WHAT WAS SO WRONG?

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000400550004-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 8, 1999
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: May 22, 1967
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

Saniti2&pY prlovetg, ,or R-eIeaa;..~,CItQ-f3Dp,7
CPWY HTS So W; ong?
??_ o..+,v.?gu,b v.o. .uu smp- an "unwitting" agent who was editorially'
menu to Europe and threatening to top- independent but served U.S. ends sim-
?tom t'.?,,,.,,ti.. ,.....~.....---- ,. ~ ,
nhe sittinb Y u?ouf,t a James Bond movie, Carthyism to __ _ -j , , never took CAA money and their boss
igate overt subsidies for '
with everyone else in the audience root
.. groups through Congress. AFL-CIO president George Meany,
l
ing for SMERSII. He had suffered in si- So Braden sold his plan to CIA chief Al- blasted rade 's story as "a damn lie .. ,
lence through mounting attacks on thee, len Dulles: secret subsidies to private Not one penny of CIA money has ever
Central Intelligence Agency for secretly organizations-even if they did not "su come to the AFL or the AFL-CIO to
bankrolling a wide assortment of private p my knowledge over the last twenty
port every aspect of official American wears. Only Walter Reuther, of all the
American groups abroad-a scheme Bra- policy." His argument: "When an adver- t .?
den himself hatched during a 1950-54 sary attacks with his weapons disguised principals involved, admitted knowingly
hitch with the CIA. "I asked myself what as good works, to choose innocence is to taking CIA money-and then only once,
was so wrong with what we did," lie choose defeat." in an "emergency situation," to his sub-
said e last week-.
defense published his
succeeded , o Some entries in the Braden casebook: sequent 1 regret. t Braden Reuther adde edhis own
recruit-
mainly in reopening the whole messy The CIA funneled money into Some , anti-Communist union organi - g enter- "emphatically rejected"
scandrile over again. prises run by onetime (1927-29) U.S that Victor had
.
sometie newspaper Communist Party boss Jay Lovestone/l the'b New Brad
n
Andesotlthe attorney for
(of The Oceanside Calif. then an International Ladies Garment the defense became an exhibit for the
ublisher ] Workers Union staffer, now the AFL-
i3lade-Tribune) and liberal Democratic CIO's 'Director of International Affairs. prosecution. The CIA was sadaen,ppy"tey
(Be-
; Ic]it waannt,eidnappe
maximum tiimp ct,arsoull e Braden said he still has a pseudonymous called me]-to texpress rthcir3isorrow.")1rSo
receipt for $15,000 he once signed over
placed his 'Immoral were the ' ")piece ne Cher Saturday Evening (as "Warren G. Haskins") to one "Nor- link-up, saidwTheerNew York I Timesr
Post, and he tried to limit himself to, r-s A. Grambo," a cover name for Love- "merely underscores the mischief inTier-
casts already mentioned in the stone lieutenant Irving Brown. Brown, press.. says Braden, had to have the money "to eat in clandestine tics between unions
His choice of a mass magazine height- ; pay off his-strong-arm squads in Medi- and an espionage agency, no matter how
entd the splash, all right-but his in-; virtuous the
ur
f
h
l
p
poses o
t
e re
ation-
sider's standing seemed to confirm links terranean ports, so that American sup- ship.') And so, in the end, was Tom
I' .., plies could be unloaded against t_ht op- .Braden. "I wanted to get across the mes-
position of Communist dock
k
"
'
wor
e-s.
.
. sage of what we set out to do," he said.
ra Braden also slipped $50,000 in $50 "I succeeded better than I intended. I,
bills to United Auto Workers president ally 1- 1.
-111 M
- - a
<
opera-
tions run by his brother Victor-a partic-
ularly vociferous critic of Lovestone's.
long-rumored ties with tfle CIA. "Victor
Reuther ought to be ashamed of him-'.
self" for attacking Lovestone, said
Braden, since both men were only per-
i
forming a patriotic service. And Braden!
_ R uthe
erf
d hi
p
o me
s witm
1
"less than perfect wisdom," banking th STATINTL
e I
$50,000,
50,000 in some West German unions
that had cash enough and were already'
anti-Communist.
a As long rumored, 'the CIA had fun-
,,.....::, neled money through the European-.
! ' based C
O ~
ongress for Cultural Freedom
to support the rl
A
o-
merican intel-
"" lectual nnonthl.)'vL fi~iunter. Braden not
"8'.i "'?""" it by saying the C;I,~ had placed one
Braden: One for our ade "agent" in the Congress, while another
that had only been rumored between the "became an editor of Encounter,"
CIA and a variety of clients ranging from The over-all i~ri.iF;rarn was essential to
it little magazine in London to big labors turn back Comnnunism, Braden insisted-'..
ira the U.S. , but the people lie implicated, anti-Com-
Bradtn's point was that the CIA and its' munists all, sorted nonetheless scandal-
i izcd. Encounter's four past and present '
beneficiaries were simply doing their' 'editors-each suspect under Braden's'
patriotic dtuy, 'defending the U.S.; anonymous reference to an "agent" edi.
against a new and extraordinarily sue
ccssful weapon ... the international for-each denied having known for sure' CPYRGHT
Communist front." In the early cold-war; about the CIA link until recently, and
years, by his accounting, the Russians two of them (poet Stephen Spender and'
were socking $250 million a year into a'' ,critic Frank Kerrnode) quit as.a gesture
miscellany of cultural, labor, student,"" to disownit,. (Braden.later explained
Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75-00149R000400550004-7