ALTERNATIVE MEDIA CENSORSHIP: SPONSORED BY CIA's FORD FOUNDATION?
by bob feldman

Part 3:

THE NATION INSTITUTE / RADIO NATION / THE NATION MAGAZINE

The Nation Institute's RADIO NATION show is a promotional/advertising
tool for a liberal-left establishment magazine, THE NATION, that
generally tends to be a Democratic Party-oriented publication. Neither
the magazine nor its radio tie-in show that is aired on Pacifica radio
stations and many college radio stations may be eager to encourage much
discussion about the historic relationship between foundations and the
CIA or about the evidence of a 9/11 conspiracy which grassroots
journalists and researchers have discovered. Yet in a 1996 interview
with former BOSTON PHOENIX media critic Dan Kennedy, NATION editor
Katrina vanden Heuvel claimed that "We have a monopoly on weekly
progressive journalism in this country." But are RADIO NATION listeners
and readers of THE NATION magazine actually being provided with
authentically progressive anti-war, anti-corporate and
anti-establishment journalism each week by THE NATION editor?

THE NATION magazine, a for-profit limited-partnership, was started in
1865 by a British abolitionist named E.L. Godkin and in the early
20th-century it was owned by Oswald Garrison Villard, a descendent of
U.S. abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. It was subsequently owned by a
Wall Street financier--the father of a NATION writer named Bobby
Tuckman--who sold it to then-NATION editor Freda Kirchwey in the 1930s
for $35,000 (which he loaned to her). NATION editor-owner Kirchwey was a
former member of the early 20th-century Intercollegiate Socialist
Society (ISS) campus group that Jack London and Upton Sinclair had
headed.

By the early 1940s, however, THE NATION was an increasingly large
money-loser and was in danger of folding because of its financial
difficulties. So in early 1943, Kirchwey decided on a reorganization
plan to keep THE NATION publishing. She divested herself of her
individual ownership and created a new, nonprofit organization, Nation
Associates, which would own THE NATION on a nonprofit basis--although
Kirchwey would still determine the magazine's editorial direction by
serving as its publisher. In 1955, Kirchwey retired and a health
insurance industry executive named George C. Kirstein became the
magazine's publisher and the principal financial backer of the nonprofit
Nation Associates, which continued to own the magazine.

In the 1970s, however, THE NATION was on the verge of bankruptcy again,
until a group of investors led by Hamilton Fish III purchased ownership
of THE NATION. Although Hamilton Fish's group of investors sold THE
NATION in 1985 to a former Wall Street investment banker (whose real
estate and utilities properties were worth about $200 million in 1991)
named Arthur Carter, as recently as 2000 Hamilton Fish was being paid
$83,000 a year salary by the magazine's tax-exempt Nation Institute
affiliate for being the Nation Institute's president.

After purchasing THE NATION in 1985, Arthur Carter began publishing his
NEW YORK OBSERVER weekly newspaper in 1987, under the initial
supervision of former New York Times Company Vice-Chairman James
Goodale, a Wall Street corporate lawyer at Debevoise & Plimplton who was
a member of the Democratic Party National Convention's rules committee
in 1988. Although NEW YORK OBSERVER owner Carter sold THE NATION
magazine in 1995 to a group of investors that included Columbia
University Magazine Journalism Center Director Victor Navasky, former
Corporation for Public Broadcasting Chairperson Alan Sagner, Hollywood
actor Paul Newman, novelist E.I. Doctorow and the current editor,
Katrina vanden Heuvel, Arthur Carter has continued to sit on the board
of trustees of the Nation Institute in recent years.

NATION magazine editor Katrina vanden Heuvel is the daughter of
International Rescue Committee [IRC] board member William vanden Heuvel.
NATION editor Vanden Heuvel's father is mentioned in the book THE
CULTURAL COLD WAR by Frances Stoner Saunders in the following reference
to the CIA-linked Farfield Foundation: "First presdient of the Farfield
[Founcation], and the CIA's most significant front-man, was Julius
`Junkie' Fleischmann, the millionaire heir to a high yeast and gin
fortune...He had helped finance THE NEW YORKER...`The Farfield
Foundation was a CIA foundation and there were many such foundations,'
Tom Braden went on to explain...Other Farfield directors included
William vanden Heuvel a New York lawyer who was close to both John and
Bobby Kennedy."

