(Archived document, may contain errors)

12

December 1979

THE ANTI-DEFENSE LOBBY: PART COALITION FOR A NEW FOREIGN AND MILI TAR Y POLICY

.(Executive Summary)

The most comprehensive organizational manifestation of what .some observers call the "anti-defense lobby" is probably the Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy, an apparatus that is national in scope and which styles itself as "an effort to develop a peaceful,.non-interventionist and demilitarized U.S. foreign policy-" The Coalition lists 43 organizations as members, and there are numerous others which cooperate with the Coalition in its "issue-oriented working groups which reach out to include organizations which are not members of the Coalition but which have an active interest in the issue." There are four of these. instrumentalities (the Priorities Working Group, Human Rights Working Group, Disarmament Working Group, and Indochina Working Group); according to CNFMP 1 'iterature, they "carty out much of the Coalition's work.11 The programs of the CNFMP are frankly geared to maximum influence on the-legislative process: "The Coalition coordinates the national legislative strategy for the campaign for new national priorities."

Organizations which make up the membership of the CNFMP range from Americans for Democratic Action, the National Council of Churches, and several agencies of the United Methodist Church to such leftist operations as the American Friends service Commit- tee, Women Strike for Peace, and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, along with the National Center to Slash Military Spending, the leadership of which includes identified members of the Communist Party,.U.S.A., and the International Longshoremen's and'Warehousemen's Union, cited as having "long been controlled by identified members of the CPUSA.11 Rosters of Coalition Working Groups include, in addition to CNFMP member organizations like ADA, WSP, and AFSC, such other groups as Members of Congress for Peace Through Law; various subsidiaries of the "far-!.left" Institute for Policy Studies; New Directions;

the United Auto Workers; the National Student Association; the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America, expelled from the Congress of Industrial Organizations in 1949 on grounds of Communist domination; the United Nations Association; several major church organizations; the USLA Justice Committee, a front for the Trotskyite Communist Socialist Workers Party; and the National Lawyers Guild, once cited as the "foremost legal bulwark of the Communist Party, its front organizations, and controlled unions." The Center for International Policy and Center for National Security Studies, projects of the the leftist Fund for Peace, are also prominently identified with the Coalition.

The Coalition describes itself as "the peace movement, continued" and adds that "We ended the war. We can keep the peace." In fact, the CNFMP, like the "anti-defense lobby" within which it plays so important a part, has emerged, through a clear line of succession, from the anti-Vietnam war movement of the 1960s and early 1970s, a movement that was regarded by the Viet- namese Communists as "the 'Second Front' of the Vietnam war." The Coalition's immediate predecessor, the Ad Hoc Coalition for a New Foreign Policy, had originally been known as the Coalition to Stop Funding the War, characterized in 1975 by the newspaper of the Tom Hayden-Jane Fonda Indochina Peace Campaign as "the tactical leadership for the movement's developing Congressional pressure campaign." This "pressure campaign" emphasizes such issues as ending U.S. aid to regimes like those in South Africa and Chile while, at the same time, advocating "normalization of relations" with Vietnam and Cuba coupled with "reconstruction aid" for Indochina; withdrawal of American forces from South Korea; opposi- tion to the B-1 bomber; passage of the so-called Transfer Amendment to convert military spending to "human needs" as part of a general program aimed at a drastic reordering of spending priorities combined with steady reduction in American military spending; and approval of the strategic arms limitation (SALT II) agreement.

This program requires a budget that, according to the most recent available estimate, runs into six figures; the projected budget for 1978 was $143,680, of which $28,000 was to be for the Coalition's field program. Contributions are solicited from the approximately 7,000 claimed "members of the network," with assist- ance also apparently received from other organizations. In running its field program, the Coalition has benefited from "a salary sharing relationship with local organizations." Additional benefit is derived from being able to appeal for funds by adver- tising that contributions for "public education and organizing work" may be "made payable to the" Budget Priorities Project of the tax-exempt Youth Project; earlier Coalition literature stated that checks could be "made payable to the United Methodist Church, Board of Church and Society."

COALITION FOR A NEW FOREIGN AND MILITARY POLICY

INTRODUCTION

The Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy (CNFMP) is probably, from an organizational standpoint, the most comprehen- sive effort mounted to date by those individuals and organizations active throughout the United States in propaganda and agitation campaigns against allegedly excessive defense spending and weapons development, a movement seen by some observers as an "anti-defense lobby" and by others as, in the words of a Coalition fact sheet dated November 9, 1978, "an effort to develop a peaceful, non- interventionist and demilitarized U.S. foreign policy." The Coalition claims that it "unites over 40 national religious, peace, labor and social action organizations" around this goal, according to a press release dated April 16, 1979, which source also emphasizes, as does much other Coalition material, a specifi- cally legislative orientation: "The Coalition coordinates the national legislative strategy for the campaign for new national priorities."

ORIGINS

According to a CNFMP Action Alert dated May 26, 1976, the Coalition for a New Foreign -and kl_=itary Policy was 11[f]ormally- launched on May 1 [1976] as a merger of the coalition on National Priorities and Military Policy and the Ad Hoc Coalition for a New Foreign Policy," the aim being to "combine a close relationship with Capitol Hill with an extensive grassroots network of activists to create a highly effective force for change." The Ad Hoc Coalition had, in turn, been founded in late 1972 as the Coalition to Stop Funding the War, an appellation indicative of something which is far too little appreciated; namely, that the present-day "anti-defense lobby" has emerged, through a clear line of succes- sion, from the anti-Vietnam war movement of the 1960s and early 1970s. Thus, it is hardly coincidental that the Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy, as shown by one of its basic promotional brochures, has described itself as "the peace movement, continued. Still going strong," adding that "We ended the war. We can keep the peace." As will be seen subsequently, organiza- tions which today comprise the CNFMP also, to a significant extent, functioned as active components of the various national "anti-war" coalitions which operated, whatever the motivations of the less politically sophisticated among them, essentially to undermine American resolve in Vietnam while providing an almost incalculable propaganda and morale boost to the Communists in North Vietnam and in the Hanoi-controlled National Liberation Front of South Vietnam. First, however, it is perhaps be'st to discuss briefly the organizational composition of the coalition as it is now constituted. MEMBER ORGANIZATIONS

