editor vanden Heuvel's father apparently joined FERI Chair Emeritus Arthur Schlesinger Jr. in attempting to influence U.S. media coverage of former U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's historical record. In an article that appeared in the May 9, 1994 issue of CURRENT, entitled "FDR defenders enlist TV critics to refute Holocaust film," Karen Everhart Bedfort noted: Weeks before the debut of an AMERICAN EXPERIENCE film on the U.S. resposne to the Holocaust, defenders of President Franklin Roosevelt undertook a quiet campaign to influence and later discredit historical analysis presented in "America and the Holocaust: Deceit and Indifference." In a summary of their complaints for the press, [FERI Chair Emeritus] Schlesinger and vanden Heuvel said the film makes "unwarranted attacks on President Roosevelt" in its treatment of his response to the Wagner-Rogers Act in 1939, a bill to allow child refugees into the country that died in Congress; his motivations in creating the War Refugee Board as an act of "political expedience," and assertions that the Allies should not have hesitated to bomb the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz. Roosevelt "did what he could do" to help the Jews, Schlesinger wrote in an April 18 [1994] NEWSWEEK column. Yet according to A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES by Howard Zinn: "The plight of Jews in German-occupied Europe, which many people thought was at the heart of the war against the Axis, was not a chief concern of Roosevelt. Henry Feingold's research (THE POLITICS OF RESCUE) shows that, while the Jews were being put in camps and the process of annihilation was beginning that would end in the horrifying extermination of 6 million Jews and millions of non-Jews, Roosevelt failed to take steps that might have saved thousands of lives. He did not see it as a high priority; he left it to the State Department, and in the State Department anti-Semitism and a cold bureaucracy became obstacles to action. ...Despite the urgent need for wartime labor, blacks were still being discriminated against for jobs...Roosevelt never did anything to enforce the orders of the Fair Employment Practices Commission he had set up... In one of its policies, the United States came close to direct duplication of Fascism. This was in its treatment of the Japanese-Americans living on the West Coast. After the Pearl Harbor attack, anti-Japanese hysteria spread in the government... Franklin D. Roosevelt did not share this frenzy, but he calmly signed Executive Order 9066, in February 1942, giving the army the power, without warrants or indictments or hearings, to arrest every Japanese-American on the West Coast--110,000 men, women and children--to take them from their homes, transport them to camps far into the interior, and keep them there under prison conditions. Three-fourths of these were Nisei--children born in the United States of Japanese parents and therefore American citizens... But don't expect THE NATION to publish much investiative reporting about either the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, the National Endowment for Democracy or the International Rescue Committee's corporate and political connections or global activities--as long as FERI Board Member Katrina vanden Heuvel is still THE NATION magazine's editor. (end)