A short review by Michael Rogin of THE CULTURAL COLD WAR book, entitled
"When The CIA Was The NEA," appeared in THE NATION's June 12, 2000
issue. It also made a reference to "small CIA-created nonprofits,
especially the Farfield foundation," yet failed to disclose to THE
NATION readers that the father of the magazine's editor used to sit on
the Farfield Foundation board.

In the 1950s, the Farfield Foundation helped subsidize the activity of
the liberal anti-communist American Committee for Cultural Freedom. As
the book THE HIGHER CIRCLES by G. William Domhoff noted in 1970: "It
seems that in the mid-fifties the head of the American Committee for
Cultural Freedom was having trouble getting money for his project. So he
wrote to Edward Lilly, a member of a governmental agency for
coordinating intelligence and psychological warfare operations, to plead
his case. At the same time he wrote to [non-communist leftist Norman]
Thomas, asking him to get in touch with [then-CIA Director] Allen Dulles
via telephone. Shortly thereafter the American Commitee for Cultural
Freedom received $14,000 from the Farfield Foundation and the Asia
Foundation...Thomas then wrote to the committee head: `I am, of course,
delighted that the Farfield Foundation came through...'" The 1982 book
ROOTED IN SECRECY: THE CLANDESTINE ELEMENT IN AUSTRALIAN POLITICS by
Joan Coxsedge also observed that: "The CIA is not so crude as to simply
hand over money directly. It normally uses wealthy philanthropists such
as the J.M. Kaplan Fund and foundations such as the Asia Foundation, the
Farfield Foundation and the Hoblitzelle Foundation."

Born in 1930, NATION editor Vanden Heuvel's father apparently served
between 1953 and 1954 as the executive assistant to CIA founder William
"Wild Bill" Donovan, when Donovan was the U.S. Ambassador to Thailand.
In their 1998 book WHITE OUT: THE CIA, DRUGS AND THE PRESS, Alexander
Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair make the following references to the
political role that U.S. Ambassador to Thailand Donovan played around
the time that IRC board member Vanden Heuvel apparently was Ambassador
Donovan's executive assistant:

"General Phao ahd been made director of Thailand's national police after
the CIA-backed coup of 1948 led by Major General Phin Choohannan. Phao's
40,000-member police force, the Police Knights, immediately engaged in a
campaign of assassinations of Phin and Phao's political enemies. These
troops also assumed control of Thailand's lucrative opium trade...Phao's
control of the opium trade was directly abetted by the CIA, which had
funnelled him $35 million in aid...

"In the 1950s the CIA backed General Phao in a struggle with another
Thai general for monopoly of control of Thailand's opium and heroin
trade...Backed by squads of CIA advisers, Phao set about the task of
turning Thailand into a police state. The country's leading dissidents
and academics were jailed...Phao also cornered the country's gold
market, played a leading role on the top twenty corporate boards in the
country, charged leading executives and businessmen protection fees and
ran prostitution houses and gambling dens. Phao became great friends
with Bill Donovan, at that time U.S. ambassador to Thailand.

In the early 1960s, NATION editor Vanden Heuvel's father served as U.S.
Attorney-General Robert F. Kennedy's special assistant. According to
WHITEOUT: THE CIA, DRUGS AND THE PRESS, around the time that William
Vanden Heuvel was his special assistant, RFK "was obsessed with the
elimination of Castro," and "told Allen Dulles that he didn't care if
the Agency employed the Mob for the hit as long as they kept him fully
briefed."

During the 1960s and 1970s, NATION editor Vanden Heuvel's father also
became increasingly active in the International Rescue Committee [IRC]
In addition to being a current board member of the IRC, William vanden
Heuvel has, in the past, held the posts of IRC President, IRC
Vice-Chairman and Chairman of the Planning Committee of the IRC.