Vol. 1, No. 1 of Coalition Close-Up, dated Summer 1979, carries a list of 43 organizations which serve as members of the Coalition. These groups include several major American church organizations affiliated with the National Council of Churches, along with the NCC itself and some of the nation's more prominent activist peace groups. According to this source, "The following are members of the Coalition:"

American Friends Service Committee Americans for Democratic Action BEGIN Business Executives Move for New National Priorities Center for International Policy Chile Legislative Center Church of the Brethren, Washington Office Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Department of Church in Society Clergy and Laity Concerned Council on Hemispheric Affairs Episcopal Peace Fellowship Friends Committee on National Legislation Friends of the Filipino People International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union Mennonite Central Committee, Peace Section, U.S.A. Movement for a Free Philippines National Assembly for Women Religious National Association of Social Workers National Center to Slash Military Spending National Council of Churches National Federation of Priests' Councils, U.S.A. National Gray Panthers National Office of Jesuit Social Ministries Network Northern Ohio Project on National Priorities SANE TAPOL Union of American Hebrew Congregations Unitarian Universalist Association United Church of Christ, Board for Homeland Ministries United Church of Christ, Office for church in Society United Methodist Church, Board of Church and Society, Division of World Peace United Methodist Church, Board of Global Ministries, Women's Division United Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., Washington Office U.S. People's Committee on Iran War Resisters League Washington Office on Africa Washington Office on Latin America Women's International League for Peace and Freedom Women Strike for Peace World Federalists Association world Peacemakers Young Women's Christian Association of the U.S.A.

The above list includes several organizations which have not appeared on earlier rosters; conversely, because of the tendency of "movement" groups to appear and disappear with some frequency, it does not include several which have been carried in earlier Coalition publications. The list cited immediately above, for example, includes five organizations -- the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, National Assembly for Women Religious, U.S. People's Committee on Iran, War Resisters League, and YWCA -- not named in Coalition material, such as the "peace movement, continued" brochure cited earlier, disseminated during 1978 and as recently as the first six months of 1979; the same brochure, on the other hand, included three organizations -- the Argentine Commission for Human Rights, FRIENDSHIPMENT, and Inter-University Committee to Stop Funding War and Militarism -- not carried in the summer 1979 list.

The earliest complete listing of CNFMP member organizations used in preparation of the present study appears in the Coalition's Action Alert for Winter/Spring 1977. For purposes of comparison, Tt i's set forth in full at this point:

'American Friends Service Committee Americans for Democratic Action Business Executive[s] Move for New National Priorities Campaign for a Democratic Foreign Policy Chile Legislative Center Church of the Brethren, Washington office Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Department of Church in Society Clergy and Laity Concerned Episcopal Peace Fellowship Friends Committee on National Legislation FRIENDSHIPMENT Friends of Indochina organizing Committee Friends of the Filipino People Indochina Resource Center International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union Inter-University Committee to Stop Funding War and Militarism Jesuit Conference, office of Social Ministries Mennonite Central Committee National Association of Social Workers National Council of Churches Network SANE Tapol Union of American Hebrew Congregations Unitarian Universalist Association United Church of Christ, Board for Homeland Ministries United Methodist Church, Board of Church and Society United Methodist Church, Board of Global Ministries, Women's Division United Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., Washington Office Washington Office on Africa Washington Office on Latin America Women's International League for Peace and Freedom Women Strike for Peace

COALITION "WORKING GROUPS"

In addition to its member groups, the Coalition has attracted several other organizations as participants in what its November 9, 1978, fact sheet calls "issue-oriented working groups which reach out to include organizations which are not members of the Coalition but which have an active interest in the issue." Most available CNFMP-literature refers to three such groups: the Priorities Working Group, Human Rights Working Group, and Disarma- ment Working Group. A recent brochure, however, also refers to a fourth: "Our Indochina Working group seeks reconciliation and diplomatic relations with countries in that war-ravaged region." According to the Coalition's Priorities Action Guide 1978, among other sources, these groups "carry out much of the Coalition's work." Available literature, including the Priorities Action Guide 1978 (which is the most recent obtainable edition, although an updated version is "in process," according to a Coalition staff employee), does not list those organizations which partici- pate in the Priorities Working Group; and the same is true of the Indochina Working Group.

A presumably complete list of organizations affiliated with the Disarmament Working Group appeared in the CNFMP Disarmament Action Guide Winter 1977-78, an enumeration which included both DWG members which are also members of the Coalition and "Disarma- ment Working Group members who are not members of" the CNFMP. The first category included the following:

American Friends Service Committee Americans for Democratic Action Business Executives Move for New National Priorities Church of the Brethren, Washington Office Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Department of Church in Society Friends Committee on National Legislation Inter-University Committee to Stop Funding War and Militarism Jesuit Conference, Office of Social Ministries Mennonite Central Committee National Council of Churches Network SANE Union of American Hebrew Congregations United Church of Christ, office for Church and Society United Methodist Church, Board of Church and Society, Division of World Peace United Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., Washington Office Women's International League for Peace and Freedom

Women Strike for Peace World Federalists Association/USA

"Disarmament Working Group members who are not members of the Coalition" were listed as follows:

American Ethical Union Another Mother for Peace Disarm Education Fund Fellowship of Reconciliation Institute for Policy Studies Militarism and Disarmament Project Institute for World Order New Directions United Auto Workers World Conference on Religion and Peace World Without War Council

This source claimed a total DWG membership of 1131 national labor, peace, religious, educational and political organizations committed to the goal of stopping the arms race." With publica- tion of the Disarmament Action Guide 1979, the number had risen to "nearly 40 national r@i_'Igiou_s, peace, labor and political organizations committed to the goal of promoting international security by halting and reversing the world's arms race and diverting those resources to meeting human needs." The 1979 version does not specify which of the Coalition's member organiza- tions are also participants in the Disarmament Working Group, although it does, with respect to non-member groups, list the "following organizations [which] are not members of the Coalition, but participate" in this aspect of the Coalition's activities:

