FREEDOM DESERVES DEFENDING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000200740004-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 18, 2010
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: August 17, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT - -
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/18: CIA-RDP90-00806R000200740004-4
AR?IGI+h arcrs.~ - WASHINGTON TIMES
011 PAGE 17 August 1984
CORD;;MEYER
nLl..
deserves
def6nd.hng
abroad as free trade unions, demo-
cratic political parties, and private-
business associations.
Our democratic friends overseas
can now count on a reliable and
open source of American support in
their unequal struggle with the
heavily funded Soviet apparatus of
communist parties and front
groups.
Back in the- 1950s and '60s.
American oresidents from Ha
man to L don Johnson clearly
saw the n er in Moscow's n -
ta t on of a supranstional ideology
and of an ter oc in directorate
of front or an zations. They
reac~e~'~ authorizing secret CIA
subsidies to private American
organizations willing to help tWir
democratic counter-part groups
a
When this controversial secret
funding was permanently ended in
1967 by a series of leaks to the
press, all efforts to find a way of
openly providing official American
help to non-governmental organiza-
tions abroad initially proved unsuc-
cessful. Until the formation and
funding of the NED, the Soviets
faced in this organizational
struggle only the limited opposition
that private American groups and
foundations could offer. Since the
scale of the Soviet investment in
this field has been conservatively
estimated at S3 billion annually, the
struggle was obviously an unequal
one. ,
Now that Congress has found a
way, through the NED, of openly
funding beleaguered democratic
forces overseas, it has been wise to
proceed cautiously at first, in view
of the extreme sensitivity of such
intervention. For example, the Con-
gress has cut out funds the Reagan
administration requested for
Republican and Democratic Party
institutes that might too easily have
fallen into competition and conflict
with each other.
Under the terms of its charter,
the NED is a grant-giving agency
and cannot operate abroad except
through the American private orga-
nizations that it helps. Also the Con-
gress has earmarked the largest
share of next year's appropriation
for the AFL-CIO, as the one organi-
zation that has the most overseas
experience and is directly involved
in the most crucial sector of the
East-West rivalry.
Operating with its own funds and
project grants from the Agency for
International Development, the
U.S. labor federation has in the past
built regional institutes for Latin
America, Asia, and Africa and has
a trained cadre of labor specialists
already in place. - The generous
en grant give tht very
competent leadership of the AFL-
CIO the flexibility it needs to act
promptly to help democratic
unions in such key crisis areas as
the Philippines and Central
America and in their struggle
against the right-wing dictatorship
in Chile.
In short, the National ? Endow-
ment for Democracy is off to a good
start and promises to grow steadily
in its ability to give a wide variety
of American voluntary organiza-
tions a major role in the expansion
of democratic institutions
throughout the world.
It is a tribute to the congressional
leadership of both parties that so
significant and controversial a
rd has been taken in the midst
of the partisan bitterness of a pres-
ldentlal campaign.
D iatracted by the partisan
clamor of campaign rhe-
toric, the media last week
failed to focus on the
rentarkable,~tbility of the National
Endowment,ior Democracy to rise
like a phoenix from the ashes of
what appeared certain defeat.
Stripped.of all '85 funding by a
226-173 vote {n the House last May
after a brief{. existence, the NED's
new appropriation of $18.5 million
has now been guaranteed by a star-
tling reversal of the previous House
vote. A unique cooperative lobby-
ing effort by,.the AFL-CIO and its
old opponent,.the U.S. Chamber of
.Commerce, helped to switch more
than 70 votes, and President Rea-
gan's strong support was critical.
. In 'the opinion of State Depart-
ment career officials, there was at
stake here "the single most impor-
tant genuine bipartisan initiative in
U.S. foreign policy since the forma-
tion of NATO:' With so much on the
table in terms of future American
capacity to compete effectively.
with the Soviet Union in the Third
World, the AFL-CIO leaders made
the vote a key test of the loyalty of
their congressional supporters and
the Chamber of Commerce did the
same.
By defeating a strange alliance
of hard-line conservatives and soft-
line liberals, Rep. Dante Fascell,
D-Fla., and Sen. Orrin Hatch,R.
Utah, led their troops in the vital
center to a bipartisan victory. The
independent board of the NED and
its new president. Carl Gershman,
now have a clear chance to show
what they can do "to encourage free
and democratic institutions
throughout the world through pri
vate initiatives:' as the NED's
charter defines its principal pur
pose.
With the shadow of a congres-
sional cutoff finally lifted, the
United States has in this endow.
ment what it has long needed a
publicly funded but independent
agency that has as its first priority
the task of helping such institutions
' - Cord Meyef lk'a nationally syndi-
cated columnist,
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/18: CIA-RDP90-00806R000200740004-4