In an essay that appeared in the Summer 1997 issue of NEW POLITICS
magazine, entitled "Albert Shanker: No Flowers," Paul Buhle made the
following reference to the International Rescue Committee's historical
role: "Eric Chester's important recent volume, COVERT NETWORKS:
PROGRESSIVES, THE INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE AND THE CIA, offers a
well-researched perspective on one of the most interesting Cold War (and
post-Cold War) operations linked on one side to favorite causes of
prominent liberals and on the other to assorted intelligence agency
projects...The International Rescue Committee [IRC] became a central
mechanism--through its spin-off American Friends of Vietnam [AFVN]--for
selling the impending Vietnam War to the U.S. public...The young Daniel
Patrick Moynihan, working as its public relations officer, had described
the IRC as the `ideal instrument of Psychological Warfare.'

"The IRC was subsequently involved directly or indirectly in a shef of
other operations...As during the U.S. saturation bombing in Southeast
Asia, the IRC followed U.S. trained and funded military forces
decimating large districts of El Salvador..."

The book cited by Buhle, COVERT NETWORK: PROGRESSIVES, THE INTERNATIONAL
RESCUE COMMITTEE, AND THE CIA by Eric THomas Chester, was published in
1995 by M.E. Sharpe Inc. An unsigned review of the book that appeared on
the Internet described Chester's book in the following way: "The Cold
War period in American history was characterized by a seamless
cooperation among international charities, quasi-governmental
organizations, major foundation, funding conduits, and the CIA...This
book singles out the International Rescue Commitee, and to a lesser
extent the Ford Foundation."

During the 1980s, the Interhemisperic Resource Center in Albuquerque
also examined the political role that the IRC has played historically.
Besides noting that the IRC board members in the 1980s included folks
like Richard Holbrooke, Henry Kissinger, Ronald Lauder, Albert Shanker
and William vanden Heuvel, the Interhemisperic Resource Center also
observed:

"The IRC has consistently followed policies which have indeed coincided
with U.S. foreign policy interests. It has operated in such geopolitical
hotspots as Southeast Asia, Central America, Afghanistan, and Eastern
Europe, conducting programs which have bolstered Washington's
anti-communist activities...

"Many of IRC's members have ties to the intelligence community, and at
least one author calls the IRC 'a long-time ally of the Central
Intelligence Agency.'

"...In 1987, it received approximately 72 percent of its fundings from
U.S. government contracts and grants...

"In 1987, IRC received a $1 million grant from the National Endowment
for Democracy [NED], which was appropriated by the U.S. Congress
throught he Agency for International development [AID], to 'assist the
independent Polish trade union Solidarity...' ...Recently, IRC's major
focus has been on the Afghan refugees...IRC has published 10 books for
the National Endowment for Democracy-funded American Friends of
Afghanistan [AFA]...

"[Former IRC Chairperson] Leo Cherne [since-deceased] has a long history
of intelligence connections. He served as a member of the President's
Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board from 1973-1976, the chairman from
1976-1979, and most recently, served as the vice-chair on former
President Ronald Reagan's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board...In 1954
Cherne sent a cable to a U.S. government official about the situation in
Vietnam, 'If free elections were held today all agree privately
communists would win...Future depends on organizing all resources to
resettle refugees, sustain now bankrupt government...' During the Reagan
Administration, Cherne was involved in private fundraising efforts
coordinated by the National Security Council aimed at disseminating
propaganda supporting U.S. foreign policy.

"William Casey [former IRC president] was one of the members of an IRC
commission that visited INdochinese refugee camps in 1978 and advocated
'a virtual open-door policy' for letting the refugees into the U.S.
Under Reagan, Casey was head of the CIA until his death in 1987...

"John Richardson [former IRC president} was the Assistant Secretary of
State for Cultural Affairs from 1969-1977. He served as the head of the
U.S. Information AGency's [USIA] Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty from
1961-1968. During those years, it was closely linked to the CIA...

"The IRC was heavily involved in supporting the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem
in Vietnam. In fact, the executive committee for the pro-Diem lobby, the
American Friends of Vietnam, was virtually identical to that of the IRC.
The strongest supporer of Diem in the group was former IRC official
Joseph Buttinger..."


In the late 1960s, THE NATION editor's father was the president of the
IRC at the same time former CIA Director William Casey was the chairman
of the IRC's executive committee. And according to the minutes of the
IRC board of directors meeting of June 15, 1967, "Leo Cherne appointed
the following Middle East Subcommittee: William Casey, Leo Cherne, David
Sher, William vanden Heuvel and Edwin Wesley" and "The Board meeting
adjourned at 7:10 and was followed by the first meeting of the Middle
East Subcommittee."