American Ethical Union Council on Economic Priorities, Conversion Information Center Churches' Center for Theology and Public Policy Disarm Education Fund Environmental Policy Center Environmentalists for Full Employment Exploratory Project for Economic Alternatives Fellowship of Reconciliation International Association of Machinists Institute for Policy Studies, Militarism and Disarmament Project Institute for World Order Maryknoll Fathers, Office of Justice and Peace Members of Congress for Peace Through Law NARMIC* New Directions United Auto Workers United Electrical Workers United Nations Association/USA World Conference on Religion and Peace Young Women's Christian Association

*National Action/Research on the tlilitary-Industrial Complex, a project of the tax-exempt American Friends Service Committee. The Coalition's Human Rights Working Group also encompasses a wide range of organizations, many of them demonstrably leftist, around a multiplicity of human rights issues, especially, as shown by the CNFMP Covenants Action Guide, ratification of the United Nations Covenant on Ci and Political Rights and the UN Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. An undated Coalition document, "A DESCRIPTION OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS WORKING GROUP," avers that "Through the Working Group,-over 60 national organizations plan strategy and implement common activities" around human rights issues and adds that membership "is open to any national organization that supports its legislative and educational goals and includes organizations which are not members of the Coalition as well as groups which for tax or charter purposes cannot formally join the Coalition." As with the Disarm- ament Working Group, the most recent available Covenants Action Guide does not specify which members of the CNFMP are also parti- cipants in the Human Rights Working GrovD, although it does include a roster of "Organizations that part-icipate in the HRWG which are not members of the Coalition:11

The Action Center American Committee on Africa American Ethical Union Amnesty International, Washington Office Argentine Information Service Center Campaign to Stop Government Spying Center for Law and Social Policy Center for National Security Studies Center of Concern Church World Service Committee to Defend Political Prisoners in Iran CounterSpy Human Rights Education Project Institute for Policy Studies International Human Rights Program, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Liberty to the Captives Middle East Resource Center NARMIC National Lawyers Guild National Student Association New Directions North American Coalition for Human Rights in Korea North American Congress on Latin America Office of Social Justice and Peace, Maryknoll Fathers office of Social Concerns, Maryknoll Sisters Palestine Human Rights Campaign Project on National Security and Civil Liberties (ACLU and CNSS) Sojourners Southeast Asia Resource Center Transnational Institute United Nations Association/USA USLA Justice Committee one other organization is also listed, but in a somewhat different manner: "The United States Catholic Conference works with the HRWG on issues of mutual concern." The above-cited "DESCRIPTION OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS WORKING GROUP" carries the same listing of cooperating organizations with one addition, the "Latin American and Carribean [sic] Office, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)-" This document, unlike the Covenants Action Guide,* lists the 11HRWG Co-chairpeople" and the membership of the 11HRWG Steering Committee," a total of nine people repre- senting the National Lawyers Guild, which is a member of the HRWG, and the following Coalition member organizations: Clergy and Laity Concerned; Americans for Democratic Action; Washington Office, Church of the Brethren; United Church of Christ; American Friends Service Committee; Friends of the Filipino People; Wash- ington Office on Africa; and Women Strike for Peace. In addi- tion, there are listed, as "Co-chairpeople of the Coalition and ex-officio members of the HRWG Steering Committee," represent- atives of the Friends Committee on National Legislation and the Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church.

SELECTED COALITION MEMBER ORGANIZATIONS AND AFFILIATES

In many cases, organizations which constitute the Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy are familiar and easily recognized. The character of Americans for Democratic Action, for example, is well known; since its inception in 1947, ADA has, under the leadership of such outspoken liberals as Joseph L. Rauh, Jr., and James Wechsler, been among the nation's preeminent

*Since preparation of this study, the Coalition has published a revised Covenants Action Guide and a complementary Human Rights Action Guide, both of which carry listings of groups "that participate in the HRWG which re not members of" the CNFMP. The roster carried in the revised Covenants Action Guide is the more complete of the two and, because of significant changes from the earlier list cited above, is set forth in full at this point: American Committee on Africa; American Ethical Union; Amnesty International, Washington Office; Bread for the World; Campaign for Political Rights; Center for Law and Social Policy; Center for National Security Studies; Center of Concern; Church World Service; Committee for Human Rights in Iran; Counterspy; EPICA; Friends of the Korean People; Haitian Refugee Concerns; Human Rights Internet; IMPACT; Institute for Policy Studies; International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers; International Lawyer's Committee for Human Rights; Interna- tional League of Human Rights; Interreligious Task Force on U.S. Food Policy; Liberty to the Captives; Lutheran Council USA; Members of Congress for Peace Through Law; Middle East Resource Center; NARMIC; National Association of Women Religious; National Lawyers Guild; New Directions; North American Coali- tion for Human Rights in Korea; North American Congress on Latin America; Office of Social Justice and Peace, Maryknoll Fathers; Office of Social Con- cerns, Haryknoll Sisters; Palestine Human Rights Campaign; Sojourners; Southeast Asia Resource Center; Tabor House; Transnational Institute; United Auto Workers, International Division; United Nations Association/USA; Union of Democratic Thais; Young Women's Christian Association. Again, "The United States Catholic Conference" also "works with the HRWG on issues of mutual concern." advocates of the economic and political liberalism that came to the fore during the years of the Great Depression and the New Deal administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Like many other groups which form what the CNFMP calls the "Coalition network," ADA has as one of its current priorities the achievement of U.S. Senate ratification of the strategic arms limitation (SALT II) agreements, an effort described by ADA National Director Leon Shull as "our single most important job now."