Besides sitting on the IRC board next to NATION editor Katrina vanden
Heuvel's father in both the late 1960s and the mid-1970s, former CIA
Director Casey was also one of the original investors and a director of
the Capital Cities media conglomerate that gobbled-up ABC in the
1980s--before, itself, being gobbled-up by the Disney Company media
conglomerate in the 1990s. Former IRC President Casey also sat on the
board of directors of the LILCO utility company, which operated the
Shoreham nuclear power plant on Long Island, despite the opposition of
U.S. anti-nuclear power activists in the 1970s. Prior to managing
Reagan's successful 1980 campaign for the GOP presidential nomination,
IRC board member Casey had also worked in the corporate law firm of
Rogers & Wells, where he represented the special interests of clients
like Saudia American Lines, International Crude Oil Refining Company and
the Government of Indonesia. As Reagan's CIA director until his death in
1987, former IRC board member Casey continued to retain control of over
$3 million worth of stock in companies like DuPont and Exxon while he
simultaneously made decisions at the CIA which affected the
profitability of his personal stockholdings.

Casey was not the only IRC director who became involved in politically
partisan Establishment party presidential campaigns in the 1970s and
early 1980s. During the 1976 presidential campaign, NATION editor Vanden
Heuvel's father also chaired the New York State presidential primary
campaign committee of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. In a January
12, 1976 letter to Robert Shnayerson, the then-editor-in-chief of
HARPER'S magazine, NATION editor Vanden Heuvel's father wrote:

"It is my understanding that you were considering an article regarding
the presidential candidacy of former governor Jimmy Carter in your March
issue of Harper's magazine. In that context, I send you a copy of a
telegram from Congressman Andrew Young addressed to a recent column
published by the Village Voice. I hope you will find it interesting and
relevant.

"If there are any questions, please call me at either 425-XXXX or
757-XXXX.

"Yours sincerely, William vanden Heuvel."


The telegram referred to in IRC board member William vanden Heuvel's
letter (sent by former Carter Administration Ambassador to the UN Andrew
Young to a Bardle B. at Carter Headquarters on 1/9/76) made the
following reference to a column written by Alexander Cockburn: "The
January 12 column by Alexander Cockburn, `The Riddle of Jimmy Carter,
Can A Dark Horse Change His Spots,' is a wonderful example of the
creation of `The Big Lie' by a compilation of half truth and distorted
facts.

"Jimmy Carter is not and never has been guilty of the kind of implied
racism of these charges. He is one of the finest products of a most
misunderstood region of our nation."

But according to A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES by Howard Zinn:
"The Democratic candidate for President in 1976, Jimmy Carter, was a
member of the Trilateral Commission...Indeed, the number of Trilateral
Commission members appointed to important posts in the Carter
administration was startling. Brzezinski became his National Security
Adviser...Walter Mondale, the new Vice-President, was a member of the
Trilateral Commission. So were Ambassador to the United Nations Andrew
Young, Secretary of the Treasury Michael Blumenthal, and Secretary of
Defense Harold Brown...The price of food and the necessities of life
continued to rise faster than wages were rising. Unemployment remained
officially at 6 or 8 percent--unofficially, the rates were higher. For
certain key groups in the population--young people, and especially young
black people--the unemployment rate was 20 percent or 30 percent.

"By 1978 it was clear that blacks in the United States, the group most
in support of Carter for President, and without whose support he could
not have been elected, were bitterly disappointed with his policies. He
opposed federal aid to poor people who needed abortions, and when it was
pointed out to him that this was unfair, because rich women could get
abortions with ease, he replied: `Well, as you know, there are many
things in life that are not fair, that wealthy people can afford and
poor people cannot.'"

On October 6, 1976 the then-executive vice president of THE NEW YORK
TIMES, Sydney Gruson, also wrote the following letter to William vanden
Heuvel (on New York Times Company stationary), which was apparently
mailed to Carter/Mondale Headquarters at 730 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan:
"Dear Bill: Enclosed is the resume of my brother that I spoke to you
about. He is an extremely talented fellow. Anything you can do will be
deeply appreciated. How about bringing your fellow in for lunch before
the election? As ever, Sydney."