Similarly, the many religiously oriented groups affiliated with the Coalition are at least equally well known. The National Council of Churches is perhaps the most prominent self-proclaimed voice of American liberal Protestantism, and many of the church groups which work within the "Coalition network" also form active 'Parts of the NCC1s own network. Of particular current interest is the degree to which the NCC and CNFMP interlock with the recently-formed Religious Committee on SALT, which is among the plethora of organizations working actively for Senate ratification of the SALT II agreements. One of the organizations affiliated with the Coalition's Disarmament Working Group and Human Rights Working Group is the American Ethical Union, the Washington office of which is also listed as a member of the Religious Committee in one of its promotional brochures, "Please Pass the S.A.L.T.11 Other Coalition-affiliated religious organizations so listed include, exactly as carried in the Religious Committee brochure, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Dept. of Church in Society; Church of the Brethren; Friends Committee on National Legislation; National Assembly of Women Religious; National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA; National Federation of Priests' Councils; Network; Unitarian Universalist Association; United Church of Christ, Office.for Church in Society; United Methodist Church, Global Ministries--women's Division; United Presbyterian Church, USA; and US Catholic Conference.

In order to appreciate the far-flung nature of the NCC's concerns, it should be observed that the NCC is actively involved in affairs of the World Council of Churches, which is in turn deeply involved in providing support to so-called "liberation" movements in Africa and elsewhere. As documented in a comprehen- sive paper issued by the London-based Institute for the Study of Conflict (Conflict Studies No. 105, "World Council of Churches' Programme To Combat Racism," March 1979), the Central Committee of the WCC is on record as calling "upon the churches to move beyond charity, grants and traditional programming to relevent and sacrificial action leading to new relationships of dignity and justice among all men and to become agents for the radical reconstruction of society," such reconstruction being defined as "a transfer of economic resources to undergird the redistribution of political power and to make cultural self-determination meaning- ful." To implement this radical policy, the WCC has established a Special Fund to Combat Racism, the "basic underlying concept" of which is expressed as "that of a redistribution of power (economic, political, social, cultural, ecclesiastical)." The Institute study reflects that "the largest contributors" to the Special Fund "have been the Dutch Churches, followed by West

Germany, Sweden, the USA and Canada.... organizations which have presumably met the WCC's criteria and which have received often substantial grants of money from the Special Fund include a number of terrorist groups, many of them Communist-backed, such as the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO), the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the African Party for the Independence 'of Portuguese Guinea and the Cape Verde Islands (PAIGC), the South-West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO), the African National Congress (ANC), and the so-called Patriotic Front in Rhodesia, made up of the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) and Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU).

As observed immediately above, these alleged "liberation" movements have often enjoyed Communist backing, a fact that has caused severe criticism of both the World Council of Churches and the National Council of Churches in some quarters. FRELIMO, for instance, is known to incline toward the Soviet point of view and has received aid for many years from the Soviet Union, Algeria, and Sweden through the Swedish Communist Party. Similarly, both the Soviet Union and Communist Cuba have rendered significant support to the PAIGC, a terrorist movement founded by an avowed Communist and organized specifically along Leninist principles; the Soviet Union's support has included the training of PAIGC guerrilla troops, while Cuba, as in so many other areas in Africa, has gone to the extent of committing military personnel. Soviet influence is also present in SWAPO, the ANC, and ZAPU. SWAPO saboteurs have reportedly received military training in the Soviet Union, as well as in Algeria and Egypt, while the ANC, which has coordinated terrorist activities with Joshua Nkomo's ZAPU, operates as an appendage of the South African Communist Party. It is significant that these three African terrorist organizations are all represented in the membership of the World Peace Council, well known as an international Communist front organization controlled by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union; current WPC members include both Sam Nujoma, founder of SWAPO, and Joshua Nkomo, founder and leader of ZAPU, although ZANU, the other half of the "Patriotic Front" in Rhodesia, is not thus represented, doubtless because of ZANUIs adherence to what one of its leaders has called the application of "Marxism-Leninism- Mao Tse-tung Thought" to the "concrete conditions of Zimbabwe liberation."

It is also worthy of note that 1978 WCC grants also went to several leftist organizations active in the United States. These included the National Conference of Black Lawyers, which received $12,500, and the Puerto Rican Solidarity Committee, which received $5,000. The NCBL, the leader of which is also a member of the World Peace Council and "US Representative" for the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, another principal Soviet- controlled international Communist-front apparatus, has partici- pated in activities of the National Lawyers Guild, cited many times as a Communist-front organization; and the PRSC, led by a former member of the Trotskyite Communist Socialist Workers Party, serves as a support group for the Castroite Communist Puerto Rican Socialist Party, the leader of which has openly declared that "We are Communists."

10

This aspect of NCC and WCC activity has been emphasized at some length both because it appears to be insufficiently appreci- ated and because the NCC and several of its member denominations are so significantly represented in the CNFMP and in its various Working Groups and other activities. It is not contended that the above information is necessarily representative of a conscious- ly anti-American or pro-Communist bias on the part of the NCC or its leadership; it is sufficient to observe that a definite pattern does appear to exist and that such predisposition as that pattern appears to indicate ought to be taken into account as one attempts to assess the importance of the position enjoyed by the NCC and its affiliates within the Coalition, to say nothing of its possible impact on the formulation of Coalition policy.

In addition to organizations like ADA and the National Council of Churches which are regarded by many people as being generally of a liberal to left-liberal cast, there are within the "Coalition network" a number of other groups the origins and leadership of which are patently leftist in character. The Chile Legislative Center is a good example because the Center serves as the Washington office of a nationwide apparatus, the National Coordinating Committee in Solidarity with Chile, also known as the National Chile Center, which has as its national coordinator a member of the World Peace Council who has also served in a leadership capacity with the Young Workers Liberation League, the youth apparatus of the Communist Party, U.S.A. The National Coordinating committee has been described as a front for the CPUSA in documented reports by Rep. John M. Ashbrook (R-Ohio), ranking minority member of the House Committee on Internal Security, in the Congressional Record for July 11, 1974, and Rep. Larry McDonald (D-Ga.) in the Congressional Record for February 6, 1975, and May 4, 1976.

It is noted that the National Chile Center and its affiliated Chile Legislative Center sponsored an advertisement published in the September 7, 1977, edition of the Washington Post as "An Open Letter to President Carter." The purported signers of the open letter included several supporters of the Coalition for a New Foreign and military Policy, among them Larry Birns of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, Dr. Herman Will of the Division of World Peace of the United Methodist Church, and Chauncey A. Alexander of the National Association of Social Workers. These three organizations are, as noted previously, members of the CNFMP. Alexander, the NASW's executive director, has endorsed the Coali- tion for "doing a most significant job of demonstrating that protecting 'national security' should mean addressing urgent human needs ... and not merely spending more and more funds for exotic new weapons." A sponsor of the National Coordinating Committee's May 1976 National Legislative Conference on Chile, Alexander appeared before the House Committee on Un-American Activities on April 27, 1962, and refused to testify when asked whether he had been "a member of the Communist Party from 1939 until 194711 and when asked, "Are you a member of the Communist Party now?" The advertisement also listed several organizations and individuals as "Supporters," among them Olga Talamante, a

representative of the American Friends Service Committee on the steering committee of the CNFMP's Human Rights Working Group who, according to the July 15, 1979, issue of Information Digest, was once "arrested in Argentina with a group of Montoneros terrorists."

R similar situation exists with respect to two other CNFMP member groups. The International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union was described in the 1970 annual report of the House Commit- tee on Internal Security as an organization "which has long been controlled by identified members of the CPUSA;11 its president for a great many years was Harry R. Bridges, who was identified many times in sworn testimony as a member of the Communist Party. The National Center to Slash Military Spending is the outgrowth of the National Conference for a Drastic Cutback in Military Spending, held in Chicago, Illinois, in April 1975. Promotional material for V-ie National Conference was written on the letterhead of the ChicacTo Peace Council, cited in the 1971 annual report of the House Committee as "completely controlled by members of the CPUSA,11 and signed by a "peace" activist who is also a prominent member of the Illinois State Committee of the Communist Party. The call to this conference was printed by the Prompt Press, described by the Subversive Activities Control Board as "a [Commu- nist] Party publishing organization" and as "a printing establish- ment whose entire stock is owned by ... a Party member.... 11 The presence of the Prompt Press "bug," union label 209, on its literature has traditionally been regarded as a reliable indica- tion that an organization is in fact a CPUSA front operation. The 1977-1980 membership list of the World Peace Council includes the name of Pauline Rosen, a well-known Communist Party "peace" activist identified only as "Coordinator, National Center to Slash the [sic] Military Spending," in addition to that of another National Center headquarters staff employee, Frances Bordofsky, identified in the WPC list as "Chairperson, Peace and Solidarity Department, Communist Party USA."*

*This list purports to be "a vast cross-section of organized public opinion throughout the world" representing "National peace organizations, movements and political parties from more than 130 countries of all continents" and "International and regional organizations and movements agreeing with [the WPC's1 principles and aims." The list of members from the United States includes 40 individuals, at least one of them a member of the CPUSA's youth front, the Young Workers Liberation League; no fewer than 17 have been identi- fied at various times as members of the CPUSA itself, among them such prominent figures as Dr. Herbert Aptheker, the well-known Marxist scholar who is probably the Party's principal theoretician, and Jack O'Dell, also known as Hunter Pitts O'Dell, who has served as a member of the Party's National Committee and who is identified in the WPC list as "Associate Editor, 'Freedomways' Magazine [a CPUSA quarterly]" and "International Affairs Director, 'People United to Save Humanity' (PUSH)." U.S. members also include representatives of organiza- tions within the CNFMP "network," among them Luther H. Evans, "Former Chairperson, World Federalists;" Terry Provance, "Head of Disarmament Project, American Friends Service Committee (AFSC);" and Edith Villastrigo, "Legislative Represen- tative, Women Strike for Peace." Another Coalition member group is FRIENDSHIPMENT, described in the January 12, 1977, issue of the Congressional Record as "organized by Cora Weiss and other anti-Vietnam activists to raise money and supplies for the Vietnamese communist regime." According to this source,

Mrs. Weiss, who has traveled on a number of occasions to Hanoi, has been a highly active organizer and finan- cial angel for the coalitions supporting the Vietnamese Communists. She is a leader of CALC [Clergy and Laity Concerned] and Women Strike for Peace; during 1976 she worked for the July 4 Coalition (J4C), set up by the Castroite communist Puerto Rican Socialist Party (PSP) and the Weather Underground's Prairie Fire Organizing Committee (PFOC) to organize anti-Bicentennial demon- strations in Philadelphia. Her husband, National Lawyers Guild member Peter Weiss, attempted to join a defense team for the Baader-Mainhof [sic] terrorists in West Germany; has been a leader of the American Committee on Africa, a support group for African Marxist terrorists for many years; and is a trustee of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS).

The same source also reflects that contributions to FRIEND- SHIPMENT "are routed through the Bach Mai Hospital Fund, a project of the Communist Party's youth group, the Young Workers Liberation League (YWLL)." During the Vietnam war, FRIENDSHIPMENT organizer Cora Weiss served as co-chairman, with self-identified non-Soviet Communist David Dellinger, of the Committee of Liaison with Families of Servicemen Detained in North Vietnam, an organization described by the House Committee on Internal Security, after careful investigation, as a "pro-communist" organization which, as a front for the Communist-dominated New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, operated "at the specific bidding of the communists in Hanoi" as "a propaganda tool of the North Vietnamese Government, playing upon the hopes and anxieties of the wives of American prisoners of war for communist propaganda purposes."

The Institute for Policy Studies is well represented in the CNFMP and its Disarmament and Human Rights Working Groups, as noted previously. IPS, described in the 1971 annual report of the House Committee on Internal Security as "the far-left radical 'think tank' in Washington, D.C.," was discussed in detail in a previous Heritage Foundation study (Institution Analysis No. 2, "Institute for Policy Studies," May 1977) of the IPS program and "the obviously radical aims of the Institute's principal leader- ship." IPS and one of its chief subsidiaries, the Transnational Institute (TNI), are participants in the CNFMP Human Rights Working Group; one of TNI's principal leaders is also head of the British section of the Fourth International, a world-wide Trotsky- ite Communist apparatus which supports terrorist violence. Two participants in the CNFMP Disarmament Working Group are the IPS Militarism and Disarmament Project and the Exploratory Project for Economic Alternatives. It is noteworthy that the Cato Insti- tute, a libertarian organization, advertises a "major, on-going joint project with" IPS to "study the military, financial and political implications for a strictly non-interventionist United States foreign policy" with a view to holding "an international conference" during 1979. EPEA, another outgrowth of IPS led by Gar Alperovitz; and Jeff Faux, has as its declared goal the achieve- ment of "fundamental change in the way our economy is organized." EPEA has been deeply involved in another operation, Americans for a Working Economy, which views the American economic system as one of "corporate monopoly power" that "produces corporate profits, but increasingly destroys human lives."