The NATION editor's father then wrote the following letter on October
12, 1976 to one of the people who apparently would be responsible for
offering people jobs in a new Carter Administration--Jack Watson of the
King & Spalding corporate law firm. (Disclosure note: a King & Spalding
lawyer in Manhattan is currently representing his landlord father in a
frivolous, harassment-type lawsuit against a rent-stabilized tenant who
is a sister of the writer of this article): "Dear Jack, Sydney Gruson is
the Executive Vice President of the New York Times. He made a special
point the other evening of taking me aside and asking me to forward a
resume for his brother, Edward Gruson. It would be helpful if you could
have someone review the resume--and perhaps a note from you to Sydney
Gruson as well as to his brother would be most useful. Sincerely,
William vanden Heuvel."

That same day, the 1976 Carter/Mondale New York Campaign official Vanden
Heuvel also wrote the following letter to New York Times Executive Vice
President Sydney Gruson:

"Dear Sidney, I have forwarded Edward's resume with a special note to
Jack Watson. If Governor Carter does win the election, I assume Jack
will have a major transitional role, including personnel. In my next
conversation with him, I will pursue the matter.

"My guess is that Governor Carter's schedule is not going to permit
lunch before the election. The debates make scheduling almost impossible
because they require essentially three days for each event.

"Hoping to see you very soon.

"As ever, William vanden Heuvel"

After Trilateral Commission member Carter was elected president, he
eventually named William vanden Heuvel to be his deputy permanent
representative to the United Nations. The IRC board member vanden
Heuvel's daughter, Katrina, meanwhile attended Princeton University,
majoried in politics and apparently graduated from Princeton in 1981.
According to an article by Van Wallach which appeared in a March 20,
1996 issue of a Princeton alumni publication, Katrina vanden Heuvel
began working "as a NATION intern for nine months after taking the
`Politics and the Press' course taught by Blair Clark, the magazine's
editor from 1976 to 1978" and "returned to THE NATION in 1984 as
assistant editor for foreign affairs." In 1988 she married a professor
named Stephen F. Cohen, who was also a contributing editor of THE NATION
in 1996. In recent years, a "Stephen F. Cohen--NYU" has also been on a
POST-SOVIET AFFAIRS magazine editorial board that also includes a "James
Noren--Central Intelligence Agency." In 1989, IRC board member vanden
Heuvel's daughter was then named "THE NATION editor-at-large,
responsible for its coverage of the USSR" and "in 1990 she co-founded
LYI I MYI...a quarterly journal linking American and Russian women,"
according to the Princeton alumni publication.

After the former NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE editor-turned NATION magazine
editor, Victor Navasky, organized the for-profit business partnership
(which included Katrina vanden Heuvel as one of the business partners)
to buy THE NATION magazine from NEW YORK OBSERVER owner Arthur Carter,
Navasky appointed Katrina vanden Heuvel as the editor, while he assumed
the title of publisher and editorial director.

By 1996, NATION editor Vanden Heuvel had "moved the magazine's content
into new venues through a syndicated radio program and a World-Wide web
page," according to the Princeton alumni publication article. Like
Pacifica's DEMOCRACY NOW show and FAIR's COUNTERSPIN show, the
syndicated NATION magazine radio show, RADIO NATION, is also subsidized
by Establishment foundation money. The money is granted to the
non-profit division of THE NATION magazine, The Nation Institute, on
whose board of trustees sits NATION editor Vanden Heuvel and the former
member of the PBS board of directors who used to head the MacArthur
Foundation's "genius grant" program, Catharine Stimpson. The Dean of an
NYU Graduate School in recent years, Stimpson has also been the
treasurer of The Nation Institute in recent years. Of the $1.4 million
in annual revenues which The Nation Institute takes in, around $88,000
is spent on producing the magazine's syndicated RADIO NATION show, which
is aired on around 100 U.S. radio stations, including Pacifica Radio's
stations. NATION magazine editors and writers who have attempted to
smear and marginalize 9/11 conspiracy journalists and researchers in
recent months, like David Corn, have also apparently been using RADIO
NATION as a self-promotional, radio tie-in media outlet for advancing
their careers as professional journalists in the Establishment's
mainstream media world.

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