Another group within the Disarmament Working Group is the United Electrical Workers, more properly known as the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America, an independent union expelled from the Congress of Industrial organizations in 1949 on grounds of Communist domination. UE has been prominently represented in an extremely large numb6r of CPUSA front movements throughout its history and still has within its leadership many individuals identified at various times as members of the Commu- nist Party; one of these, Ernest de Maio, is today a member of the World Peace Council and United Nations representative for the World Federation of Trade Unions, another Soviet-controlled international Communist-front apparatus. Similarly, within the Human Rights Working Group one finds the National Lawyers Guild, described in a 1950 report of the House Committee on Un-American Activities as "the foremost legal bulwark of the Communist Party, its front organizations, and controlled unions." The Committee report further observed that "Through its affiliation with the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, an international Communist-front organization, the National Lawyers Guild has constituted itself an agent of a foreign principal hostile to the interests of the United States." The Guild remains affiliated with the IADL. As of its 1973 convention, the Guild declared that it was "attempting to support those organizing within the American working class since we believe it is only the workers who have the power to seize control of the means of production.... An authoritative report on the most recent Guild convention published in the may 4, 1979, Information Digest alleges that "Since the late 1960s when an in-flux of New Left activists swelled the NLG's ranks, the organization has been controlled by a leader- ship that has not deviated from the international political lines of Moscow, Havana and Hanoi." Interestingly, at a February 1978 NLG National Executive Board meeting, a so-called Democratic Caucus charged, in protesting the Guild's alleged support of the terrorist Palestine Liberation Organization, that "the Leadership has conducted Guild affairs as though we were a committed Marxist- Leninist entity" and denounced the "predisposition of the Interna- tional Committee to identify the Guild with the position -of the 'socialist' countries on every major international issue."

Three other Coalition-affiliated organizations are of parti- cular interest at this point. One, the USLA Justice Committee

14

(US Committee for Justice to Latin American Political Prisoners), is well documented in public source accounts as a front for the Socialist Workers Party, largest Trotskyite Communist organization in the United States. USLA is run primarily by members of the SWP and its youth and training section, the Young Socialist Alliance, and has been described by a leading Venezuelan Trotsky- ite as an organization whose "effective work" has been "organized and promoted" by the Socialist Workers Party. The USLA Justice Committee is part of the CNFMP Human Rights Working Group,*as is another avowedly radical group, the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA), characterized by the House Committee on Internal Security as "an offshoot of SDS11 and by itself as the "intelligence-gathering armll.of the New Left. NACLA's overall perspective is regarded as pro-Castro.

The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and Women Strike for Peace are both members of the CNFMP and partici- pants in its Disarmament Working Group. WILPF and WSP were active participants in the anti-Vietnam war agitation of the 1960s and early 1970s; and both WSP and the Cleveland, Ohio, affiliate of WILPF are among American organizations represented in the current membership of the World Peace Council. The 1961 report of the California Senate Fact-Finding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities observed that "Any organization of a liberal character that is interested in achieving results that are in coincidental conformity with the Communist line is a natural target for infiltration" by Communists and further stated, "So it has been with the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom." According to the Subcommittee's report, the "objec- tives of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom thus being in conformity with the international Party line, some infiltration was inevitable." The Subcommittee was careful to point out that Communist infiltration of WILPF "on a national scale ... has not been sufficiently acute to warrant characterizing the organization as a Communist front or Communist-dominated" but did conclude that "In California, and some other localities, however, the invasion has been far more serious." In fact, as shown by the California report and by a wealth of other documen- tary evidence, identified members of the Communist Party have been prominently involved in WILPF chapters in such major American cities as San Francisco, California, and Chicago, Illinois; and the Subcommittee report ventured so far as to conclude that WILPF "in California was heavily infiltrated and at one time perhaps dominated, by the Communist Party." A similar situation appears to apply with respect to Women Strike for Peace, characterized in 1967 by the House Committee on Un-American Activities as "an organization which, since it was first formed in the fall of 1961, has enjoyed the complete support of the Communist Party." The Committee also observed that its 1962 hearings on WSP "revealed that a large number of key officers in the New York, New Jersey, Connecticut section of this group were or had been members of the Communist Party." One more group deserves special mention because of the degree of its involvement in the Coalition: the American Friends Service Committee. AFSC was among the most active organizers and supporters of the anti-Vietnam war movement and, according to a political science professor quoted in the June 9, 1979, issue of the New Republic, "went beyond the traditional conscientious objeFtElon to outright support of Hanoi," an allegation denied by the chairma'n of AFSC's board of directors in the July 7 & 14, 1979, issue of the same publication. The June 9 New Republic article states that at an April 1979 conference iF_-WaFh1ngton, D.C., on "The Search for Peace in the Middle East," AFSC "managed to present a facade of balance, but the tone of the conference was strongly sympathetic to the PLO (one evening featured a special reading of revolutionary poems by a Palestinian poet) and the workshops focused on ways of persuading the US to pressure Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians." As noted previ- ously, AFSC is represented in the current membership of the Soviet-controlled World Peace Council, according to the WPC's own official list.

The January 12, 1977, edition of the Congressional Record carried extended excerpts from a 1972 AFSC pamphlet, "Nonviolence: Not First for Export," which declared that "Revolution then is needed first and foremost in the United States, thoroughgoing revolution, hot a mild palliative. Specific and far-reaching changes are needed in American foreign policy, with equally specific and thoroughgoing changes in the U.S. domestic scene." AFSC's perspective may be seen clearly in the following paragraphs:

Any sensitive recollection of the imperialistic rise of the western nations during the past five centur- ies compels us to see the central role played by vio- lence in their assumption of power over the people of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. This has been apparent not only in the military structures of control, but in the political, economic and cultural forms of coercion and domination. At the heart of western hegemony has been its ultimate power to overwhelm with physical force the colonized people who have thus been pushed against the wall by the keepers of repressive law and oppressive order. They have seen no recourse other than to take up the same arms which were used to exploit them. They have been taught by the West that force and violence are the ultimate arbiters of human destiny, and reluctantly they have been moved to action based on those suppositions.

Violence has become most apparent when the dispos- sessed have demanded the right to control their own land and destiny. In response to such insistent demands, every weapon in the western arsenal, from subversion and napalm to the threat of atomic destruction, has been used to maintain the unjust and oppressive power of the ruling forces. We can now see that violence permeates the status quo as, for example, in South Africa.... The U.S. has allied itself economically with the violence of this status quo, and we ourselves are a part of it.

Based on such an analysis, the rhetoric of which will doubt- less strike many readers as all too familiar, AFSC concluded that "It should surprise no one, therefore, that Third World forces have turned to counter-violence as a means of winning their freedom." The pamphlet also speaks of "the violence of the status quo in America," violence allegedly "compounded of slights and insults, of rampant injustice, of exploitation, of police brutality, of a thousand indignities from dawn to dusk and through the night." It is perhaps hardly surprising that AFSC should describe terrorism as a term used, presumably by the oppressive ruling classes, "to signify violent action" by "oppressed peoples in Asia, Africa, Latin America, or within the black ghettos of America, as they take up the weapons of violence in a desperate effort to wrest for themselves the freedom and justice denied them by the systems that presently control their lives." It hardly seems a condemnation of terrorist violence to contend that "Long before the first freedom fighter laid hold upon a gun, or club, long before the first brick was thrown in Watts or Newark, racist societies were already guilty of a ruthless reign of terror where freedom was suppressed and human dignity denied." It is the AFSC position that "before we deplore terrorism it is essential for us to recognize fully and clearly whose 'terrorism' came first, so that we can assess what is cause and what is effect." Thus, AFSC declares that "Instead of trying to devise nonviolent strategy and tactics for revolutionaries in other lands, we will bend every effort to defuse militarism in our own land and to secure the withdrawal of American economic investment in oppressive regimes in other parts of the world."

THE ANTI-VIETNAM WAR MOVEMENT

As noted previously, the Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy characterizes itself as "the peace movement, continued" and proclaims in its literature that "We ended the war" in Vietnam. Thus, if one is to gain a clear understanding of how the Coalition has evolved and just what the concerns of its member organizations and affiliates have been, it becomes necessary to appreciate the realities of the anti-Vietnam war movement which came to such national and international prominence during the 1960s and early 1970s. This is all the more essential because of a widespread tendency, especially among people regarded as opinion leaders in the news media and elsewhere in American life, to accept and to perpetuate the notion that this was merely a movement of the young and idealistic, led by activists'whose sole, or at least primary, motivation was opposition to war as an instrument of national policy. Such a view, systematically reinforced as it has been by constant portrayal of even the more militant and disruptive elements of the "peace" movement as pacifists in newspapers and on the evening news, may well be pleasant; but it is also at variance with the facts, particularly insofar as the principal leadership of the movement is concerned. The degree to which this is the case has been indicated in some detail in a separate study (Heritage Foundation Institution Analysis No. 11, "The Anti-Defense Lobby: Part II, 'The Peace Movement, Continued,'" September 1979); for purposes of clarity and continuity, however, the evidence treated therein should perhaps be summarized at this point.

During the years of increasing anti-Vietnam war protest, a period which began in earnest in 1965 and which reached its zenith in 1971, public opposition to the war achieved its most visible impact in a series of mass demonstrations and propaganda campaigns organized most effectively under the auspices of a succession of national coalitions. These were the National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam, formed in 1965; the November 8 Mobilization Committee, organized in September 1966; the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, organized in November 1966; the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, an outgrowth of a national conference held in Washington, D.C., during May 1967; the New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, which succeeded National Mobe as the result of another conference held in Cleveland, Ohio, in July 1969; and two rival coalitions, the National Peace Action Coalition and Peoples Coalition for Peace and Justice, the latter being the successor to an intermediate apparatus known as the National Coalition Against War, Racism, and Repression.

All of these agglomerations were in fact the same basic coalition operating under different names. Called "umbrella" coalitions, these successive incarnations included a fairly wide variety of organizations, both Communist and non-Communist, among them the American Friends service Committee, Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam (now known as Clergy and Laity Concerned), Episcopal Peace Fellowship, Fellowship of Reconciliation, women Strike for Peace, Americans for Democratic Action, National Council of Churches, National Student Association, SANE, War Resisters League, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, various agencies of the United Methodist Church, Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Unitarian universalist Associa- tion, Institute for Policy Studies, United Electrical Workers, United Church of Christ, World Without War Council, and National Lawyers Guild, all of them currently part of the "network" of the Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy. Members -- and, in many cases, official representatives -- of some groups would appear on rosters of leaders and organizers at one juncture or another, with groups like Women Strike for Peace and the American Friends Service Committee represented at every stage of develop- ment. The true common denominator, however, was not the involve- ment of pacifists or religious types; rather, it was the unbroken thread of Communist participation and direction that endured throughout the course of the war. As the House Committee on Un-American Activities observed in its 1967 report, Communist origin and Manipulation of Vietnam Week,

genuine pacifist elements and organizations in this country are relatively small and weak. Alone, they have never succeeded in staging a major demonstration. While the sincerity of these groups in agitating for peace in Vietnam and elsewhere is not to be questioned, it is clear that they have played, and are playing, a minor role in Vietnam Week and in other anti-Vietnam war demonstrations that have taken place in this country in recent years.

Every major, large-scale demonstration against the war in Vietnam which has taken place in this country ' has had all-out Communist support. They have, in fact, achieved the status of "large-scale" and "major" mainly because of the effort put into them by Communist elements.

This assessment, based on a vast accumulation of evidence, was accurate as of 1967; and it remained accurate thereafter as the anti-Vietnam war movement grew in scope and militancy, always maintaining a close working relationship with such international Communist "peace" movements as the World Peace Council and with representatives of the government of North Vietnam and the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam. The Vietnamese Communists were most effusive in their expressions of appreciation for the support rendered them by what North Vietnamese Premier Pham van Dong called their "friends in America," and key American movement leaders were equally effusive in their partisanship for the Vietnamese Communist side in the war. As the Young People's Socialist League put it in 1969, "Many in the leadership [of New Mobel are more committed to an NLF victory than to peace," a sentiment echoed by one of the leaders of the YPSL, Josh Muravchic; who stated that "those people do not properly belong in the peace movement. They are not for peace. They are hawks on the other side." This denunciation from outside New Mobels ranks should be considered in conjunction with the following statement made by one of New Mobels co-chairmen, Professor Douglas Dowd of Cornell University, one of the movement's more important luminaries:

One of the tensions that we've had to work out within the National Mobilization [Committee] and conse- quently the New Mobilization [Committee] is that the people who are doing the organizing for this kind of thing, almost all of them, really feel that not only the war should end but 17 there had to be a side in that war I think most of us feel we would be on the other side [emphasis added].

Reference has already been made to the "unbroken thread of Communist participation and direction" which provided the real continuity in the "peace" movement during the Vietnam era. It is not without significance that credit for the first street demon- stration against the war in Vietnam is claimed by a Communist group, Youth Against War and Fascism, rather than by an organiza- tion of a more orthodox pacifist sort. One of the primary reasons

for the success enjoyed by Communists and their collaborators within the anti-Vietnam war movement was that its basic organiza- tional tenet was the doctrine of "nonexclusion," which meant that Communists were to be welcomed into the movement at every level on a basis of presumed equality with other types. The inevitable result, because of the uniquely disciplined sense of purpose with which Communists are by definition possessed, was that organiza- tions like the Communist Party, U.S.A., the Socialist Workers Party, and their respective youth groups were able to dominate the national coalitions at every stage of their development. Evidence for this contention exists in a multiplicity of authori- tative sources ranging from the hearings and studies of committees of Congress to the first-hand observations of several of the movement's key activists.

A good example is the National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam. An outgrowth of workshop sessions held during an August 1965 mobilization of pro-Communist strength known as the Assembly of Unrepresented People, the NCCEWV was described in the following terms by an Assembly organizer, Staughton Lynd: "Moving into the [leadership] vacuum, Communist Party members and sympathizers helped to create a National Coordi- nating Committee to End the War in Vietnam, with themselves in key roles at its national headquarters.... 11 Lynd's background has long been conspicuous for adherence to fronts and causes of the CPUSA, a fact which lends particular interest to the assess- ment of another movement leader, Peter Camejo of the Young Social- ist Alliance, youth organization of the Socialist Workers Party, with reference to the founding conference of the NCCEWV: "The CP carried the majority at that conference. The national coalition that came out of that conference -- the National Coordinating Committee never really had the character of a national antiwar coalition it was always run by the CP.11

The tone of Camejols statement is indicative of another aspect of anti-Vietnam war organizing: the unceasing rivalry that existed between the Moscow-controlled Communist Party, U.S.A., and the Trotskyite Socialist Workers Party. While sharing the common goal of undermining the United States position in Vietnam to facilitate the achievement of a Communist military victory, the CPUSA and SWP were under no illusions as to the historic differences between them. As a member of the CPUSA said in a report during 1970 to the New York Section Committee of the Young Workers Liberation League, official CPUSA youth front, the Communist Party recognized that "The Trotskyites (SWP, YSA variety) are the major ideological grouping that we must contend with in the peace movement." Similarly, in a 1969 convention resolution on the "peace" movement, the Socialist Workers Party explicitly acknowledged the CPUSA as the "the major long-term competitor of the revolutionary Marxists [of the SWP] for leadership of the working-class vanguard."

This constant struggle for power between the dominant Commu- nist elements in the movement helped account for the demise of the NCCEWV. As Lynd observed, the Trotskyite response to domina- tion by CPUSA members and sympathizers was "a disciplined attempt at takeover at the NCCEWV1s first national convention." These difficulties led to a conference in September 1966 which resulted in the formation of what was basically a successor apparatus, the November 8 Mobilization Committee. This gathering was purportedly the idea of a Cleveland, Ohio, "peace" group led by an individual whose background included prior membership in the Wisconsin State Committee of the CPUSA, as well as collaboration at a subsequent point with members of the SWP; according to Camejo, however, the initiative lay more precisely with the Trotskyite forces: "So what we did was initiate an antiwar conference in which antiwar forces could coalesce, bypassing the NCC.11 Among the approximate- ly 150 delegates and observers were significant numbers of indivi- duals with backgrounds of membership in the CPUSA, the SWP, and their youth groups, several of them key leaders in organizations and coalitions that formed the backbone of anti-Vietnam war organizing at the local and regional levels around the country.

This pattern continued at the conference which formed November 8 Mobels successor coalition, the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam. Again, according to Camejo, the initiative lay with the SWP and YSA, a claim which assumes some validity when it is realized that,.at the minimum, approximately 65 percent of those registered for the gathering were members of either the SWP or the YSA, with both the CPUSA and its youth arm also enjoying significant representation. One of the principal bases of Communist strength in Spring Mobe was the Student Mobili- zation Committee to End the War in Vietnam, an organization originally formed at the instance of the CPUSA and later taken over, both nationally and locally, by the SWP and YSA. The increasingly obvious reality of the relationship between Communist and other power within the coalition led the House Committee to conclude in communist Oriqin and Manipulation of Vietnam Week that "Communists are playing dominant roles in both the Student Mobilization Committee and the Spring Mobilization Committee."

Similarly, at the May